How To Torrent TV Shows Via RSS Using Deluge

I mentioned the other day that I preferred Ktorrent over Deluge for RSS Bittorrent downloads. Well I lied. I found Ktorrent to be way more resource intensive as Deluge, so I switched back. I also said Deluge's RSS plugin didn't work well for me. That was because I wasn't doing it right. That's where this article comes in.

I'm sure many of you want to download your favorite TV shows using a service like ShowRSS on Linux, but don't know how. Or you see tutorials on using Flexget and another client, and it seems too complicated. Well, you're not alone.

Using Deluge to download torrents via RSS is actually pretty easy, and here's how you do it.

• Download the YaRSS2 Plugin
• In Deluge Click Edit > Preferences > Plugins
• Click Install Plugin and browse to the YaRSS2 .egg file you downloaded in the first step.
• Check the box next to YaRSS2 in the plugins list then click Apply to activate it
• In the left pannel you will now see YaRSS2, click on it
• On the right click on the RSS Feeds tab
• Click Add Feed
• Enter a name and the URL for your feed then click Save
  
  
  

• Click on the Subscription Tab
• Click Add Subscription
• Enter a name, select the feed you just added, and enter any filters you want

• Click on the Options tab to change download locations
• When you are done click Save
• Now under the Subscriptions list, right click the subscription you just made and click Run this subscription

Now you will notice that your torrents will begin downloading. Deluge is smart enough to record the time stamp of the last download too so that it doesn't accidentally download the same file twice.

That's it! Just go through this process for any other shows you want to download, and you are good to go. No text config files to edit, nothing! Just pure Torrent RSS Downloading!

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• Simple RSS App Sputnik Stays Out Of Your Way So You Can Read

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VMWare Tools For Linux On The Easy

Last year, I wrote about how you you go about installing VMWare tools on an Ubuntu virtual machine. That method still works, but it isn’t the optimal nor easiest way of doing it. Not according to my boss anyway.

My boss is the guy who really introduced me to Linux, and really knows his sH!7. He said that if you manually install the VMWare tools pack then later decide to upgrade the kernel it will break your VMWare tools install, and you will have to remember to manually uninstall it, then re-install it. He recommends using your distro’s pre-packaged Open-VM-Tools!

He said that since your distro maintains Open-VM-Tools in their repository, chances are pretty good that they will keep them up to date when they roll out changes to the kernel, and will keep you running smoothly after an upgrade.

To install Open-VM-Tools in Ubuntu it is as simple as using apt-get:

>sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools

One thing I did notice with using this is that for an Ubuntu virtual machine, vSphere shows the tools status as OK:

On Gentoo, my boss’s distro of choice, vShpere shows the VMWare tools status as Unmanaged:

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Gentoo! Just kidding, all joking aside, my boss assures me that even though it appears as Unmanaged in vSphere you still get all of the benefits as the manual install of VMWare tools such as:

• Improved video compatibility & performance
• Improved network compatibility & performance
• Copy and paste between the host and guest
• Improved memory utilization
• Improved CPU utilization

Do you use a lot of Linux virtual servers in your environment? Do you already use Open-VM-Tools? Do you manually install the tools? What’s your VM story? Hit us up in the comments!

Technorati Tags: how to,install,vmware tools,linux,ubuntu,apt-get,gentoo

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How To Bypass Windows Password Security

Once again, here is another segment from Episode 13 of Bauer-Power. Now we all know of the various live cd password reset disks out there. hell, I've blogged about them in the past. the only problem with those is that they are very obvious to systems administrators after you have come and gone. I mean, why the hell is the admin password changed on this box? That is something I would be asking.

Well there is an easier, and more covert way to access the admin account on Windows (And even Linux machines). It comes in the form of Kon-boot which is a bootable cd that completely lets you bypass password authentication on Windows and many forms of Linux. Here is the video demonstration I did of Kon-boot for Episode 13:

So what have we learned here? How about a little hard drive encryption? That is a lot harder to get around than a plain old password. What else have we learned? How about the importance of physical security. If people can get access to your equipment, they own that equipment right?

Have you used Kon-boot already? Like? Dislike? Hit us up in the comments!

Technorati Tags: kon-boot-konboot,bypass,windows,linux,passwords,hack,how to

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Free Internet Resources Part 2

Hopefully the previous post gave you a bit of an appetite for more. If you haven't seen it I recommend you check out the first page of this piece. This installment is going show you a little bit more. Without further ado on with the show!

Public domain

Public domain is anything that is owned by everyone. This can be a very tricky minefield to navigate as you can find yourself using something you found to be public domain only to have the owner say "Hey you're stealing!". Anyone can put something they own into the public domain but, once it is there you can't take it back. For many reasons software doesn't tend to end up in public domain, instead this is where you find books, music, movies, television and images, at least for the most part.

Project Gutenberg. This is a public domain text repository. They have many great literary works of art available here for free download. With over 100,000 titles you could spend hours just going through the books available.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Burningwell.org. This is a public domain image site that hosts member submitted images. While this is a small site it has quite a few high quality images available for free usage in any project you have. As a bonus I created the banner for the site.
http://www.burningwell.org

Musopen. This is one of the few places where you can find public domain music recordings. While songs may be in the public domain recordings of that music are almost without exception NOT public domain. This is a site that aims to change that. Classical music.
http://www.musopen.com/

Gimp Savvy. This is a sort of add on site for the gimp, but it documents public domain images form the US government. The archive is publicly moderated so don't look for this site to be accurate in it's descriptions.
http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/

NASA Image Exchange. This site has a ton of cool copyright free images, especially if you are a nerd like me. It is also interesting to note that any NASA website is public domain. The only restriction on any usage of NASA is the emblem, which you must have permission to use, for the reason of preventing people from saying a product is sanctioned by NASA when it isn't.
http://nix.nasa.gov/

Open Clipart Library. A very cool place. Many high quality vector images that will resize nicely. I can spend a few hours on here easily just browsing the new additions.
http://openclipart.org/

Creative Commons

Creative commons licenses are available in a wide variety, sometimes overlapping GNU or public domain and sometimes being very restrictive you can get more in depth at http://creativecommons.org

CCmixter. This is music and sound that is available to take and mix up, kind of like a worldwide collaboration. There are some great pieces of music that come from here.
http://ccmixter.org/

Jamendo. If any of you know me personally you know I have been raving about this site since I found it. It is a fantastic free music download site. All of this site is available to download and listen to for free, while there are no big name artist, the music does not suck, in fact much of it is really very good. With global participation you get music of all different styles from home and around the world, plus if you really like an artist you can donate to them so they can continue making great music.
http://www.jamendo.com

Paint.Net. Ever wish MS Paint could do more? Well this is what you were looking for. It has a bunch of bells and whistles that paint should have. It's definitely worth a look if you like to use paint.
http://www.getpaint.net

GNU Public License

This one can actually be wrapped in a Creative Commons license so I am sort of combining this with the category above. Gnu Licenses can also have different stipulations, however most of the software under GNU license is free for any or free for personal use. Also the source code is usually available as well to allow you to compile it yourself or spread it.

7-zip. This is an archive creation and opening program. It supports many major formats. Use this to replace Winzip or Winrar.
http://www.7-zip.org/
(Available for most platforms)

VideoLAN - VLC Media Player. This is a media player that players a lot of different formats, it's skinnable, which means you can change how it looks. It is short and sweet in resource usage and provides everyhting you would expect out of a media player.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
(Available for most platforms)

Filezilla. This is an FTP solution allowing you to upload and download from anywhere that FTP access is allowed, like school, website or FTP sites.
http://filezilla-project.org/
(Available for most platforms)


Audacity. Audacity is a free sound editor. You can use this for music, ghost hunting, voice recording or anything that you would need to use a sound editor for. Don't let the spartan appearance fool you this is a really full featured tool.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
(Available for most platforms)


Notepad++. This is a really cool text editor, like notepad but better. It has tabs for open documents so you can have a bunch open in one window, syntax highlighting for code editing and you can collapse nested tags. Plus it has a few other nifty features anyone who needs an advanced text editor would need.
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
(MS Only)

PidginIM. Another chat tool that I would highly recommend. This one can talk on just about any chat service you can imagine...seriously. AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr are all supported across different operating systems.
http://www.pidgin.im
(Available for most platforms)

Linux. You can't do an introduction to free software without talking about Linux. Seriously, it would be like ignoring Neil Armstrong or Yuri Gagarin when talking about human space flight. Linux isn't just a program it's a kernel which allows people to build whole operating systems. The operating systems built on the Linux kernel are called distros and there are many many versions of them for just about any specialized or general use you can think of. Running off of Linux is stable and far more secure than Windows. In years past you had to be kind of a guru to use Linux, but now there are versions that anyone can use such as Freespire/Linspire, Ark Linux or Ubuntu(This and Freespire are some of the easiest). They even have Linux distros that can run the whole operating system from a cd, just pop in the cd and your computer will run Linux.
http://www.linux.org


Conclusion

Well, this is not the end of the free software on the web, actually it is just a start as people are always creating new software for the betterment of each other. I highly recommend supporting these coders and artists who do this so that they will be encouraged to do more. If there is anything that was unclear or something else specifically you were looking for let me know.

By @philiptruax

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Some free internet resources... Part 1

An Overview

I know that normally Bauer-Power is known for promoting Linux. While I am a recent convert to the world of Linux it's sometimes the small steps of realizing that there is a viable free option out there. Much of the software listed below is Microsoft only, but a good portion of it is also available for all systems. I had written this for my own blog a while back and thought that I would share it here.

This will be a long post because I am going to rattle off a list of information here. It's amazing how in this day and age some people still don't know about the plethora of stuff people just give away for the betterment of each other on the internet. This includes video games, music, software, pictures, educational resources and more stuff than I could type. Locating much of this can be a daunting task for even professional users sometimes, so I thought I would put together a handy little list of a few of the places to start looking for free and legal products that are as good or better than the stuff you pay for.

A brief primer is in order for the non-tech savvy among us. There are a few terms you should know before moving on so I will give in list form some of the more common things you might hear in your trek around the world wide web.

• Freeware: This is software that is given away for whatever reason by the author. This can be limited to personal usage or open for commercial usage depending on what the author of the software decides.


• Open source: This is software that anyone who is inclined to can contribute to. A group of volunteers usually makes up the core of people who contribute to the project. The Firefox browser from Mozilla is a great example of this software. This is usually available for free to anyone for any reason. This isn't really a license but a way of creating software.


• Public domain: This mean there are no restrictions on usage whatsoever. You can use, modify, sell whatever you want to do with the software.


• Creative Commons: This is actually a variety of licenses under one umbrella and can provide a wide variety of restrictions or lack of restrictions. The author retains the rights to the software/music/etc.


• GPL: General Public License. This is usually a free for any usage software, however there are many forms of this license that are available to protect the rights of companies who may wish to allow usage of a part of the product to the public for free modification but still incorporate some proprietary software.

This doesn't quite cover everything in great detail but is a quick and brief overview of what each stands for. In general open source, GPL and freeware are terms used in software and Creative Commons(CC) is used for works of art, however there are exceptions to everything.

Freeware

A great source I have continually gone to over the years for freeware is Freeware Home . Freeware home has been around for a while and has a massive collection of software links to just about every imaginable type of free software. I personally really like these guys and they are on my favorites.
http://www.freewarehome.com
(Mostly MS software)

Caiman.us is the first place I head to to check out freeware games. They have a really nice selection of games from all over the globe. Again a big thumbs up.
http://www.caiman.us
(Mostly MS games but some are available on Linux)

Believe it or not Wikipedia has a great selection of links to freeware. Some of the links are dead as updates can be spotty, but overall a good site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freeware_games
(Multiple Operating Systems Supported)

Tucows.com is a pretty good place to find software as well, just make sure you check the freeware tab when you are searching, or you can wind up getting demos or shareware (pay a nominal fee for usage but the product is usually usable without paying).
http://www.tucows.com
(Mostly MS)

Irfanview is one of my favorite pieces of freeware. It is an image viewer product with a lot of nice built in functions and some great add ons. I have used this for quite a few years now and it is one of the pieces of software that goes on first. This is free for personal usage and allows you to view a wide variety of image types and give you some nifty abilities such as making changes to a bunch of images(batch processing) and cool things like red ye reduction, adjust the colors, crop the image to size and even add a few cool effects.
http://www.irfanview.com
(MS only but I wish it was cross platform, it is a great program)

Spybot Search and Destroy is a must for any computer I run. It detects programs that install on your computer and send information about you and your browsing habits to some undisclosed location, then it zaps them and allows you to protect your computer from it happening again. It's relatively quick and very good at what it does with updates frequently.
http://www.safer-networking.org
(Obviously MS only)

Avira Antivirus. I used to recommend AVG Antivirus Free very highly, however as of late I have found their program to be very bloated and resource hungry. They have created an All-In-One software suite that I found the downsides outweigh the benefits, especially for low end computers. So I have turned to Avira Antivirus. I have been very happy with it so far. They have the occasional pop-up but, hey for something that updates daily and is very good with your system it's a small price. Free for personal use.
http://www.free-av.com/
(Obviously MS only)

Comodo Firewall. Since the Sygate firewall was consumed by a nameless beast, I have turned to Comodo firewall and it has treated me very well. The firewall can be a bit panicky at first, but once it eases into things you will rarely even know its there. For those of you who may not understand what a software firewall is for and why the one that comes with your operating system isn't good enough, let me explain. The firewall is like a guardian that monitors who gets into your computer from the internet and how. If you are on dial up, this isn't really a huge issue, but if you are on DSL, Cable or a dedicated line(T1,T3 you lucky dog) you have a connection that is always on. This leaves you vulnerable to hackers, with a software firewall there is another barrier for hackers to fight before they can get to those precious pictures of kitty or the passwords and bank account information stored on your computer. The Windows firewall, while it tries very hard is just not up to the task, mainly because it wasn't really meant to do a full service job. Comodo will run just fine with the Windows firewall so everybody plays nice and you have that much more protection. Free for personal use.
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
(Obviously MS only)

Open Source

This has been the 800 pound gorilla as of late. Major successes with this community based software design have forced a lot of commercial software companies to step up their product quality. I'm going to brush over some of the major players in this field.

Mozilla. Mozilla has a long and storied history, they came from netscape for those of you who remember that. With a suite of software, such as the Firefox web browser that has more security features than Internet Explorer plus the ability to add things called extensions which really make Firefox customizable. You can change your theme, your settings, your buttons, just about everything to suit your preferences. If you think that is pretty nifty, they also offer an email client which compares to Outlook. They even have a calendar. The great thing is that you can get each of these separate or if you prefer in an all-in-one suite called Sunbird. I highly recommend this as your first tour of the free internet world.
http://www.mozilla.org/
(Available for most platforms)

OpenOffice.org is a great piece of software. You know how you keep losing your MS Office Cd? It doesn't matter any more. OpenOffice.org(OOo) is a free office suite that includes all of your favorites from the Microsoft realm with, you guessed it zero cost. You can even get add ons to this to make it more powerful. The best part? If you've got friends who aren't yet up to the free revolution you can still work with them because OOo is completely compatible with the Office suite. With word processor, presentation software, spreadsheet program, database program, a drawing program and even a math program this suite has it all.
http://www.openoffice.org
(Available for most platforms)

The GIMP. The Gimp is a free raster (pixel based, meaning made up of little squares, like photos) image creation manipulation software. Some people love it and some people hate it. I find it relatively confusing even with modifications, however that shouldn't discourage you from trying it out. It is a very powerful program and a great alternative to paying for commercial software.
http://www.gimp.org/
(Available for most platforms)

Inkscape. A free vector(images created using math, like those iPod ads) image creator. Fairly straightforward usage and has all the features it should have. I have this as well as GIMP installed, however I tend to prefer the Adobe software.
http://www.inkscape.org/
(Available for most platforms)

Blender. Free 3D image software. This bad boy allows you to create 3D images and is extremely powerful as well as widely used. It also has a nice image library that you can use for anything as it is released into the public domain. If you are into 3D graphics or want to learn this is great. It is very beginner friendly with a huge community behind it.
http://www.blender.org/
(Available for most platforms)

Miranda IM. This is a cool program that lets you talk across a bunch of different IM programs at once. Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ and IRC are all available with a few others. Easy customization and some nifty add ons round out this cool program.
http://www.miranda-im.org/
(MS Only)

Sourceforge.net. This is one of the great software sites for open source software and one of the big reasons for open source. Sourceforge has a massive collection of open source software that it hosts. If you can't find it on here, it might not exist as open source, of course with the exceptions of those programs noted above. If you have a few hours to kill check out this site.
http://www.sourceforge.net

That's it for part one. That is just a taste of what is out there, but it should get you on a good start. Feel free to send any comments or questions to me and I will try to answer them as best I can. Part 2 is next!

By @philiptruax

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Why an Ubuntu Workstation is better than Windows at work

A few weeks ago I decided to say damn the man and install Ubuntu as my operating system at work. So far there isn’t anything I am unable to do on Ubuntu that I couldn’t do in Windows to get my work done.

Today I was a little light on the workload so I decided to browse the Ubuntu repositories to see what games were available. Of course, two that popped right out at me were some of my favorite Open Source games;  Tux Racer and SuperTux!

These two games got me thinking about how much cooler the free games for Ubuntu are compared to the free games that come with Windows. I also got to thinking about how many people play solitaire and minesweeper at work.

Because of that, I decided to make this little video:

What do you think? Am I wrong on this? I suppose there are lots of free games you can download for Windows too, including SuperTux and Tux Racer, however these are available directly in the repositories for Ubuntu.

What games do you like to play on your Linux system? What free games do you play in Windows? Let me know in the comments.

Technorati Tags: linux,ubuntu,games,free,tux racer,supertux,windows,xp,solitaire,minesweeper

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The Best Non Adobe Air Twitter Clients For Linux

I have been using Twitter fairly regularly for a few months now, and I have been an active Linux user for over a few years. Since I started using Twitter, I have been playing with a lot of Twitter clients. If you have been looking for different clients to use, you probably already know that there are a bot load of clients made with Adobe Air.

That's fine, but what if you don't want to use Adobe Air applications for some reason or another. One reason I don't like it is in 64 bit Ubuntu. It is just too quirky, and you have to do a lot more tricks to get Adobe Air apps to work. No, in 64 bit Ubuntu, I would rather use a non-adobe Twitter client. If you have been looking, here are my two recommendations:

1. Twitux - This one is a very simple, and easy to use Twitter client. With it you can do almost anything else you can do in any other Twitter client, like update your status, look at replies and direct messages, list friends, etc.
2. Gwibber - Gwibber is my favorite non-adobe air client. The makers of Gwibber label it as a micro-blogging client because you can use it for more than just Twitter. You can update Jaiku, Identic.ca, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, and RSS. It even has Ping.fm integration for even more networks!

There are a few others out there, but these two in my humble opinion are the best alternatives to Adobe Air clients like Twirl, or Tweetdeck. Especially in Linux, where it is always better to support small, Open Source projects.

What Twitter clients do you guys use in Linux? Know of any other good alternatives to Adobe Air Twitter clients in Linux? Hit me up in the comments!

Technorati Tags: twitter, client, linux, alternative, adobe, air, twhirl, tweetdeck

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Besides Scribefire, There Are No Good Blog Editors in Linux

I am rather writing this out of frustration more than anything. I have been trying to find a viable alternative to Windows Live Writer for Linux. I know that I mentioned Scribefire a few months ago, but ever since my buddy Sundance convinced me to make the switch to Windows Live Writer (WLW) it has been hard to go back.

There are many desktop blog editors for Linux, just none as good as WLW. I've tried Drivel and Gnome-Blog, both are basically glorified text editors. BloGTK showed some promise, but it crashes when you try to run it in Ubuntu 9.04 (Known bug). There is Qumana, which is Java based, but it hangs when trying to post. There are a few others, and not one of them has the features of WLW.

Scribefire is still pretty good. It has most of the features that WLW has, except it doesn't do on-the-fly picture editing, which is the main reason I like WLW so much. I can just grab a picture from my desktop, import it into WLW, watermark it, add a drop shadow, and tilt it all in one program. I can't do that in any other editor, especially none for Linux.

So how am I working around it? I decided I would use Scribefire in conjunction with the Picture2Life, which is a free online photo manipulation program. There is also a Firefox plugin for Picture2Life so you can grab any picture off the web easily and load it into Picture2Life's editor lickity split.

Now Firefox is my blog editor of choice in Linux. I can blog in Scribefire, and in the window above Scribefire, i can make my edits to pictures using Picture2Life, download the edited pic, and re-upload it into Scribefire without minimizing my window.

It's no WLW, but it is the best blogging solution I have found for Linux that offers the closest-to-wlw experience I can get. So far, nothing else has come close. Above is a picture I did real quick with Picture2Life. I was able to watermark it, add a drop shadow, and tilt it all like I do in wlw. There are other effects you can add too like mirror, lighting, and cropping to name a few.

What do you use for blogging in Linux? Have you gotten BloGTK to work? Maybe you are using a lesser known Linux blog editor. Who knows? Let me know what you are doing in the comments.

Technorati Tags: blog, editor, linux, windows live writer, picture editing, drop shadows, water marks

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The Best Video Editor For Linux

I have been searching, and searching for a long time to find a good, reliable video editor for Linux. I needed one that was easy to use like Windows Movie Maker, and just as intuitive. I believe I have found a good candidate.

I just started playing with it today, but so far I have to say this one is very intuitive, and have a very easy to use interface. It is called Open Movie Editor. Currently it is only available to Linux operating systems, so you Windows and Mac users can just suck it I guess :-P

I tried using Kino for a while, but it just wasn't working out for me. I also tried Cinelerra, and Jahshaka, but those are too advanced for me. There are a few others, but none of them frankly compare to Windows Movie Maker, and that is sad frankly because Windows Movie Maker isn't even that good!

Here is a screen shot of me playing with it:

Here is a video tutorial from the creator of Open Movie Editor:

If you are an Ubuntu user, intallation is easy. Just install it from the repositories using apt-get!

>sudo apt-get install openmovieeditor

So what video editors do you use in Linux? Know of a better one than Open Movie Editor? Hit me up in the comments with your favorites!

Technorati Tags: linux, video, editor, editing, alternative to, windows movie maker

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Bauer-Puntu 9.04 – Now With More Hackability!

Sorry it took so long, but it is finally out! The latest and quite possibly the LAST edition of Bauer-Puntu linux available. I say the last because it is rather a pain in the arse to produce this. Not to mention my wife hates when I work on projects like this because it takes my time away from the family.

I am pretty excited about this release though. I have been playing with it for the last few days. I installed mine with the ext4 format, and I am simply loving the performance, and fast boot times!

Anyway, enough about that! So what is new in the version? Of course you have all the awesomeness from the latest Ubuntu release including:

• GNOME 2.26Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackelope
• X.Org server 1.6
• Wacom tablet hotplugging
• New style for notifications
• Boot performance
• Linux kernel 2.6.28
• Ext4 filesystem support

With that I have pre-installed some really cool hacking, and security tools. My old security teacher in College once said my distro didn’t have enough security tools. This time I went ahead and put a few more on there. Some of the tools I pre-installed are:

• kismet
• aircrack-ng
• Metasploit Framework 3.2
• Wireshark
• packETH
• SQLNinja
• Fast-Track
• ettercap-ng
• nmap
• nessus
• netcat
• hping2
• John The Ripper
• dsniff
• scapy
• p0f
• ntop
• ike-scan

I think that is it. There may be one or two that I am missing (It was late when I was installing them all).

Besides the security tools, I have also pre-installed Adobe Flash, and Adobe Air. With Adobe Air, I have also Pre-installed the Twhirl Twitter client for you Twitter freaks like me!

Since I packed in all of the extra tools, I tried my damnedest to make it fit on a CD. Well, I just couldn’t do it. I even uninstalled all of the games, and office programs (You will have to re-install those later). With everything that is on it, the Live iso is just over 700MB. Because of that I thought the best thing to do would be to make a Live USB image available, so that is what I did. You can still download the iso if you want to install Bauer-Puntu in VMWare or something, but if you are just using it as a Live CD, then it is best to put on a USB stick anyway for mobility.

You can download the iso here: (Bauer-Puntu 9.04 ISO)

You can download the USB img here: (Bauer-Puntu 9.04 USB)

To install the USB image, follow the instructions for installing the Ubuntu NBR release to USB here: (NBR to USB)

NOTE: The Win32 Disk Imager utility may cause the Live USB not to login. I recommend using the flashnul command line utility instead if you are using Windows to make your bootable live USB stick.

Of course all of this comes without the shit brown that plagues Ubuntu!

Here are the screen shots!

Usplash

GDM Login

Desktop

Installer 1

Installer 2

Metasploit Framework 3.2

Like I said above. This most likely will be my last release. That is, unless there is a high demand for it. The last release was downloaded a few thousand times, so who knows. Maybe there will be demand.

If you use, or have used Bauer-Puntu in the past, let me know how you like it. I want your feedback and suggestions as well. Hit me up in the comments!

Technorati Tags: bauer-puntu,9.04,download,linux

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Capturing Webcam Video in Ubuntu

Last night I received my new Dell Mini 9 netbook in the mail, and I immediately began playing with it. First thing I did was install Windows XP and Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix in a dual boot setup. The second thing I did was pimp out my new netbook with a Powered By Ubuntu Sticker :-P

After that I started poking around in Ubuntu NBR 9.04. A few weeks ago I was looking into software in Ubuntu that I could use to capture video from my webcam. I wasn’t successful finding anything, and decided to capture my webcam stuff in Windows XP. Since my netbook came with a webcam like many do, I wanted to see what was installed to handle that in the netbook version of Ubuntu. That answer is a program called Cheese.

Here is a description of Cheese from the project website:

Cheese uses your webcam to take photos and videos, applies fancy special effects and lets you share the fun with others. It was written as part of Google's 2007 Summer of Code lead by daniel g. siegel and mentored by Raphaël Slinckx. Under the hood, Cheese uses GStreamer to apply fancy effects to photos and videos. With Cheese it is easy to take photos of you, your friends, pets or whatever you want and share them with others. After a success of the Summer of Code, the development continued and we still are looking for people with nice ideas and patches ;)

I have to say that Cheese worked fairly well, especially for the chintzy 1.3MP camera built in. My only gripes were that it recorded to .ogv format, the resolution had to be set at 320x240 in order to get the video to work. (By default the resolution was set at 1024x768), and finally after recording, the audio and video didn’t sync correctly. Here is my test video:

As you can see, it started off okay, then slowly turned into a foreign Japanese flick looking thing where the audio didn’t sync with my mouth. That was even after I ran the video through Windows Movie Maker to try to sync the sound up!

Have any of you had the sound synching problem with Cheese in Ubuntu? Were you able to fix it? If so how? Hit me up in the comments.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu,webcam,software,linux,cheese,capture

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Bauer-Power Episode 7 - (Sorry in Advance)

Alright, I know it has been a really, really long time since Sundance and I got together to do a video episode of Bauer-Power. A lot has happened since the last episode. For one, my wife and I just had a baby boy on the 30th of last month. You and I both know how irritable a pregnant lady can be... Well, some of you know that.

Also, I wasn't happy with the low end HD Camera I was using so I took it back. Then I had the damnedest time trying to find one I actually liked. I finally found one in the Canon FS100. It isn't HD, but at least it has a friggin' mic input which most digital cam corders don't have now.

Also, in the past few episodes Sundance and I got a little carried away trying to do chroma keying, and recording sound separately. It became an editing nightmare to do the chroma keying, then turn around and re-dub in the audio later. It would take me two or three FULL days to get all the editing done for the little bit of crap....err.... high quality video we finally produced.

Anyway, enough about that. I suppose you are wondering why I apologize in the title. Well, like I mentioned above, I took back my HD camera and don't have a camera, so Sundance and I decided to try out filming an entire episode using nothing more than a $77 Logitech web cam. The actual web cam is a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000. I have to tell you, and you will see, that this camera is great for Skype, but lousy for IPTV shows. The sound barely follows out lips, we are blury when we move, and the resolution rather sucks. Besides that, everything else is great!

Anyway, in the episode we talk about a number of things we have been working on, played with, or have noticed. These things range from Ubuntu 9.04's release yesterday, to Openfire Jabber servers, to WII Homebrew hacks and other stuff. Without further ado, here is episode 7:




All our old episodes can be viewed on our Veoh channel here : (Bauer-Power on Veoh)

Going forward though, all new episodes will be available on our Blip.tv channel here:

http://video.Bauer-Power.net

The reason for the change is Veoh now requires everyone to install the Veoh player in order to watch full episodes. Any video's embedded on other sites only show 5 minute clips. That really doesn't jive with what we use it for, so we made the switch to Blip.tv. I posted a video explanation here as well.

Anyway, back to the video... I know what you are saying, "Don't be so hard on yourselves, it was actually pretty friggin' awesome." To that I say, thanks, but I know you are just flattering us :-P

So what did you like about this episode? What didn't you like? Is there some stuff in particular you would like to see, or hear about in these episodes? We really want your feedback in the comments.

P.S. Next episode, we will use a REAL camera. I promise!

Technorati Tags: bauer-power, video, episode 7, linux, openfire, wii, homebrew, ubuntu

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Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) Releases Today

Ah yes! It is that time of year again when we all get a refresh of that Ubuntu goodness. Twice a year those geniuses at Canonical drop a can of pure bad-ass smack down upon us and give us a new release of the most kick-ass FREE operating system ever. Have I ever mentioned that I like Ubuntu?

Anyway, yes, today is the day for Ubuntu version 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) to be released! Like always, you can download it from the Ubuntu website at www.Ubuntu.com. For you KDE lovers, you can get the 9.04 version of Kubuntu at www.Kubuntu.org as always. Finally for you XFCE guys Xubuntu can be downloaded from www.xubuntu.org.

So what is new in this version? Here are some bulleted items from the Ubuntu website:

• GNOME 2.26
• X.Org server 1.6
• Wacom tablet hotplugging
• New style for notifications
• Boot performance
• Linux kernel 2.6.28
• Ext4 filesystem support
• Cloud computing
• Turn-key mail servers

For a description of all the new features go here: (Ubuntu 9.04 features)

So I guess we all know what this really means right? Yup, now I have to get to work on Version 9.04 of Bauer-Puntu! Keep an eye out for that!

Also, I am still giving out Free Powered By Ubuntu stickers! Please keep your self addresses stamped envelopes coming!

Have you been playing with the release candidates at all? What features do you really like/dislike? Do you even notice a big difference? Share your experiences with us in the comments!

Technorati Tags: ubuntu,linux,download,9.04,jaunty,jackelope

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Free Secure Instant Messaging For Your Business!

The company I work for has a no instant messaging policy. More precisely, the policy says we are not allowed to use outside instant messaging services like AIM, MSN, GTalk etc. That makes sense right? I mean there is a very real security concern with using public messaging services for business use.

It turns out that our Finance department has been begging and pleading my boss for the use of IM for collaboration between their team, but he has been holding them at bay because of our IM policy. That is until I saw a recent episode of Hak5. In Episode 508, Matt Lestock introduced everyone to Openfire created by Ignite Realtime which according to their site is:

…a real time collaboration (RTC) server licensed under the Open Source GPL. It uses the only widely adopted open protocol for instant messaging, XMPP (also called Jabber). Openfire is incredibly easy to setup and administer, but offers rock-solid security and performance.

Here is the segment of Matt Lestock talking about Openfire on Hak5:

You can catch the full episode here: (Hak5 Episode 508)

As you can see with the video it is really easy to setup. In the video, Matt uses the embedded database. I played with that myself, and I have to say it sucks! I set mine up with MySQL and it runs much better. Also, he set his up on CentOS without Active Directory support. I on the other hand set mine up on 64 bit Ubuntu 9.04 with LDAP support so my company’s users can all login without me having to setup 300 or so user accounts!

Installation is incredibly easy in Ubuntu 9.04. Especially if you are installing it with a brand new installation of Ubuntu server, which is what I did because you need to have Ubuntu setup as a LAMP server. As many of you already know, you can select the option of setting up a LAMP server in Ubuntu server at install time by simply checking the box (See below).

Here is what I what I did after I was done with installing Ubuntu:

1. Install phpmyadmin for easy MySQL administration
   
   sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql phpmyadmin
2. Edit the php.ini file to make sure it works correctly with MySQL
   
   sudo nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
   
   Add the following line to the end: extension=mysql.so
3. Restart Apache
   
   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
4. Install Java
   
   sudo apt-get install sun-java6-bin
5. Create your MySQL database
   
   Browse to http://servername/phpmyadmin
   
   Login with root and the password you configured during the MySQL installation
   
   On the main page, locate Privileges and scroll down to Add a new User
   
   Use the following on the New User screen:
   Username = Enter a username, I used 'openfire'
   Host = From the drop down menu, select localhost
   Password = Enter a password, retype your password
   
   Under the Database for user section of that page, click on the radio button for Create database with same name and grant all privileges.
   
   At the bottom of the page, click on the Go button.
6. Download Openfire
   
   wget http://www.igniterealtime.org/downloadServlet?filename=openfire/openfire_3.6.3_all.deb
7. Install Openfire
   
   sudo dpkg -i openfire_3.6.3_all.deb

Bam! Now all you have to do is browse to http://servername:9090 and run the setup wizard like Matt Lestock does in the video, with the exception of selecting the MySQL database part. For that you just have to enter the database name, and the database user info that we setup in step 5. Easy!

Now that this puppy is all setup, we people can stop wasting space on the mail servers with lengthy email chains. They can collaborate easier, even across the country, you name it! Also, chat sessions are secure over TLS encryption. Not to mention you can add custom filters to prevent leaks of sensitive information.

One thing it also has the ability to do, which we have not implemented is the option to use it as a IM gateway to talk with other IM services on the internet. That might be fun to do for personal use, but I am not comfortable with that in the office.

If you want to try it out, community support is available on the Openfire website here: (Openfire support)

Happy collaborating!

Technorati Tags: free,opensource,open source,jabber,xmpp,linux,ubuntu,server,jaunty

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Transfer Files Between Windows and Linux Machines With Ease and Security

This post may not necessarily be news worthy for a lot of you out there. This tool has been around for a really, really long time. Well, at least 9 years. In internet time, that is almost an eternity. Still, for some of you this may just be the tool you are looking for.

There comes a time or two when you have to transfer files between a Windows host and a Linux host. Now, you can always setup SMB shares on each other, but that isn't always the most secure way to go. Not to mention you are leaving services running for something you may not always use.

This tool, allows you transfer files between Windows and Linux machines over a secure SSH connection. What pray tell is this tool you may be asking? Why it is none other than WinSCP (Windows Secure CoPy).

Here is a description from Wikipedia about WinSCP:

WinSCP (Windows Secure CoPy) is an open source SFTP and FTP client for Microsoft Windows. Its main function is secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this, WinSCP offers basic file manager and file synchronization functionality. For secure transfers, it uses Secure Shell (SSH) and supports the SCP protocol in addition to SFTP.

Besides that WinSCP can also be scripted for automated file transfers and backups. For more information about scripting with WinSCP, visit the Scripting/Automation page at the WinSCP website here: (Scripting WinSCP)

How many of you out there already use WinSCP? What other cool features did I leave out? Let us know all the cool shiznite you can do with it in the comments!

Technorati Tags: linux, windows, ftp, secure, file, transfer, winscp, free

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Can You Control Your Car With an iPod?

I subscribe to a lot of IPTV shows through my Tivo. I love them! They are so informative, and you learn about things you wouldn’t otherwise have heard of through standard media channels. I suppose that is why you all visit me on Bauer-Power right?

Tonight I was watching one of those IPTV shows (GeekBrief.tv) and they mentioned a guy who hooked up a Linux powered operating system to his Mazda RX-8, and can now control many aspects of his car with his mutha friggin’ iPhone!

Here are some of the features of his geeky car mod:

• OBD-II interface
• 3G mobile broadband
• Ignition manager
• Wifi
• GPS
• RFID reader
• iPod Touch / iPhone / 3G cellphone control

Check out the video from this geeked out RX-8’s owner:

 

You can read more details about this geeky RX-8 project here: (Jon’s RX-8 Project)

If you want to try doing something cool like this with your ride, check out the Wiki over at GeekMyRide.org for more projects like this one, and how to get started on geeking out your ride!

Technorati Tags: geek,cars,linux,modify,control,ipod

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Open Source Laptop Recovery

Back when I used to work for Websense, there was a lady in the Marketing department (who shall remain nameless) that would go through laptops like you might go through underwear.

She would go to traveling shows, and conferences with her crew and she would often times come back saying that her laptop was stolen, or lost and she needed a new one. We often joked that we needed to start monitoring her eBay account.

In all seriousness though, what we really needed was something like Lo-Jack to track all of these laptops. If they were truly stolen, then we could alert the authorities to get the laptop back. That would be ideal if it weren't so costly. Perhaps that really isn't an issue in the corporate environment when losing a lot of laptops can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars over time, but for the average user, it may not be that practical.

I have found a free solution though. It isn't the best, but it does beat not doing anything...Oh, and its free so why not?

You see, back at Toorcon I sat through a presentation on a free, Open Source tool that you install on your Windows, Linux, or Mac computer, and it periodically sends an encrypted file out the the service giving identifying information about the location of the laptop. All it needs is an active Internet connection. This software is called Adeona. Here is a brief overview from their website:

Adeona is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central service. This means that you can install Adeona on your laptop and go — there's no need to rely on a single third party. What's more, Adeona addresses a critical privacy goal different from existing commercial offerings. It is privacy-preserving. This means that no one besides the owner (or an agent of the owner's choosing) can use Adeona to track a laptop. Unlike other systems, users of Adeona can rest assured that no one can abuse the system in order to track where they use their laptop.

Adeona is designed to use the Open Source OpenDHT distributed storage service to store location updates sent by a small software client installed on an owner's laptop. The client continually monitors the current location of the laptop, gathering information (such as IP addresses and local network topology) that can be used to identify its current location. The client then uses strong cryptographic mechanisms to not only encrypt the location data, but also ensure that the ciphertexts stored within OpenDHT are anonymous and unlinkable. At the same time, it is easy for an owner to retrieve location information.

Now the one big drawback (that pretty much everyone at the conference was thinking) was that this product assumes that if a laptop is stolen that the thief will not wipe the drive. The thief would have to be a friggin' idiot not to do that!

However, it did occur to me that most laptop thefts are probably done by "average user" company employees. They know they could take the laptop, and just report it stolen to get another one, and BAM! They now have a free laptop that your company just bought them. Whats more is that they may not be as smart as the thief, and will most likely NOT slick the drive. If that is the case, then this tool could prove useful by both getting your company's laptop back, and also firing shady employees who take expensive office equipment.

In conclusion, I look at this product as a nice to have, free-so-why-not, better than not having type of product. Other than that, if you truly want to get your stuff back at all costs, then you need to go with a more reliable solution like Lo-Jack.

Whats your opinion on this? I want to hear from you in the comments.

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Fooling Vista Users With KDE 4

My former college professor sent out a tweet on Twitter about a video done by ZDNET Australia about how Windows users probably couldn't tell the difference between Windows 7 and KDE 4 because Windows 7's desktop looks really similar. (Can you say rip off?)

Well Chris Duckett, and Alex Serpo decided to take their theory to the streets. Check out this video:


[Is it Windows 7 or KDE 4?]

So basically, what I can gather, and what ZDNET also gathered was that people basically just aren't that keen on Vista. I suppose this just goes to show you that in a blind "taste test" you could easily switch a user over to Linux if you wanted to.

Personally after having played with Windows 7, I do think it is a lot better than Vista. Still,  I'm not sure if you threw a Windows user on KDE that they would immediately get the hang of it. I mean moving from Windows to Linux does require a bit of a learning curve. Even more of a curve than moving from Windows XP to Windows Vista, and from Vista to Windows 7.

What do you think? Do you think it would be easy to migrate users over from Windows to Linux?

Technorati Tags: windows 7, kde, linux, kde4, windows7

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All-In-One Hacking Swiss Army Knife!

My co-worker Mike introduced me to a really awesome live-cd. In fact it might be one of the coolest live cd's I have ever seen. Yes, perhaps even cooler than Bauer-Puntu Linux!

How many of you out there have heard of BackTrack Linux? Who hasn't right? What about Samurai Linux? Helix? DVL? DBAN?

All are really kick as live CD's in their own right. All of them with their own specific purpose in cyberspace. What if they were all combined into one CD? Great, now I am sounding like a cheesy infomercial.

All cheesiness aside, there is a really awesome live cd that contains all of those in one compact piece of awesomeness called Sumo Linux!

When you boot up, you get a simple menu where you can pick which tool you want to use. Maybe you have a job where Backtrack is needed most. Perhaps you have some computer forensics work to be done, so Helix is the right tool. Maybe you need to securely wipe a hard drive, DBAN is the one you want for that. Should you carry around multiple CD's? Hells no!

There is only one CD you need, and that is Sumo Linux because it contains everything in one convenient package with a cool splash screen!

If you would rather carry Sumo around on a USB flash drive, I found instructions on installing it to USB here: (Sumo on USB)

Have any of you tried Sumo? Know of an even better Live CD than this? I want to know about it in the comments.

On a side note, Sumo talk gets me thinking of ninjas. Check out my new Cyber Ninja T-shirt at Bauer-Power gear!

Technorati Tags: sumo, linux, live cd, hacking

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Have you seen my new Bauer-Puntu commercial?

Well, maybe it isn't that new. In fact, this had been milling around Youtube for the last week and a half. The cool news is that it is sort of picking up speed as far as people watching it. I am hoping that it goes viral, and we can finally get Bauer-Puntu into the hands of the people!

Actually, I really just hope people find it kind of humorous, and if they download Bauer-Puntu, then that is just an added bonus.

If you haven't seen it yet, it is a fairly easy set up. I wrote down what I wanted to say, then did a quick Google image search for the key talking points. I of course wanted to do a humorous spin on it, so the funnier the pictures, the better in my opinion.

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, get ready to live!



I want to know what you thought of the commercial. Funny? Stupid? Cheesy? Hilarious? Let me know what you think in the comments!

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