Archive for February 2011

Computer Geeks and Garden Gnomes

Most notably before I begin my ranting it truly is worth mentioning that you have many very useful and considerate individuals within the cyber wilderness who devote much of their time for it to providing open source and free scripts coming from all variations from PHP, CGI and Java to call but a few. They furnish dedicated support, tend not to insist on payment, and spend a great deal of their leisure time aiding you avoid being forced to do without your salary for getting free programs and scripts installed and operating on your own websites.

Now, that previously being said I have just spent an enlightening day or two installing several PHP and CGI scripts, for the reason that whilst We have some example of installations, the sole true approach to become fast and efficient operating this geeky stuff is always to install, de install and test a range of applications and programs yourself.

After two days and also over a hundred scripts My business is left drained. One half of the scripts I simply dumped immediately on account of poor or non-existent documentation and bad layout of files. It amazes me that some quite intricate scripts remain high and dry with virtually no installation documents at all. Quite simply, the writer spent days programming and setting up complicated scripts, to fail miserably on poor or non existent documentation. Other than this, some sites you visit so that you can download this fabric demand blitzing you with numerous pop ups – the end result which is neither good for anybody going to the website or the webmaster. Both part very quickly. Perhaps I am intolerant but any sign of boxes leaping up up and blind adverts and I am gone. I understand I am not saying alone.

Automobile the frustration of spending some time to see through endless documents and CGI scripts on websites to discover that whenever you click over a link for more info or even a download you see it can be dead, the internet site under maintenance or the thing that was advertised as free is just not actually free. Either that or else you proceed to the extreme to get a script working only to discover the writers advertisement showing up all around us towards extent it warrants dumping the script. Yes I understand it is possible to eliminate it for a small charge but why didn’t you tell me that before I installed it?

Even really clear documentation often omits what is for the writer an understandable requirement and not something that he / she chooses to share with their hapless user – classic example may be forgetting to mention an SQL database is required. Almost not a minor omission.

For the height of just one frustrating and particularly badly written install attempt I imagined myself as John Cleese which has a garden gnome under my arm searching for the author. Anonymity online does has its advantages in this case.

Now, I am aware you may be cynical and say that many with this is to the belief that many script writers are hoping you will pay these to install their scripts available for you, indeed many do offer installation services. This can be an undesirable method of advertising your services. There are plenty of people that should have issue with the easiest installs of course, if you wrote clear and concise documentation which any user can easily see is genuinely comprehensive, you are prone to secure customers because of failed installs.

With this laborious exercise we had scripts of all kinds some of which include; online photo albums, content management systems, member login and authentication scripts, virtual postcards, email programs, hosting scripts, live helper, communication, internet commerce, shopping carts, quiz and chat programs to call just a few. We also purchased 3 scripts. Merely one of these free scripts was an easy task to install and marginally much better than the free versions available. Paying money does not necessarily mean better service. The truth is one photo album provider charging around $30 dollars per script provided bad install information and less than helpful advice, immediately deleting most things that mentioned install problems from his forum.

It’s been an experience. If none on this has meant anything to you and you have no idea about scripting or installing scripts then consider yourself fortunate leave it on the geeks if you are able.

For those of you that regularly dive into scripting for your websites – here’s a useful tip that saved us no end of energy and frustration. The second you come up against bad scripting, bad documentation or challenging to install scripts – trash them, ditch them and move on. There are several others. Leave the tricky badly written stuff on the real hardcore freaks.

Configuring Internal Cisco Router Security

Network security is really a hot topic today, and may only increase in importance inside months and years ahead.

While most on the attention is paid to exterior threats, there are numerous actions to prevent unwanted Cisco router access from within your company.

Whether you wish to limit what certain users are capable of doing and run on your routers, or prevent unauthorized users as part of your company from progressing to config mode to start with, allow me to share four important yet simple steps you are able to take to do so.

Encrypt the passwords as part of your running configuration.

This is a basic Cisco router security command that is often overlooked. It won’t do you any good to set passwords for the ISDN connection or Telnet connections if anyone who is going to see your router’s running configuration are able to see the passwords. Automatically, these passwords are displayed within your running config in clear text.

One easy command takes care of that. In global configuration mode, run service password-encryption. This command will encrypt all clear text passwords as part of your running configuration.

Set a console password.

Easily walked into your network room at this time, could I take a moment and start configuring your Cisco routers?

If so, you should set a console password. This password is really a basic yet important step in limiting router access within your network. Get into line configuration mode using the command “line con 0″, and your password strength using the password command.

Limit user capabilities with privilege level commands.

Not everyone who has access to your routers must be able to do anything they desire. With careful utilization of privilege levels, it is possible to limit the commands given users can operated with your routers.