Category Archives: Tech

Spring Time! Now you are ready to protect your Ubuntu – Debian system from Rootkits and Viruses

It’s Spring Time and after a long Winter surfing the web and testing new programs, it’s time to give a short rest to your computer, delete old files and scan the OS looking for possible rootkits or viruses. I usually use Ubuntu and the possibility of viruses is not high but… why I shouldn’t double-check to avoid viruses or rootkits?

– First step: Rootkits

Open your favourite Software Manager (I am na old school boy so Synaptics it’s my choice) and install rkhunter and chkrootkit. I know, they are two different programs that have the same goals so you can decide to install and use just one of them…

After the installation you can start using them just typing into a Terminal:

sudo rkhunter --update
sudo rkhunter --check

and/or:

sudo chkrootkit

Examine all the results and don’t be disoriented by possible “”false positives”. Try to understand if some “risks” you find in the results logs could be regular software you are using (e.g. encrypted disks, etc..)

– Second Step: Viruses

Install ClamAV to scan your disks and be sure you have not infected by common viruses.

Open a Terminal and type:

sudo aptitude install clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam clamtk

Then to update the ClamAV engine and the virus lists just type:

sudo apt-get upgrade clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam clamtk

At this point you find ClamTk into the Accessories Menu and you are able to scan your PC just clicking on some intuitive buttons in the graphical interface.

Good Luck!

How to upgrade your Fedora system when the Software Upgrade doesn’t work!

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Sometimes, if you use Fedora 18 – Spherical Cow, the Software Upgrade program couldn’t work properly. Software Upgrade shows you all the available upgrades but it is not able to install them. The download process starts but it will never finish and you wait for hours with no results. When and if you have this problem you can easily solve it launching a Terminal and typing the command:

yum update

In few minutes (depending on how many updates you need) your Fedora will be updated perfectly.

Last but not least, if you want to have a list of all the potential upgrades on your OS you can type:

yum list updates

and a complete list will be shown.

Google Reader will be soon out of service… What’s the next best solution? netvibes.com or theoldreader.com?

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At this point it’s history: Google will be out of service by the next July. It could appear nonsense but I still think that RSS readers are the most flexible solution for people who need to stay updated. Social media represent a possible solution but, in my opinion, nothing is better and more powerful than RSS.

Digg.com has promptly announced the launch of its own alternative online reader but, for now, none is able to say when it will be ready. Moreover Digg has not provided any information about this new RSS reader and so we cannot comment any of its potential feature neither compare it with the “old” Google Reader.

Surfing the web, many possible alternatives will pop-up but just few are the right ones if you don’t want to wait Digg.com. At the moment netvibes.com (in the past it was also known as bloglines.com) is the most immediate solution because allows you to import OPML – XML setting from your Google Reader. In fact, you can save all your Google Reader settings in a OPML – XML file just using the Import/Export panel into the Settings Menu (Download your data through Takeout) into the Google Reader. Netvibes.com represents an easy and fast alternative but I personally don’t like the graphic layout offered by this free online service. It is easy to use, really flexible and cozy but it doesn’t run properly on old computers because dated hardware, with inadequate graphic cards or small RAM, will slow down your OS when you visit netvibes.com. Last but not least you can decided to keep private your RSS selection, share it on social media or allow people to visit directly the webpage containing all the feeds you selected and/or just a single RSS box.

My other choice is represented by t heoldreader.com that is the real successor of Google Reader. Theoldreader.com has the same features than the Google Reader and it is really nice to see and read if you like the clean, evergreen layouts. Theoldreader.com allows you to sign in using your Google account and it is possible to import the OPLM -XML configuration file you saved from your personal Google Reader. The only problem with theoldreader.com is represented by the time you have to wait before it will import the OPLM – XML file you uploaded from Google Reader. In my experience I had more than 22,000 people before me in the queue and I had to wait for, more a less, a week before I was able to use it with the imported parameters… Theoldreader.com has some advanced features which allow you to share your RSS selection and save the most interesting in order to create a more private collection for your specific interests. Not bad and useful!!

Get power on pdf files and modify them on the fly with pdfmod (PDF Mod) and PDF Editor on Ubuntu

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Since its invention, the pdf format has been the most versatile standard to share documents with a fixed layout. Everyday we share, read and create a lot of pdf files but sometimes we would like to modify them to create “new” personalized version more suitable to our needs.

For example, sometimes you need to extrapolate just a page from a pdf files or you want just to create different versions of the same file with few variations for your colleagues. For all these purpose pdfmod is the right solution for you.

Pdfmod has not been developed for some years because the versions we were able to find for Linux were the 2011 ones but, for what we know and tested, it still runs on all main platforms as Linux, Windows and OSX. Pdfmod is a little bit different from other similar programs because it allows you just to modify the pdf file changing pages order, deleting pages or adding new pages from other pdf files. It also allows you to change some main metadata (title, author, keywords and subjest) of your pdf file in just few clicks and, of course, you can save the modified copy of the original pdf file.

These features could be basic for more sophisticated people but I can assure you that, if you have the need to do this kind of work different times in a week, pdfmod is the software you will use more often. Installation on Ubuntu is very simple, you just have to open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pdfmod-team/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install pdfmod

and you will find a new PDF Mod launcher into the Accessories menu.

To get complete power on your pdf files we suggest pdfedit (PDF Editor) which allows you to “break” protected pdf files and modify them. To install pdfedit, use Synaptics Package Manager or the Ubuntu Software Center.

Don’t forget, when you use pdfedit you just have to open the “target” pdf file, save it using the Flatten feature you find into the Tool menu and open again the “new” file to modify it without any restriction.

Easy to install and simple to use, in few words the above described programs worth a try!

Remastersys: the easy tool to backup your PC or to create a personalized Linux (Debian – Ubuntu) distribution

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Everyday we improve the OS we usually use adapting it to our specific needs. Consequently, we are worried about major OS upgrades between one version to another because we know that bugs could affect our installation and indirectly corrupt our saved data. Usually backup software are the right solution for data but, if something goes wrong, we have to reinstall all our OS and reconfigure it. Better, we have to spend many hours to download and configure all the single software we had installed into our original OS.

This is always but annoying and time-wasting. To avoid this specific problem we can decide to install Remastersys on our Linux distribution and use it regularly. Remastersys is very simple to install. For example, if you use Ubuntu, you have just to download its pgp key and save it into the Home folder then you can go to Synaptic Package Manager –> Other Software –> Add and enter the apt line specific for your Ubuntu version:

deb http://www.remastersys.com/ubuntu precise main

deb http://www.remastersys.com/ubuntu quantal main

if you use quantal.

On Synaptic Package Manger go to Edit and click on Reload Package Information then look for remastersys. Now you have Remastersys launcher under System –> Administration.

Remastersys has a very intuitive menu and you will be able to powerfully use it after just few tests. Please, remember to set-up Remastersys using its Customize –> Configure menu and you avoid any beginner mistake. If your iso will be bigger than 4GB, and you want to save it in to a FAT disk, you have to back-up documents, pictures, videos, etc.. separately because FAT formatted disks don’t allow files bigger than 4GB.

Important, if you are creating a ISO to distribute it to friends, don’t forget to not include personal folders, documents or your sensible data. Enjoy it and, if you want to share with us your personal Debian – Ubuntu distribution, add the specific download link into a comment to this post!

Repair GRUB on IBM Thinkpad – The best Linux solution

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When you decide to add another OS to the usual OS on your PC you can potentially damage your grub package. The Grub (GNU GRand Unified Bootloader) is the “soul” of you hardware, the program which allows your PC to find the OS during the boot-up.

Today we will not discuss about the old and new malware that are able to influence the GRUB but we will focus our attention on how repairing your computer when you see grub rescue> on your black screen…

The first solution you can find on internet is a detailed command solution but it was unfortunately usefulness in my case because my PC was not able to correctly accept the insmod command. Consequently I decided to use a portable rescue CD-USB to fix the matter.

Normally, if you use an Ubuntu derived OS, you can use Boot-Repair and it will semi-automatically fix your Grub problem in just few minutes. In any case, it is moderately easy but you have to be 100% sure about what HD partition you want to repair. As usual, this wasn’t my case. I had to find something more generic -in term of serviced OS- but effective.

At the end I bumped into the Boot Repair Disk. I had just to burn the free iso on a RW DVD and I could start to test it on my “out of service” laptop. The Boot Repair live CD is a wonderful tool! As soon as you boot up the live CD, Boot Repair guides you to the best possible solution. You have just to follow the suggestion on the screen and, in few minutes, the Boot Repair Disk is able to fix the Grub and to perfectly restore your computer.

Easy, Fast, Effective!!

How to fix monitor problems (bugs?) on Ubuntu 12.04 and later versions – Linux

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Starting from Ubuntu 12.04 we observed different graphics problems with “old” computers. When I say “old” I don’t mean obsolete hardware but PC with not more than three years of usage.

Many problems were especially noticed in systems with dual monitors or involving laptops. In few words, Ubuntu was not able to keep and memorize the correct video settings and it was necessary to set-up monitors configuration almost each time you logged on your OS. If you have the same problem and you are surfing the net to fix this “bug” don’t forget to search for solutions strictly connected to the laptop or graphic card you are really using. In fact in our experience there are more than few solutions possible and what it’s resolving for some hardware could become a real mess for different (but similar) machines.

The risk of damaging Ubuntu graphical interface while you try to fix the laptop – dual monitors problem is high. Or it has been in our experience because after some tests we were just able to use Ubuntu through the old line way in its safe mode boot. In any way, in our experience (IBM Thinkpad T43 and a HP L1950g monitor using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with MATE as graphical interface) we solved all the matter just using Terminal and typing:

 sudo apt-get update

and

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

We are not able to explain why it works but it really fixed the bug. Probably, in one of the previous update one or more libraries conflicted with Ubuntu 12.04 configuration generating all the mess we fought against during the past months.

So, if you want to test our solution on your PC, do it at your risk, and type:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xubuntu-desktop

sudo apt-get install --reinstall kubuntu-desktop

sudo apt-get install --reinstall lubuntu-desktop

If you want to reinstall all (k)ubuntu-desktop dependencies:

sudo apt-cache depends ubuntu-desktop | awk -F ":" '{print $2}' | sed '/^$/d' | xargs sudo apt-get install --reinstall --install-recommends --yes

Don’t forget to choose your favourite k-x-l-u-buntu-desktop when you type all the above code in just one line and !

Good luck!…. and touch wood while you fix this really annoying bug…..

WordPress as search engine

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Are you starving for information or “really new news”? Why don’t you try to use wordpress.com as search engine? This feature, normally not well-known by many people, let you to dig deep into all the blogs hosted on wordpress.com. Just type a keyword and you will be able to find related news into all the posts or comments in just few seconds. Easy to use and reliable for all that people (like me) who still believe in blogs as ideas incubators.

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Model B is interesting if you need a cheap PC that is able to run Linux (Debian GNU/Linux, Raspbian OS, Fedora, Arch Linux ARM, RISC OS, FreeBSD, Plan 9). When Model B will be upgraded to 1 GB RAM, we will have one of the most competitive computers for standard office tasks… ASFEE6HEF2PT

Gmail advanced searching: how to create a powerful query to catch a “wanted” email – Computer forensic

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If you want to improve your Google searches you can find many useful queries on internet and, if have time, you can also attend a specific Google free course.

But just few people know that there are specific queries available for Gmail.

I found some of them casually when I need to search some specific, old emails into my accounts some days ago. Then I discovered that Google itself published a complete list of all the possible queries accepted by Gmail.

I warmly suggest you to spend some minutes reading and exploring all the queries because they are really useful when you use Gmail in a professional way.

Here, I just want to sum-up some of them that, in my experience, are the most common you can use when you are becoming crazy looking for a specific email you sent or received.

The powerful feature is represented by the possibility to mix the different queries to create super-queries that can intercept the “wanted” email or documents in a less than a second.

Time

after:2010/10/24 before:2011/09/24

Here you are defining the time range and Gmail will show all the emails sent or received between the two specified dates.

From or To

from xyz@zyw.com
to:xyz@zyw.com

Where xyz @zyw.com is the email address you are focusing on.

from:tom OR from:Luis
from:tom OR from:Luis -meeting

In this case you are looking for an email from Tom or (plus) Luis but it hasn’t to contain (- minus) the word “meeting”.

Bcc or CC

bcc:xyz@zyw.com
cc:xyz@zyw.com

Where xyz @zyw are specific email addresses you are looking for.

Filename

filename:invitation
filename:(jpg OR jpeg OR png)
filename:(doc OR docx OR pdf)
filename:invitation(doc OR docx OR pdf)

Subject

subject:meeting

Attachment

has:attachment

Spam

in:spam

And you check into a specific folder. In my case: the Spam folder

Larger or Smaller

larger:25MB
smaller:250MB

Some complex query examples:

from:xyz@zyw.com filename:(jpg OR jpeg OR png)

to:xyz@zyw.com filename:(doc OR docx OR pdf)

from:xyz@zyw.com filename:invitationfrom xyz@zyw.com to:xyz@zyw.com filename:(doc OR docx OR pdf) subject:meeting

after:2011/10/24 before:2011/11/24 in:spam subject:meeting