An Improvement to OpenSSH

If you need to work on a remote *nix server, you have undoubtedly used OpenSSH. The way it helps securely control remote machines makes it one of a handful of essential sysadmin tools. But this great tool does have a flaw and no I'm not talking about a buffer overflow or memory leak. The problem arises when connecting to a server for the first time. For example, we've all seen this:

The authenticity of host 'server.example.com (192.168.429.21)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 98:2e:d7:e0:de:9f:ac:67:28:c2:a2:2d:37:16:58:4d.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

With this string of hexadecimal characters, one is expected to verify the remote host's identity. It is suggested to use some out-of-band method like carrying around the fingerprint on a card or checking the key after login, but I think there's a better way.

Simply, add a dictionary of 65,536 (2^16) English words to OpenSSH. Then when it comes time to print out that nasty hex key, OpenSSH can map each string of 4 hex characters (16-bits total) to a single English word. In this way, we'll see the hex string and a second, more-readable English string:

98:2e:d7:e0:de:9f:ac:67:28:c2:a2:2d:37:16:58:4d

election accelerate import snag wrecking unsuitable defeating conceal developing educates substitute bridge enables originator cat forecast

If the dictionary and mapping are standard, then no matter what machine you connect from you'll see the same set of English words when connecting to the remote host. I think it's a nice little trick that makes RSA key fingerprints easier to read and remember. Such a simple tweak could make us all a little more secure. What do you think?

Ubuntu Hardy Terminal Services Client Problem

Generally, I like to write about things that work on my blog but I've seen how just asking a question can sometimes bring a solution together. So here's my current problem:

I am attempting to connect to a Windows 2003 Server via the Ubuntu Hardy Heron default Terminal Services Client and when I click connect the window just goes away. I've tried again and then that window goes away again. About 2-5 minutes later an error window will popup giving some sort of error. The last error message I got complained about talking to the sound card in some way.

I tried again by disabling the sounds in the client before trying to connect but it didn't help. If you've experienced this problem please post a comment whether you've found a solution or not. I'd like to help raise the profile of bugs like this that get in the way of living in Ubuntu full time. Thanks.

Home Audio Streaming with Rhythmbox

Ever since I ripped my music collection to MP3 format and began collecting MP3s online, I've been struggling with managing and listening to all this music. In the past I've used WinAmp and iTunes on Windows XP to manage music locally. I've used Edna(a python script) to serve the music using its built in web server. Finally, I've copied this 30GB library a few times only to delete parts of it as I need the space on various machines.

Each of those setups feels like a kludge compared to my current Rhythmbox setup. I'm running Ubuntu and Windows XP on my computers at home and have found using Rhythmbox to store and serve my music has been the best experience so far.

To share music, start Rhythmbox on the computer that's storing it all. Go to Edit -> Plugins and check the box next to DAAP Music Sharing. Then click Configure on the right and check the box next to "Share my music".

Then if you want to listen to the music on any other computer, start Rhythmbox and go to File -> Connect to DAAP share and enter the name of your music server. Right away it'll pull down a list of files and you can begin searching, playing, and queuing up songs right away.

One tweak I'd recommend is on your server to have Rhythmbox watch your music folders. This helps when you have a program like bashpodder downloading your podcasts for you on a daily basis. Go to Edit -> Preferences and the Music tab and check the box to "Watch my library for new files".

If you use iTunes, stop. If you can't stop using iTunes, you'll be pleased that it'll auto-detect these DAAP shares so you can play it all from machines upon which you don't have Rhythmbox.

In theory you could even share this music to your computer wherever you are by opening a port on your router and using dyndns but I've not tried this. I would suggest setting a password on the DAAP share if you do.

One thing I might like to do is to connect remotely via ssh for increased security. If you have any ideas on that, please leave a comment. Also if you know of other free software audio clients that connect to DAAP shares I'd like to hear about those as well so people on Windows or OS X can enjoy more freedom in their software. Above all, enjoy your audio where you want, when you want!

Jailbreak good. iPhone freshly rocked.

This had to be by design. Jobs must love hackers. I am positive Steve Jobs wanted the iPhone to be the kind of awesome only an underground elite squad of coders could program it to be. How else could the iPhone be so much better jailbroken?

I guess what I'm trying to say is: I jailbroke my iPhone. I've been using it stock for a good three months waiting for legal apps to come out but enough is enough. The last straw was when I saw a video on YouTube of someone playing guitar on their iPhone.

Jailbreaking was free and easy to do. I just downloaded Ziphone, synced my iPhone to make a solid backup of my contacts, then clicked Jailbreak. After a few minutes, it was done and my iPhone was free.

Before this, I had always wondered how people downloaded applications to a jailbroken iPhone. Well, after jailbreaking(at least the way I did it) a new icon shows up on your home screen called Installer. Tap that and you're greeted with a plethora of programs. Things like Tap Tap Revolution, Drummer, vt100-term(a sold ssh client), and VNotes.

I've found myself playing Drummer far more than I ever would have imagined(plugged into car stereo? fuggedaboutit). Also VNotes has been quite handy for recording voice memos. Finally Sketches allows me to draw notes with my finger and annotate pictures.

It's impressive just how much this device can do sans the shackles of Apple's digital software jail. The wifi, the accelerometers, the camera, the multi-touch high-resolution screen, and the 16GB of flash memory can be just frickin' rocked past all those places where rocking can rock a conventional phone. Nice job jailbreakers and iPhone app developers. I really do need to donate some dough.

In closing: Jailbreaking good. If you don't have an iPhone, get one somehow and jailbreak it. That is all.

Super WHY! Theme Song Lyrics

I looked all around the internet(Google) for lyrics to this song that I'm hearing about 100 times a day and couldn't find it. So I typed 'em out. Enjoy.

Super WHY! Theme Song Lyrics - PBS

Who's got the power
The power to read
Who answers the call for friends in need?

Super WHY!
Super WHY!
He's the guy, he's Super WHY!

Who's got the power
The power to read
Who looks into books for the answers we need?

Super WHY!
Super WHY!
and the Super Readers, we're gonna fly

Come along!
With the Super Readers
Adventure waits when you're with Super WHY!

Super WHY and the Super Readers yeah
Super WHY and the Super Readers

Adventure waits when you're with Super WHY!
Yeah Super WHY!

The iPhone Experience

I've had an iPhone for the past couple of months and I'm what you'd call a heavy user. I need email on the go and I like to check websites as well. So I figure it'd be useful to mention a few things I think haven't been mentioned before about the device.

1. The iPhone is one of the few devices you can actually hand to a baby(granted it's protected by an incase) and not worry about random phone calls or even that the little one's going to change the song.

2. Takes too many clicks to get places. Put two more buttons down there(with OLED's like this thing) and it'll be a lot quicker to do stuff.

3. Wireless data over ATT's network works well enough that jumping on tmobile's network while at Starbucks is unnecessary and actually annoying because you have to sign in to maintain internet access. So I've "forgotten this network" several times while at Starbucks only to logon again later when I have the urge to check out the recently played songs. Maybe there could be an option to demote an ssid below the cellphone data service.

4. As an iPod, it's replaced my other one I use in my car for this one cool feature that is born out of integration. It turns off the music when you get a phone call! So I can totally blast it and not worry that I'll miss a call. Unfortunately if I blast the music, my particular setup tells me a lot more about the phone's communications with the cell network than I ever wanted to know but it just tolerable enough that I tolerate it. If anyone has some tips on how to minimize that interference, I'm all ears.

5. Visual voicemail is every bit as useful as it was billed to be.

6. Your phone message gets played without any annoying cell-phone provider pretext. No, you don't want to hit 5 to page. Yes, you know how to end a damn voice message. Duh! On the iPhone, and I can imagine Jobs throwing a hissy fit for this and for good reason, the first thing you hear when you are unfortunately sent to voicemail, is the greeting. It's nice having a little more control over the voicemail experience.

7. It has no redial.

8. It's actually a mini-boombox and that's all kinds of fun.

So I've only got 8 items right now. Maybe I'll think of more. Maybe not. But if you're trying to decide whether or not to get one, I say do it. I didn't even jailbreak it and it works well for me.

Linux podcasts are cool

I'm starting to believe in the power of audio to spread Linux. The nice thing about podcasts is that you can absorb them while doing other things but you can learn a lot. If you're like me, you login to Youtube to check out some videos and you end up shifting over to some other page midstream. So you miss part of the video and basically you're then listening to a (poor) podcast.

Why now? Well I fired up iTunes a couple weeks ago and searched for Linux. I then found some great podcasts: The Linux Action Show, LUGRadio, and The Linux Link Tech Show. There's only one way to say it: Linux is cool software. You need to know about cool software so check these out!

Linux Action Show - quite entertaining, co-hosts Bryan and Chris have a good comedic chemistry and talk about Linux from a developer and systems integrator point of view. They do the news on their bi-weekly show, answer listener questions and offer reviews of hardware and software in the GNU/Linux community. Thanks to Bryan for the Linux is cool software idea. http://linuxactionshow.com

LUGRadio - this one's from Britain and features four guys who have various perspectives on Linux(Jono is the Ubuntu Community Manager at Canonical). What's nice about this one is that they have more hosts and seem to delve deeper into the aspects of community, freedom, and the direction various open source software projects are going. They're also hosting LUGRadio Live at the Metreon with exhibits and speakers on April 12-13th, 2008 so that might be fun to check out if you're going to be nearby. Full access is $10 only available in advance(or free if you come from far away). http://lugradio.org

The Linux Link Tech Show - This the longest running Linux podcast or so they claim. They've had an impressive list of interviews in the past and this show feels quite down to earth with less of a radio show feel. http://tllts.org/

Enjoy and if you know of any other Linux/FOSS podcasts I should check out, leave a comment.

John "Maddog" Hall on Free Software

Just ran across these videos on Youtube just taken at IIT Tech fest in India. John Hall of Linux Journal discusses Free Software with a small crowd.







Looks like a 5 part video so look out for the rest...

"Tweet Scan's fab"

So say the folks over at Real Fresh TV.

Since we've just gotten started it's obviously an honor to be mentioned positively so early in our evolution. It's our goal to be the best Twitter Search Engine out there and we look forward to user feedback that will help us make an impact on the Social Networking and Twitter scene.

If you'd like to try it out, go to tweetscan.com. There you can search public Twitter posts in real time and sign up for email alerts for the searches that matter to you.

Tweet Scan updates

Tweet Scan is now capturing all public tweets.

For the past month or so, I've been building and testing Tweet Scan and capturing enough tweets to make thing interesting. A search tool is supposed to find what people want and Tweet Scan was missing probably 95% of tweets.

So I've just updated the capture engine to get as close to 100% of public tweets as possible. If you think it's missing a recent tweet or if there's a feature you'd like to see, send a tweet to @weex or comment here.

If you like what you see when you search, you can sign up here for any search to be run automatically and emailed to you when you choose.