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IT

Dell Zino HD (a.k.a. Inspiron 400)

The Journey

Looking for a device to host some basic server applications at home I came across the Dell Zino. The machine offers me exactly what I was looking for: A CPU supporting virtualization, space for a 3.5″ HDD to keep 1 TB (or more) and energy efficiency.

Unpack-Experience

It is not a Mac. The functional brown package includes two boxes, one for the accessories (power supply, power cable, two CDs with Windows 7 and drivers) and another with keyboard and mouse – both wireless. The Zino itself was packed in foam plastic, filling the rest of the box. In the front of the machine there is a 3.5mm headphone socket, a card reader, 2x USB 2.0 sockets and the DVD tray. The power button is on top. On the back a microphone, line out, 2x eSATA, HDMI, VGA and the power socket are arranged. In addition the HDD LED, LAN socket (incl. status LED) and a button to open the case are arranged on the back side.

Power Consumption

Continue reading Dell Zino HD (a.k.a. Inspiron 400) →

Linux

Nullmailer

Nullmailer dient als leichtgewichtiger Ersatz für “echte” MTAs wie Exim, Postfix oder Sendmail. Das Programm leitet E-Mails, statt sie lokal zuzustellen, über ein externes Mail-Relay (etwa den SMTP Server des Internetproviders) an eine vordefinierte E-Mail Adresse um. So landen Meldungen, etwa von smartmontools, cron-apt oder logwatch bequem im zentralen eigenen E-Mail Postfach.

Installation unter Debian

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#Installation
sudo aptitude install nullmailer
 
#Adresse an welche E-Mails weitergeleitet werden sollen
echo "user@example.com" |  sudo tee -a /etc/nullmailer/adminaddr

Installation testen

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date | mail root -s Test

Referenzen

http://untroubled.org/nullmailer/

Linux

JBidwatcher

Mit JBidwatcher lassen sich bequem eBay Auktionen beobachten und Gebote abgeben.

Installation

Nachfolgende Notiz soll die Installation unter Linux (getestet mit Debian 6.0.3 und Ubuntu 11.04) erleichtern:

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#!/bin/bash
 
# Basiert auf:
# http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=206553#post1198561
 
# Java Laufzeitumgebung installieren
sudo aptitude install default-jre
 
# Installationsverzeichnis
JBidDir="/opt/JBidwatcher"
 
# JBidwatcher Version
JBidVer="2.1.6"
 
# URL Download
JBidDL="http://www.jbidwatcher.com/download/JBidwatcher-"$JBidVer".jar"
 
# Programmverzeichnis anlegen
sudo mkdir $JBidDir
cd $JBidDir
 
# Programm und Icon herunterladen
sudo wget http://assets1.jbidwatcher.com/images/jay_noback.png
sudo wget $JBidDL
 
# Starter anlegen
echo -e '#!/bin/sh'"\n"\
"java -jar "$JBidDir"/JBidwatcher-"$JBidVer".jar"\
| sudo tee /usr/local/bin/jbidwatcher
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/jbidwatcher
 
# Eintag im Menü anlegen
echo -e "[Desktop Entry]\n"\
"Comment=eBay bidding, sniping & monitoring\n"\
"Name=jBidWatcher\n"\
"Exec=jbidwatcher\n"\
"Terminal=false\n"\
"Encoding=UTF-8\n"\
"Type=Application\n"\
"Icon="$JBidDir"/jay_noback.png\n"\
"Categories=Network\n"\
| sudo tee  /usr/share/applications/jBidWatcher.desktop

Schritte nach der Installation

  • Benutzername und Passwort eintragen
  • “Country site” anpassen (z.B. ebay.de)
  • “Snipe time” anpassen (z.B. 8 Sekunden)
Allgemein

Tagline Zitate

In der Tagline dieses Blogs werden zufällig Zitate aus nachfolgender Liste eingeblendet. Natürlich möchte ich es mir nicht nehmen lassen den Urheber zu nennen:

With great power there must also come — great responsibility!
“The first Spider-Man story”, Stan Lee

Inmitten von Schwierigkeiten liegen günstige Gelegenheiten.
Albert Einstein

Hello, IT — Have you tried turning it off and on again?
“The IT Crowd”, Graham Linehan

IT

Virtualbox

Virtualbox Pro & Con

After played around with Xen and KMV I’ve finally decided to go for VirtualBox. Please find the pros and cons considered from below:

Pro

  • Available for all major platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Solaris, …)
  • Easy to install (no special kernel required, compared to Xen)
  • Easy to manage (Qt GUI, CLI, API, libvirt support)
  • Paravirtualization (virtio) for network and memory (baloon)
  • Active developed, frequently new releases
  • Good end-user documentation

Con

  • No paravirtualization (virtio) for storage (virtio-blk)
  • Direct access for block devices is not supported
  • Proprietary license for USB and RDP support

Command Line Recipes

VirtualBox comes with a friendly Qt based GUI, but also with a set of command line tools. This makes it very powerful for headless usage. A couple of handy recipes can be found from below:

  • Take a screenshot 
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    VBoxManage controlvm  <uuid>|<name> \
screenshotpng <filename.png>

  • Set a specific machine time in past at startup 
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    #!/bin/bash
VBoxManage modifyvm <uuid>|<name> \
 --biossystemtimeoffset \
$[($(date -d '2008-03-05 00:30:00' +%s) \
-$(date +%s))*1000]

  • Activate RDP 
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    vbm="Debian64" # Virtual Machine Name oder UUID
VBoxManage modifyvm $vbm \
--vrde on \
--vrdeport 3389 \
--vrdeauthtype null \
--vrdemulticon on
Privacy

Firefox und Thunderbird Add-ons (Privacy)

In den nächsten Monaten werde ich einige Firefox und Thunderbird Add-ons vorstellen. Der Fokus wird im Bereich Datenschutz liegen.

Firefox

Thunderbird