Did you know that OpenSSH includes function to act as a SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 host? (I didn’t)
It is as simple as creating a “Dynamic forwarded port” in PuTTY or using the -D switch with the SSH client.
Tunnelling just became a whole lot easier.
Archive for category Internet
SSH Proxy
Nov 30
Echofon
(formally known as Twitterfox)
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Tweetdeck
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Seesmic
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Peoplebrowsr
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Deleting in Gmail IMAP
Oct 27
Getting “Delete” to work as expected in Gmail IMAP was surprisingly complicated.
The default action when a client deletes a message is to archive it (ie: move it to “All Mail”). I didn’t like this because then if I accessed the account from POP the deleted mail would still be downloaded.
Recommended IMAP settings tells you all the things NOT to do, but doesn’t give any useful advice on how to setup clients.
Eventually after trying many different settings I realised the simplest method was to tell the client to MOVE the message to the Gmail Trash folder when it is deleted. To do this in Thunderbird2 required manually editing the prefs.js file to specify a custom IMAP trash folder:
user_pref("mail.server.server#.trash_folder_name", "[Gmail]/Trash");
Note that the case of the trash folder name IS important.
Disable WordPress Autosave
Oct 20
WordPress’ Autosave feature was getting on my nerves. Often I make several revisions of a page before I save and WordPress was saving intermediate drafts that I didn’t want to keep.
I was surprised to find that there is no option in WordPress core to disable Autosave. Thankfully though it is incredibly easy to disable through editing the source or creating a custom plugin.
The following code (take from the reference link below) will function as a WordPress plugin and will disable autosave (works in WordPress 2.8)
<?php /* Plugin Name: Disable Autosave */ function disable_autosave() { wp_deregister_script('autosave'); } add_action( 'wp_print_scripts', 'disable_autosave' ); ?>
References
OpenSSH escape characters
Oct 19
SSH has tilde (~) as an escape character by default. Make sure that the last you typed in was nothing or a newline, then type one of the following sequences:
~. - terminate connection ~B - send a BREAK to the remote system ~C - open a command line ~R - Request rekey (SSH protocol 2 only) ~^Z - suspend ssh ~# - list forwarded connections ~& - background ssh (when waiting for connections to terminate) ~? - this message ~~ - send the escape character by typing it twice
References
OpenSSH Escape Characters
man page ssh(1)
A Quick Look at Firefox3
Jun 22
I’ve been testing Firefox3 for a few days now and it has been a great improvement over previous versions.
The new Location bar – really is the Awesome bar! I’m already getting used to the new look of the suggestions, and sourcing from bookmarks as well as history is a great improvement.
Firefox is finally using sqlite for bookmarks and history. This makes a noticable difference in speed and also allows for some more advanced features in the bookmarks system.
The unobtrusive Password Manager drop-down is another great improvement. It waits until after you submit the form before asking, and it no longer blocks the interface so the user can easily ignore it.
Addons
As for Addons, these have already been updated to support Firefox3:
Adblock Plus
Add Bookmark Here2
ColorfulTabs
Greasemonkey
Locationbar2
Menu Editor
NoScript
QuickProxy
Web Developer
Addons still waiting for updates:
AutoCopy and Copy Plain Text (inter-related)
No-Referer
Organize Status Bar
Paste and Go 2
Permit Cookies
Preferences
I found that a few preference changes are required to optimise the performance and experience:
browser.tabs.tabMinWidth;60 browser.tabs.closeButtons;0 // only 1 close button, on current window browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground;true // load tabs in background browser.fixup.alternate.enabled;false // disable automatically adding of www. and .com to urls
Testing the Bittorrent CLI client I noticed an error “can’t load fastresume data”. This was forcing it to rescan the entire data before resuming the torrent – even if nothing had changed since the previous run.
A bit of searching found this solution:
change file /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/BitTorrent/Storage.py
modify line 216str(os.path.getmtime(filename)) + '\n')to
str(int(os.path.getmtime(filename))) + '\n')remove the binaries
rm /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/BitTorrent/Storage.pyo rm /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/BitTorrent/Storage.pyc
If Firefox 2.0 does not recognise a mime-type it forces you to jump through hoops every time you wish to save a file of that type – never giving you the option to make a default action (eg. save-as) for the type.
Getting tired of this I eventually did some research to find a solution, case in point is the RAR file type (application/x-rar; application/x-rar-compressed).
Option 1: An Addon
Add the Mime-Edit extension that allows you edit any mime-type’s properties and actions, even those not recognised by Firefox.
Option 2: Hack
If you are confident in XML manually edit mimeTypes.rdf in your profile folder:
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:application/x-rar-compressed" NC:fileExtensions="rar" NC:description="" NC:value="application/x-rar-compressed" NC:editable="true"> <NC:handlerProp RDF:resource="urn:mimetype:handler:application/x-rar-compressed"/> </RDF:Description> <RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:handler:application/x-rar-compressed" NC:alwaysAsk="false" NC:useSystemDefault="false" NC:saveToDisk="true"> <NC:externalApplication RDF:resource="urn:mimetype:externalApplication:application/x-rar-compressed"/> </RDF:Description>
And in the section <RDF:Seq RDF:about=”urn:mimetypes:root”> add in this new row:
<RDF:li RDF:resource="urn:mimetype:application/x-rar-compressed"/>
Firefox addons of awesome
Dec 31
Addons I have used or tried in Firefox 2.0
Addons kept
AdBlock Plus: wildcards work great for blocking troublesome adsites and iframes.
Permit Cookies: block 3rd Party cookies and/or block all untrusted sites.
Add Bookmark Here 2: an easier way to add a bookmark deep in your hierarchy of bookmarks.
Auto Copy: text selected with mouse is automatically copied (works with Copy Plain Text).
Copy Plain Text: copies selected content as plain-text instead of html.
Colorful Tabs: generate tab colors by domain name.
Paste and Go 2: mapped to a mouse-button this can open a link from your clipboard in a new tab with a single click.
Stop-or-Reload Button: save precious toolbar space by merging the stop & reload buttons.
QuickProxy: turn browser proxy on/off with a single click.
Web Developer: world’s most important Firefox addon.
No-referrer: block the referrer string from being sent to 3rd Party sites.
Bookmark Duplicate Detector: detects and cleans duplicate bookmarks. Also makes backups for bookmarks file.
Kelvin’s Australian English Dictionary: Australian dictionary without all the US-American misspellings.
Greasemonkey: used with Youtube video downloader and Niconico video downloader.
Locationbar2: highlight domain or subdomain, and make sections of the URL clickable.
Menu Editor: edit the context menus, promote Save Image, hide send-to and set-wallpaper.
Configuration Mania: disable SmartBrowsing, Tab button on active tab only, Disable link prefetching.
Extended Statusbar: add some simple page stats to the statusbar.
NoScript: blocks 3rd Party Javascript and Flash.
Addons removed
ErrorZilla Mod: never used the buttons it provided.
Linky: make all urls clickable. (I found Paste&Go worked better for me)
MR Tech Local Install: was useful to install addons from local files, but gained too much uneccessary clutter with recent updates.
Searchbar Autosizer: I eventually removed the searchbar completely, rendering this addon meaningless.
Tab To Window: browser would often crash if I tried to use this.
Restart Firefox: expected to save session and restart browser, but does not restore ALL windows >_<.