Category: linux

Online Backup Solutions

Posted by riscphree – September 18, 2009

I have recently got the urge to start backing stuff up. I found a couple online companies offering this service so I decided to try them out.

First is a product called iDrive from http://www.idrive.com

idrive

iDrive gives free users 2gb of storage. For me this is plenty to backup some important documents. Their little program you download is quite nice. It is easy to use and explore, allowing you to see right away what files you are backing up and how much space you are using.

The three main buttons in their program are Backup Now, Schedule Backup, and Enable Continuous Backup. It has a default scheduled backup time of 5:00AM every day, but that is easily changeable.

The restore feature is nice as well. It will show the files you have stored with them and allow you to choose which ones you whish to restore to your computer.

There is integration with your OS, but under Windows XP I was prompted to install the plugin for it, it didn’t install along with the program. They do have support for Windows, Mac, and Linux. As well as some mobile applications.

Overall, this was a good option to use if you like something with a bit more options and like to tinker with settings to have full control over things, but it seemed like it was just more work than I wanted to do. I give this application a 4/5 stars.

The second application I used was Dropbox from http://www.getdropbox.com

dropbox

Just from the website alone you can tell Dropbox is more slim and condensed.

They also offer a free 2gb account, which is plenty for me.

I downloaded their application and was pleasantly surprised. Their application is all integrated into Windows. When I want to backup a file, I just drag it into a folder called My Drop Box which they put in My Documents.

They also have a system of synching. You can run it on multiple computers or phones, and when you save files, it can synch to all devices. Pretty handy feature.

Folder sharing is also very easy and makes it great for letting other people have access. For me, this will come in handy when I’m working with people on projects. They have a Public Folder as well that allows anyone to see the files which you put in there.

Dropbox also have some 30 day undo history. Might come in handy if I make mistakes. They also offer an unlimited undo feature called “Pack-rat”.

The online interface for Dropbox is amazing. So simple and great looking. You can upload a folder of images and it’ll generate a photo album. Pretty slick.

I give Dropbox a 5/5 stars and recommend it for sure!

newest project: wopr

Posted by riscphree – September 8, 2009

I’m going to attempt to build a functional version of the WOPR supercomputer from the movie Wargames. Well, mine won’t have supercomputer power, but it’ll be really rad.

Here’s my project page I will be keeping updates on: http://www.riscit.info/wopr/

orinoco monitor mode

Posted by riscphree – August 29, 2009

Edit: This is an old article (circa 2006)

My main linux distribution of choice is Slackware Linux. I recently installed it on my Thinpad 600X. I have a classic Orinoco wireless card that is pretty cool, of course, it doesn’t compare to the Senao cards. Anywho, I wanted to run kismet on this laptop, but Slack uses the orinoco 0.13d drivers. These drivers do not support monitor mode (also called promiscuous mode) which allows for scanning passively. Thus, I had to update the drivers. I have yet to find a site that has complete directions on how to do this, though the shmoo group developed the driver, their directions are not simple for *nix n00bs.

Below you will find how to easily install the patches to enable monitor mode for Orinoco cards so that you can use kismet, tcpdump, etc

Step 1. What we’re going to do is patch the original driver. To do this we need the original driver. You can obtain it from orinoco driver homepage. You will want to get version 13e. Alternatively, you can grab it from my site here

Step 2. Now that we’ve got the driver, we need the monitor mode patch. This is just a *.diff file from the shmoo group. The patch (orinoco-0.13e-patch.diff) can be obtained from their site here http://airsnort.shmoo.com/orinocoinfo.html or alternatively, from my site here.

Step 3. Now you can go ahead and grab the patch to improve channel changing. This patch is from the kismet wireless homepage. This is the orinoco-0.13e-dragorn3.diff patch. I’ve got a local copy of it as well located here.

Step 4. We can now begin the installation of the driver and patches. First you will untar the orinoco driver using

$ tar zxpvf orinoco-0.13e.tar.gz

Step 5. You can begin patching the code now. Change into the directory just created

$ cd orinoco-0.13e

Step 6. And now apply the patch

$ patch -p1 < ../orinoco-0.13e-patch.diff

Step 7. Now apply the performance patch

$ patch -p1 < ../orinoco-0.13e-dragorn3.diff

Step 8. After everything is patched, you need to compiled the driver using

$ make

Step 9. When it is done compiling, you will need to be root to install it

$ su

Step 10. You can now install the driver

$ make install

Step 11. If you haven’t received any errors (which you shouldn’t have), everything has worked fine. You can now plug in your wireless card to see if it worked with the iwpriv command.