SimpleDesk Download Manager

For the SimpleDesk website, I made a very easy to use and very sleek download manager.  Complete with branch, version, file and mirror management.  Simply put, this thing is very powerful and flexible.  While I didn’t add it in, I could easily expand this script to manage multiple pieces of software as well.

Moving mysql

Time to move my mysql data directory to another drive.  So its up to some simple commands to get me started. First my my.conf file. $ sudo mv /etc/mysql/my.cnf /home/configs $ sudo ln -s /home/configs/my.cnf /etc/mysql/ I should note that the way I installed mysql (apt-get), a debian.cnf file is created.  I haven’t even bothered …

Securing database user credentials

A random thought has hit me.  Most people try to keep their MySQL user credentials secure.  But why?  If a server has been setup properly, it becomes a mute point. The idea occurred me when thinking about opening a sites source code up.  If I opened the site up, I could give them access to …

Applications hidden addons

Like all good conversations, this was brought up in IRC. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/11/microsoft_slips_firtefox_add_on_into_software_update/ Microsoft decided it would be a good idea to install a hidden addon to firefox installs for those who have some services installed.  The major point being it is a hidden unknown addon that you can not remove yourself.  How friendly is that? Google’s …

Moving home directory to a new drive

My current host has a unique feature in which it allows me to setup virtual machines easily. Since that is easily possible, I may want to someday switch to another operating system. So I wanted to split all my /home and configuration files out onto a separate drive. Which is entirely possible with my host. …

Protecting my wordpress folders

WordPress by default doesn’t protect its wp-includes and wp-content folders. While WordPress doesn’t do stupid things in most of these files, they still don’t do a simple defined check to ensure we came from an a privileged file. SMF does this and it prevents direct loading of any of the Source files. To get around …

Simple secure login for wordpress

This is a simple way to setup a secure login for WordPress.  Simply editing “wp-login.php” and looking for: /** Make sure that the WordPress bootstrap has run before continuing. */ require( dirname(__FILE__) . ‘/wp-load.php’ ); Add after that: force_ssl_admin(true); Now when accessing login and registration pages, the browser redirects to the secure version. Edit, After …

Hello /dev/null

When I started my site, I knew that I would rarely see visitors.  It is more of a personal test site then it is for anything else.  I recently decided to get rid of my own site and get a blog.  Mostly because my site isn’t really for communication amongst many individuals, rather that its …

Setting up SVN

I wanted to setup SVN on my server.  Why you ask?  Well just because I can really.  The most important reason is to get my mods and other files into a repository that would also act as a backup.  I set it up on my site as I never saw the point in keeping on …