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Access a Linux share from Windows with Samba (configuring samba for Ubuntu)

For those of you newbees out there trying to move from windows to linux, this would be a useful solution where you can connect from your windows system to the linux system, preciously the shares in linux.

What you will need is a Linux setup in place and samba server package installed. I use Ubuntu as I feel it is the best for both desktop and server purposes.

Ok now here are the steps:

Lets start with the samba user creation:

At the terminal put in the following the ">" sign:

> sudo smbpasswd -a <username>

After doing this you need to update that username in the smbusers file"

>sudo gedit /etc/samba/smbusers

in this file add the following

<username>="<your username that just got created>"

Now lets edit the configuration file to tell samba the details:

> sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

(gedit works only if you have the X windows configured)

Once you open up the file search for the following section

####### Authentication #######

# "security = user" is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account
# in this server for every user accessing the server. See
# /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/ServerType.html
# in the samba-doc package for details.
; security = user

Make the following changes:

security = user <- here put the name of the user who will have access to the share
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers

Now lets do the sharing:

In the same file find the following section:

#============ Share Definitions ===============

# Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit)
# to enable the default home directory shares. This will share each
# user's home directory as \\server\username

Uncomment the following(marked in Bold):

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = yes

# By default, \\server\username shares can be connected to by anyone
# with access to the samba server. Un-comment the following parameter
# to make sure that only "username" can connect to \\server\username
valid users = %S

# By default, the home directories are exported read-only. Change next
# parameter to 'yes' if you want to be able to write to them.
writable = yes

And once you save all that, you can access this share from windows as \\ubuntusurvername\sharename, enter the username and password you created for samba and you are all set.

Free Network Management Software, with free inventory management

One of the biggest nightmares of any CIOs today is keeping track of IT hardware. With expanding business and increasing demands for IT support, more IT spending leads of racks and racks of additional hardware. Inventory is mostly manual in most medium to small enterprise and make life a hell to the IT manager and the data center team. Now if you are a small or medium enterprise, your best bet would have a manual mechanism for accounting for systems and hardware with added challenge of updates of its software.
Some of the major Network Management software includes Solar winds, HP openview, BMC etc. Here most of the network management software mentioned do not cater to the whole gambit of service in the network and most of they delivery service of availability, capacity monitoring and fine tuning. HP Openview and BMC do cater to inventory and configuration management but costs a ton.
The focus of this post is only on the inventory, configuration management among few other special features. Here I will be introducing to you two free Inventory and configuration management software, one is SpiceWorks IT Desktop and the other is AlterPoint ZipTie.

In short the Spiceworks IT Desktop solution is more of a server/workstation management with of course the ability to track other network infrastructure and works well with patch monitoring also. The Ziptie is more advanced and hence would need lot more configuration to enable a comparative study, both the applications have different purposes and hence would cater to different needs. Also with the 250 device limit on the IT Desktop, very large enterprises would need to choose a better solution anyway.
From ease of setup the IT Desktop is very simple to setup and operate, ensure that you have full admin privileges before you configure it for your network. The ZipTie is a bit difficult to setup and run if you get any error, else its can be setup as just any other installable.

SpiceWorks is available at www.spiceworks.com & ZipTie is available at www.ziptie.org

Portable OS and Apps, Portable enough to fit in to your USB drive

What would happen with the ever increasing size of the applications and its disk requirements? Unfortunately there will be no comfort as we put in more code and more content to make more cognitive applications.

But out there is still a range of applications and even Os that run on your USB with 512 MB and CD without need of a hard disk and heavy physical memory. You guessed it right, I am talking about the ever reinventing Linux and I am taking specifically about pendrivelinux. If you go to www.pendrivelinux.com you will get an idea of what I am talking about. Here you will find script and installable for your USB, and other storage devices which will enable you to download and install a small version of the Ubuntu or Knoppix.

So what if you changed you USB partition, well there are even ways to set it back. You will find relevant information in the site.
So if you are linux fan and want to carry your OS in your pocket, this is your chance.

Now don't get down that only linux is portable, well now there are some portable windows apps which can save you time and energy of carry a system with you, wherever you go. And ofcourse it is free and it has range of applications from Firefox Browser to Clamwin Virus scanner. You can get the details at www.portableapps.com .

Linux Live CD, boot linux without disturbing your current Windows Setup.

Now what if you have no hard disk to spare for installing and setting up Linux? Dont worry there is hope. With the Linux Live CD for Ubuntu and Knoppix you need not worry any more. Gone are the days of hassle installation of creating a separating partition for Linux, mounting it and setting it right and of course if you screw up you would lose your windows boot and not be able to boot windows again. Even though there are simple ways today to do this even on your windows, or even on top of your windows. Other options include partition tools which have evolved well in the Linux OS package and the best option being setting up a virtual machine with Vmware of Microsoft virtual PC. The latter being a bit power hungry might make you reconsider the decision if you don't have adequate memory and performance at your disposal.

So coming to what we are set out to do. Here are the steps:

1.Download the ISO image from any of the links below
2.Burn it on to a Blank CD
3.Put the newly created CD in the drive and boot to the CD (need to ensure that the CD boot capability is enabled in the BIOS)
4.And thats it, you have booted in to Linux and of course enjoy your new found glory.

1. Ubuntu Live CD Download

2. Knoppix Live CD Download

Who Needs MS Office anyway?

Google Docs one of the many online word processing applications recently completed its suite with the PowerPoint compatible application. Google Docs is fast, simple and allows sharing to online audiences. What I like most is the web sharing featuring which allows you to share the documents you make with the people you authorize. And not just that, what if you have a presentation and would like to do it online. Now start the presentation in google docs for PowerPoint and you are ready to just give your buddy's id and you are ready to do a presentation online. Very simple interface makes things easy to find and use. You will not find any advanced features here so don't bother trying customizations etc but it certainly adds to the array of simple web tools available on the web.@ http://docs.google.com

IBM Lotus Symphony is the another free word processing application recently introduced by IBM. Leaves you 315 MB short on disk space but gives you a downloadable version that lets you play around with word, spread sheet and power point like apps. The Application looks like a competition to Open-Office. We can say it is a free version of the Lotus suite. But does it have all the performance glitches like the later, well it certainly seems so. So if you have all the memory in the world, this could be a solution for you. But then the application is still in beta so there is more to come and maybe could prove faster than you think. IBM has the money power to make such solutions possible, but don't know if like Lotus, it will only have a niche set of users as followers. @ http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa

Zoho Online office tools is the best of the lot and give you web conference features, office, notes and even project software free online. Even though it shows the try now option, I am hoping it is going to remain free. The word processing feature is excellent compared to the google docs and provides all customization features you can think of in any Application based Office applications like Symphony and Open-Office. The Web Conference feature allows you to schedule the meeting and also integrate with Skye while scheduling. But the best thing I like about Zoho is that it offers a small installable component which can make things offline for you. So if when you are online you can sync up and where ever you are you can work offline. @ http://www.zoho.com

Last but not the least is the newly Yahoo acquired company called Zimbra. They call it their solution as the collaboration suite. Does not have much stuff here but they have an open source version which can be downloaded and setup in small business. Most of the stuff I saw was in beta or alpha stage and since yahoo has taken over the company, the products will soon be priced. What I liked most is the mail option which has a very clean interface like outlook and makes the user feel at home with the options provided. @ http://www.zimbra.com

Visual Studio Express, Free for all

Visual Studio is now available for developers for free in a scaled down version supplied by Microsoft. So no need to pirate Visual Studio 2007, just download and register a copy of the Visual Studio Express Copy for Windows Development, Web Development, Game Development of Database. Yes right even the powerful SQL 2007 is available in Express Free edition. They are not in a Studio format so don't come together so you need to download and install each one you need.
Here is the link to download your own copy of Visual Studio Express.

Also if you are a student with valid credentials, you can receive the full Visual Studio Professional Free. Follow the link for more details. Microsoft Dream Spark

Open Source Windows Software

Blender for 3D Graphics

Media Player

GIMP Like Paint

ClamWin Antivirus

eyeOS Web Operating System

eyeOS is the new breed of web operating systems appearing after the advent of the web 2.0 platform for the web. Gone were the days of dos which allowed limited range portability even between systems of the same OS genre. With the advanced of more collaborative OS versions, today we have more portability of applications and services for which we use the platform.

Web 2.0 has given a new life to the web with more interactive and platform like feel making Online collaboration a reality from a dream. With eyeOS being an open sourced solution, now you need not by and OS for on the move.

Why would you use the eyeOS? Below are some of the reasons:
-You could use it if you don't have a system for yourself and would like to have your desktop settings wherever you go in the world.
-You could employ something of this nature in a environment like a call center where you don't need to keep information or data in a single system.
-With the wealth of applications due to be introduced in the eyeOS, there would be no limit to what you can achieve on this platform.
-Easy setup for a network based deployment for one to many systems.
-Most of all its free

Some reasons that would keep you away?
-Too much of an laptop or system geek, bogged down to the OS like windows of linux with no need of distributed solution.
-Too much dependent on specific applications, which will not run on eyeOS.

Click the icon for a demo:

Free Windows Security Apps

Secunia Personal Software Inspector	https://psi.secunia.com/
Haute Secure	http://www.hautesecure.com/
GMER anti-rootkit	http://content.zdnet.com/
Netcraft Toolbar	http://toolbar.netcraft.com/
File Shredder	http://www.fileshredder.org/
CCleaner	http://ccleaner.com/
PC Decrapifier	http://pcdecrapifier.com/
NoScript for Firefox	http://noscript.net/
OpenDNS	http://www.opendns.com/
Zone Alarm	http://zonealarm.com/

Boot Windows from your USB Drive

Here is a simple set of steps to enable you to boot from your USB drive of pen drive and be able to access the drives in XP.

What is required:

1. A USB Drive with more than 512 MB Capacity

2. A USB bootable computer (Old computers do not allow this)

3. BartPe and PEtoUSB

4. Windows XP or Server Installation Files

What to download

1. Download the BartPE setup files from the following location:

http://www.nu2.nu/download.php?sFile=pebuilder3110a.exe

Install this application into a folder called BartPE.

2. Now download and install Pe2USB from:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/files/pe2usb101.zip

3. Run the BartPE application, it will ask you for the path of the XP installation files. Also the destination path will the BartPe folder you created earlier during setup.

4. Once the above is down, run the Pe2USB executable. You need to provide the provide the path of the BartPE files which was created earlier. Also select the USB drive which will be formated. Choose Format from the options listed.

5. Now that you have your USB boot drive ready. Test it by making it the default Boot in your Systems BIOS.