Microsoft warns users to uninstall Netscape 8

Still more bad news on Netscape 8.

Microsoft has issued warning to users to uninstall Netscape 8 because the installation will make IE not able to properly run XML. I have no other choice but to completely remove it.

Why is AOL so careless in releasing a buggy browser to the Internet community ?

NCSA Mosaic

The first browser I ever used was NCSA Mosaic running under Windows 3.1, in year 1993.

At that time, there was only one ISP in Hong Kong. Windows 3.1 did not have TCP/IP stack in its OS. I used Trumpet to get a TCP socket via dial-up modem. Of course, the maximum modem speed at that time was 28.8 kbps. My experience with Mosaic was a pleasant one because during the old days, web pages were simple in design, not much graphics or multimedia stuff for display to surfers.

Netscape 8.0

It was reported that the newly release Netscape 8.0 came with 44 security holes in it. Just after 24 hours, AOL released 8.0.1 to plug the holes. I completely lose confidence in future versions of Netscape.

PSP

The config of PSP is really powerful compared with other portable devices. The display is especially beautifful. Here is the config :

PSP CPU (System clock frequency 1 - 333MHz)

Main Memory : 32MB

Embeded DRAM : 4MB

Display : 4.3 inch, 16:9 Wide screen TFT LCD

Colours : 480 x 272 pixel, 16.77 million colors

Sound :Built-in stereo speakers

Main Input/ Output: IEEE 802.11b (Wi-Fi), USB 2.0 (mini-B), Memory Stick Duo, and Infrared Port

lame server

There are a log of lame server messages in my system log. This happens because many network administrators ignore the importance of reverse DNS lookup when setting up their DNS zones. In general, if a DNS server is advertized as being authoritative for a particular zone and that server is not authoritative then any DNS server that queries that server for information on that zone will get a lame server error message.

There is a way to get rid of lame server log by adding the following in /etc/named.conf :

logging {
                category lame-servers{ null; };
            };

It works to my satisfaction.

19-inch notebook PCs

Dell recently has announced the release of 19-inch notebook PCs by next year.

A logical question anyone will ask is what's the weight ? Woo... I guess it is unlikely that business people will carry around such kind of notebook PCs due to the bulkiness. 19-inch notebook PCs will be treated as desktop PC replacement to save place for the CRT monitors and tower cases at home or in office.

Low Cost SSL Certificate

Go Daddy charges 128-bit SSL Server Certifcate at US$29.95 per year. This month, the annual service fee has further been reduced to US$19.95. Hey... it is really competitive if compared with the charges of Verisign and other CAs.



In HK, the Post Office CA charges a Server Certificate at HK$2500 per year, equivalent to US$321.

Rays LX Linux desktop

I bought a box of Rays LX Linux desktop at HK$300. Pretty easy to install and all the hardware devices were recognized by the OS without difficulty. The journal file system used is reisfs instead of ext3 which has been widely used in Fedora series.

All are good except the browser bundled is Mozxilla. These days, users prefer Firefox than Mozilla as the former is rich in new features. Though I have no difficulty to additionally install the Firfox package, I think Firefox should be part of the packages by default.

It is wise to have totem in Rays LX desktop. Totem could act as a browser plugin to open multimedia files such as mpg, avi, wmv and other formats. I still recall the troubles of installing mozplayer and mplayerplugin in the old days when totem was not available.

I have not tried every single utility in Rays LX. So far, my impression upon this package is good. It is worth to pay HK$300 to get the technical support from Sun Wah Pearl Limited.

Number of Internet hosts

The Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) has recently published a survey on Internet domain. The no. of Internet hosts was 50 million in 1998. It has been increased to 350 million as of January 2005. Wooo, a seven fold increase in 7 years. If this trend continues, we can expect the figure to exceed 500 million by end of 2006.

PDP-7

This ugly old-day machine was called PDP-7 invented by Digital Equipment Corporation. In 1969, Father of Unix, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie started to develop the first generation of Unix on this machine. As a Unix fans, I should remember this ugly machine which offered enormous contributions to the world of computing.

Types of Servers

A frequently asked question by IT people is how many roles servers can play. I think I can name up to 27 types:

In networking roles : Gateway, Router, Bridge, Firewall, Prxoy, Reverse Proxy, DHCP server and WINS server.

Application roles : Groupware Server, Database Server, File and Printr Server, Fax Server, Mail Server, FTP server, Web Server, Video Server, VPN Server, Remote Access Server (RAS), Current Version Server (CVS), DNS Server, IRC Server, LDAP Server, NTP Server, NFS Server, NIS Server, List Server and News Server.

LightScribe

I hate messy sticky labels sticked on the surface of CDs and DVDs. Writing on CD/DVD surface is also no good as my handwriting looks poor. With lightScribe technology emerges, I don't need to worry about labelling a CD/DVD mediium.

LightScribe is a process where specially made recordable CD and DVD media can be labeled using a LightScribe DVD recorder. Currently LightScribe is only monochromatic, and labels fade over time. LightScribe was invented by HP and has been licensed to several other companies.

The latest models of HP Pavilion Home PCs are bundled with LightScribe DVD ROM. Of course, one can buy a LightScribe-enabled DVD ROM and do the same as HP Pavilion Home PCs.

sshd

I have my server running sshd for remote administration. Damn it, at night time, quite a number of bad guys try to enter on port 22 by guessing password. Woooooooooo.., too many meaningless connection sessions causing a high network traffic.

To reserve my bandwidth resource, I have to change the default sshd port to a peculiar port no. or else I have to stop the sshd daemon. This can be done easily by editing /etc/ssh/sshd_config in which there is a line stating the port number.

Ha ha ...... even if I stop the sshd, I still have a work around solution for remote server administration which I will never disclose to any body.

Mutt

Mutt claims to be a small but very powerful text based program for reading electronic mail under Unix operating systems, including support color terminals, MIME, and a threaded sorting mode. It is too complicated for me to use it for general mail activities.

There is a benefit mutt can offer to me. When in console mode, I can attach a file and send to recipient by invoking the following:

#mutt -a filename -s subject_name 123456@abc.com < /dev/null

A screen shot from mutt page is posted in here:

DNS round robin

DNS round robin is useful in server load balancing. Access to a domanin name can point to different IP addresses in a cyclic order. This feature is only available in BIND but not in Windows DNS.

CNN is using DNS round robin to group some servers concurrently serving for the domain name "www.cnn.com". The IP addresses returned upon nslookup query are :

64.236.24.4, 64.236.24.12, 64.236.24.20, 64.236.24.28
64.236.16.20,64.236.16.52, 64.236.16.84, 64.236.16.116

CNN has now used up to 8 IP addresses. The maximum no. of IP addresses in DNS round robin for a host is "13". This limitation is due to the 512 byte length in UDP message.

High-tech dog

A police dog carrying a mini-camera and mic gear can search builidngs and relay the information back to the officers. The camera system has infra-red lights, which means pictures can be provided in darkness. The audio facility allows officers to listen to activity close to the dog.

I love this splendid idea. Well done, high-tech dog !

風

大自然力量教人咋舌。

昨日在葵涌出現的颶風，風速竟高達135公里，超過了10號風球的威力，連重4公噸的貨櫃也被吹得東歪西倒。

Why are there only 13 root name servers in the world ?

Why are there only 13 root name servers?

According to the experts in Men and Mice, it's a technical limitation. UDP-based DNS messages can be up to 512 bytes long, and only 13 NS records and their corresponding A records will fit into a DNS message that size.

Hm... How can I do some simple testing to verify this fact ???

Antennas in notebook computer

With Wireless USB, and WWAN upcoming and all these devices will be integrated onto a notebook PC, how many antennas will there be and where are their positions ? I have a picture to show the answer.

GIMP for Windows

HKNET - the first ISP in Hong Kong to have IPv6 address space

According to IPv6 statistics of APNIC, HKNET is the first ISP in Hong Kong allocated with IPv6 address space. The address range is 2001:02E0::/32.

There are 7.92281625 × 10 ^ 28 addresses available. Assuming all 7 million people in HK subscribe to HKNET, each one will have up to 1.13183089 × 10 ^ 22 IPv6 addresses. Wooo.. these figures are quite astonishing.

Celebrating Firefox 50 million downloads

By looking at the picture below, you know today is the time to celebrate.

A big congratulation to Mozilla Foundation for having Firefox browser downloaded by 50 million users worldwide.

東隧狂加價

東隧瘋狂加價六成七 ，在今日正式生效。

在香港歷史上，從未有過公共事業加價一次過超過百份之三十，東隧這次加價幅度，破了香港有史以來所有紀錄。可悲的是我們的政府及六十位議員，完全沒有討價能力，任由市民被這一家無良企業宰割。

東隧可恥 ！