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The Blog
(Or the technical rantings of Steve) Click this link for a sane reason for the existance of this thing!

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24 Aug 2016
Number of attempts to hack my machine
Tue Aug 23 23:45:01 AEST 2016
Number of attempts to hack my machine more...

08 Jun 2015
Google we have to talk
Your interface language over the last 12 - 18 months stinks.
more...

28 Apr 2014
pfsense why it rocks!
If you need a firewall / router pfsense is a fantastic open source bit of kit check it out today!
more...

05 Jun 2013
More click frenzy
So click frenzy happend again and their site stayed up (probably due to the new Amazon back end) and that was it! Very little noise from the main stream media - in fact the only thing that happened is that the press stopped making noise. Which begs the question was Andy Warhol right, is bad publicity good publicity? more...

04 May 2013
clickfrenzy.com.au take 2!
clickfrenzy.com.au are at it again. Last year they crashed big time will it happen again? more...

28 Feb 2013
Gingercatsoftware now with nginx! Yum!
So at work we more or less excluslively use nginx. It is a great product and I like it - although it is a bit more involved to install than apache, which I still have a great respect for. more...

20 Sep 2011
Mac os X Lion first impressions
Well I bit the bullet the other day and went out and brought the usb install disk for Mac os X lion. more...

03 Aug 2011
Working with the ping script
I created a video that shows how to implement the network ping script.
more...

06 Jul 2011
Apple and the dead Xserve
If you have ever rung Dell as a business partner to purchase a server it is an amazing experience. more...

06 Nov 2010
Tcpdump file rotation and management
Wireshark has the ability to rotate and generate specific sized packet captures. All of this is very easily achieved via the GUI. Tcpdump also has this ability but it's not that well documented. more...

22 Aug 2010
A Quick Tutorial running Ntop on Snow Leopard
I installed ntop on Snow Leopard last night and it was a fairly painles process. Hear are my notes - a quick tutorial if you like. more...

26 Jun 2010
An alternative to the Internet Kill switch
With a certain amount of sadness I've just read this article.
Obama internet kill switch bill approved it is sad but it has got me thinking. more...

18 Jun 2010
Power supply causes click of death. Data not really lost!
It's strange in some ways how in built industrial obsolescence will some times hit you in the face!... more...

01 Jun 2010
Simple Network Ping Script
I've been wanting something like this for some time. So I sat down the other day and wrote it. A simple network ping script. more...

23 Jan 2010
I've been looking for this command for a while!
I've been looking for this command for a while! It will allow you to see size of directory on command line! more...

04 Dec 2009
Password Reset process on Mac os X
I found a Mac os X machine the other day that would not start up from a dvd more...

25 Sep 2009
A simple script for some basic web security
I often look thru my web logs and it's surprising what one finds. Things like strange web crawlers, strange browsers and browser versions, all sorts of quirky bits and bobs will have a ferret about your web server. more...

28 Aug 2009
Some os X unix scripts to share
A couple of unix scripts for Mac os X that I use which with any luck may be usefull for others! more...

15 May 2009
Some notes about bind and DNS
Just a few notes about setting up your own DNS server and how to not send yourself mad in the process. It's actually not that hard - just a little scarey! more...

05 May 2009
Rather large outage!
Sorry the site has been down and up again a bit over the last few day's and mail was not working! more...

28 Apr 2009
All about Twitter
This for me says it all about Twitter! more...

12 Apr 2009
What to do with Sun Microsystems!
There has been a whole lot of noise on the Internet lately about the sale of Sun Microsystems - it seems sad that this once dynamic company has become another dollar hemorrhaging Goliath that can not get it together! more...

19 Mar 2009
Cisco Vids
Just a few Cisco related links I have found usefull - enjoy! more...

17 Nov 2008
Cisco 3500 Startup with Tiki art!
Start up sequence of a cisco 3500 - this is running Topless do not do this to the switch at work - your boss will not like it!

more...

13 Nov 2008
Ntop It Just rocks on!
I have been using an amazing piece of software called Ntop for about 7 years now - it is one of the great open source products that every system admin person should know about ..... more...

25 Oct 2008
How to recover from a xorg.conf snafu!
So one of the few gripes with Linux that I have is the whole monitor / graphics management thing. It can go horidly wrong but if you have root, admin access (and another machine )you can recover from monitor hell! more...

22 Oct 2008
Shell script for basic web site health
It is always a good idea to look at ones web logs. I have a collection of a few simple grep commands etc that I like to run on them on occasion. I finaly put a few of them together. I hope someone finds this usefull! more...

10 Aug 2008
ifconfig -a
This is one command I for some reason always forget

ifconfig -a more...

08 Jun 2008
Some weird postfix stuff
I had some weird postfix stuff going on today and so I have written up the following notes more...

03 Jun 2008
New server among other things!
Well yet another crazy time for us at GCS as we have been upgrading our server! No longer are we waiting for our beloved old 500 Mgh machine to generate enough steam to send us a page or fire up the GUI! more...

19 Feb 2008
Just so you know! Yes the site went down...
About Friday last week bad disk mojo and 2 drives gone south .... Not good as the second drive also had my automated back up on it (I think it is time I invested in another power surge protector!)
more...

30 Oct 2006
How to get Novell Suse Linux running at 1400 by 900 on a MacBook Pro
I was pleasantly supprised when I purchased the APC October edition and and found that the Novell Suse linux (NSL) distro they gave away on their dvd worked very well under Parallels. I have previously mentioned that some distros are difficult to get running at 1400 by 900 (the native resolution on a mac book pro) but I managed to get this working without 2 much pain.
more...

03 Sep 2006
All sorts of things
It's been a full on month or so and I haven't written anything for a while (a common blog lament you may think!) .... more...

26 Jun 2006
Various Mysql Bits!
This is a collection of mysql commands that I sometimes need and more often than not forget! Typically you have just installed and need to fine tune. So finally hear they are in a list, with descriptions! more...

13 May 2006
A small script to open current folder in finder.
A small unix, shell script that is probably only going to work on mac os X. Use this to open the current folder in finder. Set it up say in a personal bin folder, add it to your path, chmod +x it and you can use it to open any folder you are in from the terminal. I'm sure this has probably been done before, but for what it's worth enjoy! more...

03 Apr 2006
Before you implement that CMS! (Content Management System)
It dawned upon me the other day that as a technician and developer I've built a number of sites with various CMS (some implemented 3rd party systems, some CMS I've built myself) and I've been doing this on and off for about the last 6 years or so. Recently I've looked at a lot of public domain CMS most of them free and based on php and mysql. Although their is a lot of interesting stuff out their no one product really stands out. Hence this article. more...

17 Mar 2006
Every Site needs cat picutres!
Yep every site needs pictures of your cats

more...

16 Feb 2006
Was this Bank being robbed?
The other day at work I got yet another bit of spam. It was reputedly from a well knowin Australian bank and it required the user to logon and re enter their details for "verification / audit" purposes! more...

04 Jan 2006
Php some random notes about magic quotes!
I was stonkered recently by the issue of magic_quotes_gpc. It is by default in php 5 no longer turned on and best practice would suggest that they should stay turned off! more...

23 Dec 2005
Etheral Tethereal and Tcpdump!
Before we start a disclaimer! Packet sniffing (looking at live or pre captured network traffic) is a fascinating process to be involved in BUT!! This article and implementing the information in it could lose you your job, get you arrested or have your ISP terminate your account or worse! more...

03 Dec 2005
What is this thing?
Well, after a number of years of building web based stuff and occasionally writing the odd thing about it (usually for other people) I got to the point where I decided that a technical blog would be a good idea. more...

02 Dec 2005
When working with mysql php etc remember these things !
It's always the attention to detail and degree of organisation that can be something that improves your productivity. Things such as making sure that php is pumping out the error log some where and that you can hook a terminal up to it to get to error messages live. more...

© 2006 Steve Abrahall