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Cover Story

84: Prevention is betterthan CureFrom the earliest of days, Man has learnt well to defend his assets. Prevention is better than cure. Enterprises are realizing that it's better to deploy a system that can detect as well as prevent intrusions rather than only detect one in progress and try to alert the responsible personnel. Perhaps the avenues of attack today are much wider and numerous compared to those available two years ago. This in turn has led to an explosion in the different types of vectors that deepen the intrusion. But what are they and why should they exist at all? What are the questions we need to ask ourselves before we go ahead and purchase and deploy one on our networks and systems? In this story we've answered these questions and also explored how to secure your OSs, both windows and Linux.

20: Technology20 22 24The Next Pentium 4 4G Fibre Channel IT in a Radio Station

100: Developer100 102 104 107 109A DataGrid for PHP Run Java Apps from SysTray Persistence Storage with EJB Authenticate with DNS Yahoo Search Web Services

40: Personal40 44 48 50 64 66 68 70Demystifying Win XP Errors Manage Meetings Online Send SMS from Outlook 2003 Take your File Server Online Recover Lost Mail Increase Life of your CDs/DVDs Create your Own DVD Menus Internet on SmartPhone

72: Linux72 73 76 77 78 81Turn any PC into a NAS Ghost for Linux Implementing Adamantix Virtual Machine for Linux Maia Mailguard Off-The-Record Messaging

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CONTENTS

JANUARY

Shootout of The Month

144: Live Rescue CDs 28: Enterprise28 32 34VPN on SUSE Linux E-learning with Moodle Create Datatypes for SQL Server

In Depth

Wild Wild Wireless

. . . . . .112

126: Products Reviewed126 128 130 137 138 139 140 141MS Operations Manager 2005 Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) SQL Base 9.0 ASUS WL-167G USB2.0 WLAN Adapter D-Link AirPlus G+ DI-624+ Router Hitachi Ultrastar 300 GB Hard Drive Canon Canoscan 3200F Scanner Book ReviewsHitachi Hard Drive

D-Link Router

'Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.' Probably Rousseau was clueless of the power of chain-free wireless when he coined this phrase.Indeed,so much has happened in the wireless world till date,and so much more is happening that very soon you might be living in a world that's completely free of wiresNo strings attached (literally!). The two biggest successes of modern day wireless technologies are Wireless LANs and cellphones.Then there is the WiMax technology for the last mile connectivity. The latest upgrade to the GPRS and CDMA is 3G, which is being implemented to scale up the bandwidth the other two offer. Personal connectivity is yet another area where wireless technologies are making a mark. Some technologies like wireless electricity and ZigBee, which may take a few years before becoming a reality.In the pages to follow, we have looked at the entire gamut of wireless technologies and the applications they promise to make possible.Cover Design : Bendi Vishan

PCQuest Power PackBelkin Wireless USB Print Server

PCQEssential

MS Windows anti spyware (Beta), SwisSQL-SQLone console1.9.6, etc

148: Extraedge148 153 156PCQ Events Product Launches Troubleshooting

DVD XTREME

Maya 6 PLE,Plan B, Hakin9,Win XP 64 Bit Edition,Apache2Traid

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Editor-in-Chief: Shyam Malhotra Chief Editor: Hoshie Ghaswalla Editor: Krishna Kumar Senior Sub Editor: Rinku Tyagi Sub Editor: Neha Shamshery CYBERMEDIA LABS Senior Manager: Anil Chopra Assistant Manager: Geetaj Channana Sr Reviewers: Anindya Roy,Anoop Mangla, Sanjay Majumder, Sujay V Sarma Reviewers: Ankit Kawatra, Sushil Oswal Reviews Assistant: Sukhsagar P Contributors: Shekhar Govindarajan,Vinod Unny, Kunal Dua DESIGN Assistant Manager, Design: Bendi Vishan Assistant Manager, DTP: Sudhir Kumar Arora PRINT & CIRCULATION SERVICES General Manager: NC George Reader Service: Ekta Sharma, Pooja Bharadwaj, Sarita Shridhar Pre-Press: T Srirengan, Jose PM, Alok Kumar Sharma Press: Rakesh Kumar Upadhayay MARKETING National Sales Manager: Naveen Chand Singh Product Manager: Ankur Shinghal Assistant Product Manager: Pramiti Bhargava, Sr Product Executive: Ajay Dhoundiyal Chief Controller of Finance: VC Gupta Manager Accounts: ML Sharma Commercial Manager: CP Kalra BANGALORE Bureau Head: Satish Gupta. Marketing: Mahantesh Godi, Ashish Kumar. 205, 2nd Floor, # 73, Shree Complex, St.Johns Road. Tel: 51238238, Fax: 51238750 KOLKATA Assistant Bureau Manager: Pranab Das. 203, Sarat Bose Road, 4th Floor, Near lake Road Crossing, Mob: 9433027970 CHENNAI Assistant Bureau Manager: Vinodh K. 5B, 6th Floor, Gemini Parsn Apartments, 599 Mount Road. Tel: 28221712, Fax: 28222092 MUMBAI Regional Manager: MA Jaideep. Marketing: Gopa Kumar VR, Sachin Mhashilkar. 32/33, Mittal Estate No 1, 1st Floor, Andheri-Kurla Road (Near Marol Naka), Andheri (East). Tel:28502661, Fax: 28514877 NEW DELHI Regional Manager: Sudhir Argula. D-74 Panchsheel Enclave. Tel: 26491320, Fax: 26496765 PUNE Marketing: Mihir Singh. Flat No 2, Rajat Apartments, Koregaon Park. Tel: 6113892, Fax: 6119313 SECUNDERABAD Assistant Bureau Manager: Amol Bahuguna. Room No 5 & 6, 1st Floor, Srinath Commercial Complex, SD Road. Tel: 27841970, Fax: 27898134 SINGAPORE Regional Manager: Naveen Barsainya. 32 Maxwell Road, # 03-14 White House. Tel: +6591070035 Printed and published by Pradeep Gupta on behalf of CyberMedia (India) Ltd, printed at Repro India Ltd, Plot No 50/2, T.T.C. MIDC, Industrial Area, Mahape, Navi Mumbai, India, published from D-74, Panchsheel Enclave, New Delhi. REGISTERED OFFICE D-74, Panchsheel Enclave, New Delhi. Tel: 26491320, Fax: 26496765 CORPORATE OFFICE Cyber House, B-35, Sector 32Institutional, Gurgaon, Haryana. Tel: 0124 (95124 from Delhi)-2384816, Fax: 2380694 OVERSEAS AGENTS Advertising/Sales in the US: Worldwide Sales Director: Emily G Ospensen, CMP Worldwide Media Networks, One Park Plaza # 700, Irvine, CA 92614. Tel: 949-223-3632, Fax: 949223-3690. eospenso@cmp.com, website: http://cmpworldwide.com. Distributors in India: Mirchandani & Co, Mumbai. All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission.

LEADING EDGEE D I T O R S P A G E

A Thousand Miracles a Day

KRISHNA KUMAR

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ecently, I visited the Regional Cancer Centre at Tiruvananthapuram. This government hospital, situated almost at the southern tip of the country sees patients not only from other states but also from Maldives, I am told.About a thousand people visit the hospital daily, in search of much needed succor.Like the geographical spread, the patients too come from all walks of life and all ages.Given the nature of illness, most have to come back again and again,sometimes for years. With this scale of operations, in a government establishment, you can expect the staff to be a muchharried lot and the quality of health care to be indifferent, if not poor. My experience, if anything, was the opposite. Sure, there are infrastructure limitations, the guards could be more polite! Still, it is a fairly efficiently run hospital,with the staff often going that extra step to help the patients. What is it that enables the staff to pull it off,day in and day out? Maybe the fact that they are able to get information about patients really fast.Helping them do that is a hospital information system developed by CDAC! Given the complexity and scale of the hospital's operations,the

application must be complex.As the case records are maintained in paper files, there should be an effective filing system too, at the back end. But what the staff sees is a simple GUI front end,where entering the patient registration number enables them to track the current status of any patient,carry out new patient registration, set up appointments, schedule surgeries or prepare bills and check patients out after surgery. Of course, they still need to use the phone, like when a particular case record is to be traced or has gone to the wrong department. There would be other problems with the app.But what matters is that just by typing in a registration number, the staff is able to direct thousands in their quest for succor. What matters is that they are not inundated with screen after screen of information, but just what is required then. I have seen many enterprise apps at work,analyzed many and even designed few myself. But this is the most beautiful enterprise app I have seen; it pulls off a thousand miracles a day,every day,speeding thousands on their way to care and recovery. It does that using a simple interface and by being to the point. And thats what most apps miss.

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TECH--TETEW I R E L E S S

The Wireless TangleBluetooth is popular for personal area networks today, but tomorrow, it could get squeezed between ZigBee and Wireless USBANIL CHOPRA

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here's so much noise around wireless today, that it has raised a problem that of choosing the right technology. In the near future, you might find several wireless technologies contending for the same space. The best example of this was GSM and CDMA. Remember the heated debates about which is better? GSM was well established when CDMA came along. Finally, both technologies ended up coexisting. The same is now happening in the short-range wireless technologies. Currently, there's only Bluetooth that's available. But two others are likely to make their way into our lives very soon.These are ZigBee and Wireless USB. Out of these, Wireless USB is targeting similar applications as Bluetooth, while ZigBee has a different market in question, though with a bit of overlap.So the question is what's in store for us in the future? Let's look at this in more detail. Today, Bluetooth is the technology of choice for personal area networks. Most mobile phones, PDAs, and notebooks come with Bluetooth built in. So you can connect your notebook to your cellphone or PDA via Bluetooth, sync them up or even

connect to the Internet. Another popular application of Bluetooth is the headsets for cellphones,which is a better alternative to the 'wired' hands-free devices.If you look at the official Bluetooth website (bluetooth.com),you'll find a huge listing of products for a variety of applications at home, office, audio/visual, medical, etc. This in effect means that Bluetooth is a well-established technology in the market. Wireless USB is expected sometime by the end of this year,and also promises to be ideal for personal area networks. Not only that, but it promises a whopping throughput of 480 Mbps between any two devices. Bluetooth's latest release, v2.0 EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) on the other hand, only offers up to 3 Mbps, which is fairly skimpy.Applications for Wireless USB overlap those for Bluetooth, eg home, office, gamers, and entertainment. In effect, Wireless USB will target the same devices that are today using the wired USB standard,which is a lot.Just think of its potential if all devices that have a wireless USB connection today were to replace it with a wireless USB one. Let's come to ZigBee.This one is positioning itself as a low data rate

wireless technology, which is interesting, considering that other technologies are moving the other way. The reason for this is ZigBee's target marketremote monitoring of lighting, heating, air-conditioning, etc of a home, office building or industry. This doesn't require high throughput as you only have to monitor ZigBee enabled sensors. Plus, ZigBee consumes less power, making it a perfect fit there. These sensors could run on batteries for years using ZigBee. While ZigBee's current target is sensors, it could very well enter other markets as well, such as PDAs, wireless headsets, etc, which are today Bluetooth's forte. So in effect, it might also end up playing in at least some of the markets that Bluetooth is already in. In essence, Bluetooth is being squeezed by Zigbee from the bottom and Wireless USB from the top. Though it's going to be safe in the near future, thanks to its huge existing market, it could end up in a tight spot two years from now. May be it should also consider other markets, which others haven't yet considered.

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MESSAGE BOARDW H A T Y O U H A V E T O S A Y

E-governance coverageI am in receipt of your February 2005 issue. I congratulate you for the coverage of such an important topic focusing on e-governance. In fact,many states in the country are now leap frogging towards the e-governance regime. RAVI KANT, IAS SPECIAL SECRETARY, DEPT OF IT, WEST BENGAL

With reference to your February 2005 issue, we highly appreciate the efforts made by you for the Cover Story on E-governance initiatives in the country. ADDL CHIEF ELECTORAL OFFICER HIMACHAL PRADESH Thank you for sending me a copy of the February 2005 issue of PCQuest. I have read the magazine and found the Cover Story contains useful information on effective E-governance. ANUJ SINHA SCIENTIST 'G' & HEAD MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Words of encouragement and appreciation also poured in from: Rajiv Bansal, IAS Commissioner & Secretary, Govt. of Nagaland A B Patki Scientist 'G' & HOD Ministry of Communication & IT Sudhir Kumar Resident Commissioner Govt of Karnataka

A K Chakravarti Advisor,Ministry of Communication & IT Dr Vinay K Dharmadhikari Scientist 'G' (e-Gov Assessment Division) Ministry of Communication & IT S P Sharma, IAS Financial Commissioner & Principal Secretary Govt of Haryana

Dare to shareHumble thanks for appreciating the forum members by announcing the top posters every month. Let's keep moving forward together.As G B Shaw said, if you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange them then both will still have one apple each. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. Null_Bit

I thank you for sending me a copy of your February issue. I appreciate your effort to cover such an important issue as the Cover Story, Strategic Framework for E-Governance. It is definitely of great use and utility for senior government officials working in this field. S K NANDA, IAS PRINCIPAL SECRETARY, GOVT OF GUJARAT Received your February 2005 issue.Your magazine has a good standard and it was a pleasure going through it. ALOK MITTAL, IPS CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Online SubscriptionWill subscribing to the online version of PCQuest enable me to participate in the contests? PRADEEPBM PCQuest: Currently, contests, Buzz, Insight and other extras are purely offline. That is, they do not appear in the online version of the magazine. If the contest asks for a specific printed form to be filled up, then that form (usually from the magazine) has to be filled up. Otherwise, it is open to all.

Erroris it?I think the article Your own Forum (page 60,

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message board april 2005.qxd

4/6/2005

11:01 AM

Page 18

INTERVIEW W H A T

Y O U

H A V E

T O

S A Y

1. Refer to the Product y hear an Thumbs up! Launches section,page ou don't for the son y The cover design 147, March 2005. The The rea r criticism t o Ques of the March issue price for DRU720A praises nd design in PC ful. sa wonder was very nice.But DVD burner is misgraphic o hey are se t ure t is becau it's human nat rewhy change the quoted as Rs 6,500. w ut You kno mething bad b color of flag of PCThe correct price of is so what criticize QLinux 2005. In the burner is Rs 5,500. praising ked for. om frain fr ss explicitly as the Contents page, 2. Refer to Enterprise ole lly d good, un g heroes are rea sk. you could also WAN Routers (Rede un The uns job at the design have given what's view), page 141. The at ing a gre g! there on which key specs for the in Good go JOSHI page number DXMP 2692 router are A DINESH for the cover story. printed incorrectly in PCQuest: We appreciMarch You could also have told us ate all the feedback.We the table. The Firewall 2005, PCQuest) has some why the name 'Project hope to cover whatever was row for this router should read as 'Yes' errors. When you install White Hope'. Install missing in that story in the while the Processor the file phpBB-2.0- screenshots were fine.You coming months. Priority could also have given min- would be given to things row should read as 11.i386.rpm, it gets inimum specs required for like getting your system up '266 MHz'. stalled into /var/www/ PCQLinux 2005,at least for (if there's a problem), fixhtml/. The article goes on to say that point your some installations and the ing things and other such time I bought PCQuest browser to http://local- space required for full in- important issues. Then we myself. I find the recent ishost/phpBB2/install/mod stallation for different would get down to other as- sues more youthful. _table_inst.php but I types. Playing games op- pects. As for the change in GOKUL think doing so will make tion during install was the color of the flag, it was PCQuest: Thanks a lot Apache to search in cool, but I would never deliberate and not a miswant to play games during take. Same goes for the for the appreciation. As for /usr/local/apache2/htdocs...So we might get the install! List of the main color of the CDs. It is kept our chemistry with red and error 'phpBB2 not found' packages under various same to render a distinct yellow goes, these are the while testing the forum on groups could have been identity to the distro CDs. two colors that have our computer. Is there helpful. adorned the PCQuest logo some configuration that All the articles in the Add more color ever since its birth.So we do the article missed out? cover story were good. Somehow PCQuest has have something special atRAGHU83 Keep it up and provide an amazing chemistry tached to these colors. Othmore such articles. Addi- with red and yellow. You erwise we do bring in other PCQuest: It seems you tion of CRM,help desk,ph- must get rid of this. The colors as well. are running Apache com- pBB and Wiki to the distro graphics and design layout The questions in this section piled from sources or a non- is good too.You could have has come a long way since Note :been taken from http://forums. have PCQLinux RPM. The provided some more arti- September 2002, the first pcquest.com article assumes that you are setting up phpBB on the HAVE COMMENTS ON THE MAGAZINE? Apache Web server inPost them at http://forums.pcquest.com stalled via the httpd RPM

Che e

n rs desi g

found on the PCQLinux 2005 CD.

cles for the newbies as the articles carried were very good for those who already knew PCQLinux or had previously installed the earlier version. I hope many more articles for newbies will follow in your future issues. Why did the color and look of PCQLinux 2005 CDs look almost similar to PCQLinux 2004? VASU

ERRATA

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TECHNOLOGYE M E R G I N G T E C H N O L O G I E S E X P L A I N E D

The Next Pentium 4With the new 6xx series, Intel joins the 64-bit-to-the-desktop bandwagon, and also introduces several key features like 2 MB L2 cache, SpeedStep, and XD

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he heat is on again in the processor war,and this time its not clock speed, but many other factors.After AMD went out with its 64-bit to the desktop campaign,its now Intels turnand the answer seems to be the 6xx series of P4 processors. The key features built in to these processors include a 64-bit extension called EM64T (Extended Memory 64 Technology), SpeedStep and XD (eXecute Disable) technologies. There are five processors in the series (see table) with the highest end one known as the Extreme Edition. With EM64T, Intel has also entered the 64-bit race with AMD. Like AMDs offering,this one can also run 32-bit applications on a 64-bit OS. Plus, it can also run in pure 64-bit mode where it will run 64-bit applications on a 64-bit OS.So for all practical purposes, its very similar to AMDs offering in the 64-bit space, and is therefore expected to work on the 64-bit OS versions from Mi-

crosoft, RedHat and Suse. One good thing is that it retains backward compatibility with Socket 775, meaning these processors will work on the 915 and 925 chipset-based boards.Moreover,L2 cache has been given a boost in the new processors to 2 MB,which is supposed to translate into much better performance. SpeedStep is not a new technology,as its been around in Intels mobile processor versions for notebooks. Now, its also been introduced in the desktop P4 processors. Here,the processor will step down to a lower clock speed when lying idle, thereby reducing the power consumption. The moment the CPU utilization increases, the CPU raises the clock speed back to the maximum.This also helps in lowering the heat generated by the procesor. XD is Intels initiative towards building security in the hardware to combat the growing security threats like virus attacks.This feature helps control buffer overflows, the most comFrequency (GHz) 3.73 3.6 3.4 3.2 3 with the 90 nm process.

Direct Hit!Applies to: Desktop users USP: Understand the four key features in the latest line of P4s from Intel Links: www.intel.com/technology/ 64bitextensions

P4 64-bit processors specsP4 Processor Front Side Bus (MHz) Extreme Edition 1066 660 800 650 800 640 800 630 800 Note: all processors have L2 cache and are manufactured

mon technique used by security threats.XD creates a separate memory area in RAM for program execution and the data (data storage area) related to it. If some malicious program tries to access and modify data in this storage area, the processor prevents it from executing. This technology will prevent malicious programs from snooping into unused portions of the memory. You, however, would still need an antivirus tool or anti spyware to protect from regular malware.AMD also has a similar technology in its 64-bit processors, known as Enhanced Virus Protection.With the new P4 series,Intel has also joined the 64-bit race to the desktop with AMD.Add to that Microsofts Windows XP 64-bit edition RC2, which is available for download (360 days trial version) and you just might see a shift to 64bit to the desktop sooner than you can imagine.Sushil Oswal

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TECHNOLOGY E X P L A I N E D

4G Fibre Channel1G and 2G storage networks will be replaced by 4G in the near future.We present its roadmap along with the pros and cons

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urrent technology used in Fibre Channel SANs is the 2G technology, which allows the maximum throughputs of up to 2 Gbps. However, as demand for bandwidth-intensive applications such as CAD/CAM, real-time computing, data warehousing and video streaming grows this speed will be insufficient and would need to be increased. Thats where 4G comes into the picture, which doubles the maximum throughput to 4 Gbps. The new spec for 4G was approved by FCIA (Fibre Channel Industry Association) in 2003 and is widely supported by most connectivity vendors today. Originally, the spec sought to deal with internal connectivityconnecting disk drives to the server. Later it was decided to extend it for interconnecting the switching Fabric in SANs. This basically includes the Fibre Channel switches, which intelligently manage the interconnectivity amongst various devices and nodes in a SAN. The 4G techFibre-channel speed roadmapStandard 1G FC 2G FC 4G FC 8G FC 16G FC 32G FC 64G FC 128G FC Standard approved 1996 2000 2003 2003 (2006) * (2009) * (2012) * (2016) *

nology maintains backward compatibility with both the older specs (1G and 2G). It also supports the loop architecture common to both of them. Enterprises can incrementally upgrade their systems to 4G. The technology will reduce the number of connections between storage systems and computers besides improving the throughput.

Direct Hit!Applies to: Network and storage administrators USP: 4G will emerge as a new spec that will double the speed for faster connectivity Links: www.fibrechannel.org

Products4G products will start coming in towards the end of this year. Cisco has plans to launch the MSD 9000 family products, PMC-Sierra is set to launch switches. Emulex has its HBAs and embedded storage switches already in testing. Broadcom has launched the BCM 8421 repeater for 4G switches and storage arrays.

backups and data recovery can be performed. Scientists and engineers who need to access large amounts of data to solve complex problems, with 4G, they will now be able to do so in lesser time.High quality graphics such as animated movies can be produced in lesser time. 4G technology will also offer reliable transmission of digital audio/video applications.

AdoptionAt the moment, enterprises are not taking full advantage of existing 1 Gbps and 2 Gbps Fibre-Channel speed. Fibre Channel is expensive to set up for small enterprises and iSCSI is an alternative solution, but iSCSI is not as fast as Fibre Channel. It is expected that vendors will offer 4 Gbps-based products at the same price levels as current for 2 Gbps, which will attract implementations. The 4G networks will gradually replace 2G in the same manner as 2G replaced 1G.Sushil Oswal

ApplicationsEnterprise with high performance computing needs will find the technology useful. FasterThroughput (Mbps) Line rate (Gbaud) 200 1.065 400 2.125 800 4.25 1,600 8.5 3200 17 6400 34 12800 68 25600 136

Market availability 1997 2001 2005 2005 (2008) * (2011) * Market demand Market demand

* expected time frame

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TECHNOLOGY E X P L A I N E D

IT in a Radio StationWhich hardware, software and technologies are used in a modern FM radio station? And how?

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hink of radio, and what comes to your mind are huge transmission towers, radio receiver sets and people talking or singing into the microphones. Well, a modern radio station, especially an FM station, is run almost completely by computers. In fact, a single person can quite easily run an entire FM station.PCQuest got an insight into the functioning of one of India's popular FM stations and here's what we found.

The hardwareThere is some hardware that you just cannot avoid having around, these include traditional power,amplification and transmission equipment. In addition, our modern day radio station is operationally run out of a mini data center. For reasons of quality and sheer speed required, these mini data centers are located on the campus, in a room very close to the RJ-booth (what that is, we'll come to know in just a moment).Inside this data center, we have rackmounted servers that aren't too different from the ones running a corporate network or Web,and other servers on the Web. Servers purchased for radio (or even some forms of video) broadcasting must have two things in plentystorage capacity and I/O speed. When we store music on our PCs,we can afford to use VBR or CBR encoding, even with lossy compres-

sion techniques. However, this is a strict no-no for a media station. They need to have the highest possible quality,while the size of the file is immaterial.This means you need to have huge storage capacities in the range of gigabytes or even terabytes. The radio station we visited had two dual-processor servers with a shared NAS box.The two servers had been arranged as fail-over 'cluster' for each other. Some stations have a different number of these servers and storage equipmentAll India Radio for instance, uses six servers in a cluster. In the radio station we visited,the NAS box had five 100 GB hard disks in a RAID-5 configuration, giving 400 GB of usable capacity.The external storage box enables the storage to be completely independent of the rest of the server system.That is,if the server crashes you can always use the NAS box contents from another server. Typically, this configuration allows the storage of around 6,000 hours of high quality music.

Direct Hit!Applies to: Everyone USP: Runs through the technology needed to run an FM station

servers and the desktopsServer 2003 and XP Professional respectively. The RCS software is rather largish and runs on atleast two systems one is an administrative console and the other is accessible and operable from the RJ booth.The station's Programs Director generally administers the RCS programming. The RJs then use the features of the system from their broadcast center (the RJ booth) to manage various events, such as gather further information on what's being played, look at and respond to messages from listeners and callers, and so on. This software is clearly meant for the non-techies with an intuitive interface which is easy to learn to operate, if you've been around even a graphical media player program.

The softwareYou can choose any OS to run your servers,but just ensure that the OS must be compatible with the software used in the radio station. The radio station we visited uses the popular RCS (Radio Computing Service) software, which is a Windowsbased system. Accordingly, Windows is deployed on both the

The RJ boothThis is a completely sound-proof studio, which neither lets sound from the inside go out nor external sound to seep in. Acoustic padding and sound-proof glass are used in its construction.Then the booth has the radio mixer controlsa large electronic pad with sliders, knobs and switches to mix various channels,fine-tune the frequencies being

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TECHNOLOGY E X P L A I N E D

broadcast and buttons to turn the transmission ON or OFF.The RJ has atleast three PCs around him. One screen gives him access to the RCS interface to see and control whats on air.The second monitor displays incoming calls and messages from listeners. All the SMSs and e-mail we send them as feedback appear here. The third monitor is provided for convenience for the RJ to look up information on the Web or search other archived material. For example, to check for historical information on a particular music and use that in his talk.

than play these emergency programming. You will be amazed to know that most private radio stations are actually empty of its employees by 5 pm and everything you hear after that till 9 am the next day, is handled completely by the computer systems in placenow,that's what we call IT. What they do is create these CDs with emergency programming song bits, jingles and so onand this can be inserted into a special slot if something goes wrong.

PerksLive transmission is piped through the entire station, enabling the employees to both enjoy and monitor what's going over the air. Heads of both the programming and sales are required to keep track of what's being aired and if it's according to preset scheduling.For the purpose of monitoring, they use FM-enabled cellular phones (the Nokia 6610 seems to be a preferred choice).

Other systemsA radio stations systems are not just concerned with transmission of music.Since it is also a form of business, the sales teams must keep track of what people liked, what the advertising was and how much they earned. For all this, traditional accounting and spreadsheet software are used, although specialist software can be deployed.The RCS itself has a module (RCSLinker) to schedule and broadcast advertising and interstitials.

You can run one tooIt's not that you need to employ a lot of capital to run an FM station. Interesting projects such as the 'community radio' exist where communities of people can use low power transmitters to reach out and communicate with each other. Also it is very cheap to run an Internet radio, using free software available (check out GNU Radio from http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/). In fact, you have a plethora of software available nowReal Media Server, Shout Cast, Windows Media Server to name a fewsome free and some costing money. The only limitation is bandwidth.Sujay V Sarma

FailsafeIn case of a failure the RCS automatically play fillers till regular programming can go back live. Most of the time even a regular listener wouldn't be able to make out the difference.This is all pre-programmed into the system and sometimes even sponsored! Backups can exist for power (in the form of a UPS or a generator system), and redundant servers for server hardware. However, if a file gets corrupted or something in the network backbone breaks down, or there is a temporary software error, little can be done to offset downtime

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ENTERPRISEI M P L E M E N T A T I O N O F S O L U T I O N S

VPN on SUSE LinuxSUSE makes it easy to configure an IPSec VPN server, though the Windows client configuration gets a bit trickier

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n December 2004 (VPN for Roaming Clients, page 46), we looked at configuring a VPN server for roaming clients,using ISA Server 2004. This time we will see how to configure a VPN server on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. A VPN server lets remote users connect to the company's local network, securely, over the insecure Internet. The setup consists of a SUSE Linux machine sitting between the Internet and the company's local network. The VPN server running on the SUSE machine will accept clients' VPN connection requests and after authentication, will grant them secure access to the local net-

work. SUSE Linux uses the open source FreeS/WAN software for the VPN server, which uses the IPSec protocol for building secure tunnels through un-trusted networks, such as the Internet. However, SUSE provides a user-friendly GUI for configuring the VPN server, unlike other Linux distributions, which make you work with a command line interface.So,let's see how to configure the VPN server.

Direct Hit!Applies to: Enterprises USP: Set up a VPN server on Linux with ease Links: http://vpn.ebootis.de, www.freeswan.org On PCQEssential CD: systems\labs\ipsec

Create a certificate

Open the YaST Control Center, go to Security and Users on the left pane and open the CA Management module. In the CA Management module, create a new CA (Certification Authority) or enter an existing CA. Now click on the Certificates button, which will take you to the Certificates window. Click on the Add button and select 'Add Server Certificate'.A new window opens; Give the IP address of the interface that will listen give a Common for VPN connections and the subnet of the local Name for the cernetwork, that will be made available to VPN clients

tificate, which should be the domain name of the VPN server, and click on Next. On the next screen give a password for the certificate and click on Next.And finally click on Create.After the certificate is created it will be shown in the Certificates window. Select the certificate, click on the Export button and select Export to File. In the Export Format select the last option, give the certificate password, give a file name, with a P12 extension, and finally click on OK to create the certificate.

Import the Server Certificate to the VPN serverOpen the YaST Control Center,go to Security and Users and open the VPN module. Here, enable VPN and click on Certificates. On the next window, click on the Import button and select the certificate that you

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had exported earlier.Give the certificate password and it will be imported. Click on Next.

Copy this file to your Windows client machines that have to create the VPN connection to the server.

Set up the VPN server connectionClick on Connections in the VPN module and then on Add. On the Connection Type, select 'Server for Road Warriors' and click on Next. Then enter the external IP address of the server in the Local IP address text box. Check the 'Act as Gateway' option, give the network address which has to be made available to the VPN clients and click on Next. The network can be specified as, say, 192.168.3.0/24. On the next screen, accept the default settings and click on OK. This will set up the VPN server to start accepting VPN connection requests from the clients.

Create a client certificate for VPN usersProcedure for this is similar to that of creating server certificates,as described above.Copy the client certificate file to the Windows client machines.

tificate file and click on Next. Give the password for the certificate file, and click on Next.On the 'Certificate Store' page,select the Automatic option and click on Next.Then click on Finish. This will add the certificate on the client machine.

Install IPSec utilitiesTo connect to an IPSec VPN server, you need the ipseccmd.exe and ipsecpol.exe programs on Win XP and 2000, respectively. To install them,install the support tools,found in the support\tools directory of your Windows installation CD.Once this is done, the required programs will be installed on your system but these are command line-based tools and not easy to configure. So, you will need a more program called ipsec.exe, (on this month's PCQEssential CD or can be downloaded from http://vpn.ebootis.de /package.zip). Uncompress the file into a folder and copy the VPN client configuration file to this folder.Make sure to rename the file to ipsec.conf. If a file with the same name exists in the folder, delete the existing file.

Import the certificate to Windows client machinesOpen the MMC on the Windows client machine. Then click on File, Add/Remove Snap-in. A dialog box opens up, click on Add. On the next dialog box select Certificates and click on Add. This will open a configuration wizard, select 'Computer Account' and click on Next. Now select 'Local Computer' and click on Add.Next click on Close and then on OK. The certificate snap-in will be added to the MMC.Open the Certificates directory, right click on Personal and select 'All Tasks' and select Import.The Certificate Import Wizard opens up; click on Next. On the next page, browse to the client cer-

Export the VPN client configuration fileOn the VPN Connection window, select the VPN connection that we just created and click on Expert and select Export.Select Windows in the dialogo box and give the file name and path for the configuration file.

Establishing the connection and testing itNow execute the ipsec.exe file. It will give you some details about the VPN connection and the connection will get established. To check the connection, ping any machine, which is on the company's local network. The message, Negotiating IP Security, appears once or twice after which the normal ping response starts coming. Now you can access the servers, which are residing in your local network.Anoop Mangla

The ipsec.exe program, after execution, gives the details about the VPN connection

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E-learning with MoodleCreate, configure and maintain your e-learning site with ease using this free e-Learning softwareMoodle is an elearning system Moodle and is also rePART I ferred to as CMS (Course Management System).This software package is designed to help educators create online courses. Such e-learning systems are sometimes also called LMS (Learning Management Systems) or VLE (Virtual Learning Environments). Moodle is an open-source software, available free for download at www.moodle.org. Since its an open-source project, you can modify and distribute it (under the terms of the GNU General Public License).Moodle can be run on various OSs, which include UNIX, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, NetWare and any other system that supports PHP. We tried this out on

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a Win XP as well as Win 2K3 Server machines. As far as Moodle's data storage requirement is concerned, it requires only a single database to store its data.You can use MySQL or PostgreSQL since they are easier to use, but there are other databases too that can be used,such as Oracle, Access, Interbase and ODBC. Moodle supports 50 language packs including Thai, Turkish and German, Arabic. Moodle requires PHP and MySQL to be installed on your system. Incase you do not have these installed, the easier option is to go in for EasyPHP.This all-in-one software includes PHP, Apache and MySQL.After installing it you need to configure it. (You can download EasyPHP from the link: http://www .easyphp.org/) Moodle requires

Direct Hit!Applies to: Educational institutions USP: Set up an e-learning site on a Windows machine using Moodle Links: www.moodle.org

php_gd2 extension to be enabled in PHP, else it will give an error. To enable php_gd2, right click on EasyPHP from your system tray and select configuration>Extensions PHP. This will show you the list of extensions available on PHP. Here, tick the php_gd2 checkbox and click on OK. You need to increase the memory limit of PHP so that Moodle can be run. To do this, right click on EasyPHP icon in the system tray and select PHP.ini. This will show up a text file depicting the configuration of PHP. Here, search the

Moodle installion happens through a Web browser, and is wizard driven. Usually the default settings work fine

Moodle requires PHP and MySQL to function. In PHP, you have to enable the php_gd2 extension

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Installing MoodleInstalling Mo- odle isn't very difficult. In fact not only installing, but making and maintaining your e-learning site also becomes very easy with Moodle. Its user-friendly interface makes adding a forum, changing lanmoodles admin interface is quite user friendly guages, adding topics and writing news very and makes it very convenient to add news, convenient. Lets now menus, courses and change languages set up Moodle. memory limit and set it to 16 MB. Once you have downloaded and Save the file and restart EasyPHP extracted the Moodle folder, then copy the entire folder to your from the system tray. apaches www folder. Now you just Creating Moodle database need to open a Web browser and Once you have saved this then type-in http://127.0.0.1/moodle you have to create a database in (127.0.0.1 will be replaced by the IP MySQL so that Moodle can store the address of your machine). It will open a configuration indata in it. For this right click on EasyPHP icon from the system tray terface. Moodle automatically deand select configuration>Php- tects the configura tion, which is MyAdmin. This will open a Web necessary and will lead you through browser showing the page for some screens to help you create a MySQL administration. Here, in the new configuration file called concreate databasetext box type-in the fig.php. You dont have to worry new database name, 'moodle' and much about the configuration as the click on Create. Once you have cre- defaults generally work fine and as ated the database then you have to it is you can come back to the concreate user for the MySQL database, figuration page later. At the end of so that Moodle can access the data- the process Moodle will write the base. file into the right location. For this,select database 'moodle' Once the basic config.php has from the database list and click on been correctly created and stored, 'SQL' link from this page.You will see Moodle will take you to the admina text box to write SQL statements. istration page where you can take Here give the SQL statement as given care of the rest of the configuration below and click on the Go button. and add the links, pictures, news and other details. We'll talk about GRANT how to create an e-learning system SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREusing Moodle in the next part of this ATE,DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.* series.TO moodleuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

Ankit Kawatra and Sanjay Majumder

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Create datatypes for SQL ServerIntegrate the .NET functionality within SQL Server to create custom datatypesWe've been exploring the usefulness SQL Server 2005 of one of the best PART IV features of the upcoming version of SQL Server 2005 codenamed 'Yukon'.We've seen how you can create UDIs (User Defined Functions), Stored Procedures and Aggregates, using your favorite .NET language within the SQL Server database engine itself. This month we conclude this mini-series with a look at creating and using your own custom data types for SQL Server 2005 using .NET. Custom datatypes are useful when you want to store certain information as atomic objects instead of as individual fields. For instance, in an Employee database, the Address fields are usually stored as Address 1, Address 2, City, State, PIN and Country. This is because the

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database has no datatype object that can store all these fields together logically, since the datatypes in databases are always primitive types like numbers, dates and strings. To get around this limitation you can create UDTs (User Defined Types). This has always been possible, though, difficult to perform in SQL Server.With .NET 2.0 now built into the engine, this has now become almost trivial. Let's see what you need to do to get this working. Open up VS.NET 2005 and create a new SQL Server Project. Now right click on the project and select Add>User-Defined Type. Give the new name as ContactInfo and press OK when prompted. VS creates a new template UDT with the given name and some properties already created for you. However, we will add a set of new properties to store certain contact information such as Address, City, Mobile and Email in it. The code below shows the complete set. This defines a new .NET class with the properties that we want in The new type appears in the Data Type dropdown our datatype. Remember you when adding a new field

Direct Hit!Applies to: Developers, DBAs USP: Create complex datatypes to store multiple fields logically Links: http://msdn.microsoft.com

can even add methods into the class if you wish.Imports System Imports System.Data.Sql Imports System.Data.SqlTypes _ _ Public Class ContactInfo Implements INullable Private m_isNull As Boolean Private m_Address1 As String Private m_Address2 As String Private m_City As String Private m_Mobile As String Private m_Email As String [Template Properties and Methods] Public Property Address1() As String Get Return m_Address1 End Get Set(ByVal value As String) m_Address1 = value End Set End Property

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Public Property Address2() As String Get Return m_Address2 End Get Set(ByVal value As String) m_Address2 = value End Set End Property Public Property City() As String Get Return m_City End Get Set(ByVal value As String) m_City = value End Set End Property Public Property Mobile() As String Get Return m_Mobile End Get Set(ByVal value As String) m_Mobile = value End Set End Property Public Property Email() As String Get Return m_Email

End Get Set(ByVal value As String) m_Email = value End Set End Property End Class

ID INT NOT NULL, sName VARCHAR(75) NOT NULL, ciContact ContactInfo, sCompany VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL )

Now compile the project to get the binary .NET DLL. Open up the SQL Server 2005 Management Studio, connect to the server you want and then open the database into which you wish to add the new datatype.Open a query window and enter the following.CREATE TYPE ContactInfo EXTERNAL NAME SQLCLR.[SQLCLR.ContactInfo]

Now insert some values into the new table (and especially the field using the new datatype) like this.DECLARE @ci ContactInfo SET @ci.Address1 = 'MyAddr1' SET @ci.Address2 = 'MyAddr2' SET @ci.City = 'Gurgaon' SET @ci.Mobile = '9810098100' SET @ci.Email = 'vinod@enterpriseinfotech.com'

When you execute the statement, the new datatype gets registered into the SQL Server database engine.You can now use this type as you would any other type. For instance, let's create a new table in both graphical and script mode.In the database you added the type, open the Tables folder and right click to select New Table. In this add a new column and click on the Data Type dropdown. At the end of the list you will see the datatype you just added. To add it using SQL statements, create a table using the following.CREATE TABLE Contacts (

You can also query from the table and the field like this.SELECT sName, ciContact.Address1, ciContact.Address2, ciContact.City, ciContact.Mobile, ciContact.Email FROM Contacts

As you can see, adding a new datatype that logically groups information is quite easy using .NET. Since the type now works within the SQL Server itself, it acts like any ordinary type and you can continue to use all the SQL functionality you are familiar with on this type as well. We will cover some new features and XML integration in SQL Server 2005 in the coming issues.Vinod Unny Enterprise InfoTech

You can query on the individual properties of the type you created in SQL easily

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Demystifying Win XP ErrorsSome common problems you face, with their causes and solutions

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ou must have come across many errors/problems while working in Win XP. While these errors look very critical, they are actually not. Lets see some of these problems and how you can resolve them.

Missing NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM not found Cause: Occurs if you havent shutdown the OS properly, and for some reason the NTLDR and NTDETECT files get corrupted. Solution: If you have a FAT partitioned C drive, boot your system with a Win 98 bootable floppy.Using a Win XP CD to copy the files, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the i386 folder to C:\. If you have an NTFS partition on C drive, boot the system with the Win XP CD. From the installer press R to repair,the installer will give a list of all detected Windows on your system. Press the number shown in the list corresponding to correct installed path. Enter the administrator password when asked. You will get a command prompt and issue:C:\> copy d:\i386\NTLDR c:\ C:\> copy d:\i386\NTDETECT.COM c:\ (d: will be replaced by the actual CD drive letter)

Corrupted or missing \Windows\System32\config Cause: You face this problem when any device driver or a software component gets corrupted. Solution: Boot the system with the Win XP CD.The XP installer will prompt to repair the OS. Press R for it, and then select Correct Windows Installed path. Then, give the administrator username and password as asked. At the command prompt, issue the following:

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Direct Hit!Applies to: Windows XP users USP: Troubleshooting common Windows XP problems Links: http://support.microsoft.com/, http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Tips_Page.htm

mand prompt. Here, issue:C:\> del c:\windows\system32\config\sam C:\> del c:\windows\system32\config\securirty C:\> del c:\windows\system32\config\default C:\> del c:\windows\system32\config\software C:\> del c:\windows\system32\config\system C:\> copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config C:\> copy c:\windows\repair\securirty c:\windows\system32\config C:\> copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config C:\> copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config C:\> copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config C:\> md tmp C:\> exit

C:\> cd \windows\system32\config C:\> ren software software.bad C:\> copy \windows\repair\software C:\> ren system system.bad C:\> copy \windows\repair\system

You get the blue crash screen and your system gets rebooted. You want to restore the machine to the last working state Cause: Happens when Win XP system files gets corrupted due to reasons such as corrupted system files, virus attack and mis-configuration of device drives. Solution: Boot using the Win XP Installation CD and select the option to repair (press R).You will be asked to enter the administrative password for the selected Win version.Give the password and you will get a com-

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The 'exit' command in the end will reboot your machine. This time

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Win XP should boot properly with the default settings. Now open explorer window and from its file menu, select Tools>Folder. It will open a 'Folder option' window.Here, select the View tab and change a few 'Advanced Settings'. Under 'Hidden File and Folder' set 'Show hidden files and folders', then uncheck the 'Hidden protected operating system files (Recommended)' check box and click on the OK button. Then open 'Local Drive C:' and you will find a hidden folder called 'Systems Volume Information'.Right click on it and select Properties from the context menu. Here select Security tab and then add the 'administrator' user. Now from the Windows explorer, open the path 'C:\SystemVolumeInformation\_restore {55706CDF-B36E-40D0BEEC-BE01 ED443C11}\RP1\snapshot'(the '_ restore' string within the braces might be slightly different for you). From here,copy the following files to 'C:\windows\ temp'. _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT _REGISTRY_MACHINE_ SOFTWARE Rename these files to Sam,Security,System,default and software respectively. After this, reboot your machine from the CD and get in to the 'Recovery Console' as before. Then issue the command that follows.C:\> copy c:\winows\ temp\* c:\win-

dows\system32\ config

Now, boot your machine from the hard drive, you will receive all your existing Windows settings. Then from the Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools click on SystemRestote. This will open a wizard. Click on Next and you will get a Calendar showing all the restore point dates. Select the data before your system had crashed and click on Next and then on Finish. 'This system is going to shut down, save all information. This shutdown was initiated by NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM ...must restart because the remote procedure call (RPC)service terminated unexpectedly.' Cause: This happens due to a virus attack such as blaster or if the RPC service gets terminated due to certain reasons. Solution: Run anti-virus software on your machine and check for any blaster worm. If found, run a blaster patch, which basically turns on the Windows firewall. Still if you face the same problem,then it might be due to some other programs that are terminating the RPC service. You can solve this by setting a parameter in the RPC service. Go to the Control Panel>Administrative Tools and click on Services. Now, from the list of services find RPC (Remote Procedure Call). Double click on this service and you will get RPC properties sheet. In the RPC properties sheet click on the Recovery tab and set the first, second and subsequent failure parameters to 'restart the Service' and

click on OK.Reboot the machine and you will never receive RPC error again. 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ AUTOEXEC.NT". The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications.ChooseCloseto terminate the application.' Cause:You may get such an error message when you run any 16-bit Windows or MS-DOS program.This is due to the corruption of 'AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT' file. These files generally get tampered by trojan infection. Solution: Run an anti virus on your machine and remove all trojans. Then issue the following commands.

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C:\> copy c:\windows\repair\autoexec.nt c:\windows\system32 C:\> copy c:\windows\repair\config.nt c:\windows\system32

HAL.DLL missing/corrupt Cause: It occurs due to corruption of the BOOT.INI file. Solution: Boot your machine with the Win XP installer.During the set up you will be asked to repair the existing Windows installation.Press R and you will get a list of the installed versions of Windows. Select one that you want to repair. Then issue the following commands.

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C:\> bootcfg /list C:\> bootcfg /rebuild C:\> exit

Now, reboot your machine and find your system up and running.Sanjay Majumder

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Manage Meetings OnlineWith SharePoint and Outlook 2003, you can not only schedule meetings, but also share meeting documents and other related information online

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rganizing a meeting over the phone can be quite cumbersome. Person not on the seat,not free on the day of the meeting, or not agreeing with the agenda are just a few problems you may face.Here's a quick way of managing your meetings by using a SharePoint server and Outlook 2003 e-mail client for users. SharePoint is available in two versions,SharePoint

Portal Server and SharePoint Services, where latter is a part of Windows Server 2003 and can be downloaded from Microsoft's website.Its also available with some versions of MS Office 2003. We've covered the installation procedure for SharePoint in our December 2003 (Basic Groupware, page 33) issue. Alternately, you can check http://www.pcquest.com/content/

Direct Hit!Applies to: Workgroups and teams USP: Send meeting requests via Outlook 2003 and share meeting agenda, objectives, critical decisions and attendees list on a SharePoint server Links: http://office.microsoft.com/enus/FX011204871033.aspx

topstories/smes/103120216.asp. Here we explain how to use them.

Open Outlook 2003 calendar and go to the date on which you plan to fix a meeting. Right click and select 'New Meeting Request'

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On the new meeting window, select people you want to invite. Give the subject, location and time for the meeting and click on 'Meeting Workspace'

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A 'Meeting Workspace' side bar opens up. Click on the Create button here

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Select 'Other' and give the server name or IP of the SharePoint server and click on OK

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An authentication dialog box will open up. Give your username and password for the SharePoint server and click on OK

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After successful authentication, you will get an option 'Create a New Workspace'. Click on OK to create it. This will take some time

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After the creation of workspace the sidebar will show 'Meeting is linked to workspace' and youll get a link to the workspace in the text box. Click on the Send button to send meeting invitation to users

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The users will get a meeting invitation in their inbox, which they can accept, decline, tentatively agree or propose a new time, using the toolbar buttons in Outlook 2003

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Once you have sent the invitation and the invitees have replied back, the invitees' responses to your meeting invitation come in your inbox as an e-mail message

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10 tomatically updated on the SharePoint site.

All information regarding the meeting gets au-

There you can add more information such as the Objectives, Agenda, and Decisions

Anoop Mangla

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Send SMS from Outlook 2003Managing your SMSs is no more limited to cellphones. Now Outlook can also be configured to do so

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t's not only cellphones that reign the SMS world. You can now do so using MS Outlook.You will need MS Office 2003 SP1 and MOSA (MS Outlook SMS Add-in).We have given them on this month's CD and you can even download them from http://office.microsoft.com. After that you will need to connect your

cellphone to the PC using any of the connectivity options such as infrared,Bluetooth or a cable.We used infrared. After the phone has been connected,it is required that you install, on the PC, the modem drivers of your phone. If your phone shows up under modems, with no yellow mark in the device manager,then the

Direct Hit!Applies to: Outlook 2003 users USP: Use Outlook to send and receive SMS messages Links: office.microsoft.com

drivers are installed properly. Now install the Office SP1 and MOSA.

Go to MS Outlook SMS Add-in toolbar, click on Options and select your mobile telephone, to be used for sending SMSs

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Open Outlook Contacts and add the mobile phone numbers of your contacts in their contact information

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To send an SMS, click on New SMS Message from step 2, and either enter numbers directly or from Outlook Contacts and click on OK

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Sent SMSs are saved in a Sent Items>SMS folder. This will help you keep track of all your SMSs

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Anoop Mangla

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Take your File Server OnlineUse Beeweeb to access your file server over the Internet

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ere is a step-by-step guide to set up the Beeweeb server on a machine that you want to share over the Internet. An alternative to the traditional VPN,it consists of two components, a file server for a workgroup and

client.You can easily install and configure the server component on any Window platform (2000/XP). All you need is an Internet connection (DSL or dial-up). First install BeeWeeb on the file server, and then on all clients that will need to access it.

Direct Hit!Applies to: System administrators USP: Access your computer over the Internet from anywhere Links: http://beeweeb.com

After installing Beeweeb server, start it from Start>Program Files >Beeweeb Server>Management Console. Here click on the Server Properties link and go to the General Tab

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Here, tick the two check boxes for enabling change of owner and guest passwords.Click OK to save the settings and click Configure System Users Options on the Management Console

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Set 'Existing Local Group' as 'Administrators' and 'Existing local users' as any local account on the server. Also set the local user password

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Click Add virtual user' from first step to run a wizard, give the username you configured in the previous step and configure shares

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Click 'Configure Virtual Users from first screen. Select Existing Local Group and Existing Local User in that group you want to give access to

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Choose Configure Default Logging Option from first step and choose the server events you want Beeweeb to log for analyzing later

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Now, its time to Configure client on the remote machine, which will map a drive against the shares created on Beeweeb server. Install Beeweeb mapper on the client's machine and run it

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On the Beeweeb client window you will see an extender button (1). This basically extends the window and shows the properties of the connected client

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Go to Actions>Settings. In the Settings window, select the Drives tab and set 'Beeweeb Drive' to the drive letter you want to assign and click OK. This will be used to access the share over Beeweeb

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10 server from your remote machine over the Internet. Fill the username with the IP Address as shown and click on Go

Finally, you are ready to access the Beeweeb

Sanjay Majumder

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Recover Lost MailAccidentally deleted a mail or lost it to corruption? MailNavigator recovers all for you

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ou might have faced it many times that the mail you wanted the most got deleted or you accidentally deleted a mail folder. Maybe some virus or worm corrupted your mailbox! This can happen to anyone, any-

time. What's important when you are stuck in such a situation is to be able to retrieve your messages somehow. Here we explain how to recover your Outlook Express mail using a program called MailNavigator.

Direct Hit!Applies to: Outlook Express users USP: Recover deleted or corrupt mailin Outlook Express mailboxes

Links: www.mailnavigator.com On PCQEssential CD: system\cdrom\enterprise

Even if youve deleted any mail or mailbox in OE, youll find it in the Store Folder so long as you dont reboot. Access it from Tools>Options

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Copy deleted mailbox(s) from the Store Folder to another place. Install MailNavigator and load the deleted mailbox(s) from the File Menu

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Select the mail you want to recover or do a Select All to recover everything, followed by'Save As' from the Message Menu as shown

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Save it as a Eudora Mailbox and note its location. Run OE and import this Eudora mailbox there from File>Import>Messages

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Anil Chopra

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Increase Life of your CDs/DVDsCreate ISO images of the frequently accessed media and use SoftDisk to access them

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requent access of data on DVDs/CDs reduces their life.You can increase their life by using available soft-drives that take an ISO image of a CD/DVD and emulate it as a virtual drive. Here, we'll do this by using Softdisk 2.5, a

shareware. Once you have installed Softdisk,you will need an ISO image of your DVD. For this you will need a CD/DVD burning software like Nero to create ISO images of all CDs/DVDs you access frequently.

Direct Hit!Applies to: Frequently accessedCDs/DVDs

USP: Using virtual CD/DVD drive in place of physical CD/DVD drive Links: http://tucows.alaska.net/files3/ scd2_en.exe

After installation, you'll get soft-disk icon in your task panel. On double clicking the icon, you'll get the interface shown in the screen shot

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From the File menu, select Option>Configuration.You'll get a Config window. Here, in 'Number of Device' select '1 drive' and click on OK

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Once, you've configured the virtual drive, you'll see it with a mapped drive letter in the virtual drive window. Activate this virtual CD/DVD drive by mounting an ISO image

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Right click on the virtual device and from the context menu, select 'Mount image file' add give path to your ISO image files

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Sanjay Majumder

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Create your Own DVD MenusUse Ulead Video Workshop to add dynamic DVD menus to your video

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any DVD authoring tools are available in the market. For example, Adobe has its Adobe Encore DVD, Ulead has Ulead DVD Workshop. Good free DVD authoring tools are hard to find. Trial versions of commercial tools are available for down-

load. We chose Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0 for creating DVD menus. This tool can be used to add dynamic DVD motion menus to still/ moving images.It can also be used to capture and encode any video to MPEG,create playlists and add multiple subtitle and audio tracks.

Direct Hit!Applies to: DVD authors, multimediadevelopers

USP: Create menus for your favorite compilations using an easy GUI tool Links: www.ulead.com/dws/

In case you are not capturing a video, then go to Edit tab and click on the add clip button at the bottom to choose the video clips whose menus you want to create

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Choose either a single clip, which can be then divided into multiple chapters or pick multiple clips, which can be displayed in the DVD menu

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Now divide the clip into multiple chapters (not if you already have multiple clips). Play the clip, pause it where you want next chapter to start from. Now click on the 'Insert current frame as chapter'

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Select the clip for which you have to make the menus and then click on the Menus tab on the top of the interface. The chapters will also appear under the Menu tab

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Now click on the select menu button at the bottom of the screen. A number of options to choose the style of the menu will pop-up in a new window

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Select the kind of menu, type in the text and link the chapter or a video with the menu text by dragging and dropping the chapter from the right column to the text

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Once through with creating menus and linking them, click on the Finish tab on the top and you will be able to view the final result. Check it and then click on the Burn DVD button

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Internet on SmartPhoneO2 XPhone II is a professional business phone that runs Windows.You can even connect to the Internet from your notebook with itAlthough there are tons of phones in Smartphone the marketmost PART I are too jazzy for professional use and features are almost randomly chosen. The O2 XPhone II device runs WM2003SE (Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition) and has all the features that one needs in a truly professional phone. At Rs 23,000, it's a steal ! The XPhone II comes in a small candy bar form factor reminiscent of Sony Erricson T610. The screen size is large and gives you 65536 colors at a 176X220 resolution. The phone is very light and weighs only a little more than a 100 gm. The usual connectivity optionsBlueTooth, GPRS, Infrared-

SERIES

are all built in.The box comes with a hands-free cum headphones set, a charging cable, a USB-miniUSB cable and software. Once you install Microsoft ActiveSync and connect the phone using the supplied USB cable,it syncs with your Outlook and gets the contacts and appointments automatically into the phone. The cable also performs a 'trickle' charge that charges up your phone's battery. The phone already has Pocket Outlook, Pocket Internet Explorer, Photo Contacts,J2ME support,Windows Media Player,MSN Messenger and some games built in to the 64 MB FlashROM of the phone. In case you want more space, you can easily install a Mini-SD card that goes all the way up to 512 MB. Pocket Out-

Direct Hit!Applies to: Mobile users USP: Connect the O2 to your notebook through Bluetooth and access the Internet using GPRS Links: www.myxda.com

look can check your mail over GPRS and supports POP3 and IMAP4. Pocket IE and Windows Media Player work very well and even sites not built for mobile are rendered nicely on the browser.The player has MP3, WAV, WMA, WMV, MPG, AVI and the supplied headphones give you a nice stereo sound.You can even add you own music as ringtones. Since the phone runs Windows, there are tons of software available

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Check mail status, mesages, appointments at one glance

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Web browsing on the O2 XPhone II

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Check your e-mail on the move

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for itfrom games to office suites, to professional tools etc.This version of Windows also contains the .NET Compact Framework and you can easily write programs for it too. Let's see how you can quickly connect to the Internet from your notebook using the XPhone II. For this, you must first be subscribed to the GPRS service from your mobile provider. Once that is done, in the phone, select Start>Settings>Data Connections> Internet Connection. Click on the Menu context key and select Edit Connections.Here,select GPRS Connections and Menu>Add. Finally select 'The Internet' in the 'Connect to' option and fill in the details of the GPRS connection as given to you by your provider.Press 'Done' till you are back to the Data Connections Screen. Make sure that the

GPRS connection you just created is selected in the Internet Connection option.To test whether your GPRS is working, open up Pocket IE and either select one of the Favorite links or enter a new URL.If the GPRS settings are correct,you will see a small [G] sign near the battery bar on the top of the screen and the browsing will begin. To connect your notebook with the Smartphone, turn on BlueTooth in the phone by going to Start>Settings>BlueTooth>BlueTooth>Discoverable. Turning it to 'ON' will not work. It has to be in discoverable mode. Now in your BlueTooth enabled notebook,open My BlueTooth Place>View Devices in Range. Search for a new device from the menu and follow the prompts to install the new device.

But before you can start using it, you must first establish a pairing between the two devices.Select the appropriate menu item from the list and enter a new passkey that the device should respond to.In a moment, the device will ask you to enter the same passkey. Do so to establish a pairing.Now you can start browsing from the phone. Open the Dial-up Networking icon for the XPhone II on your notebook.This will first connect to the phone over Bluetooth and then display the DUN window.Enter the username and password if required and the GPRS phone number as *99#. Press Dial to connect. Well look at some essential software for Windows mobile powered smartphone next month.Vinod Unny Enterprise InfoTech

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Turn any PC into a NASUse NASLite to configure a dedicated storage server in less than five minutes

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re you looking for low cost and lightweight network storage for your office? NASLite offers a solution.It lets you create a NAS box out of your old hardware. You can even use a 486 machine, 16 MB RAM,floppy drive,one to four IDE hard drives and a network card for it.A floppy-based Linux OS called NASLite, can convert any PC into a dedicated file server. Its available in various flavors,which let you to create a dedicated SMB server, NFS server, HTTP server or FTP Server. Here, we'll show how you can create a NAS with SMB shares. Weve given a zipped floppy image of NASLite v1.x on this month's PCQEssential CD. Connect all the IDE drives on the machine, which you want to transform in to NAS box, and then connect it to your hub or switch. To create the NASLite-SMB floppy use a Linux machine and open a command terminal. Copy the NASLite floppy image on to the hard disk. For this, issue the following commands.# cd /media/recorder # cp /linux/ NASLite-SMB.img.gz /root # cd /root # gunzip NASLite-SMB.img.gz------------------------------------NASLite-SMB Administration Utility OPTION MENU ------------------------------------1 - Change Network Settings (192.168.1.1-255.255.255.) 2 - Change Name 3 - Change Workgroup 4 - Configure Storage Disks 5 - Change Password 6 - Change Date and Time 7 - Reboot 8 - Shutdown 9 - Save Configurations C - Make NASLite Floppy E - Exit ------------------------------------SELECT >

Direct Hit!Applies to: Small office networks USP: Floppy-based NAS OS, which converts a PC into a dedicated network storage box Links: http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php On PCQEssential CD: system\labs

Insert a floppy disk and issue the following commands to create the NASLite-SMB floppy.# fdformat /dev/fd0u1722 # dd if=NASLite.img of=/dev/fd0u1722

Use the options on this menu to configure the disks and the software for your NAS

If you don't have Linux handy then you can use a simple shareware utility, WinImage, available at WinImage.com, to copy the image to the floppy disk. To configure it boot the NAS box with the floppy.At the login prompt,give the username as 'admin' and password as 'nas'. From the Options menu, select the fourth option to configure the disks for NAS and then select the Primary Master drive. Read the warning and press 'Y' to continue. Follow this process for all the connected drives. Now, select the first option and give the IP address (mentioned in the box) to the NAS box. Then select the second and third options to change the name and workgroup respectively.Press '9' to save the configuration and reboot the NASLite-SMB box.To access this network storage, go to any Windows machine and click on Start>Run. Type in the IP address of the NASLiteSMB file server. Windows Explorer will show you 'Network Storage' with pre-created network share (Disk1, Disk2, Disk3 and Disk4). On the security frontremember you cannot create any users or assign quotas. Anyone on the network can access this storage. It shows server configuration and disk utilization on a Web browser when you type the IP address of the NASLite box.So, if you want a data dumpyard on a network then go for NASLite-SMB.Sanjay Majumder

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Ghost for LinuxCreate a ghost image of your Linux machine locally or on FTP Serverou must have heard about Norton Ghost, which makes a snapshot of a hard disk allowing you to restore your system in case of a crash. However, Norton Ghost is a commercial tool that costs a lot of money. Ghost for Linux is a free and open source equivalent of this tool.It allows you to create your disk image either on a different hard disk or via FTP on another machine. This is a mini-distro of Linux and its kernel includes support for Parallel ATA and Serial ATA IDE drives. In our environment, we were not able to use it with SCSI drives.It comes with support for most common network cards.

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Direct Hit!Applies to: Linux system administrators USP: Creating a ghost image of your Linux machine Links: http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/ On PCQEssential CD: /linux/ghost for linux/boot.iso

tions on the second hard disk.Now to use this tool,just boot your PC or server with the CD you created.At the login prompt, give the username as 'g4l' and execute the following command.# ./g4l

UsageIt runs from a bootable CD and gives you a simple menu-based interface to navigate. We have given an ISO image of this distro on this month's PCQEssential CD.You may use Nero or other CD burning software to transfer this to a CD. Before booting with it, make sure you have a secondary hard disk installed on the machine you want to ghost, with either Windows or Linux partitions. The tool creates an image of the active Linux partiThis will give you a blue-colored menu system showing four optionsRAW mode, File mode, Utilities and Show Help. In RAW mode you can create or restore ghost images locally or through FTP server. The File mode lets you create or restore ghost images based on the partition that you want. Utilities section offers various tools such as System Info, HD Parm, zero-tool, dd_rescue and parted. Here System Info gives you information about the connected hard disk, HD Parm lets you set the hard drives into 32-bit UDMA/66, zero-tool creates free space on partitions, dd_rescue makes a clone of a damaged hard drive to another drive, and parted allows you to play with your partition table. Now let's see how we can create or restore images from your local hard Here select the source hard disk that you want to make a snapshot of

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disk or via FTP.

With a local hard diskTo create the ghost image of a Linux machine on another drive,just select RAW Mode> Local use>Pick Device. Here you need to select the source drive or partition (hda, hda1, hda2) that you want to take a snapshot of. Now from the same menu, select 'File Config' and give a name for the snapshot image file. If you have a large volume of data and want to split the image into multiple image files, then select 'Toggle split' and choose 'splitting on'. The RAW disk image can be huge in size, because it's a clone of your entire hard disk. To overcome this problem, you can compress the RAW image into gzip or gzip2 formats.For this,select 'Toggle Compression' and choose the compression format that you want. Finally, select 'Backup Drive/Partition to local drive' and you will be prompted to select the destination drive that you want to use for storing the image file on (hdb, hdb1, hdb2). After setting it up, you will be shown a summary of configurations you have chosen. Select 'Yes' to confirm the selections. Ghost for Linux will then start the imaging process. To restore the drive from the created image, just choose the source drive from the 'Pick Device' option, where you have stored the image. Set the image file name that you want to restore from 'File Config' option and choose the compression selected earlier from the 'Toggle Compression' option. Sadly, the utility has no way of browsing to and selecting the image file. Thus, you must know and provide the complete path to it yourself. Now select 'Restore Drive/Partition from local Drive' and in a few minutes your drive will be restored as it is.

A note

During testing, do not use Win XP's FTP server, since it seems to have a limit on the size (only up to 2 GB) of the created image file. You can use either the ones in any of the Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 if you want to use Windows. Or use the FTP server available with Linux. Write, for anonymous users. On the Linux machine, boot off the 'Ghost for Linux' CD and perform the steps mentioned in the Usage section. Now, select RAW Mode>Network Use>Pick Device, here choose the network card detected by Ghost for Linux.From the same menu,select 'Config Device' and give a static IP to this machine according to your subnet. Now select 'Config FTP' and here give the IP address of your FTP server. Next, you need to set the image file name that will be created on the FTP server. To do so select 'Config File name'. If you want to compress the image file, then select 'Toggle Compression' and set the compression parameter same like we did while taking snapshot on a local disk. Finally, select 'Backup Drive/Partition to FTP server' and you will be prompted to select the source drive that you want to take a snapshot of. Now, from the list select hard drive or partition (hda, hda1, hda2) and it will start the imaging process. To restore from this FTP image, keep all the FTP settings as it is and select 'Restore Drive/Partition to FTP server'. You will be asked to select the drive on which you want to restore the ghost image. Select the drive or partition (hdb, hdb1.hdb2). Now it will show you a template of the configuration that you have made for FTP restoration. Next click on OK to start the restoration process. Ghost for Linux tool would be very helpful for system administrators, in situations when they have to deploy base Linux server frequently. The administrators just need to create an image of a base Linux or UNIX server and the same image will then be used to deploy multiple Linux servers simultaneously in one go via an FTP server.Sanjay Majumder

Using an FTP serverAs discussed above, Ghost for Linux also allows you to back up and restore the hard drive images on an FTP server. While this consumes both time and bandwidth, the advantage is that you do not need to spend for an extra hard disk for storing images. To back up your machine onto an FTP server, first configure an FTP server and create a virtual folder named 'img'. Set its permissions on this folder for Read and

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Implementing AdamantixAn extra secure Debian-based Linux distribution for firewalls and IDSs

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ood things never come easy and that stands absolutely true for Adamantix Linux. A stripped down version of Debian Woody, specifically designed as a very secure Linux OS, but at the same time very difficult to install. Adamantix is largely used for firewalls and IDS systems but because of its secure nature you can even make it your file server or mail proxy. The problem with this distro is its installer.To install the OS,first of all you should know that it is completely text-based and doesn't support multi booting. Plus, it completely removes all data from all your partitions.So be really cautious while installing it. To install Adamantix you have to boot the machine with the Adamantix CD (Adamantix CD ISO is available on this month's PCQEssential CD). The CD will boot into a command line-based live Linux environment. Here, type the command as follows to run the installation process.# adamantix-install

Direct Hit!Applies to: Linux administrators USP: Set up this secure distribution and understand its various components like PaX, RSBAC, Zorp and Shorewall Links: www.adamantix.org ON PCQEssential CD: system\cdrom\adamantix

For this, specify an Adamantix mirror such as 'http://www.adamantix.org/mirror' and then issue the command like this.#apt-get update.

To complete the installation, you also have to give the following command.#apt-get distupgrade

This will start up the installer. But at this point, you might come across a bug that can terminate the installer whenever you reach the Partition Manager screen and select any Partition Manager. The technique, which we adapted to work around the problem, is very simple. We came out of the installer, ran fdisk and added a Linux ext3 partition. Then we ran the installer again. But in this time we skipped the Partition Manager screen by selecting the 'Continue' option.And the installation went smoothly. But we managed to figure out another easy or say, less complicated step to install Adamantix. This involves downloading and installing Adamantix directly from the Internet. For this, you'll need to do a minimal install of any version of Debian on the system, such as Sarge or Woody. If you have a copy of the Debian Sarge distro (we gave it with our December 2004 issue), then you can use that. Leave the online updates part of the installation,and then start the Adamantix installation.

Please remember however,that you need to log in as root to execute this last command. The Adamantix repository includes about 1000 packages. You can get this list and other details from http://www.adamantix.org/packages. The distribution currently uses a modified kernel 2.4.22 from Debian, which is the normal kernel with PaX patch but without the RSBAC functionality. PaX is a Linux kernel enhancement, which provides protection for buffer overflow attacks, primarily the stack or heap memory overflow types. For other Linux kernels such as RedHat and Debian, PaX is available as a separate kernel patch. However,Adamantix has it out of the box. The RSBAC framework is based on GFAC (Generalized Framework for Access Control). All security relevant system calls are extended by security enforcement code. This code calls the central decision component, which in turn calls all active decision modules and generates a combined decision. This decision is then enforced by the system call extensions. Decisions arecontinued on page 83

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gadu-gadu, etc messages can be encrypted with just a click. As GAIM for Windows is available, you can use OTR on Windows also.

Installation and usageAll you need for using OTR on a Linux Machine is XWindow installed and running a GAIM client.GAIM is available with all standard Linux versions such as PCQLinux, Fedora and Debian so you don't have to hunt for it. Now download libotr-2.0.1-1.rpm and gaim-otr-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm from 'http://www.cypherpunks.ca/ otr/#downloads' and install them by running the following commands.#rpm -ivh libotr-2.0.1-1.rpm #rpm -ivh gaim-otr-2.0.1-1.i386.rpm

While installing, mind the sequence or you will end up with dependency problems. Now that the installation is done, your OTR is ready to work. Start your GAIM and go to Tools>Preferences and select the Plug-ins Link at the left-hand side of the

window. Now scroll to the option, which says 'Off-theRecord Messaging' and select the check box and close the window. Now whenever you open a chat window, you will see a new button at the bottom right of the window that says 'OTR: Not private'. Clicking this will start the OTR protocol and if the other person with whom you are chatting also has OTR installed, a new private session will start and the button will change to 'OTR: private'. For testing the performance of the software we tested it with a sniffer called ettercap that can capture IM conversations.We found that the data s