PHP Extract a String that does not Match a given String of Text
Use explode, to strip and remove a line of text or word that matches "Foo"
$string = "Test Foo Bar";The [0] var gets the char previous to the match
$split = explode("Foo",$string);
$strip0 = $split[0];
$strip1 = $split[1];
echo "$strip0"; => Test
echo "$strip1"; => Bar
Tracking a User Posing as You on Social Networking Sites - Orkut, Hi5 et al
Requirements:
Pen and a book (papers get misplaced)
Or
Create a new word/notepad file
This list is by no means complete. It is not a guarantee that you will find the user behind the fake or spoofed account. This is a checklist of to-dos, just so that you can go through before hitting the panic button.
The first step is to note the date/time when you became aware of your fake account. So, if you know about the fake account at 9 in the morning on 1st January, make sure you enter the time in the diary as January 1st, 9AM and _not_ January 1st, 12PM or whatever else comes to your mind.
This will help you backtrack a couple of days and figure out if you pissed off a friend earlier. If you _did_ create foes lately, do _not_ jump to conclusions and accuse them. What you really need is evidence.
You are trying to piece together a puzzle and not accuse.
- How to gather the evidence?
+ Begin by checking the fake profile for patterns.
Look for words and sentences and compare them with emails you received from friends, your ex etc. Check the alphabet case. Are certain words in upper or lowercase and can these be matched with previous emails or letters?
+ Repeat the steps above and check for patterns in scraps (Orkut) and emails or letters received from the creator of the fake account.
+ Note the date/time when you receive messages from the spoofed account.
Does the person reply at a certain time? Does the time correspond with your local time zone? If you send a message at 9 in the morning does the reply come in within a few minutes or at midnight? If the message is received within a short period of time, then most likely the person is in the same time zone as you.
Does the person reply on Sundays? If not, then the person is probably at work and sending the emails or messages from a work computer.
+ You could begin an email conversation with the person behind the fake account and again look for patterns in the replies. Do _not_ ask questions such as, who are you? Where you from? The person has to be a real moron to tell you who (s)he really is.
+ Photos
If the fake account contains your photos, try to think. Do all your friends and family have copies of these photos? Or did you send the photos to a group of friends or a person? Is it possible that the photos were grabbed online from a public space? If so, who had access to them and when?
+ Trace and log the IP Address
Every email sent contains an IP address. The IP address can be used to trace the source Internet Service Provider. Check the email headers for the IP address from the emails received. Trace the IP and find the name of the Internet Service Provider. Pinpoint the telephone if the IP address is in the same city as you.
Does the IP address point to a company? Try to think of people you may know who work there and see if someone can help you out.
Remember to note the IP address along with the sent and received timestamp. An email header is like a diary, it logs detailed information as it makes its way to your Inbox. The time and date that an email was sent could be different from the time and date when you received it.
+ Talk
Bring up the conversation with your friends. Look around and listen to what they say.
Does someone know more than you?
Could a buddy in your group know who is behind the fake account?
Does a person you know have a history of creating fake accounts? If so, watch him/her closely.
Ask questions, look for clues
+ Check the friend list in the fake account
Go through the friend list and check if they were added in the same day?
It is likely that the creator of the account will know those friends.
List the common friends between you and those on the fake account.
Check the messages (for patterns) that your friends received from the fake account.
+ Know your Information Technology laws
Get on a search engine (http://www.google.com) and do a search for:
your-country-name information technology law
(substitute your-country-name with your country)
This will help you better understand the issues and discuss with the authorities.
+ Law enforcement
Send an email warning the person that you take up the matter with the authorities. If (s)he does not comply then file a complaint. The email should be sent with your full name and not from the fake account.
FTP Upload Files Through Windows DOS Prompt
Listing a huge list of directories and files from a server in a FTP client can be time consuming. This solution involves uploading files directly through the Windows FTP program.
To upload files to the server without a FTP client, create the following two files in the d:\ftp directory:
upload-ftp.bat (copy and paste the contents below)
d:\(Note: d: is the drive where these two files are located)
cd ftp
ftp -s:files.txt
open server-name.comDouble click to run the file upload-ftp.bat. The zip files to be uploaded need to be in the same directory (d:\ftp\ in this case) as the two files above.
username
password
bin
prompt
cd /var/www/remotedir
send file1.zip
send file2.zip
send file3.zip
send file4.zip
quit
CRON line 1: Unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``'
When running a CRON job that uses the command:
NOW=`date +%B_%d_%a_%Y`
the script will abort execution and display the following error:
/bin/sh: -c: line 1: unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``'To prevent this issue from occurring, dump the contents of the script into a .sh file and run the .sh from CRON.
/bin/sh: -c: line 2: syntax error: unexpected end of file
Frequently Used .htaccess Directives in Apache
# Force www
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
or
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$0 [R=301,L]
# Add mod-rewrite rules (if needed)
# This checks if a file or directory exists before calling the var
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# This sends the var to the PHP file
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_-]+) http://www.domain.com/foo/bar/get.php?var=$0 [PT]
# Disable and turn off PHP register globals
php_flag register_globals OFF
# Enable PHP errors
php_flag display_errors ON
# Disable directory listing
IndexIgnore *
# Override common PHP settings
php_value post_max_size 16M
php_value upload_max_filesize 20M
php_value memory_limit 25M
php_value max_execution_time 900
php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 7200
# Hide the directory indexes
Options All -Indexes
# Show the directory indexes
Options All +Indexes
# Disable access and prevent viewing of htaccess
opentag Files .htaccess closetag
order allow,deny
deny from all
opentag /Files closetag
Alternatively,
CHMOD .htaccess to 644 or RW-R--R--
# Disallow or prevent hotlinking of images, photos or any other file type
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ - [F]
# Redirect an old path to a new one
# Redirect an old file to a new file
Redirect /old-dir/foo.html http://www.domain.com/foo/new.html
# Redirect an old directory to a new directory
Redirect /old-dir/ http://www.domain.com/new-dir/
# Set the default index file
DirectoryIndex index.html
or
# Set multiple files as the default if the first doesn't exist
DirectoryIndex index1.html index2.php index3.shtml foo.htm
# Block or ban offline browsers or leechers
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^wget [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^flashget [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^getright
RewriteRule ^.* - [F,L]
# Ban traffic from a single or multiple domains
RewriteEngine on
# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} foo\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]
or
RewriteEngine on
# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} foo1\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} foo2\.com
RewriteRule .* - [F]
preg_replace(): Error - Delimiter must not be alphanumeric or backslash
preg_replace() will output a delimiter error if the "$pattern" does not have a / delimiter or if quotes are used when calling the preg_replace() function itself.
The Error:
$patterns[0] = '/PHP/4.4.4/';
$replacements[0] = "FooBar!";
preg_replace("$patterns",$replacements,"$string[$counter]");
The above will result in the following error:
"preg_replace(): Parameter mismatch, pattern is a string while replacement in an array"
Corrected Version:
// Delimiter is /
// Note: the forward slash after PHP is to be escaped with a backslash
// The i after the / is for case-insensitive matches. This means, you can match lower case words with upper case words and vice-versa
$patterns[0] = '/PHP\/4.4.4/i';
$replacements[0] = "FooBar!";
// Double quotes are to be removed
preg_replace($patterns,$replacements,"$string[$counter]");
CRON Fields
# (Use to post in the top of your crontab)
# ------------- minute (0 - 59)
# | ----------- hour (0 - 23)
# | | --------- day of month (1 - 31)
# | | | ------- month (1 - 12)
# | | | | ----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)
# | | | | |
# * * * * * command to be executed
* The comma (',') operator specifies a list of values, for example: "1,3,4,7,8"
* The dash ('-') operator specifies a range of values, for example: "1-6", which is equivalent to "1,2,3,4,5,6"
* The asterisk ('*') operator specifies all possible values for a field. For example, an asterisk in the hour time field would be equivalent to 'every hour'..
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crontab
Delete All Email Using MUTT, Through SSH
Since I login through SSH frequently, I use the MUTT email client to check email generated through automated scripts, logs etc. There were 40,000 emails that needed to be deleted quickly. I've been unable to find a "select all" option.
The solution involves, pressing the SHIFT and t key simultaneously. This will bring up the "tag messages matching feature". Enter the match that is common with all the emails. Eg: / and hit enter. (this will flag all the matching email with a *)
shift + t
Tag messages matching: /
;d
$
OR
q
yes
The $ key will sync mutt - deleted emails will be purged, mailbox updated etc.
Disable CRON Output From Flooding Email
When a script is executed through CRON, the output can quickly flood an inbox. To disable output from specific scripts, append the following at the end of the script:
# Disable output completely
*/2 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /test/foobar.php > /dev/null 2>&1
This script runs every two minutes.
Standard output (1) is redirected to /dev/null
Standard error (2) is directed to the same as standard output (1)
# Redirect script output to a log file
*/2 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /test/foobar.php > /localpath/log.txt
# Redirect script output to a log file, append log
*/2 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /test/foobar.php >> /localpath/log.txt
# Redirect script output and CLI error output to the same log file
*/2 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /test/foobar.php > /localpath/log.txt 2>&1
Note:
/localpath/log.txt - This is standard output (1)
The 2 in the 2>&1 will direct standard error (2) to standard output. In this case, log.txt
# Redirect script output and CLI error output to a different log file
*/2 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /test/foobar.php > /localpath/log.txt 2>/localpath/cli-errors.txt
# Redirect script output and CLI error output to a different log file, append log
*/2 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /test/foobar.php >> /localpath/log.txt 2>>/localpath/cli-errors.txt
To test:
Execute this command
ls . IS >> errors.txt 2>>errors.txt
The second alternative is to modify the MAILTO= option and set it to "". This will however, disable all output from being sent to the email address specified in the MAILTO feature.
Another option would be to redirect the output to a text file and call the text file through the browser for analysis.
Note:
The php -q flag suppresses HTTP header output.
To find and replace the exact match in a string, use the function ereg_replace. ereg will find the exact match and not a pattern.
// Strip the extra --
$string= ereg_replace("--","-",$string);
// Replace \n with a br tag$string = str_replace("\n","
",$string);
// Find and replace multiple needles in a haystack
$patterns[0] = '/>/';
$patterns[1] = '/1/';
$patterns[2] = "/2/";
$patterns[3] = '/3/';
$patterns[4] = '/4/';
// Escape non alpha characters
$patterns[5] = '/\"/';
$patterns[6] = '/\+/';
$patterns[7] = '/\'/';
$patterns[8] = '/\./';
$patterns[9] = '/Some Text/';
$replacements = '-';
$data = preg_replace($patterns, $replacements, $data);
When including libraries or external files in PHP, the variable $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] will not call the external files if the script is run through CRON.
This is because, usually a PHP script would be executed through a /usr/local/bin/php -q directive. Since Apache does not play a role here, the DOCUMENT_ROOT variable will not work.
To ensure that the DOCUMENT_ROOT works, call the script through curl, wget or lynx. As a security measure, apps like wget are disabled on most servers. The alternative option is to get rid of the DOCUMENT_ROOT variable all together.
When including files in PHP scripts, it is best to create an includes.php in the base dir of the application. All scripts in the sub-directories can call the include file through a define path. The includes file can in turn define paths to other dependencies.
Note:
The -q flag suppresses HTTP header output. As long as your script itself does not send anything to stdout, -q will prevent cron from sending you an email every time the script runs. For example, print and echo send to stdout. Avoid using these functions if you want to prevent cron from sending you email.
Note:
The ../dirname directory include path does not work with cron too. The path needs to be included in full
Source:
http://www.modwest.com/help/kb5-125.html
On some notebook computers, the ATI X1600 creates a graininess issue on the screen when viewing certain shades of colors.
A BIOS update has been released for a few of the ASUS notebooks. This includes the ASUS W3J and the S96J/Z96J models.
These BIOS updates can be found on this thread on Notebook Forums. The BIOS fix has been confirmed to fix the graininess issue.
Direct links to the BIOS Updates:
S96J Beta BIOS
W3J Beta BIOS
Procedure to install the BIOS update:
1: Download NERO image files
2: Use Nero to burn the image file to the CD
3: Insert CD and when first power on the laptop press "ESC" at Intel logo screen
4: Select Optical drive at boot options screen
5: At "A:\" prompt type "Update" and press "Enter".
6: The BIOS will be updated and don't turn off or reset the computer during BIOS flash.
7: Screen will go back to "A:\" prompt when finish
8: Restart the computer and then hold F2 to enter BIOS, press F10 to save and exit BIOS.
9:Boot to Windows, it'll start to find all kinds of new hardware.
I was on a trip to New Delhi..
There seem to be no shortage of companies which create a market for people who want to generate an income from home.
The usual highlights:
- Generate income during spare time
- Plenty of opportunity
- E-commerce, internet knowledge needed
- Data Entry, clicking links etc
- Internet Business
- Involves some amount of down payment
Once such company is GoogleJunction
What's Fishy?
- The contact link contains a Pune, India address which is probably non-existent.
- The contact submit link points to websitecomplete.com. (Fill out the form, hit submit and watch the POST URL change).
- A WHOIS on the domain does not yield anything other than the DNS entries.
- The domain name itself. Why would a company NOT affiliated to Google, name itself after Google?
Oh well, Google has probably begun the process to shut them down..
VIA and Mini-box have revealed the ultra-compact x86 VoomPC, a barebones computer system for your vehicle priced between US $299 to $399. The VoomPC integrates the Mini-box M1-ATX 12V power supply unit, this is specially designed for vehicles since it can protect itself from power surges, it can also eliminate car battery drain by monitoring car battery levels, even when the car is off.
Vehicle manufacturers will be able to easily integrate a wide range of GPS navigation, communication, entertainment and information functionality into private cars or professional service vehicles such as law enforcement, rescue and commercial transport, where access to data on the road is essential.
The processor powering the system is VIA’s C3 1000MHz chip, it consumes a low wattage of about 15-30 watts, this less than the dimmest parking lights found in any car. The VoomPC also features advanced audio control, with 'anti-thump' technology that keeps car amplifiers turned off while the PC starts, eliminating annoying speaker thumps and pops, while the VIA Vinyl Audio Six-TRAC audio codec enables stunning six-channel surround sound for a more authentic listening experience with greater depth.
Compatible with all standard Linux or Microsoft Windows operating systems and built within Mini-box’s signature compact chassis of just 21cm x 25cm x 6.7cm, the VoomPC is equipped with rich peripheral connectivity, multimedia and telematics options afforded by the feature-packed VIA EPIA Mini-ITX mainboard, including USB2.0, Firewire, Ethernet, PCMCIA types I and II CardBus interface for GPRS/Wifi, S-Video, VGA and six-channel audio.
An interesting article on the use of WiFi along the country side. This bit in particular caught my attention..
Driving along the road here, I used my laptop to get e-mail and download video - and you can do that while cruising at 70 miles per hour, mile after mile after mile, at a transmission speed several times as fast as a T-1 line.
Usually, the police and fire agencies communicate just by radio, but Hermiston decided to go with a public-private partnership that established a Wi-Fi network. The police chief, Dan Coulombe, showed me the wireless computers that all police officers now carry. They can download data and receive images from video monitors - and, if nerve gas ever escaped, display the cloud's direction and speed.
Fingerprint readers are now being added to these portable devices so a police officer can almost instantly run a person's fingerprint through a multistate database. And if there's a report of a burglary, the police rushing to the scene can download floor plans of the building, live images from video monitors and information about the alarm system.
The implementation of OpenGL on Windows Vista turns up an interesting debate. To summarize this issue,
a] A wrapper will be used to get OpenGL to work along with Direct3d. So, performance of OpenGL apps could face a performance hit of up to 50%.
b] Microsoft implemented the proprietary Direct3d and so created this situation of incompatibility between the two.
c] By creating a proprietary system for gaming, vendors would find no reason to port to Open GL based platforms such as GNU/Linux..?
The debate
LAS VEGAS In a room at the Alexis Park Hotel, a nightmare scenario for Cisco has begun to unfold.
It's Saturday night, a time for blowout parties at the annual DEF CON hacker convention, including the Goth-flavored Black and White Ball. But a half dozen researchers in the nondescript room quietly drink, stare at the screens of their laptops, and in low voices, discuss how to compromise two flat metal boxes sitting on a sofa side table: Cisco routers.
They argue that it's the logical conclusion to Cisco's attempts to censor a presentation given by Michael Lynn, a security researcher who resigned from his company, Internet Security Systems, to present his method for compromising and running code on Cisco routers at the Black Hat Security Briefings earlier this week.
The companies made good on legal threats, settling on Thursday with Lynn, who signed a permanent injunction preventing him from using the presentation or disseminating the information at either Black Hat or the following DEF CON convention.
The legal tactics acted to mobilize security researchers and hackers at the shows to glean whatever information they could about the methods used by Lynn and reproduce his work.
Cellphones, Smartphones, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Palm etcetera etcetera 
Bluetooth, which sounds great is yet to see the light of day. A device which is Bluetooth enabled contributes to only 50% of the equation. A USB cable has to be used inorder to sync the contents with a PC. The device in turn should be compatible with a email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Evolution etc. To add to the woes, the cable is usually not bundled with the device and is sold as an accessory. From the Operating System point of view, pre Windows XP SP2, doesn't support Bluetooth well and may not work at all. Add to this the motherboard manufactures who have been extremely slow in releasing Bluetooth enabled motherboards. Laptops and Notebooks have pretty good support for WI-Fi.
Open Source pundits commonly proclaim, "Open Standards are Good". But what is the point, if the standards are not enforced in the first place. I think the only way a standard becomes mainstream is for a giant to come-a-long and implement it. In this case, Microsoft. With Windows XP SP2, and Windows Mobile 5, Microsoft's goal is to allow a seamless integration between devices. Maybe we're getting there, but slowly.
Now what we need, are Bluetooth enabled printers, home theatre systems, digital cameras and a whole slew of gadgets!
Products which support Bluetooth
Google Gmail is the future of email. 
Maybe just not email, but how we store information.
I've been trying an experiment. Instead of saving emails and docs locally, I forward the content to my gmail account. The next step is to organise the info through labels. Labels are not to be mixed with folders. A label is like a tag. Combining the search & labels feature makes it very easy to find the info. Google search is a very powerful tool. Unlike navigating to a document burried deeply under some directory on my PC, a search on gmail takes just seconds!
Microsoft has been adding features to Outlook that turn it into an all in one Information Manager.
The shift to online webservices as in the case of Gmail make it easy to store, manage and most importantly retrieve info quickly. All Microsoft has is the Desktop. I think they realize this and are trying to further lock users to the desktop with the upcoming Windows Longhorn which is slated to be released by 2006.
The advantages of web based services are plenty. In such a case the computer only acts as a medium between the user and the web. Apart from the ease of use, this could also mean huge cost savings for users. If the computer crashes, its easy to get on another PC and continue transparently. Most desktop users do not backup their critical data. A crash can result in a tremendous amount of downtime. Not to mention, the time spent in reinstalling the OS, apps and configurations.
It could be only a matter of time, before we login to a google account and begin editing documents or listen to music by simply booting the computer through a GNU/Linux based bootable CD. The possibilities are endless. This would really make on-the-move technology a reality!
[quote]
What if you could outsource to a company that offered the cost savings of an India-based outsourcing firm, but whose facilities were just a few hours away?
That’s the premise of three entrepreneurs in San Diego, who are in the final throes of launching a company that will offer software development off the coast of California—three miles outside Los Angeles, to be specific.
The three plan to buy a used cruise ship and station it close enough for a half-hour water taxi ride to shore, but far enough to avoid H1B jurisdiction. According to CEO David Cook, who was a tanker ship captain before going into IT ten years ago, project pricing “will be comparable to a distant-shore firm.”
By stationing the ship in international waters, the company, called SeaCode, will be able to remain close to U.S. clients while picking and choosing IT talent from around the world—something that tightening H1B visa requirements have made difficult in the U.S.
[/quote]
Read full article here:
http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=10959
Being involved in the IT field, business concepts are pretty new to me. 
I suppose without a marketing framework, even the greatest piece of software would'nt stand a chance.
From an IT point of view, one gains a better understanding of the overall picture, why a product needs to be coded a certain way, the kind of users who will be using the product, idiot proofing, profits etc.
Sometimes the two concepts do not meet..and just then your looking at a Kernel Panic! aaarrggg...
Hitachi storage has revealed this new perpendicular storage based HDD. Instead of reading a huge list of specs, they put together a groovy SWF animation.
Done correctly, snazzy marketing does help in removing the confusion that people generally associate with bits and bytes. Ofcourse, a solid product with consumer demand is needed in the first place. Google and Apple(ipod) are perfect in the field of marketing.
Hitachi Technologies Lets Get Perpendicular
Spiders and dynamic content just dont like each other. A spider visits a webserver, grabs static content and is out in a jiffy. Even if they do grab some dynamic links, the search result will be buried deeply somewhere in 1 out of n results. I've been exploring the possibility of converting a dynamic link ( ok, not exactly converting, but rather masquerading) into a static one. The whole idea is to turn the content more spider friendly.
Apache powered webservers have excellent features. The 'mod rewrite' rule for .htaccess is just the kind of thing which will make those dynamic links appear as static. There are a lot of tweaks which are needed in the PHP too. But, once that's covered, the spiders are friendly.
The Apache docs on mod_rewrite are a good starter for this kind of an experiment.
Today, I finally got down to creating a Blog account. I've been contemplating about this for ages. This weeks BBC's ClickOnline episode on 'Blog Life' was interesting. I guess it was pretty brief with a slightly greater emphasis on the political aspect and implications of Blogging.
This is going to be an interesting hobby as keeping this Blog updated will be quite a challenge!
