A Man and his Penguin

I just realised how long its unambiguous title is.

For instance:

You can’t just say "Player 9 Linux Beta", because nobody would know what you meant.
You can’t just say "Flash 9 Linux Beta", because Flash 9 is the authoring environment, which HASN’T been released.
You can’t just say "Flash Player 9 Beta", because the other operating systems have already had release versions.
You can’t just say "Flash Player 9 Linux", because that would suggest that it had been officially released.

Anyhow, I downloaded it from Adobe’s website and checked it out. Finally, audio and video are in sync, and I didn’t experience the sound problems that Linux users often get with Flash Player 7 (because Flash Player 7 uses an ancient sound system which must be kludgily emulated on modern distributions).

Bugs I noticed:

1. The menus on the Adobe site popped up *below* the Flash movie, so you can’t read the later items on the menu.
2. Right-clicking a movie and going to "About Flash Player 9…" doesn’t do anything unless popup-blocking is turned off in Firefox.
3. On Youtube, if the video is playing when you close its tab, Firefox hangs.
4. In some Flash movies, if Flash Player 7 is still installed, that is used instead of the 9 Beta. You must uninstall Flash Player 7.

I had installed Flash Player 7 using the script from the Adobe website, rather than from the repositories, so it wasn’t as easy as "sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree". The script also installs the plugin into a different directory than the one recommended in its README file, which made it difficult for me to find exactly where the plugin files were.

Finally, I found and removed them (thanks to kFind). /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins is where the "flashplayer.xpt" and "libflashplayer.so" files are; not /usr/lib/firefox/plugins. Remove those files, and put the new Flash Player 9 Beta file into the /usr/lib/firefox/plugins directory. Restart Firefox, and then you’ll be ready to find some bugs!

I used to borrow a LaCie CD burner from my father’s workplace. It was 100% reliable, even though it made many trips back and forth in the car and often sat in a messy room. Throughout the years, I’ve used other people’s LaCie hardware devices, and heard nothing but good things about them. LaCie supported Macs when few companies would.

Why am I mentioning this? Well, LaCie is now supporting Linux on its DVD/Lightscribe burners. Their proprietry burning software won’t be the subject of a crippled port, ala Nero. Instead, they’ve engaged the open-source community, and K3B will be used for burning.

Seriously people, if you’re looking to upgrade to a Lightscribe DVD burner, get a LaCie.

In other news, I’m having fun with the UbuntuOS blog (that’s where I found this story). I’ve stopped using Konqueror, but I still use Akregator for my RSS reading (which does its HTML rendering with KHTML).

Yet more news (I couldn’t be bothered creating a seperate post for this): Apple iPod Video units have been shipped with a Windows virus preloaded. Over 20 iPods were infected in-factory, and Apple has apologised for "not catching" the mistake.

I can barely believe my luck - I’ve met the girl of my dreams (online) and she actually likes me!

I’ve been asking myself the question a lot in the past few days!
Happy birthday, KDE.

It all started when I decided to set up my KDE Theme Manager so KDE programs like Skype fit into my Wii-themed Gnome desktop. The experiment didn’t quite work, and I ended off reversing my KDE theme changes. But then I came up with another idea - use KDE, and set up the gtk-qt-engine so that GTK programs look like KDE ones.

This was a bad idea. There’s a long-standing bug in gtk-qt-engine that causes you not to be able to log into Gnome after it is installed! Thankfully I already knew about this, and as soon as I tried using Gnome again I realised - and I logged back into KDE and uninstalled gtk-qt-engine.

While I was using KDE a little bit, I opened up Konqueror and did some web browsing in it.

The Mozilla Corporation aren’t going to let Debian Linux or Ubuntu use the name “Firefox” without the non-free logo, and have been really bitchy about it (reportedly, the corporation suggested that Debian should break its own package inclusion rules, and are forcing them to use a different version a mere month before Debian Etch’s feature freeze). This has prompted much discussion about Iceweasel, which is a GNU-maintained fork of Firefox with a couple of extra security features.

I’m feeling really guilty about switching people over to Firefox now. On my own computer, I switched the Web Browser launcher in my Gnome panel so it has one of the proposed Iceweasel logos, and I even symlinked “/usr/bin/iceweasel” to “/usr/bin/firefox”. But that hasn’t negated my guilt. So I started using Konqueror.

And although I hate it as a file manager, I love it as a web browser. It has heaps of features and preferences, its own extensions system, the ability to use Mozilla plugins (NOT Firefox extensions, but then I only use User Agent Switcher on Firefox). The rendering engine gives noticably different output than Mozilla’s Gekko engine, but it’s good enough.

Of course, I’m sure some websites don’t work (I haven’t found them yet), and it doesn’t look right on my dark-coloured Gnome desktop. There also isn’t a WYSIWYG HTML post editor, as I’ve just discovered. I know HTML, it doesn’t bother me.

But it’s such a good feeling to be supporting a REAL open-source player. KDE have never complained that the distributions change the K-menu icon to the logo of the distribution. Gnome haven’t either for their Applications menu, but I don’t like the idea of using Epiphany again, because it uses Mozilla’s Gekko rendering engine.

Apparantly there’s an open-source web browser for Windows called Swift, that uses the same KHTML engine that Konqueror uses. When their website comes back up, I’ll take a look and maybe recommend it to a friend of mine.

(Sorry if this message makes no sense to you… I’m writing it as a stream of conciousness and assuming that the reader knows as much about Linux and computers as I do)

Also, I’m just going to quickly mention that I’ve met a girl online who I think is wonderful. I’ve never met anyone like her before. She doesn’t know about this blog, and even if she did she probably wouldn’t get all the way through this message as she’s not a Linux user I’m never going to kiss and tell, but I already like her a lot and if you’re all good I might give you some more information in the future

This is a very funny story that someone posted on a Planet Ubuntu blog:

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/11/fired.html

But I don’t need to worry about it, because… whoops, this isn’t one of those posts

This excellent article comes from the BBC. I seem to have lost the author’s name. If you are the author or you know who is, please message me so I can give credit where it is due.

How the trap was sprung
If every hour a burglar turned up at your house and rattled the locks on the doors and windows to see if he could get in, you might consider moving to a safer neighbourhood.
And while that may not be happening to your home, it probably is happening to any PC you connect to the net.
An investigation by the BBC News website has established the scale of the dangers facing the average net user.
Using a computer acting as a so-called “honeypot” the BBC has been regularly logging how many potential net-borne attacks hit the average Windows PC every day.
Attack traffic
Honeypots are forensic tools that have become indispensable to computer security experts monitoring online crime. They are used to gather statistics about popular attacks, to grab copies of malicious programs that carry out the attacks and to get a detailed understanding of how these attacks work.

To the malicious programs scouring the web these honeypots look like any other PC. But in the background the machines use a variety of forensic tools to log what happens to them.
Perhaps one indicator of how useful these tools have become is seen in the fact that the most sophisticated attackers make their malicious programs able to recognise when they have trespassed on a honeypot.
The BBC honeypot was a standard PC running Windows XP Pro that was made as secure as possible. This ran a software program called VMWare which allows it to host another “virtual” PC inside the host. Via VMWare we installed an unprotected version of Windows XP Home configured like any domestic PC.
VMWare is useful as it makes it easy to pause the “virtual” PC or roll it back to an earlier configuration. This proved essential when recovering from an infection.

36 warnings that pop-up via Windows Messenger
11 separate visits by Blaster worm
3 separate attacks by Slammer worm
1 attack aimed at Microsoft IIS Server
2-3 “port scans” seeking weak spots in Windows software

This guest machine, once armed with some forensic software, became the honeypot.
When we put this machine online it was, on average, hit by a potential security assault every 15 minutes. None of these attacks were solicited, merely putting the machine online was enough to attract them. The fastest an attack struck was mere seconds and it was never longer than 15 minutes before the honeypot logged an attempt to subvert it.
The majority of these incidents were merely nuisances. Many were announcements for fake security products that use vulnerabilities in Windows Messenger to make their messages pop-up. Others were made to look like security warnings to trick people into downloading the bogus file.
Serious trouble
However, at least once an hour, on average, the BBC honeypot was hit by an attack that could leave an unprotected machine unusable or turn it into a platform for attacking other PCs.

Many of these attacks were by worms such as SQL.Slammer and MS.Blaster both of which first appeared in 2003. The bugs swamp net connections as they search for fresh victims and make host machines unstable.
They have not been wiped out because they scan the net so thoroughly that they can always find another vulnerable machine to leap to and use as a host while they search for new places to visit.
Their impact is limited now because Windows is now sold with its firewall turned on and the patch against them installed. Recently Microsoft said it was cleaning up hundreds of PCs hit by these machines every day.
Many of these worms were launched from different PCs on the network of a French home net service firm but others were from machines as far away as China.

There were also many attempts to probe the BBC honeypot to see how vulnerable it was. Hijacked machines in Brazil as well as at the Indiana offices of a public accounting and consulting firm carried out “port scans” on the BBC honeypot to see if it could get a response that would reveal how vulnerable it was.
Via the honeypot we could see these machines sending test data in sequence to the ports, or virtual doors to the net, that the PC had open.

More rarely, once a day on average, came net attacks that tried to subvert the honeypot to put it under the control of a malicious hacker.
Again these attacks came from all over the world - many clearly from hijacked machines. The BBC honeypot was attacked by a PC at a Chinese aid organisation, a server in Taiwan and many machines in Latin America.
Via the forensic tools installed on the honeypot we could see the booby-trapped data packets these bugs were trying to make our target machine digest.
By using carefully crafted packets of data, attackers hope to make the PC run commands that hand control of it to someone else.
Via this route many malicious hackers recruit machines for use in what is known as a botnet. This is simply a large number of hijacked machines under the remote control of a malicious hacker.
Botnets are popular with hi-tech criminals because they can be put to so many different uses. The slaves or bots in a botnet can be used to send out spam or phishing e-mails.
They can become the seeding network for a new virus outbreak or act as a distributed data storage system for all kinds of illegal data. Spammers, phishing gangs and others often rent a botnet to use for their own ends.
Often once a machine has fallen under someone else’s control, a keylogger will be installed to capture information about everything that the real owner does - such as login to their online bank account.
This stolen information is often sold as few of those that steal it have the criminal connections to launder stolen cash.

—————-
But I don’t have to worry about it. I’ve got no ports passed through on my hardware firewall. Ubuntu doesn’t open ports by default, and I haven’t opened any myself. All of the attacks on the honeypot only work on Windows machines.

However, as I occasionally connect Windows to the Internet to use the iTunes Music Store, I do kinda worry about it. I take every precaution, even running as a limited user account, but it definately gives me the desire to quickly download the albums I want and then stop using iTMS.

This excellent article comes from the BBC. I seem to have lost the author’s name. If you are the author or you know who is, please message me so I can give credit where it is due.

How the trap was sprung
If every hour a burglar turned up at your house and rattled the locks on the doors and windows to see if he could get in, you might consider moving to a safer neighbourhood.
And while that may not be happening to your home, it probably is happening to any PC you connect to the net.
An investigation by the BBC News website has established the scale of the dangers facing the average net user.
Using a computer acting as a so-called “honeypot” the BBC has been regularly logging how many potential net-borne attacks hit the average Windows PC every day.
Attack traffic
Honeypots are forensic tools that have become indispensable to computer security experts monitoring online crime. They are used to gather statistics about popular attacks, to grab copies of malicious programs that carry out the attacks and to get a detailed understanding of how these attacks work.

To the malicious programs scouring the web these honeypots look like any other PC. But in the background the machines use a variety of forensic tools to log what happens to them.
Perhaps one indicator of how useful these tools have become is seen in the fact that the most sophisticated attackers make their malicious programs able to recognise when they have trespassed on a honeypot.
The BBC honeypot was a standard PC running Windows XP Pro that was made as secure as possible. This ran a software program called VMWare which allows it to host another “virtual” PC inside the host. Via VMWare we installed an unprotected version of Windows XP Home configured like any domestic PC.
VMWare is useful as it makes it easy to pause the “virtual” PC or roll it back to an earlier configuration. This proved essential when recovering from an infection.

36 warnings that pop-up via Windows Messenger
11 separate visits by Blaster worm
3 separate attacks by Slammer worm
1 attack aimed at Microsoft IIS Server
2-3 “port scans” seeking weak spots in Windows software

This guest machine, once armed with some forensic software, became the honeypot.
When we put this machine online it was, on average, hit by a potential security assault every 15 minutes. None of these attacks were solicited, merely putting the machine online was enough to attract them. The fastest an attack struck was mere seconds and it was never longer than 15 minutes before the honeypot logged an attempt to subvert it.
The majority of these incidents were merely nuisances. Many were announcements for fake security products that use vulnerabilities in Windows Messenger to make their messages pop-up. Others were made to look like security warnings to trick people into downloading the bogus file.
Serious trouble
However, at least once an hour, on average, the BBC honeypot was hit by an attack that could leave an unprotected machine unusable or turn it into a platform for attacking other PCs.

Many of these attacks were by worms such as SQL.Slammer and MS.Blaster both of which first appeared in 2003. The bugs swamp net connections as they search for fresh victims and make host machines unstable.
They have not been wiped out because they scan the net so thoroughly that they can always find another vulnerable machine to leap to and use as a host while they search for new places to visit.
Their impact is limited now because Windows is now sold with its firewall turned on and the patch against them installed. Recently Microsoft said it was cleaning up hundreds of PCs hit by these machines every day.
Many of these worms were launched from different PCs on the network of a French home net service firm but others were from machines as far away as China.

There were also many attempts to probe the BBC honeypot to see how vulnerable it was. Hijacked machines in Brazil as well as at the Indiana offices of a public accounting and consulting firm carried out “port scans” on the BBC honeypot to see if it could get a response that would reveal how vulnerable it was.
Via the honeypot we could see these machines sending test data in sequence to the ports, or virtual doors to the net, that the PC had open.

More rarely, once a day on average, came net attacks that tried to subvert the honeypot to put it under the control of a malicious hacker.
Again these attacks came from all over the world - many clearly from hijacked machines. The BBC honeypot was attacked by a PC at a Chinese aid organisation, a server in Taiwan and many machines in Latin America.
Via the forensic tools installed on the honeypot we could see the booby-trapped data packets these bugs were trying to make our target machine digest.
By using carefully crafted packets of data, attackers hope to make the PC run commands that hand control of it to someone else.
Via this route many malicious hackers recruit machines for use in what is known as a botnet. This is simply a large number of hijacked machines under the remote control of a malicious hacker.
Botnets are popular with hi-tech criminals because they can be put to so many different uses. The slaves or bots in a botnet can be used to send out spam or phishing e-mails.
They can become the seeding network for a new virus outbreak or act as a distributed data storage system for all kinds of illegal data. Spammers, phishing gangs and others often rent a botnet to use for their own ends.
Often once a machine has fallen under someone else’s control, a keylogger will be installed to capture information about everything that the real owner does - such as login to their online bank account.
This stolen information is often sold as few of those that steal it have the criminal connections to launder stolen cash.

—————-
But I don’t have to worry about it. I’ve got no ports passed through on my hardware firewall. Ubuntu doesn’t open ports by default, and I haven’t opened any myself. All of the attacks on the honeypot only work on Windows machines.

However, as I occasionally connect Windows to the Internet to use the iTunes Music Store, I do kinda worry about it. I take every precaution, even running as a limited user account, but it definately gives me the desire to quickly download the albums I want and then stop using iTMS.

This excellent article comes from the BBC. I seem to have lost the author’s name. If you are the author or you know who is, please message me so I can give credit where it is due.

How the trap was sprung
If every hour a burglar turned up at your house and rattled the locks on the doors and windows to see if he could get in, you might consider moving to a safer neighbourhood.
And while that may not be happening to your home, it probably is happening to any PC you connect to the net.
An investigation by the BBC News website has established the scale of the dangers facing the average net user.
Using a computer acting as a so-called “honeypot” the BBC has been regularly logging how many potential net-borne attacks hit the average Windows PC every day.
Attack traffic
Honeypots are forensic tools that have become indispensable to computer security experts monitoring online crime. They are used to gather statistics about popular attacks, to grab copies of malicious programs that carry out the attacks and to get a detailed understanding of how these attacks work.

To the malicious programs scouring the web these honeypots look like any other PC. But in the background the machines use a variety of forensic tools to log what happens to them.
Perhaps one indicator of how useful these tools have become is seen in the fact that the most sophisticated attackers make their malicious programs able to recognise when they have trespassed on a honeypot.
The BBC honeypot was a standard PC running Windows XP Pro that was made as secure as possible. This ran a software program called VMWare which allows it to host another “virtual” PC inside the host. Via VMWare we installed an unprotected version of Windows XP Home configured like any domestic PC.
VMWare is useful as it makes it easy to pause the “virtual” PC or roll it back to an earlier configuration. This proved essential when recovering from an infection.

36 warnings that pop-up via Windows Messenger
11 separate visits by Blaster worm
3 separate attacks by Slammer worm
1 attack aimed at Microsoft IIS Server
2-3 “port scans” seeking weak spots in Windows software

This guest machine, once armed with some forensic software, became the honeypot.
When we put this machine online it was, on average, hit by a potential security assault every 15 minutes. None of these attacks were solicited, merely putting the machine online was enough to attract them. The fastest an attack struck was mere seconds and it was never longer than 15 minutes before the honeypot logged an attempt to subvert it.
The majority of these incidents were merely nuisances. Many were announcements for fake security products that use vulnerabilities in Windows Messenger to make their messages pop-up. Others were made to look like security warnings to trick people into downloading the bogus file.
Serious trouble
However, at least once an hour, on average, the BBC honeypot was hit by an attack that could leave an unprotected machine unusable or turn it into a platform for attacking other PCs.

Many of these attacks were by worms such as SQL.Slammer and MS.Blaster both of which first appeared in 2003. The bugs swamp net connections as they search for fresh victims and make host machines unstable.
They have not been wiped out because they scan the net so thoroughly that they can always find another vulnerable machine to leap to and use as a host while they search for new places to visit.
Their impact is limited now because Windows is now sold with its firewall turned on and the patch against them installed. Recently Microsoft said it was cleaning up hundreds of PCs hit by these machines every day.
Many of these worms were launched from different PCs on the network of a French home net service firm but others were from machines as far away as China.

There were also many attempts to probe the BBC honeypot to see how vulnerable it was. Hijacked machines in Brazil as well as at the Indiana offices of a public accounting and consulting firm carried out “port scans” on the BBC honeypot to see if it could get a response that would reveal how vulnerable it was.
Via the honeypot we could see these machines sending test data in sequence to the ports, or virtual doors to the net, that the PC had open.

More rarely, once a day on average, came net attacks that tried to subvert the honeypot to put it under the control of a malicious hacker.
Again these attacks came from all over the world - many clearly from hijacked machines. The BBC honeypot was attacked by a PC at a Chinese aid organisation, a server in Taiwan and many machines in Latin America.
Via the forensic tools installed on the honeypot we could see the booby-trapped data packets these bugs were trying to make our target machine digest.
By using carefully crafted packets of data, attackers hope to make the PC run commands that hand control of it to someone else.
Via this route many malicious hackers recruit machines for use in what is known as a botnet. This is simply a large number of hijacked machines under the remote control of a malicious hacker.
Botnets are popular with hi-tech criminals because they can be put to so many different uses. The slaves or bots in a botnet can be used to send out spam or phishing e-mails.
They can become the seeding network for a new virus outbreak or act as a distributed data storage system for all kinds of illegal data. Spammers, phishing gangs and others often rent a botnet to use for their own ends.
Often once a machine has fallen under someone else’s control, a keylogger will be installed to capture information about everything that the real owner does - such as login to their online bank account.
This stolen information is often sold as few of those that steal it have the criminal connections to launder stolen cash.

—————-
But I don’t have to worry about it. I’ve got no ports passed through on my hardware firewall. Ubuntu doesn’t open ports by default, and I haven’t opened any myself. All of the attacks on the honeypot only work on Windows machines.

However, as I occasionally connect Windows to the Internet to use the iTunes Music Store, I do kinda worry about it. I take every precaution, even running as a limited user account, but it definately gives me the desire to quickly download the albums I want and then stop using iTMS.

This excellent article comes from the BBC. I seem to have lost the author’s name. If you are the author or you know who is, please message me so I can give credit where it is due.

How the trap was sprung
If every hour a burglar turned up at your house and rattled the locks on the doors and windows to see if he could get in, you might consider moving to a safer neighbourhood.
And while that may not be happening to your home, it probably is happening to any PC you connect to the net.
An investigation by the BBC News website has established the scale of the dangers facing the average net user.
Using a computer acting as a so-called “honeypot” the BBC has been regularly logging how many potential net-borne attacks hit the average Windows PC every day.
Attack traffic
Honeypots are forensic tools that have become indispensable to computer security experts monitoring online crime. They are used to gather statistics about popular attacks, to grab copies of malicious programs that carry out the attacks and to get a detailed understanding of how these attacks work.

To the malicious programs scouring the web these honeypots look like any other PC. But in the background the machines use a variety of forensic tools to log what happens to them.
Perhaps one indicator of how useful these tools have become is seen in the fact that the most sophisticated attackers make their malicious programs able to recognise when they have trespassed on a honeypot.
The BBC honeypot was a standard PC running Windows XP Pro that was made as secure as possible. This ran a software program called VMWare which allows it to host another “virtual” PC inside the host. Via VMWare we installed an unprotected version of Windows XP Home configured like any domestic PC.
VMWare is useful as it makes it easy to pause the “virtual” PC or roll it back to an earlier configuration. This proved essential when recovering from an infection.

36 warnings that pop-up via Windows Messenger
11 separate visits by Blaster worm
3 separate attacks by Slammer worm
1 attack aimed at Microsoft IIS Server
2-3 “port scans” seeking weak spots in Windows software

This guest machine, once armed with some forensic software, became the honeypot.
When we put this machine online it was, on average, hit by a potential security assault every 15 minutes. None of these attacks were solicited, merely putting the machine online was enough to attract them. The fastest an attack struck was mere seconds and it was never longer than 15 minutes before the honeypot logged an attempt to subvert it.
The majority of these incidents were merely nuisances. Many were announcements for fake security products that use vulnerabilities in Windows Messenger to make their messages pop-up. Others were made to look like security warnings to trick people into downloading the bogus file.
Serious trouble
However, at least once an hour, on average, the BBC honeypot was hit by an attack that could leave an unprotected machine unusable or turn it into a platform for attacking other PCs.

Many of these attacks were by worms such as SQL.Slammer and MS.Blaster both of which first appeared in 2003. The bugs swamp net connections as they search for fresh victims and make host machines unstable.
They have not been wiped out because they scan the net so thoroughly that they can always find another vulnerable machine to leap to and use as a host while they search for new places to visit.
Their impact is limited now because Windows is now sold with its firewall turned on and the patch against them installed. Recently Microsoft said it was cleaning up hundreds of PCs hit by these machines every day.
Many of these worms were launched from different PCs on the network of a French home net service firm but others were from machines as far away as China.

There were also many attempts to probe the BBC honeypot to see how vulnerable it was. Hijacked machines in Brazil as well as at the Indiana offices of a public accounting and consulting firm carried out “port scans” on the BBC honeypot to see if it could get a response that would reveal how vulnerable it was.
Via the honeypot we could see these machines sending test data in sequence to the ports, or virtual doors to the net, that the PC had open.

More rarely, once a day on average, came net attacks that tried to subvert the honeypot to put it under the control of a malicious hacker.
Again these attacks came from all over the world - many clearly from hijacked machines. The BBC honeypot was attacked by a PC at a Chinese aid organisation, a server in Taiwan and many machines in Latin America.
Via the forensic tools installed on the honeypot we could see the booby-trapped data packets these bugs were trying to make our target machine digest.
By using carefully crafted packets of data, attackers hope to make the PC run commands that hand control of it to someone else.
Via this route many malicious hackers recruit machines for use in what is known as a botnet. This is simply a large number of hijacked machines under the remote control of a malicious hacker.
Botnets are popular with hi-tech criminals because they can be put to so many different uses. The slaves or bots in a botnet can be used to send out spam or phishing e-mails.
They can become the seeding network for a new virus outbreak or act as a distributed data storage system for all kinds of illegal data. Spammers, phishing gangs and others often rent a botnet to use for their own ends.
Often once a machine has fallen under someone else’s control, a keylogger will be installed to capture information about everything that the real owner does - such as login to their online bank account.
This stolen information is often sold as few of those that steal it have the criminal connections to launder stolen cash.

—————-
But I don’t have to worry about it. I’ve got no ports passed through on my hardware firewall. Ubuntu doesn’t open ports by default, and I haven’t opened any myself. All of the attacks on the honeypot only work on Windows machines.

However, as I occasionally connect Windows to the Internet to use the iTunes Music Store, I do kinda worry about it. I take every precaution, even running as a limited user account, but it definately gives me the desire to quickly download the albums I want and then stop using iTMS.

Many Ubuntu users know that, when they get a dialog box asking for their password, this functionality is being provided by a program called "gksudo".

However, most Ubuntu users don’t know that one can change the dialog’s text and/or icon!

I’ll demonstrate by adding a "Browse Files As Root" item to the Applications menu, but you can do this for a panel launcher if you want.

Open up your applications menu editor, and create a new menu item:

• Name: Browse Files As Root
• Comment: Like logging in as root
• Icon: (find something appropriate for this)

The usual command would be: gksudo nautilus; but since we’re modifying it, do:

gksudo –message "Please type your password for root access" "nautilus"

Close the Applications Menu Editor and try it! Don’t actually fill in the form though, or you’ll have to wait 15 minutes until continuing this HOWTO. But don’t you think that "lock" icon looks a little out-of-place? Why not change it to something else?

gksudo –message "Please type your password for root file browsing" –icon "/home/chris/ubuntu.png" "nautilus"

Looks much better, doesn’t it? As I don’t know how to take a screenshot of a gksudo dialog, here’s a simulation of what it looks like (click for full view):

If you have IE installed in WINE, or if you have Windows on your computer, try putting the following script into an HTML page and running it in IE and Firefox:

<script>

for(x in document.write){document.write(x);}

location.href = "http://www.google.com";

</script>

Internet Explorer will crash immediately if Javascript is turned on. Firefox will go to Google.com. Konquerer will go to Google.com. I don’t know what Opera does, but I’ll test it out.

This is a great way to stop Microsoft fans from viewing a particular page on your website