21Jan 2009 by Asim Zeeshan 7 Comments

Digsby Review

News, Resources, Reviews
I tried digsby after looking at a Yahoo Ad. It took me half an hour to download, install, run, test and decide to uninstall it. It is really very heavy, takes too many notification icons in the system tray and takes LOTS of resources. One of the things that I didn't like was that it shows me more details then I need, e.g. one of my acquaintances got a post on their WALL (in FaceBook), like I care? It does not function like the normal FaceBook. My experience was not too good so I dont recommend it to anyone. But if you are an enthusiast like me, go ahead and test drive it today :) Here are a couple of screenshots of Digsby
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15Jan 2009 by Asim Zeeshan 3 Comments

Using CPanel/WHM API to get detail list of all accounts

How to, Linux, Resources, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials, Ubuntu
Today I had this need to get a list of WHM Accounts using one of its APIs. I have never used it before but it was really simple to use. It returns an xml file that you can manipulate using your prefered language and store it in database for reporting etc. Here is what you need to do, connect to your server using SSH and run the following command Replace your-server-ip with your WHM's ip and myuser/mypass with the actual WHM/CPanel password. The resultant xml file will be saved as "listaccts.xml" in the same directory as you ran the command in. If you feel a bit insecure running these command over SSH then visit this page on your browser and save it as an xml file. http://your-server-ip:2086/xml-api/listaccts (again, substitute your-server-ip…
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09Jan 2009 by Asim Zeeshan 2 Comments

Intall Apache, MySQL and PHP on Ubuntu 8.10

How to, Linux, OpenSource, Resources, Reviews, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials, Ubuntu
WARNING: Please use this method to install Apache, PHP and MySQL because its more suitable for most of your needs and has options to auto-upgrade your installation. The following method is obsolete and not recommended. After trying to install Apache, MySQL and PHP on Ubuntu 8.10 via several methods listed over the web. I opted for xampp package for linux. It is as easy as ABC Download the xampp linux package from their official website (I have selected NCHC, Taiwan as the mirror to download this package, you may try another) Extract the files Chmod the files to have nobody ownership Configure xampp security Start xampp with this command Stop xampp Restart xampp Login to ftp using the username nobody and the password that you have set up in the…
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08Jan 2009 by Asim Zeeshan No Comments

Download files from a http authenticated directory using wget

How to, Linux, OpenSource, Resources, Thoughts, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials, Ubuntu
I wanted to download something off a sub-domain using wget that I have password protected using .htaccess so the following command was NOT working Luckily, we can pass two arguments to the same command and tell wget what the username and password is Works Great!! If you are using Ubuntu 8.10, have not enabled root user and trying to download to a directory that has "nobody" or "root" as owner then try pre-pending it with sudo
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08Jan 2009 by Asim Zeeshan 2 Comments

How to Install Webmin in Ubuntu

How to, Linux, OpenSource, Resources, Reviews, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials, Ubuntu
From the little help that I can get over the internet, I found out that you need to install the following packages to prepare the system for Webmin installation. Run the following command over SSH or Ubuntu Desktop's terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal). (Learn how to configure SSH on Ubuntu 8.10 if you want to have a remote access to your Ubuntu box). Download the latest version of Webmin by running the following command (visit webmin download section for newer versions) Downloading Webmin After the package has been downloaded, run the following command to install it You should now be able to login to Webmin at the URL https://localhost:10000/ using root or any other user with sudo access.
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08Jan 2009 by Asim Zeeshan No Comments

Configuring SSH on Ubuntu 8.10

How to, Linux, OpenSource, Resources, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials, Ubuntu
The first issue that I had after installing Ubuntu 8.10 was that I could not connect to SSH on it because SSH server is not installed on Ubuntu 8.10 and it never asked me if I wanted to make a selection of what software packages I need to have installed. I guess thats why they are making a less then 25 min install promise. Here's how you can enable / configure / install SSH on your Ubuntu 8.10 Open a terminal window by selecting the Applications menu and selecting Terminal from the Accessories menu. In the terminal window enter the following command and press enter to execute it It will automatically download and install the SSH serve and configure it to run on port 22 (default port). Ubuntu 8.10 SSH…
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08Jan 2009 by Asim Zeeshan 1 Comment

Ubuntu 8.10, Perfect Linux distro for PHP development

Linux, OpenSource, Resources, Reviews, Thoughts, Ubuntu
I recently felt the urge to have a development testing environment on Linux (LAMP). I tried CentOS first since it is one of the leading industry standard Linux server. I was disappointed to see that CentOS does not have a 5.2.x series of PHP that I could install via "yum" (am not a very advance user so does not wanted to build it by typing long queries in SSH just to find out that I left some core thing in the first place). I did a bit of research and found out that Ubuntu could be a better choice. Luckily I had the latest version of Ubuntu already shipped via Postal Mail (aka Snail Mail) and this time the CDs DID get through the customs. For those new to Ubuntu,…
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