Brian's Technical Blog

Justice in Information Crimes

2009-11-18T08:57:00.001-08:00

Because we in the Church believe in justice, we believe that all must be accountable for their crimes. We also believe in forgiveness, but that is present only when the criminal accepts the terms of said forgiveness.

The article on page 341 presents similar concepts, except in the context of information crimes. Where it discusses the problems with prosecution of criminals from other countries, this can be compared with accountability, and how some try to avoid that accountability. Also it can be interpreted as the way culture can influence our way of thinking to the point that we reject gospel principles because they go against what we have been taught by society.

The point the writer makes about corporations not prosecuting criminals is similar to how the world in its pride seeks to cover up transgressions. And the admonition against seeking to resolve things outside the judicial process brings to mind that we are not to seek revenge for crimes, but leave justice to God, for he will see that all justice is carried out.

Using NEWT Pro within a Virtual Machine

2009-09-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

The title implies that that may be the problem in and of itself. Nevertheless, I tried to scan my network and ran into some problems.

My setup is a MacBook laptop running OS X 10.6 with a Windows XP virtual machine being run through VM Ware.

When I scanned the network with it, I came up with these results.

Obviously the connection could not be established with two of the computers. The first one on the list is the Mac. I decided to play around with that, and read the complete error message. It told me to right click on the message and select "Set Credentials...". There I saw that I could set the username and password for that specific computer. I set the username and password as such:

After I did that, it still wouldn't connect. Doing so showed this error:

I searched the error, but couldn't find any satisfactory results. For now I'm going to assume the difference in OSs is the primary issue. I will continue to experiment, since I don't know too much about this program yet. I'll also try making scans from native Windows computers, too to see what happens.

Thoughts about personal application

2009-09-11T10:04:00.001-07:00

The material I learn in my different Information Systems classes is varied. Most of it is information I am not familiar with. I do however have a desire to own what I learn here.

One of the best ways for me to learn a subject is to do it on my own and experiment. The way I plan to do this is to set up a server in my apartment. My roommate has two computers. I have three. Two of my computers are not functioning at this time. I need to get those computers functioning again and tether them together. I need to have Windows Server 2008 running on one and the others need any two of the following: Windows 7, Vista, XP Pro, or XP Home. With that kind of a setup, I feel that I can practice the things I learn in this class.

The things I have the hardest time understanding or want to learn more about, for example, are server networking, network security, and a lot of what we're learning in Systems Analysis and Design.

This may not be directly pertinent to what we are learning now, but it is what has been on my mind the most during this last week. I need to get a better handle on what I'm doing here. For the moment, this is how I plan on doing it. I'll keep something of a status report showing my progress in this blog.

Learning Model: Prepare

2009-09-04T08:40:00.001-07:00

It is important for us to prepare. I know in my own school life, preparing beforehand for each class has often meant the difference between an A and a D. The Learning Model says about preparing "Read the chapters assigned and complete preparation tasks to prepare you to participate in class discussion and group work." We can't expect to learn new things if we aren't already familiar with what we were supposed to have learned before.

The best way for me to prepare is to be as familiar as I can be with the subject matter, to do my homework, and study the material from the book or other resource. As is said in D&C 88:80, "That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you." Similarly, I need to prepare and understand the subject matter so that do well in my responsibilities as a student.

2009-03-20T00:22:00.000-07:00

Using iWeb with GoDaddy.com

When I originally created my web site for in the GoDaddy.com server, I did it on a Windows computer using Microsoft Expression. It is a relatively easy program to use and syncs well with GoDaddy.

Then I considered the fact that more often than not I would be updating my web site with a Macintosh computer and not a Windows, and therefore I became curious about how well iWeb would work. After some tinkering and some searching the Internet, I have found a good procedure for setting up a web site on GoDaddy with iWeb.

As is normal for Macs, iWeb is pre-setup under the impression that you will be using the Mac web site server, MobileMe. There is an option, however, to publish your web site to an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Server, such as GoDaddy. After attempting to enter in the correct information, I received an error, such as this one:

I reviewed my settings and it seemed correct. So I instead searched the Internet for a solution. What I found was in this link, which seems to disregard the built in FTP client within iWeb, and recommends the use of an open source program called Cyberduck.

A quick note: This guide is assuming you have already set up a GoDaddy account and have your domain established.

The first thing you do is after you've created the design for your web site, click on the name at the top of the tree in the left panel. In the middle section, the screen should have changed to Site Publishing Settings. Where is says 'Publish to:' , click the drop-down menu and select Local Folder. Give the site a name below (we'll use 'My Web site' as a default for demonstration purposes).

Further down, you can set the Folder Location. I used the 'Sites' folder in my home directory, but you may use the desktop or anywhere you want, only try to find a location where you can easily find the files you will be creating (not somewhere too cluttered with other things). Further down, enter in your web site URL.

Now, down at the bottom of the page you will see next to 'Add Page' a button that says 'Publish Site'. Select the button. In the Content Rights box that comes up, select Continue. You may look at what your site would look like now, or press OK.

Now on to publishing the web page. For this, you can choose one of two methods: do it directly through GoDaddy, or use a 3rd party program (Cyberduck) to do it for you. I tried both, so I can say a thing or two about the methods. Doing it through GoDaddy requires you to login and go through a variety of menus in order to enter the info in. Using Cyberduck allows you to quickly update the web site, and saves the upload info fairly easily so all you need to do is open the program and update whenever a change is made.

Unfortunately, this is where my instructions get a little iffy, because I more or less only stumbled onto the correct method of doing this.

To upload using GoDaddy, login. In the Hosting drop down menu, select 'My Hosting Account'. Where it shows your domain, select 'Manage Account' to the right. In the Hosting Control Center, select 'Content'. Inside the Content menu, select 'FTP Client'. A java page should come up (confirm the certificate), with your files on the left side and the GoDaddy client on the right. navigate in the left pane to where the files are stored that you published form iWeb. Select them, and move them over to the GoDaddy side. After the files are moved over, you should be good to go, and you should be able to navigate to your domain, and see the page you designed with iWeb.

To use Cyberduck, first you'll need to download it from this link. Open the program and click 'Open Connection'. You will see some empty fields, fields that need to be filled with the GoDaddy info. Now, the way I found the necessary information was when I was using the GoDaddy FTP Client. If while viewing the client, you select 'Disconnect', then 'Connect', you should see a window that looks like this:

This shows you what to enter into the fields in Cyberduck. Copy the Host field over to server, enter your Username and Password, make sure you're on Port 21, and then connect. It should show your login name in the drop down menu in the top middle. Click the down-arrow above 'Action'. Select 'Upload'. Select your web site files and press 'Upload'. Now, whenever you need to update your web page, just upload the file again, and replace the existing one with the new one.

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Linux for Dummies

2009-02-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

How to hack Windows Administrator Password using Linux (Ubuntu).

2009-01-27T20:19:00.001-08:00

I was following the instructions provided on this page for how to use Linux to hack your own computer, and spent the better part of 2 hours figuring out each step of the process. Being myself unfamiliar with Ubuntu (or Linux in general), I had something of a hard time. Considering this, I've decided to post here a slightly modified version of the original author's instructions, containing extra explanations for the greenie Linux user.

First you're going to want to get a hold of Ubuntu. More specifically, you're going to need an Ubuntu Live CD. Instructions on how to obtain this are on the Ubuntu website (it's free). You're not going to install Ubuntu, you're just going to boot from it. With the CD in the drive, restart the computer. It should boot to an Ubuntu menu.

The first option should say 'Start or Install Ubuntu'. This is the one you want, so select it.

Wait for the Ubuntu desktop to come up.

Now click 'System', then point to 'Administration', then click 'Software Sources'.

Make sure 'Community-Maintained Open Source Software (universe)' and 'Software Restricted by Copyright or Legal Issues (multiverse)' are checked. If not, check them, and click close. A dialog box will come up with the options 'reload' and 'close'. Select 'reload'.

Click 'Applications', point to 'Accessories', and click 'Terminal'

In the Terminal, type sudo apt-get install chntpw

A program called 'chntpw' should install.

Next, you'll need to mount the Windows NTFS partition by mounting it and allowing read/write support. By following this link, you'll find an explanation on how to do that. For the purposes of this instruction, I recommend that you name the files as demonstrated in the link.

Small piece of advice: When you type 'sudo' at the beginning of a command, it gives you 'root' privileges. That's kind of like Administrator privileges. You'll need to do that for almost every command you use. For example, in the above step involving the NTFS partition, you'll need to open 'ntfs-config' after you install it. In order to do that, type sudo ntfs-config in the Terminal.

After you've made the windows drive on your desktop, you'll want to navigate using terminal to the WINDOWS/system32/config directory. If you don't know how, you should type cd /media/windows/WINDOWS/system32/config in the Terminal. This is of course based on the instructions provided in the NTFS partition link.

Now that you're at that directory, type sudo chntpw SAM

You should be prompted at the end of a long list of information to change your password, or type * to blank it out.

Reboot and you should be able to log back into Windows.