automaticable

Woo, we’re on vacation!  That’s right, the bro’s drove down from Downers Grove last night, and we’re Georgia-bound this morning.  The next 8 days are to be spent hiking, fishing, swimming, canoeing, and all-around have a good time.  We’ve got a few competitions laid out so far, but I think the whole week will be competitive craziness.  I’m talkin’ watermelon seed spitting contest, Euchre tournament, and “who will-jump-over-the-fire-naked” bets.  Anything goes this week.  We are on the road in less than 35 minutes.  Later, automaticable.

PS: In case you weren’t following, yes, Kyle does owe me 22.22 beers this vacation.  And yes, I did make my 50 mile goal.  And yes, I am doing the Chicago Half Marathon in September (more on that later).  I’m not really sure what kind of beer it’ll be yet– any suggestions?

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Tonight Stacy and I decided to make our own granola bars, and they turned out pretty darn good.  I had been wanting to try making them for a while now, and finally got around to it.  It’s a great snack to make because it’s relatively easy to make, pretty healthy, you can throw in whatever you want, and really cheap.  We made a 9″ x 13″ tray of granola bars for around $5 in ingredients (not to mention they were mostly organic).  And the best part, is they’re delicious.  We’re talking:

• Rolled Oats
• Flour
• Brown Sugar
• Raisins
• Chocolate Chips
• Walnuts
• Almonds
• Honey
• Sunflower Seeds
• Vanilla
• Salt, canola oil, etc.

I mean, it sounds great, doesn’t it?  And now I have snacks for the next couple weeks– cool.  I can’t wait to make it again, there’s already a few other things I want to try (namely, peanut butter, mmmm).

Does anybody else have a tasty they like to make?  Or perhaps the missing ingredient to my nearly-perfect granola bars?  Let’s hear it in the comments.

Good news folks: I’ve been keeping up with the crazy running showdown going on between Kyle and myself, and it looks like I’ve earned my first six pack! I think Kyle’s legs may have fallen off or some other catastrophe, because he hasn’t run in almost a month. That’s good, because we still have almost three weeks of fierce, beer-driven competition left.

Oh, I’ve also created a new page dedicated to the long-distance running battle.  Now you can keep tabs on our progress run-by-run until the very end.  I’ve logged almost 20 miles so far, but I’m going to up the ante and strive to bring my total to 50 miles by the end of the competition, July 25th.  Think I can do it?  We’ll see.  Think Kyle can keep up?  No chance.

[ Running Showdown ]

I’ve started another pet project for the summer, and I believe it’s ready for a stable release.  The program is called Pwdhash Sharp, and it’s a C#, Gtk-based desktop implementation of the PwdHash password-generator, written for Ubuntu.   We’ve written about PwdHash before, but if you’re not familiar:

PwdHash automatically replaces the contents of [site address and password] fields with a one-way hash of the pair (password, domain-name). As a result, the site only sees a domain-specific hash of the password, as opposed to the password itself. A break-in at a low security site exposes password hashes rather than an actual password. We emphasize that the hash function we use is public and can be computed on any machine which enables users to login to their web accounts from any machine in the world. Hashing is done using a Pseudo Random Function (PRF).

Now with Pwdhash Sharp, you get the same functionality integrated into your desktop.  When I first started writing this application, the PwdHash Firefox extention wasn’t compatible with Firefox 3 (although they’ve updated the addon since then), so that was another reason I needed an alternative.  Pwdhash Sharp is also convenient for non-browser applications which require a password– now you can easily use strong passwords for them as well.

Pwdhash Sharp 0.8.4 is the fourth version released, and is now relatively stable.  Some of the features include:

• Passwords exactly match those generated by PwdHash, so they are interchangable.
• Native GTK window and icons.
• Create and retrieve passwords for web- or desktop-based applications.
• Minimize to tray for convenient access when you need it.

There are two ways to download Pwdhash Sharp 0.8.4.  You can either download the .deb for your platform from the release page, or you can get uploads via my personal PPA.  The benefits of the PPA is that you will receive automatic updates of pwdhash-sharp as they occur, just like all other programs in Ubuntu.  To add it:

• In the panel, select System > Administration > Software Sources
• Select the “Third-Party Software” tab, and “Add…” to add a new entry.  In the popup, enter the line:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/swegner/ubuntu hardy main

• Close the software sources manager, and allow the repository cache to reload.  Now, you can install pwdhash-sharp from your favorite package manager.  On the command line:

sudo aptitude install pwdhash-sharp

Once installed, you can launch it from the “Accessories” submenu.  Use it just like the form on the pwdhash.com website.

I’m pretty happy with the project so far, but it’s by no means complete.  It’s been a learning experience in packaging for Ubuntu, as well as developing using Mono and GtkSharp.  There’s still a few bugs to work out, and some features that I’d like to add.  Namely:

• For some reason, Pwdhash Sharp can’t be launched from within Gnome Do.  Anybody have this issue?
• I’d like to add some preferences to automatically copy generated passwords to the clipboard.  Also, it might be useful to automatically minimize, and “forget” the previous site password, for security reasons.
• Also, “man” pages aren’t generated correctly, but this seems to be a packaging issue.
• It would also be nice to port to Windows, and should be relatively easy since it’s in C#.  I could either do a Gtk port, or use a native Windows interface.  Anybody interested in helping?

So, give Pwdhash Sharp a try, and let me know what you think.  I’m open to suggestions and feature requests.

PS: The PwdHash algorithm generates only pseudo-random passwords, which could be decrypted, given at least half of the key.  Can anybody figure out the password in the screenshot?

As of yesterday, I am now being syndicated by Ubuntu Weblogs. This is pretty exciting for me because I’ve been reading others’ blogs there for quite a while, and now I’m finally able to become a part of it.

For those of you reading from Ubuntu Weblogs– hello! A little about myself– my name is Scott Wegner, and I’m a student at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, studying Computer Science. I’ve been using Ubuntu for about 2 years, and have already started converting my family members. I enjoy posting about Ubuntu news, tutorials, and projects that I’m working on (more on that later). You’ll also see an occasional post on music, politics, and life in general. My blog, automaticable, is actually a culmination of thoughts and posts from my brothers and I. I’ve only syndicated my own content, so check out the blog to read the rest.

For those reading from automaticable, you shouldn’t really notice a change. If you’ve never read it, I suggest you check out Ubuntu Weblogs– there’s a lot of really great content there.

Have you ever wanted to set up a subversion repository on your home computer? Whether it be for a new software project, versioning your personal documents, or any other reason, there are many benefits to using version control. Some free websites that will host your project for you, such as SourceForge or Google Code, but it’s often necessary to have a little bit more control.

I set up a subversion repository for a new project the other day, and the process was relatively painless. I’m using a standard Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 desktop setup, with OpenDNS and DD-WRT for port-forwarding, and without an Apache web server. Keep reading to host your own subversion repository server.

Continue reading “How To: Host a Subversion Repository in Ubuntu Hardy”

Do you have secure, domain-specific passwords generated by PwdHash? Well, the handy Firefox extension just got an update that brings support for the latest Firefox 3– you can grab it here. This is one of the last extensions that I’ve been waiting for on Firefox 3. What extensions are you still missing?

Well, it’s all but confirmed now.  With Firefox 3 download day set to hit any time this month, it looks like the Firefox developers are preparing.  As a result, it appears that the final release of Firefox 3 hit the hardy-proposed repository this morning.  I installed the update, and am running it now.  Check it out:

And you can see the version string through Synapic Package Manager:

The latest in hardy-updates is “3.0~rc1+nobinonly-0ubuntu1″, but this version string is “3.0+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1″, clearly lacking any “release candidate” tag.  Could this be the real deal?  It was probably uploaded in an effort to make sure that Ubuntu users are able to access it in hardy-updates on release day, so they have a better chance at their world record.

If you want to download this pre-release for yourself, all you need to do is enable the hardy-proposed repository:

• Go to System > Administration > Sofware Sources
• Click on the “Updates” tab, and make sure the box for “Unsupported Updates” is checked
• Press “Close”, and let the package manager refresh.

Afterwards, you should see the update icon in your taskbar, with the latest Firefox 3 ready to go! Note, however, that the hardy-proposed repository does contain *unsupported* updates.  To be on the safe side, you should disable it after you install Firefox.

Has anyone else been running Firefox 3 yet?  Have you noticed any differences?  Mine feels a little faster, although that may be due to the fact that a few extensions are still incompatible.

We just added a new Wordpress plugin here on automaticable so you can use OpenID login IDs. If you’re not familiar with OpenID, it’s a framework that allows you to use the same login information on a variety of webpages.  From the OpenID site:

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

So what does this mean for you?  Well, if you like to leave comments here, you can claim them with your OpenID login, rather than actually registering for automaticable.  This is convenient if you’re a casual visitor and like to leave comments on a variety of blogs– you can use the same login on any blog that supports OpenID.

If you already have a login on automaticable, you could associate your OpenID login ID with it, and enjoy all the same benefits.  Check out your profile page for details.

By default, Ubuntu Hardy Heron uses PulseAudio for audio mixing, which disables surround sound by default. I just bought new 5.1-channel speakers, but I was only heard sound coming from the front two. Disappointed, I went searching for the answer in the forums. If you want surround sound on your Linux setup, keep reading below..

Continue reading “How-to: Enable Surround Sound on Ubuntu Hardy”