SSL3 - workings for legacy crapware

I got it, and if you're involved with technology, you got it by now. SSL3 is bad, we get to be intercepted, poodle, whadawhada.

However, geeks, developers, admins, coders, whatever we are and work for and in our larger or smaller enterprises, need to check web apps over https://my-host-or-ip/my-other-url and be in after authentication. For one reason or another, to check functionality or simply curious or "whatever you need". Routers, devices, even old .wars/.ears deployed on older web containers, again, WHATEVER.

This intro is somehow a rant because I just wasted about one hr of my time trying to get into a whatever old app. And could NOT, because in the virtual where trying (smaller disk size) I only had Firefox latest version (45.0.1 at this time) which I want to update and keep it updated.

But then, what to do with my legacy crapware ?

Turns out there's a simpler solution. Grab an old Firefox. version 31.8.0esr downloaded from

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

As an archive in Downloads, uncompress, run from there, be done with that.

Why did I spend one hr to find this ? because yes, I wasted time with about:config

security.tls.version.min;0
security.tls.version.fallback-limit;0

in latest Firefox 45.x and most likely above.

For browser developers: keep your old versions available, as years pass by us and technical debt accumulates, you'll be sparring yourself some curses from people like me just wanting to use a freaking browser to get into a web app..... no matter how insecure....

eclipse luna 4.4 - things I've done for Ubuntu 12.04 64bit

As I've reinstalled on 64bit, starting over with Eclipse, this time 4.4 Luna, here's a handler article with things I did so far, so I won't forget them:

1. .desktop file

gedit /usr/share/applications/eclipse-luna.desktop with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]

Encoding=UTF-8

Name=Eclipse

Type=Application

Comment=Eclipse Luna 4.4 64bit IDE

Exec=env UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 SWT_GTK3=0 //eclipse -vm //java 

Icon=//icon.xpm

Categories=Application;Development;Java;IDE

Name[en]=Eclipse

Terminal=false

NoDisplay=false

2. eclipse.ini - supplementary than default provided

-Xms128m

-Xmx2048m

-Xss2m

-Xverify:none

-Duser.name=Radu Cadariu

3. ugly and non-readable tooltips

source: http://www.devsniper.com/black-tooltip-in-eclipse-on-ubuntu-12-04/

which is saying this:

sudo apt-get install gnome-color-chooser

Specific tab, you can setup background/foreground colors for tooltips. I am (also) using for foreground black(#000000), background blue(#C2DFFD)

4. ugly big tabs for Luna UI. 

source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1465712

gedit ~/.gtkrc-2.0

style "gtkcompact" {

GtkButton::default_border={0,0,0,0}

GtkButton::default_outside_border={0,0,0,0}

GtkButtonBox::child_min_width=0

GtkButtonBox::child_min_heigth=0

GtkButtonBox::child_internal_pad_x=0

GtkButtonBox::child_internal_pad_y=0

GtkMenu::vertical-padding=1

GtkMenuBar::internal_padding=0

GtkMenuItem::horizontal_padding=4

GtkToolbar::internal-padding=0

GtkToolbar::space-size=0

GtkOptionMenu::indicator_size=0

GtkOptionMenu::indicator_spacing=0

GtkPaned::handle_size=4

GtkRange::trough_border=0

GtkRange::stepper_spacing=0

GtkScale::value_spacing=0

GtkScrolledWindow::scrollbar_spacing=0

GtkTreeView::vertical-separator=0

GtkTreeView::horizontal-separator=0

GtkTreeView::fixed-height-mode=TRUE

GtkWidget::focus_padding=0

}

class "GtkWidget" style "gtkcompact"

The 3 and 4 affects the GTK on the system, so I'll take them with a grain of salt related to changes in the overall Ubuntu UI.

Now that I have my handler, if I find more things to change, I'll get back to this entry.

cross browser bookmarks sync on the same box ? not yet possible

I'm waiting for Mozilla and Google to come to an agreement, so I can easily import each other's bookmarks.

This is a longer history for me, I want them cross-synced, because I use one or the other depending on the split second decision when I need to get into a browser :)

I pretty much know the alternatives, cloud sync, mobile sync, I don't care. I'd consider myself a somewhat power user which needs to get his bookmarks in these two browsers, exactly the same. Without a third party, without plugins and other crapware.

Currently the master is FF, I used to export to a .html file, then import to Chrome. Somehow this has started to fail lately, not sure if this is a bug or not.

But how about Firefox Sync and Google Bookmarks interoperability ? Their clouds talk to each other, sync my bookmarks and spare me the extra step.

eclipse's orion

I've watched several articles about Orion, Eclipse's web based development tools. But never got in their hosted hub, to test and play. Until today :)

Now, that's worth the note to make it popular, it's for sure something ground breaking.

http://wiki.eclipse.org/Orion/Getting_Started_with_Orion#Logging_into_Orion

For now they allow CSS and JS. Good enough, let's see what's it capable of, I only suspect good things

BrowserID: breakthrough for identity SSO on web ? this just might be ...

Via my RSS feeds, I stumbled on this. Whose description mentioned PKI ?! As in public/private key ?! WOW !

This might be the breakthrough I've been personally waiting for, when speaking of annoyance multiple accounts on web. I've been looking at openids past year or so, however PKI "embedded" in the current browser seems more like it. Let's keep an eye on it.

As always, adoption guides technology, so this new kid on the block needs to evolve, and be adopted by mainline, however on a first glance looking promising.

I found the missing part - gluebox

Since I started my Ubuntu journey, there was a missing piece. Now I'm so happy that I am sharing this with you, before I put this to work in order to find out its reliability.

It's about a note taking program to store ideas and notes I usually take during engagements or readings.
Now I found a true candidate, Gluebox

The good part is that it's Eclipse based, which makes me rather comfortable and also makes it available on linux / windows / mac

I only found it via this wikipedia page. Couldn't I have found this page a little sooner ?!

Now, spread the word within the linux community so that others like me would suffer less :)

Ubuntu conversion. First impressions.

I'm on the road of becoming another linux convert. For the moment I'm on dual boot with Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid and the old (3 years old) XP partition. So far so good, I'm expecting some glitches but hopefully none of them blocking.

I managed to configure the Notes 8.5 client with the embedded Sametime to use the data folder mounted on the XP partition, so from the business communication point of view I'm set. Small issues with the fonts of the Notes client, due to fonts not being the same.

However, huge improvements for the Notes client into the Linux world.

I also have a handful of useful Windows apps which I'm using on a daily basis (Xmind, Keepass, you know, free stuff) which just works on Ubuntu, and several others which can have replacements. For instance, having the customer's SSH hosts handy can be accomplished with a little package called sshmenu. Similar to putty clones on Windows, of which I think I've tested about 10 of them :)

Today was the first day 95% working under Ubuntu. This was a good day.

evernote

Evernote is one of these amazingly simple, yet useful programs. If you want to take notes and remember things either on web pages or by notepad type of editor, then this is for you. I need to remember technical stuff and I don't want to memorize because I know that I will forget :) So I need a program which does just what Evernote is doing. I think it is worth a try.

If you don't believe me, check the video on the front page. It has sync with your online account, clipping screen on your workstation and for the most fancy people, mobile versions which keeps your notes in sync.

ISA 4.0

my favorite tool for digging into IBM repositories, IBM Support Assistant, has reached its new version, which is 4.0

since it's free, do yourself a favor and download it, if you frequently search IBM Support site to solve different product's mysteries :)

Also seems that this version is made on Expeditor; I'm saying this by its look&feel.

useful firefox extension - scrapbook

In the spirit of FOSS, here's another discovery of mine, gratitude of one of my Rational colleagues who pointed it to me (thanks, Razvan): scrapbook

It's usefulness is shown with the fact that you can add your own notes, beside to the page-capturing features. Since probably 40% of my working time is spent within Firefox (search, learn, read, open portals and web apps), I find it very useful to make it my own place of storing personal knowledge.
Files can be stored wherever you want on your disk, so backup is available for what you save.

Give it a try or let me know if you already use it and I'm late to this party :)

IBM products InfoCenters

During past 8 or 9 years of profession, I created to myself this principle of 'being able to search for info when I need it'. This means that whenever I need to dig into some issue, I really need to know where to look for. Fast and easy.

In this category of information digging I could put the Info Centers for all IBM products I'm interested in. The methods I use:
- bookmark the Info Centers links in my Firefox install (I use Google Toolbar/Bookmarks for this). More recently seems that Lotus 8 and 7 have their own links. You can grab them here (thanks Ellen for the links): http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nflsblog.nsf/dx/ND8_InfoCenter
- use IBM Support Assistant (great tool, I wrote a piece about it). At this point I might add that this tool contains other useful tools for log and core dumps analysis.
- There's another option if you work offline and need the Infocenters for documentation: grab those which interest you locally and put them to use through 'IBM Help 301'. This is working much like a local web server, allowing for Infocenters to be browsed. If you need several Infocenters there's some tweaking to be performed but all in all it's working.

linux adoption within IBM

I've got this article in my feed pool: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7386

It's about the linux adoption rate within IBM, which seems to be rather slow, according to the author. Also, one commenter said IBM should donate OS/2 to the open-source community.

While donating the OS/2 to the community seems like an interesting idea for me, guess what: I am considering migrating to linux as well, as the business desktop for me.

There are a couple of factors I need to consider before I do this:
1. Time. I need time to play with it and not disrupt my usual activities which relates to current projects I'm involved.
2. While I'm migrated to Fedora at home's desktop, since I've joined IBM, my Fedora desktop acts as gateway for Internet connectivity and I'm stuck on Win XP on my laptop :) So there's a factor of familiarity using the Linux OS inside-out.
3. The rate of probability for something not working on Linux is still higher than WinXP, and for me, fixing things on XP is easier than fixing on Linux. This is translated in tame wasted on collateral activities.

So, the strategy I might adopt for moving towards Linux could be to run things in parralel for at least 6 months.

But I'm getting there. Slowly ? yes. So what ? As long as I can get my job done, me and everyone not directly involved with Linux has other priorities than migrating to it just for fun.

The discussion of Linux adoption is useful for other contexts, where tax payer's money are wasted on MS licenses with no additional benefit. In such context, as my personal one, it's a matter of support and being able to manage/fix things quickly.

For the larger community of IBMers, those who are tech savvy enough with Linux, they've already migrated. The other part is using Win all other the place, you cannot enforce a policy of migrating towards Linux.

But hear me out, next year I will give it a try on the business laptop, I'll let you know the outcome.

openoffice scrolling on thinkpad

In my 'change how I do things' way of life, past days I gave OpenOffice a try when I needed to create a guideline document, more than 50 pages, with screenshots.

Big Blue gave me a ThinkPad T60 for work. I noticed that the scrolling with the little red button they call it TrackPoint is not working in OpenOffice. Then I searched the net and found some ideas on forums that a driver update for this TrackPoint is required.

Guess what, it WAS required. What I did was to go to Lenovo support, install a System Update software which would search for updates on Lenovo for the T60, then installed a Think ... Driver (cannot remember the exact name). After that, OpenOffice can be scrollable, at last ....

spread the buzz

via Ed Brill's blog I caught an YouTube clip about Lotus Symphony. I liked it, so you'll find it down below. Seems that IBM's contribution to the free software world pays off, as I am seeing more and more people around me (customers in particular) being acknowledgeable about ODF, OpenOffice, Lotus 8 with ODF editors and recently Lotus Symphony.

Aside the subject you may have noticed that my posts are no longer Domino development related, though most of them are Domino related somehow. I am known in the department as 'the lotus guy', any question Lotus related comes to me, I wonder why :)

My learning focus is targeted around the Portal, DB2, learning how to become a true IT Architect (a subject I will write a different topic, I see too many CV's claiming to be either Software Architect or IT Architect ... doh !).

I am also catching up and improving my *nix skills, at some time in the past I used to manage it pretty well (enough I could handle my Domino *nix tasks), past 4 years I seem to have forgotten quite a bit.

All in all, following weeks I will share some of the stuff one can find useful, from my new experiences.

Coming back to the subject, try Lotus Symphony and see if you like it. Personally I think there's room for improvement, the only reason for Symphony that I am aware of is that you can open SmartSuite documents, which you obviously cannot do with OpenOffice. I prefer OpenOffice and I am trying to make it the my default office editor, specially because of the speed. Loads a lot faster than Symphony and it's the latest version, which you'd think it's the best. Not always, still this is the common perception. Mine too, in this area ...

IBM Support Assistant

Those of you working with IBM software/hardware and not aware of Support Assistant, take note of this post and better go and download it here.
You need to login with your IBM account which I bet you already have if you need related technical info.
I'm sure you'll quickly understand that you need to install plugins for the platforms you're interested in, just see the Updater link on the top-right interface of your Support Assistant installation.

Very useful for searching for information on different pieces, including Domino :)

It manages to search different resources (redbooks, developerworks support and infocenters) which makes it a must have tool within your toolbox.

I've started using it 3 months ago, though it might have been available much longer, just that as a Domino developer I was not aware of it - bad marketing, perhaps:)

So here it's my contribution to advertising this tool to the public.

revelation - openoffice draw

Sometimes I rediscover things. Things (usually FOSS programs) I once wanted to use to get some tasks done and for some reason or another I wasn't so happy with.

This time I rediscovered the OpenOffice suite, which let me tell you it actually rocks. As fan of open-source paradigm, 3-4 years ago I gave it a whirl. I wasn't happy. At all.

But couple of days ago, a colleague of mine told me the Draw component can be used as alternative to 'Microfost' Visio. Hmm, I thought, could these passed 3-4 years be so productive for the OpenOffice suite, did they managed to improve it so much ?! To compare Draw with Visio ?! Let's see ...

There are a small number of things I like at Microsoft which I consider to be useful. One is Active Directory (the concept itself). The other one is Visio. All other is crap, including Exchange and Sharepoint :)

So I thought how could someone say there's a good alternative to Visio ?

Turns out that for non-professionals users of Visio, like myself, OpenOffice Draw IS an alternative. Usually I would use Visio to create some diagrams. Nothing fancy, nothing complex or complicated. Diagrams representing logical components, architecture servers and so on.

Draw can be used to do such things. Give it a try.

collection of web 2.0 apps ...

this is how I describe the following site: http://www.webware.com/

I found there many and interesting sites, some of which I've never heard before. There's also a voting session opened for "best of best" in several categories.

Discovered this site via meebo blogging, I'm keeping track of it here.

cute technique for decrease loading time of web pages with multiple images

This post is really to highlight the following article which describes a clever (read CSS magic) way to download one image and display multiple ones.

This news maybe old for some, but I'm keeping track of it, I'm sure I'll make use of it.

So, what's all about: if you have 30 images (small ones, like icons) to display in the page, what to do: create one big image out of them, then use the background attribute of the img tag to specify the same image and assign CSS class of each of the img tag which will split the big image and get what you want.

Clever, though it is best suited for icons. But it will for sure decrease the loading time of such pages. The first thing it came to my mind when seeing this is that the idea could be well appllied to the online editors (FCKEditor, my currently favorite).

tons of passwords to remember ? here is my password manager of choice ...

Folks, it's been some time since I've last posted to my blog. This was caused by my schedule, a one week vacation and some delivery date approaching.

We're all abused by many many usernames/passwords combinations used in our life: intranets, internet accounts, corporate accounts, applications X, Y, Z .... damn ! While SSO (Single Sign On) is something else to talk about, I found a FOSS application which recently I find it's of major usefullness for my memory: I only have to remember one password to be able to recover/remember my login details to whatever account I have.

The name is keepass and is good. In fact, for me, is "THE" Password Manager of choice these days. The beauty of it is that I carry all these passwords with me wherever I go. This is because it gets installed on my external 80GB removable. Available there are version(s) for Mac/Linux, though I did not play with these.
update: the portable version of keepass (which I currently use) can be found here: http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/keepass_portable


Talking about Password Managers, I accidentally run across https://www.passpack.com (I read about it somewhere, sorry for not remembering where). Worth mentioning it, an online Password Manager, if you prefer this alternative.

phone rintones

does free ringtones enter the FOSS (free and open source software) category on this blog ? I choose to define it so, because I've just run on a cool site providing free ringtones: http://www.ringtonesoup.com