Tag Archives: computers

Signed mail and Luminis 3

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At work we currently use version 3.3.3 of the Luminis III platform by SunGard Higher Education.  This product handles our mail and portal needs for the time being.  While it is definitely not the best web-based mail client in the world I have seen worse.

Recently I had received a notice from a friend that he couldn’t read my signed e-mail in the web-client.  After having him forward the message to me as an attachment, I determined that the problem had to do with my digital signature.

I use Apple’s Mail client for OS X 10.5.  Currently I also have GPGMail by Stéphane Corthésy installed so that I can seamlessly use my GPG keys to sign and encrypt my e-mail.  After sending an unsigned message and finding out that it went through with no problems, I started investigating the options provided by GPGMail.

It turns out that I had checked the option to use OpenPGP/MIME by default.  Apparently this creates an message body that the Luminis III web-mail client can’t read.  So if you are running into this problem with a web-based client, check to see if your messages are going out as OpenPGP/MIME.

Uninstalling Inquisitor

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For those of you who are into browser plugins, you may have run across a plugin called Inquisitor.  According to the website, Inquisitor:

speeds up your searches like no other

While this may be true after several searches I determined that I wanted to go back to using the default Safari search plugin features instead.  Unlike the XMarks plugin, the Inquisitor plugin doesn’t come with an uninstallation script.  The Inquisitor FAQ lists the following instructions on removing the plugin for Safari on Mac OS X:

  • Navigate to your hard drive device
  • Select the “Library” folder
  • Select “InputManager” folder
  • Delete the “Inquisitor” folder
  • Restart Safari

My experience with this was not quite as nice as the FAQ would lead you to believe.  The main issue was that I had to actually logout of my user session before the bundle was released and could be emptied from the trash.

The second issue I had with the instructions was that they are incomplete.

Like many software developers on the Mac, David Watanabe, did not provide a complete uninstaller for the plugin, he just told you to go delete a few files.  I find this a very poor practice when writing software.  If you installer writes files and preferences to particular locations, then you should provide an uninstallation routine that removes those files.

After some searching, here is a list of the files that you need to remove in order to completely expunge Inquisitor from your system:

  • /Library/InputManagers/Inquisitor/
  • /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Inquisitor/
  • /Library/Recipts/inquisitor.pkg
  • /Library/Recipts/inquisitorPreflight.pkg

However, since this is a plugin for Safari that gives you options to configure, you should also take the time to remove the entries added to the Safari plist file.  The plist is named com.apple.Safari.plist and is stored in the /Users/username/Library/Preferences/ directory.

Here are the entries to remove from the plist file:

  • kInquisitorAutocomplete
  • kInquisitorBeaconEnabled
  • kInquisitorNumberOfResults
  • kInquisitorNumberOfSuggestions
  • kInquisitorOrdering
  • kInquisitorRepairDefaultShortcuts
  • kInquisitorSearchHistory
  • kInquisitorSearchSitesA
  • kInquisitorSearchSource
  • kInquisitorShowSearchViewA
  • kInquisitorVersionCheck

What’s up with the FSF?

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So there is a nice report on cnet about an human denial of service attack on the Apple Retail Store Genius Bars.

According to this story, and the FSF site DefectiveByDesign, the goal is to book as many 10-minute time slots as possible over a two-day period at the Apple Store in a lame attempt to bring more attention to what the FSF sees as the defective nature of the iPhone 3G.

Richard Stallman, the founder of the FSF, has stated:

The motive for DRM schemes is to increase profits for those who impose them, but their profit is a side issue when millions of people’s freedom is at stake; desire for profit, though not wrong in itself, cannot justify denying the public control over its technology. Defending freedom means thwarting DRM.

He also describes DRM as Digital Restrictions Management:

However, since its purpose is to restrict you the user, it is more accurate to describe DRM as Digital Restrictions Management.

Continue reading →

Tablet PC Restoration – Part 1

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This is part one of a short series of articles detailing the process I went through to restore a friend’s table pc after her hard drive dies due to a head crash.

Background

My friend has a Gateway CX210X Convertible Notebook. This model uses a SATA internal drive. Her drive died sometime last Friday afternoon while working in Windows. You got the standard click of the drive arm against the platter that wouldn’t stop.

I tried some basic restoration techniques to see if I could at least see the drive:

Nothing worked. So I went out and bought a new hard drive for her from one of the local computer places in Valdosta, Belson’s pcXchange.

Installation Problems

At this point I thought I was going to be homefree, boy was I wrong. The first hurdle was getting the Windows install cd to even see the hard drive. Apparently the bios for the CX210X does not have a legacy option to allow the SATA controller to be seen as a standard IDE controller. No problem, I can just use a USB floppy drive to load the drivers before the install, right? Wrong.

Continue reading →

Linksys range extender open a hole in their own security

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So, a friend of mine was setting up a Linksys WRE54G Range Extender on her wireless network to eliminate a dead spot in her house.

She had issues with the Windows-based setup utility because it hardcodes the TCP/IP settings on the computer due to the fact it assumes that your network won’t be setup to work with the device out of the box.  After that failed, and spending a while on the phone with a hapless Linksys tech support person, we finally got it configured via the web interface.

So everything is going fine until she notices that the MAC filter that was configured on the WRT54G was no longer effective.

It turns out that when you setup the WRE54G to work it invalidates the purpose of your MAC filtering.  All traffic sent through the range extender is automatically flagged as OK.

From a Linksys forum post:

As a result, Wireless MAC Filtering on the main wireless router or access point will have no effect on clients connecting through a WRE54G Range Expander.

You have to wonder who makes the decisions on options with stuff like this.  The Linksys tech I was chatting with online about this said that the best solution would be to enable WPA security, but their user guide for device specifically recommends doing MAC address filtering in addition to the encryption, except for the fact that you can’t.

Good game Linksys.