xfyre [dot] com

SmartStor telnet access solution previously described here is fine, but has one significant problem: configuration settings does not persist after reboot, because /etc is mounted as a ramdisk and its contents (mostly) populated using startup system scripts.

Instead of modifying and reflashing system software it's much easier to create simple application plugin (idea borrowed from this post and telnet access plugin description in the same thread).

The plugin does very few things:
- suppresses automatic rewriting of /etc/telnet.user
- enables telnet access for 'admin' user
- adds 'admin' to /etc/sudoers

After all, plugin modifies AFPD configuration for better Apple Time Machine compatibility.

You may download it from here and install using PASM or SmartNAVI (disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any possible data damage, lost warranty or other issues caused by usage of this plugin).

Enjoy!

After spending a few hours with my SmartStor NS2300N while trying to guess why its download station plugin does not function like I want it to, I finally was able to find a solution.

Download plugin for NS2300N is simply MLDonkey P2P client. That is, you are able to connect to it and manage it using a bunch of GUIs, including Sancho which I could recommend as a best choice. GUI allows managing downloads and (more interesting!) managing MLDonkey configuration also.

My goal was to gain full access to the ways MLDonkey runs and manages files & torrents.

I'm using Apple hardware about a year, and this is a first time I see such an improper solution: Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse. Well, the initial idea was great, scrolling in every direction, controlling OS X functions etc. But the implementation is way too far from perfect:

- mouse hardly distinguishes left click from right click so you have to click VERY right to get it working;
- Scroll Ball simply stops functioning after ~1 month of heavy use.

I made several attempts to clean the Scroll Ball, unsuccessfully. I could go further and try to disassemble it, but instead just went to the store and bought Logitech V470. Little less functional, much more practical.

I’ve been using my QTek 9100 (HTC Wizard platform) for about a year. What I liked about it was good Windows compatibility, smooth sync with Outlook, a lot of available software, nice QWERTY keyboard. What I didn’t like was lack of system stability, poor performance and, last but not least, really terrible ergonomics.

Finally I got bored messing with stylus every time I need to do something like editing a contact or calendar entry, so I’ve decided to switch to another platform. After about a month of research & discussions I’ve finished with new Nokia E61, Symbian 9.1 (S60 rev.3) platform. It had everything it should have: QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, Bluetooth, and SIP client as a bonus.

When I started using SpamAssassin about one year ago, I didn’t like the fact that even with high Bayes scores messages were not deleted, but marked as spam instead. At the same time Mozilla Thinderbird virtually never made a mistake deciding whether message is a junk mail or not.

On the other hand, messages with low Bayes scores and one or two matches by SA formal rules were getting low overall score too.

I’ve started analyzing messages that Thunderbird marked as junk mail. Soon I came to conclusion which seems quite obvious: if we have both Bayes match and formal rule match, than the overall probability that message is a spam becomes much higher. So, to solve the problem, we have to implement some meta rules that would execute when number of conditions match at the same time.

After aquiring colo at .masterhost I’ve faced a need to choose software bundle to make it up & running. I hate to choose, so the process was quick: after looking around and discussing the matter with other geeks, I’ve made the following decision:

• Gentoo Linux
• Mail handling: QMail + vPopMail + ezmlm-idx + QMailAdmin + courier-imap
• Mail filtering: Qmail-Scanner, SpamAssassin, ClamAV
• Webmail: Horde IMP

All of the above is set up from Gentoo Portage with just a little intervention from system administrator and does the job very well: after all I have seamless virtual domain mail system that is fully manageable using web tools (except low-level operations like adding virtual domains, and except ezmlm-idx, because its web tools are ugly).