Hackosis

Readers – do you have any tips and tricks like this one? We would love to hear them.

Why spend $100 on a WiFi repeater when you can make your own $10 super duper WiFi antenna? Retaliate.

Items needed:

• 35-mm foam (like the kind desktop and laptop PCs usually come with)
• Solid-core copper wire
• Small brass plate
• Multiple BNC connectors

Follow the instructions in the video to get started:

Do you have any more nifty WiFi hacks? Let us know in the comments. { via tech.nocr.at }

DIYLife.com created a video instructing about how to create your own USB LED color changer. I doesn’t go into a whole lot of depth, so pay attention. You can also use this to do beat detection, etc.

{ via Hack N Mod }

Run out of jewel cases? Or maybe you hid them so your friends don’t ask you to burn them a CD AND give them a jewel case. At about $0.01 one cent a sheet, a piece of paper can make the perfect case for a CD or DVD.

And in case the video didn’t serve you justice, papercdcase.com has instructions for a slightly different version of a paper CD case in PDF and GIF format.

Why spend thousands of dollars on digital signage solutions when you can implement a terminal services solution and save big time? We can use a combination of a TV, HP thin client, PowerPoint Viewer, Terminal Services, and group policy to make our informational kiosk.

image by Solo, with others

What you need:

1. TV or Monitor
   
2. Thin Client (See how to Roll your own custom RDP thin client)
   
3. Terminal Server — this doesn’t necessarily have to be a ’server’ you can use Windows XP or Vista, unless you are using multiple logins.
4. PowerPoint Viewer

We need to apply some group policy settings to the user that will be logging into the remote desktop session. This can be applied through the domain level, or on the local PC that will be handling the RDP session.
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Ever use MSN instant messenger or Google Talk and feel like you are being watched? Well I have a little secret for you; you are being watched. Not that there is anything to hide, but privacy is always a good thing.

By using netcat we can setup a simple chat server, and it only takes about 5 minutes.

First, you need to make sure that you have netcat installed. Netcat is most likely included in your repositories if you are running Linux. Windows users can get the netcat Windows binary.

Ubuntu or Debian based sytems:

Make sure you open the port on your local firewall if need be and the rest is very simple. Lets assume that the server’s IP address is 192.168.10.1.

Run the netcat chat server on localhost (127.0.0.1) port 10001:

-n tells netcat not to do DNS lookup. Use this if you are using IPs only. It takes a long time for the DNS to timeout. If you are using hostnames, leave this switch off.
-v tells netcat to be verbose. This will allow you to see the chat messages in the terminal on the server.
-l tells netcat to listen for connections on the localhost. This will allow other nodes to connect to your chat server.
-p 10001 tells netcat what port to listen on. Again, make sure that you open the port on your firewall. This can be anything, but make it obscure and not a standard port.

Now lets say Bob wants to chat with you on your new netcat chat server. It is very easy for him to connect and talk with you.

Keep in mind that this is not secure. Anyone sniffing packets can intercept your messages. I am also unaware of any other security holes this might bring. If there is considerate knowledge of the network, I would assume it would be safe.

There are many ways we could add to this. We could use OpenSSL and have a secure chat. Also, we could log all chat messages to a file by redirecting the output of the netcat chat server ( >> chatlog.txt). There are many other possibilities including setting this up as a daemon with an init.d script. possibilities. If you have any netcat tips or ways to implement this with OpenSSL, I would love to hear it in the comments. dontripmyrsshackosis

Symbolik.wordpress.com explains how to convert YouTube FLV files into Mp3s by utilizing ffmpeg. As a bonus, the post also provides a nice bash script to convert all FLV files in the same directory to MP3 or OGG format.

I previously posted about how to use the Clive python script to download YouTube videos. Also, Windows users can download a Windows binary for ffmpeg.

Now start hunting up those favorite songs.

Perfect for children or a web kiosk. ProCon Latte is a Firefox extension to filter out unwanted or offensive content from the web. Forget about setting up a proxy with expensive equipment. ProCon Latte allows you to set a password to keep others from changing settings. This Firefox add-on also enables a whitelist to be implemented, thus blocking all websites except ones specified.

Check out the screenshots (don’t mind the colors, this is just my Gnome theme):

Download ProCon Latte | Mozilla Developer Site

From the site:

The answer is Webconverger.

Webconverger is simply a Web kiosk/terminal, that is easy to deploy and secure. In most cases all you need to do is boot from a CD. That’s it! A usable up to date Web browser that just works.

The Web, just the Web and only the Web.

Webconverger has .img or .iso format. I found the nicest features to be an auto reset feature for the browser as well as an auto update on boot up for any security or bug issues from the Debian repos.

Homepage | Features | Download

image via link

Windows, Linux, and Mac, open source Openfire (formerly known as Wildfire) is a XMPP (a.k.a. Jabber) Server with “rock solid security and performance”.

I implemented this today for our Internet tech support team. Installing it was super easy on openSUSE 10.2. Basically in 3 steps I had a working IM server:

1. Install the rpm: “rpm -ivh openfire-3.3.3-1.i386.rpm”. If you don’t have an rpm package system you will have to install the from the tar ball. Windows and Mac also have an install package.
2. Connect to the admin web interface on port 9090. “http://your.ip.or.hostname:9090/”
3. Run through Setup, and create users.

Check out the admin interface:
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