Bash shell has a serious vulnerability that can be exploited by
an remote attacker in some cases.

To check if you are using bash can be done with entering the following at the shell:
echo $0
or
echo $SHELL

If it prints bash, then you are using bash.

Debian Wheezy is using dash by default since version 6.10, so it should not be vulnerable.

If your version of bash is vulnerable can be tested by entering the following in bash:
env X='() { (a)=>\' bash -c "echo echo vuln"; [[ "$(cat echo)" == "vuln" ]] && echo "still vulnerable :("

I tried fixing the heartbleed bug on my debian installation.

Most of the websites suggest, that updating to the newest Openssl release
fixes the problem.

Howevery, an "apt-get install openssl" did not fix the problem.
The test website http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/ said - still vulnerable, although
the newest openssl release was fetched by the apt command.

I found a more thoroughly explanation of a possible fix at:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/123711/how-do-i-recover-from-th…

Getting the newest drush (Drupal shell) version via PEAR can give the following error:

Discovering channel pear.drush.org over http:// failed with message: channel-add: Cannot open "http://pear.drush.org/channel.xml" (Cannot download non-http URL "/channel.xml")

Using the following command sequence can solve the problem:

pear upgrade –force Console_Getopt
pear upgrade –force pear
pear upgrade-all
pear channel-discover pear.drush.org
pear channel-discover pear.drush.org
pear install drush/drush

You have to run the channel discovery twice to add the channel. The first try

Installing APC php5 cache from pear is a pretty easy task:

apt-get install php-pear
apt-get install php5-dev build-essential
pecl install apc

However, if the last step fails with the following errors,

'apc_regex' has no member named 'preg'
'apc_regex' has no member named 'nreg'

you are missing the perl regular expression libraries on your system!

Installing can be done with

apt-get install libpcre3-dev

as root user.

Executing
pecl install apc
once again will then hopefully work.

I have tried to open a self recorded video with VirtualDub,
a Freeware Video Editing Software.

However, the video file was recorded by a camcorder using Intel Indeo
Video format, and VirtualDub was not able to open it.

I don't know whether the codec is supplied with Windows 7 or not, but
after installing the K-Lite Codec pack Standard from codecguide.com, it
still could not open the file properly.

It seems that the codec has to be registered in Windows seperately:
Start a command prompt as Administrator and change to the directory
C:\Windows\SysWOW64

In order to connect a ubuntu linux vm to a microsoft proxy server, several steps are involved to produce a working connection.

Several ubuntu versions (maybe a new version can do this automatically) are not able to connect to such a proxy without further tweaking.

The software which is needed to perform the NTLM authentication is named Cntlm.
It can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cntlm/files/cntlm/cntlm%200.92.3/cntlm-…

Download the latest version, untar and compile it using the default settings:
./configure --prefix=/url/local

In order to change the keyboard layout of a linux machine persistently, making it survive also a reboot, the file /etc/conf.d/keymaps has to be changed.

There you can find the options KEYMAP, which has to be changed to one of the keymaps found in /usr/share/keymaps and subfolders.

For example if the keyboard has to be set to a default german layout, you can use:
KEYMAP="de-latin1-nodeadkeys"
or
KEYMAP="de-latin1".

Once you restart the machine, the layout will be applied.

Since a serious bug has been found in samba recently, i had to compile samba server
on my linkstation.

I downloaded the latest version, the first issue was which source folder i had to use, either source3 or source4, it turned out to be source3 (source4 seems to be a new, experimental version).

Since i wanted to install to the local folders, i proceeded like for rtorrent with:
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make && make install

The second problem i encountered after the build, after i ran smbd -V to check the version, the libraries
libtalloc.so.2

Multiple applications with the same name can be used with alternatives.

For example, if you want to install several versions of gcc, alternatives support
switching between multiple versions with one command.

1. List which versions of gcc are installed

ls /usr/bin/gcc*

2. Add several alternatives for gcc

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.4 40
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.1 30

If you have no hibernate option next to the shutdown button on Windows7, here are the
steps you need to enable it:

Run a command prompt as Administrator:
Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt -> left click -> Run As Administrator

Type the following command:
powercfg /hibernate on

If required, apply the following configuration:
Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change when the computer sleeps -> Change advanced power settings -> Sleep -> Allow hybrid sleep -> Setting: OFF

Now the button for hibernate should be available.