CUPS and EFS

So, CUPS in upcoming Dapper has few problems. Nothing scary and will be fixed before release. Actually, it's share of bugs is same as of other services. I noticed bugs in CUPS cause I spent some time on it in last few days. But Dapper's CUPS bugs are nothing compared to bugs in OSX (notice how dapper is still under development, and OSX had it's share of versions).

People that do Linux distributions noticed that CUPS comes with program by the name 'enable'. Purpose of this program is to start stopped printer. And, cause there is allready 'enable' 'program', they renamed it to 'cupsenable'. Guys at Apple didn't catch this one :) Or, at least, they didn't provide their version of 'enable' anywhere under $PATH. So, you can enable your printer in CUPS via web interface. Not. Remeber? sudo? OK, you can enable it after 10+ clicks on too-ugly Aqua (yes, I consider Aqua ugly and user unfriendly). Of course, there was that /ipp, /printers problem in earlier versions of 'Apple's' CUPS, but it looks they figured this one out eventually.

Co-worker of mine got 'broken' Windows computer. He needed to recover some files from EFS crypted directory in WindowsXP (user doesn't remeber what was her password). He spent 2 hours looking for decrypter. I said to him that's impossible task. But he was conviced he can decrypt it. EFS is, at microsoft.com, described with epitets like 'Any individual or program that doesn't possess the appropriate cryptographic key cannot read the encrypted data. Encrypted files can be protected even from those who gain physical possession of the computer that the files reside on.'

After less than 5 minutes, he recovered all the data? How? Well, EFS is everything but crypted file system :). Actually, there are free (beer) and low-cost tools that recover 'crypted' data without password and without use of processor. Actually, EFS is crypted FS only for Windows Explorer. My guess is that Total Commander, Ubuntu Live and any other non-Windows-Explorer-tool can read it to, but I didn't try it.

I have to say that I didn't try this yet (lack of Windows around), but there is no reason not to belive him :).

Dapper Flight 5 Review

Interesting conclusion:

Target Audience: Everyone
Features: Excellent
Performance: Excellent
Hardware Support: Excellent
Usability: Excellent
Management: Excellent
Documentation: Excellent
Would I pay for it? Yes
Total Score 9/10

http://madpenguin.org/cms/index.php/?m=show&id=6699&page=3

Since Flight 5, we had Flight 6, and these are all still development releases. Dapper is looking good, very good, and apratently, I'm not the only one with that feeling :)

Dapper Ruby-on-Rails HOWTO

apt-get install rails

It makes you think.

Instead of going out with my g/f, I spent this evening fixing bugs in Ubuntu bacula packages. True, true, I didn't gave much of my time to this project in last couple of months. But, still...

Hm.

Well, at least all bacula bugs in LP are closed now :)

Finally decent email application

After few frustrations with Thunderbird and attachments (it just can't read all attachments right), I started a quest for new email application. Yes, evolution was there, but I need fast app without calendar and stuff that I don't need.

I needed good key bindings, it should have SPAM/Junk plugin wich I can configure, it must have support for PGP, I must be gtk2 app, it should have some sort of preprocesing mail (sorting, deleting, moving) and it would be great if I can setup To, Cc, Bcc and other stuff per folder (IMAP). I don't need POP, I need IMAP and SMTP over TLS/SSL connections. Do I really ask too much?

Tbird has good key bindings and good SPAM control, but it dies too much and locks my folders on server. It doesn't have per folder configuration that I need. Evolution has bindings that are unusable (. and , are next/previous!?), no Junk control (it creates it's own folder instead of using the one I would like it to use). Both work well with TLS/SSL and IMAP, but these probles were just too much for me.

I tried sylpheed. It was ok, but ugly. And then there it was - sylpheed-claws. Good key bindings - ctrl+n, ctrl+p (n/p would be much nicer), great SPAM control (connects to spamassassin and moves spam to folder I want it to move), maganes PGP very good and works TLS/SSL. Other goodies include per folder configuration, pre and post processing of messages, actions, filtering, templates (!), X-Face (without plugins), it can harvest emails from folder... The thing I miss the most is multiple IDs. For example, I would like to have three emails on same IMAP server, under one account. This can't be done. Of course, I can create one IMAP account and 2 accounts wihout fetching server/protocol. So, no drawbacks and lots of new goodies :)

I just realized I didn't blog anything for 6 months :)