ClamAV Live CD 2.0 is out in the wild

I uploaded the ClamAV Live CD 2.0 last night and updated the site to point to the correct ISO. You can get it here: http://www.volatileminds.net/projects/clamav/

I also created a logo type thing for the CD here. I burned it to a CD of mine (takes like 15 minutes!) using LightScribe. I really like how it looks:



If you would like a CD with this logo etched into it, I am willing to send some out to the US only for now. I am not in the position to pay shipping for non-US places.


EDIT: Sorry to all the Planet people that got the gigantic picture :-/. My bad...

SFD Swag In!

What a crazy, random happenstance! Yesterday, our work network went on the fritz, so my boss told us we could work from home today. This morning, I get a knock at the door and the mail man has my SFD swag! Had the network not been on the fritz, I would have had to wait to get the stuffs.

I think this is a sign.

ClamAV Live CD 2.0 Beta released

I uploaded the beta of the ClamAV Live CD 2.0 today. I was able to bring the image down to 113 MB (more to come hopefully, as I close in on final). I need beta testers to make sure I haven't broken any key part. I have tested it myself, but I know my circumstances aren't the same as everyone else's.

Features included are the latest and greatest ClamAV engine yet (0.94RC1) and of course a smaller size and footprint. Currently, it is just the scanner on the CD, no chntpw or dban. Once I know that the scanner is working properly, adding the rest is trivial. The CD does include, however, ntfs-3g drivers, testdisk, the chntpw binary, and hwinfo.

If you are willing to beta test, you can get it here, and leave a comment if you find any bugs or would like to request a feature. I am also in #clamav-livecd on freenode if you want to catch me there.

Microphone output on Dell Inspiron (and possibly others)

This works for Windows XP.

I had to connect to male 1/8 inch speaker cords together. I don't have a dual-female connector, I decided it would be really easy to use one of my laptops to do this. I was wrong. On Linux, the audio is _way behind_ and very crackly when played (audio in being played through audio out). On Windows, apparently Dell ships with some rather crippled audio drivers that don't allow you to even see the mic input in the sound control. To fix this, you need to install the real drivers here. Once installed, reboot. Then you will be able to play through the speakers what is coming in through the mic. This worked for me on both an Inspiron 1501 and 9400.

On a side note, does anyone know why, when I record through my mic on my desktop (Intel HDA onboard), the audio is crackly. It isn't a microphone issue, as I have connected my amp up directly to the sound card and turned it almost all the way down to make sure it isn't overpowering the soundcard, and even with the tiniest amount of noise, I have crackling in Audacity. On Vista, I can't record at all, even with the mic input unmuted.

FOSSaaS

Free and Open Source Software as a Service. I am looking for some neat and innovative SaaS apps that are also FOSS. Which is your favorite and why? Do you use multiple ones? If you can describe how you found it/them, that'd be great information also.

Did I miss something?

Me: you know what would be cool?
Me: an mp3 player that could connect to wifi so you can stream music
Me: fitness places could offer free wifi
Someone: i have that
Someone: the ipod touch or the iphone
Me: that doesn't cost 200 dollars
Me: well, I am not sure what the touch costs
Me: but even a hundred dollars
Someone: so apparently you want something that's not cool enough to be worth $200
Me: it shouldn't cost 200 bucks for something like that
Me: maybe a hundred
Me: and that is a big maybe
Me: like, if apple made one that they didn't try to cram every feature ever into and make it only compatible with iTunes, I would certainly buy it
Me: just a simple Wifi-enabled MP3 player
Me: simple LED screen, nothing fancy
Me: I don't want an MP3 player that can also do my taxes
Someone: that sounds like a really crap device
Someone: wifi with an LED screen?
Someone: you are misunderstanding the prereqs
Me: how so?
Someone: how are you going to connect to APs? how are you going to type in keys? find internet radio stations?
Me: you would put the m3u's on beforehand
Me: like an mp3
Someone: something tells me you would never buy this hypothetical device, even if it existed
Me: and yeah, I guess having a slide out qwerty would be ok
Me: that would make it worth 100
Me: the LED on my current MP3 player has more than enough space to find your AP
Me: I probably wouldn't buy first gen
Me: let the bugs get worked out
Me: but if 2nd gen was really what I was looking for, I would certainly by it
Me: buy*
Someone: so you're saying someone should produce a device for less than a hundred dollars that has such a spectacularly ridiculous hodgepodge of features that only four or five people on earth would find it useful, that you wouldn't buy it, and that if they put out a second version you might buy it
Me: :-/
Someone: fortunately, apple makes the ipod for everyone with reasonable needs


Uh, what? How did that turn into an iPod conversation?

Translators needed!

I have written a tutorial on using the ClamAV Live CD. Understandably, the Linux commands won't change language to language, but I would like to make the tutorial as friendly as I can to as many people. If you are willing to translate a small document (a few paragraphs) to your native language, it would be much appreciated. Leave me a comment or email me at bperry[dot]volatile[at]gmail[dot]com if you are willing to translate this.

OCAM v2

Our team will be starting the OCAM (One Computer A Month) again soon for the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The team will be donating at least one computer a month with some flavor of Ubuntu on it to a family in the D/FW area (and surrounding areas) that can't afford a computer. I will be making a logo sometime before Sunday (our team meeting).

Some background info: I started OCAM about a year ago, while I was working as a computer technician. Our shop received a lot of donated computers that people didn't want anymore, so i started loading them with Ubuntu and giving them to teachers and families who didn't have computers. After I left the job, the computers pretty much dried up and I couldn't give any more computers away, so the project died a slow, painful death.

This is a shoutout to anyone in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. If you have a computer that you want to donate (it can be just the CPU itself, monitors/keyboards/mice/speakers aren't a problem), please email me or leave a comment. Recycling your old computers is the best thing you can do (what good is it doing just sitting in your garage?). I am willing to pick up the computers, all I need is a supplier. :-) Keep in mind, we will be loading the latest LTS release on the machines, so specs must be approximate. We can add RAM/Hard drive as necesarry, but processors and such not so much. Any computer is OK, we can find something to do with it, but please think about the specs before hand.

Looking forward to hearing from some of you!

File extensions and Security: Windows vs *nix

I am having an argument/discussion with a close friend about the security implications of file type detection by extension (Windows) and vice versa (*nix). Over the years, I have heard that the Windows way of doing thing is a larger security risk than *nix's ( on *nix you don't need a file extension, so you can throw any extension on there and make the user think they are clicking on something legit).

While I do think the *nix one is better, I do see why it might be a problem. My friend thinks the arguments are bogus, and I see no reason to disagree with him outside of my own gut feeling and lack of articles/statistics on the subject make it difficult to prove one or the other. Can anyone shed some light on this? Obviously, the Windows way will be much more widespread and will be considered more unsafe due to volume of use (and misuse).

Lazyweb, some help please

I manage a CD called the ClamAV Live CD. Currently, I am disappointed with it. It has grown to about 170 MB (it started at 140 on Edgy). The GParted Live CD is ~50 MB and does everything I need the ClamAV Live CD to do (inet connection mostly, ntfs-3g drivers). My current way is to use debootstrap and work from there, but that doesn't yeild very much shrinkage. I have played around with using Gentoo and compiling very small images, but it never works out the way I hope it to.

My question, I am looking to make the ClamAV Live CD smaller, are there any tricks I should know about before I venture on this? I already use LZMA compression on the squashfs images.

TodoBG.py

Thanks for the replies to my last post, but none of them really worked for me (too much work). I ended up writing a small Python script that will read the todo.txt and spit out a nicely formatted PNG every 5 minutes. It is my first ever Python script, so there may be some weird things, but I am proud of it :-).

You can get the script here.

I have it setup to start as soon as GNOME starts (in the Sessions), and updating the BG every 5 minutes works for me, but you can change it up in the script if you want it to be slower or faster.

Any questions, comments, or concerns are greatly appreciated!

Text as Background in GNOME

I am trying to find a way to set my todo.txt as my background in GNOME. I haven't looked at Devil's Pie yet since I am hoping there is an easier way to do it. Has anyone done this?

Quick Note

If you are doing a string split in C#, but are only using one character, you don't have to create a new char array to hold the one char, use this:

string str = "omfg|this is cool";
string[] arr = str.Split("|".ToCharArray());

w00t!

I am at QuakeCon

I am at QuakeCon this week in Dallas at the Hilton-Anatole. My nick is 'radiohead' and I am security staff this year, so you will probably see me around. Feel free to stop and say hi!