I was after some software to clone a Windows XP machine onto 20 other identical machines - the main idea was to eliminate the need to install XP from scratch on each machine.

Now before I go further, I should mention that my client owned a volume license for these XP machines.

I did a bit of research (as you will find further on not enough) and came to the conclusion that Norton Ghost would be best for the job. I purchased the applicable license and proceeded to make the image - or in Ghost speak it is called a recovery point. I liked how you were able to make an additional recovery point (during the same process) to an external hard drive.

It was fairly straightforward to do, and the recovery process was no problem either. Worked well.

The only thing I didn’t like was, for what I wanted anyway, was the idea of having to install the product and then make an image (with the software installed) - if you know what I mean.

It so happened the day, after I discovered Clonezilla, an open source imaging program that worked from a Live CD (which I believe is based on a Debian backend).

I decided to give it a go, and found that it required a little more nouse to get it going - by no means rocket science though. It’s just that they were a lot of user options available, and as you were reminded multiple times along the way, if you didn’t understand what was being asked just select the defaults. So I did and it all worked well. A restore was much the same deal.

In summary, both products performed well. The average time to backup was about 15 mins for both Ghost and Clonezilla, with the restore (again with both) being under 5 minutes.

For my particular needs, Clonezilla was the choice of imaging/cloning software.

My terminal emulation program of choice is PuTTY. It’s a small, simple but very functional piece of software. My only gripe with it has been that it doesn’t have a facility for multiple sessions or tabs - like Secure CRT for example.

But today I found something that does the job. It’s call the PuTTY Connection Manager.

The features are as follows (copied straight from the website):

* Tabs and dockable windows for PuTTY instances.
* Fully compatible with PuTTY configuration (using registry).
* Easily customizable to optimize workspace (fullscreen, minimze to tray, add/remove toolbar, etc…).
* Automatic login feature regardless to protocol restrictions (user keyboard simulation).
* Post-login commands (execute any shell command when logged).
* Connection Manager : Manage a large number of connections with specific configuration (auto-login, specific PuTTY Session, post-command, etc…).
* Quick connect toolbar to quickly launch a PuTTY connection.
* Import/Export whole connections informations to XML format (generate your configuration automatically from another tool and import it, or export your configuration for backup purpose).
* Encrypted configuration database option available to store connections informations safely (external library supporting AES algorithm used with key sizes of 128, 192 and 256 bits, please refer for the legal status of encryption software in your country).
* Standalone executable, no setup required.
* Localizable : English (default) and French available (only when using setup version, standalone is english only).
* Completely free for non-commercial, and personal use : PuTTY Connection Manager is freeware.

I must say it works quite well. I tend to have multiple SSH sessions to devices at once and it handles it quite well.

Just made the switch to Linux from Windows (or even OS X?) and are having trouble finding software similar/equivalent to what you are used to?

Yes, the linux learning curve is steep but rewarding when you do start working it all out.

Here is a good website that lists the Windows/OS X software and the linux equivalents.

In a lot of cases there are multiple options which is good. You aren’t tied down to one thing which you may not like.

My last post I gave a quick overview of my hardware (PC, camera and capture card) that I was using on my surveillance system. This post I will explain what OS and software I use.

My operating system of choice for this ‘project’ was SUSE. The initial reason was that learning Linux is (in my opinion) a bit easier because if I got stuck with the command line, I could always fall back (ie cheat) with the GUI which I found quite comfortable to use. Other Linux distros I had difficulty using. I am currently using SUSE 10.2 - a vast improvement over 9.3 which I previously used on another one of my boxes at home.

Next was the software. As I said in my previous post, I had troubles getting windows drivers to work, and when that was sorted out, I could not find any suitable software (for my needs anyway). The PICO2000 software looks like what I was after, but as I wanted to use/learn Linux, I found a great product called Zoneminder.

First looks at Zoneminder indicated that that it was a popular (and free) piece of software, great support and very customizable for your own needs. What the hell - I’ll give it a go.

I first installed Zoneminder a couple of years back all via the CLI - not a problem if you are conversant with the file structure of Linux, TAR etc. But it was a steep learning curve for me. I worked it all out in the end, but an easier way (if you’re using SUSE) is to install the RPM using YaST. Here is the link for the SUSE RPMs. The beauty of doing it via YaST is that it can resolve your dependancies for you, so all the appropriate packages can be installed in one hit.

Anyway, I installed it without too many hassles. Next post I will show you some of the features and my setup.

Want to set up a home surveillance system at home while having a bit of fun?

Here’s a bit of a guide of what to do - or more so what I did and how.

Originally this started as a bit of a project in my spare time, but after some teenage idiots decided to throw rocks and eggs at our place one night, it became more of a security thing as I wanted to catch those bastards!

Anyway, back to the good stuff. Not having a big budget, I decided to do a bit of reading and find how much a cheap setup would cost me.

First of all I needed a dedicated PC that I could ‘break’ and it wouldn’t be a drama. Easy - I have a few lying around here and decided to go with a IBM Net Vista PIII 850 with 256M RAM and a 40 Gig hard drive. It’s nothing flash but a good stable PC. I also needed a video capture (DVR) card and a camera. That’s where Ebay came in.

Ebay have these cheap 4 port capture (DVR) cards that you can pick up for about $10. There are a few different types, and if you pay a few more dollars you can get one that processes more frames per second (fps) at a time.

One thing I did read quite often is that with these cheap cards, if you think you can run 4 cameras at real time, then you are dreaming. One or two cameras is bit more realistic. Don’t forget this was more of a project.

The card I got was called a Pico 2000 DVR card
(Please take note of comment #1 at the end of the post),
and looks like this:

The card comes with Windows drivers, and I can tell you now that getting this card to work under Windows (XP) was a real pain (and didn’t work with the drivers supplied) . I will do a separate article about using this under Windows as it deserves its own post. I ended up using Linux for my project.

Now, the camera - again from Ebay. Search for ‘Nightvision camera’ and see how many results come up. You have a few options here as well. Whether you want a wired or wireless camera, color or B/W, and of course what physical size.

Here’s what I chose (but in a cream case). It’s a wired color camera, with 18 LEDs that does enable a bit of seeing in the dark:

To connect the camera to the DVR card, I will use coax cable and terminate RCA plugs at either end. Not too hard to do if you’re handy with a soldering iron. Note: As you can see there are two connectors for the camera. One is for the video signal, and the other is for power, which comes from a standard plug pack transformer.

Next article, I will get into the OS and software that i used.

Individuals who buy to let mortgages manage the rest often end up in debts. The term investment in unheard of to them. A home mortgage deal is common enough and something almost everyone is dealing with, but these people do everything against the free insurance quotes book.