I love using Mediawiki, but my first install I completely forgot the Admin password. And not having an email address setup in my profile (for the admin user) made me wonder how to reset it.

I knew I had to get into the SQL database, and I don’t pretend to be an expert in playing around with tables etc, but I have done some (very) basic editing via PHPMyAdmin.

The problem with Mediawiki was that I unable to overtype a new password, and select MD5 to encrypt it as it was showing a binary field (as shown in the full post):

Continue Reading »
Reset Mediawiki Admin Password

I have spent the last 10-15 years working in a predominantly Cisco environment. I think their products are great, but are not cheap. I think it comes down to the old line ‘you get what you pay for’, and Cisco certainly delivers.

That’s at work….. At home I look at alternatives. So when I was looking for open source software/products I found a great open source networking product – Vyatta.

Vyatta is software that runs under a linux base and delivers routing, firewall and VPN functions to the product you have it installed on.

You can get the Vyatta software free (community Edition), but there are paid subscriptions which are for business use. Vyatta also sell networking appliances that have the software on them ready to configure and deploy on your network.

After having a bit of a play with Vyatta myself with the downloadable VMWare image, I must say it doesn’t work too bad. If you have played with a Cisco router, then you’ll find this very easy to configure.

The command set is very similar to Cisco. Viewing the config is a different story, but not too hard to understand if you just take the time to read it.

My recommendation is to try it out yourself, or at least visit the website and read the whitepapers. I’m sure you will find it a very interesting product.

When I’m troubleshooting a Windows XP machine, I find myself almost always going into Device Manager to check the status of hardware devices.

But what if you want to find out information about devices that aren’t connected eg USB based devices?

Try this:

1. Go to Start, right-click My Computer, and select Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.
3. In the Environment Variables dialog box, locate the System Variables panel and click New.
4. In the New System Variable dialog box, type DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES in the Variable Name text box and type 1 in the Variable Value text box.
5. Click OK twice.
6. To view the nonpresent devices, go to Start, right-click My Computer, and select Manage.
7. Click Device Manager, pull down the View menu, and select Show Hidden Devices.

Found this on the SC website the other other day:

Hackers are able to send a corrupt JPEG image to a RAZR which would run malicious code if viewed, according to the ZDI advisory, released on Tuesday. Malicious code could force the RAZR to make unwanted calls or send unwanted messages, for example.

The flaw exists in the JPEG thumbprint component of the EXIF parser. EXIF, or Exchangable Image File format, is a set of tags that can be embedded in image files, which might include the location where the image was taken or the camera used to take it.

When the user tries to view the image, a memory corruption is caused and malicious code can be run on the phone.

A firmware update has been released from Motorola to patch the vulnerability.

To read more about this vulnerability, go here.