The Hacker’s Blog

As we all know, Google has quickly become the king of search engines and is well on its way to full internet takeover. GMail, Google Calendar and Google Docs are just three of the many tools Google has provided for us to make our lives more simple and streamlined. I personally use all three and can vouch for both their simplicity of use and their multitude of features.

In this first part of the three (or more, if I feel up to it) part series is going to cover using Google Calendar. Its a wonderful tool that not only allows you to set up your own personal calendars, but allows you to use the calendars of others (such as holidays, lunar activity) and collaborate a calendar among several people.

Here’s a quick rundown of what I think makes Google Calendar the best calendar software out there.

1.) Multiple Calendars displayed as one

When using Google Calendars (or gCals for short), you’re given the opportunity to create multiple calendars. This allows you to keep some information private while still being able to share other information. All the calendars associated with your account are displayed, each with their events highlighted with a different color. My account has the following calendars: Holidays, Lunar activity, my exercise routine (that I share with a friend), a to-do list (useful for reports, homework, test dates) and a calendar just for my personal activities.

2.) Ability to share calendars with others

My exercise schedule (Gettin’ Prime primed) is shared with a friend of mine. He and I share this calendar so that we can work together even though we live quite some distance apart. Its gives you nearly the same effect as working with a gym partner, you see how much they have done and that makes you want to out-do them. While gCals are useful for this, shared calendars can be used for much more.

Pretend for a minute that you are part of a web design team and you need a site ready to go in one month’s time. You’re team consists of three members: one is the graphics designer, another the PHP coder and you, the third, gets to be the lucky s.o.b. who puts it all together. How are you all going to keep track of how the others are managing their parts? Well, all you’ll need to do is set up a shared calendar and allow the other two members to access it. You can set their deadlines for different parts, as well as have them keep you updated by posting comments on their events. This brings me to the next item in my list.

3.) Adding comments to events

All activities on a gCal are referred to as events. These events can be anything: your sweetie’s upcoming birthday, your uncle Joe’s funeral (he hasn’t kicked it yet, but you’re hoping for somewhere around May or June of next year) or even your oh-so-favorite prostate exam. (As a side note, none of my calendars keep these items for the following reasons: I’m a smart enough guy to realize I need to remember my sweetie’s birthday, I have no uncle Joe and my prostate is perfectly fine without a finger, or anything else for that matter, prodding it, thank you very much.)

Let’s say that you have an event to remind you of your sweetie’s uncle Joe’s birthday. Now let’s say that your sweetie told you (via IM, no one talks IRL anymore) what to get dear old Joe. If you’re the careful type (or smart even), you’ll open up your gCal and search for uncle Joe’s birthday, edit the event and add a comment containing a note to yourself: “Buy uncle Joe that new Girls Gone Wild DVD that he’s been asking for.” Et voila! No more sweating it out the day before Joe’s big party - you’ll know right where to look to figure out what it was you were supposed to get him - “Oh crap-crap-crap…What was it I was supposed to get him? *whips out iPhone* Oh, yeah, right! I stored it in my gCal! BAM!” See how easily a nasty situation was adverted?

4.) Alerts via SMS and e-mail

Google just loves SMS and for that, I just love Google. Using your cell phone to get today’s or tomorrow’s activities is as easy as texting ‘day’ or ‘nday’ to 48638. You can also use your cell to add events to your calendar and while I’ve never done that, I’m sure its a useful feature if you’re not around a computer.

While you can get all the information you need by using a cell phone, you can also use your email. By setting the option to get the list of the days events, you’ll have an email sitting in your inbox every morning at 5:00AM containing a list of what your loved one has set up for you to do today (because we all know, a good girlfriend or wife in today’s age never uses a honey-do list that sits on the ‘fridge - its all planed out weeks in advance using gCals! Ladies, remember this!)

5.) Checking your gCal from your mobile device

And last, and probably least for me, if you feel the need to check your gCals from your blackberry or PDA while driving down the highway with your kids in the back just a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’ and your wife in the passenger seat going on about how her uncle Joe ended up hooking up with the doc from his annual prostate exam, don’t worry - because you can! If you point your cell phone’s browser to http://www.google.com/calendar/m you’ll be able to view and use your calendar just as if you’re sitting home in your (quiet) study.

Google is, like, taking over the world, man. It is, really. As I wrap up this post, I just want to dedicate this post to dear old uncle Joe whose time has recently come. Though he may never have existed, he’ll always hold a special spot in my virtual heart. If any of you would like to make a donation to my sweetie’s (fictional) uncle Joe’s memorial service, please feel free to send some money to my Paypal: prime[at]thehackersblog.com. Or if you’d rather, just leave a nice comment, whether it be a loving comment in memory of Joe or a reason why you like, or hate,  Google and its calendar.

Here’s a list of random eBooks I’ve came across. I figured I could share them with all of you.

• Linux for Dummies, 7th edition
• Linux Socket Programming
• The C Programming Language
• Recursive Techniques in Programming
• Hardening Linux
• Linux Bible 2006
• Microsoft Windows 2008
• Introduction to Assembly Programming
• Linux Shell Scripting
• C++ in a Nutshell

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I’ve been using Ubuntu for nearly two years now. I have to say, its a great distro. Everything works well and immediately. I run it as a server on a spare PC and on my laptop (it installed without any hitches!). However, its kind of annoying to have to SSH, update and wait, upgrade and wait, so I decided to set up auto-upgrading. Here’s how I did it. Read the rest of this entry »

The modification of website URLs is a common method of unauthorized entrance into a website. URLs can be modified and manipulated to perform different tasks. URLs like this may be abnormally long or contain strange characters, maybe even another character set. These URLs would take advantage of a security hole allowing access into the website or server. Read the rest of this entry »

Snort is an Intrusion Detection System commonly used on Linux computers and servers. It contains a set of rules that it uses to verify all activity on the computer. I will be using Ubuntu for this installation. Read the rest of this entry »

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For this paper, I will be using Windows Server 2003 to install and configure Active Directory. Active Directory is a way to manage multiple users with a single server. These users, when using a client of the domain, log in to the Active Directory server for authentication. This server provides information on the users privileges, groups and file access rights. Active Directory is commonly used in business places, as well as schools as a means of managing their users, employees, or students. Read the rest of this entry »

NMap is a port scanner of sorts. Its used to determine what ports are open and what service is using that port. NMap can be made to do just about anything, but I’m just going to show you a basic method used to determine what ports are open and what aren’t. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever had a large file(or files) that you need to share with people? Or maybe you need to download a large file but can’t find a reliable download? For all of you in that position, I introduce to you the wonderful world of torrents! Read the rest of this entry »

This paper will cover the basics of securing PHP. It will first explain how you can use the php.ini file to set secure defaults for PHP. A brief description of how to prevent SQL injections follows. The paper is wrapped up with a description of Suhosin, a secure or hardened patch for PHP. Read the rest of this entry »