Some notes:

Amazon Associate Filter – nothing happens

Amazon Book Picture from ASIN – just creates images from ASIN , uses shortcodes

Amazon Carousel(*) – flash, uses shortcodes, cool, lots of options, easy to use

Amazon Context Links Ads – does nothing

Amazon Machine Tags – complicated, uses shortcodes, requires an AWS key

Amazon MP3 Clips widget(*) – cool, flash 9.0.45 or above required, shortcodes, lots of options

Amazon Niche Store(*) – shortcodes, lots of options, 10% of the time is plugin author’s Amazon affiliate ID, plugin author linkback, widget included

Amazon Product Ads(*) – widget only, displays 1 item only, self-optimizing (auto) setting

Amazon Reloaded for WordPress – adds setting to post page but ajax not working

Amazon Search – not working, error: MissingParameter / Signature, widget and shortcode links only

Amazon Showcase – Access Identifiers required (AWS keys?)

AmazonSimpleAdmin – Access Identifiers required (AWS keys?)

Amazon SmartLinks Widget – many widget, working pretty well, looks nice

Amazon Widgets Shortcodes(*) – cool, lots of shortcodes, adds section to post page, conflicts with Amazon Niche Store plugin resulting in no output, must know exact widget ID

Keral Patel Amazon Wordpress Plugin – requires an amazon web services access key

(*) i liked, but needs further testing

Gigs Calendar (v0.4.6)
- issues with timestamps posted to the future (but not with filter turned on)
- no multi-day events
- post created automatically

GigPress (v1.4.9)
- lots of setting (maybe too many)

Events Manager (v2.0rc2)
- not creating “real” WP posts (with post IDs)
- all event posts are on same page (eg: domain.com/events?events_id=1)

Events Calendar (v6.5.2.1)
- simple / good
- fills in actual post content

Events (v2.1.1)
- not creating “real” WP posts (with post IDs)

Event Calendar (v3.1.4)
- just adds dates and times to the edit posts screen

Calendar (v1.2.2)
- buggy (widget seems broken)
- not creating “real” WP posts (with post IDs)

Keep in mind, i’ve only tested these specific versions of each plugin. So, newer versions might include significant improvements over previous versions. Also, don’t take my word for it.. test them all out for yourself ;)

Have you ever tried increasing the size of a vmdk file / virtual hard disk ?
It’s not that easy.. and it’s kind of confusing.

So, once i finally figured out how to do it, i thought it would be useful to write it down so that i wouldn’t forget next time this happened. Here goes..

In my example i have:
- a Windows Vista host OS running a Fedora Core guest OS
- an 8GB vmdk file (formatted as Linux LVM – fedora fs) on the guest OS which i have backed up before attempting anything here !!!

I want to:
- increase the 8GB vmdk file to 16GB
- not lose any data saved on the vmdk file
- not move any data off/on the vmdk file

Follow these Steps:

1. Download and Install: VMware Workstation for Windows (trial)
2. Note the location of the VMware Workstation folder (after install) – in my case it’s “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation”
3. Open a Windows Command Prompt and navigate to the folder where your vmdk file resides and execute the following command:
   "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -x 16GB "Name of Your Virtual Disk File.vmdk"
   Ok, now you just made the disk twice as big but you can’t use the space yet because it’s inactive, unpartitioned, unformatted, and still utterly useless to us. (but not for long)
4. Next, boot up the guest OS and log in as root. Verify that there is in fact a large amount of unallocated space/sectors by typing the command: fdisk -l
5. Then we’ll partition and format the new portion of the disk. First select the disk: fdisk /dev/sda
6. Type “n” at the fdisk menu to create a new partition
7. Type “p” for primary partition, and then select the appropriate partition number, as well as first and last cylinders to set how large to make the new partition (defaults – ie: use all the free space – worked well for me here)
8. Type “t” to change the partition’s system id, then type “8e” to switch it to Linux LVM
9. Type “w” to write the table to disk and exit fdisk. You might get a warning about needing to reboot for changes to take effect – either way, reboot your guest OS just to be safe.
10. Once rebooted, log in as root again and verify the new partition exists. Type “fdisk -l” to see a list of partitions. In my case, the new partition is: /dev/sda3
11. Now comes the confusing part. We’re going to merge the new partition into the current Volume Group (which is just what fedora calls it’s own virtual disks that are made up of a bunch of virtual LVM partitions). So, first, to “create” the necessary “physical volume” from our newly created disk partition (/dev/sda3) first type: pvcreate /dev/sda3
12. You need to find out the name of the Volume Group before you can extend it to include the newly created physical volume. Type: vgdisplay and look for the first line, “VG Name” – in this case it was VolGroup00 [thanks agm]
13. Next, you need to extend the Volume Group to include the newly created physical volume. Type: vgextend VolGroup00 /dev/sda3
14. Then, type: pvscan You should see the new partition (/1dev/sda3) in the list of partitions and the total should read approximately 16GB (the amount we set earlier). In my example, it said 15.75GB
15. Now type: lvextend -L+8GB /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 to increase / extend the Logical Volume by 8GB (to a total of 16GB).
16. Finally, to resize the filing system type: resize2fs /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

Now your fedora guest OS should have twice the amount of space and your VM should be running smoothly.
Repeat this process if / when the vmdk file gets filled up again and runs out of space ;)

The List of 52 Appliances (in no particular order)

1. The Web Developer Appliance
2. FreeNAC
3. SmoothWall
4. SSL-Explorer 0.2.9_04 for VMWare
5. sipX
6. VoIPonCD – an easy to configure Voice over IP PBX
7. PBXware – IP-PBX Phone System
8. vmTrac
9. ISPConfig Webhosting Appliance
10. middleman: the easy way to share data
11. VHCS VM – Virtual Hosting Server with an Open Source Control Panel
12. UbuntuFax
13. Collaboration2
14. Rails Appliance
15. Catacomb WebDAV Server
16. Owl
17. rPath DevInfraNix
18. The Official Gallery Appliance
19. Pastebin Appliance
20. Subversion and WebSVN on Ubuntu Server
21. Novell® iFolder on OpenSuse with VMware Tools
22. rPath LAMP Appliance
23. Personal Backup Appliance
24. Tamper-Proof Internet Cafe for diskless machines
25. Bugzilla
26. PXE Installer and Recovery Appliance
27. HowNetWorks
28. rPath SugarCRM Appliance
29. Ultimate Deployment Appliance v1.3
30. Fedora Core 6
31. A virtual Playground
32. Instant Cluster w/ Condor and automatic network configuration.
33. OS Integrated Live CD Player
34. Browser Appliance
35. OSCAR Cluster Headnode
36. XUbuntu (5.10)
37. Linbox Rescue Server Commercial Edition
38. Linbox Rescue Server GPL edition
39. Kickstart Appliance
40. LiveCD Player
41. FreeNAS
42. VMWare Appliance Client
43. Hercules Load Balancer Virtual Appliance
44. Trellis NAS Bridge Appliance
45. Grid-Appliance
46. Helix Agile Development Virtual Appliance
47. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition Virtual Appliance
48. AAH, Now TrixBox, Asterisk Virtual Machine
49. Asterisk@Home Trixbox 1.1
50. GVM
51. Knoppix 5.01 in a virtual machine (can also be used as a very fast free X server for windows)
52. Openfiler

Both of these services still have their quirks, but such is the case with most things in life (and on the web) that are free. Still, i have been using them both for a few days now and together they have already proved to be quite useful. Here’s why..

I’ll start with Montastic, since it’s key feature is simplicity and ease of use.

1. after signup, you just need to click on the link that says: “Add a Web Server to Monitor”
2. then enter a URL to begin monitoring that web server (it takes a few seconds to start working)
3. a green “computer icon” means your server is online (red means offline)
4. optionally, set a “name” for this URL to make it easier for you to identify

that’s it. everything has a nice, clean ajaxy feel. the site is fast and relatively easy to navigate.
you can also get some extra details, like “last monitored” and “status change” by clicking on the “info” link next to the icon for the server you’re monitoring.

both of these services have an email notification system. but, so far, my experience has been that only this one (montastic) actually works. a recent server outage (not this site) proved that for me today. Both of these services also offer alerts in the form of feeds that seemed to work fine.

3 features that make this service unique:

1. they offer a yahoo widget that reports the status of your servers in real-time, right on your desktop
2. the offer a netvibes module which is slick as a brick (it’s not too pretty by it works great)
3. they offer: “the green page” (you’re totally going to have to see this page for yourself to understand)

On to Mon.itor.us – which is a slightly more complex service, allowing for a flood of potential awesomeness and quite a few annoyances as well. Basically, my biggest problem with this service so far is: “It’s Flaky”. By that, i mean, it’s plagued with all the same bugs and buggers that PageFlakes has, even burdoned by the same ajax desktop interface – it seems. Without going into too much detail (ie: constant page refreshes and a login that will never remember you), this would be another example of one of the reasons that i have been a strong supporter of Netvibes for so long.

That being said, Mon.itor.us has a lot of already working features that come packed in with it’s service.

From their site (and because i’m sometimes lazy), here are the ones that stood out the most for me:

• Site performance archive
• Inline site previews
• Personalized pages and tabbed views
• Drag and drop interactive interface
• Todo tasks with notification and ability to add notes
• Support these protocols for testing: http, https, ftp, smtp, pop3, and ping.
• Daily/weekly/monthly uptime reports and statistics

And in case that wasn’t enough for you.. here’s a few more things that i noticed mon.itor.us can do that wasn’t already mentioned in the previous list. These are the real clinchers for me.

6 more features that make this service unique:

1. there’s a cool Google Gadget for this service out there somewhere
2. you can tag each URL / server you are monitoring and then organize / view them by groups
3. you can switch between real-time table, bar chart, and line chart views.
4. view stats for each protocol, snapshots of all your servers
5. view from three seperate geographical locations (US, DE, AT)
6. there’s some javascript code that goes along with the google gadget that will let you put your “snapshot” on virtually any web page

All in all, i would say that it’s a little harder to setup each URL with mon.itor.us, when compared to montastic. But once you get all your servers setup for monitoring, there’s a lot more you can do with them too.

Still, as i mentioned earlier, i was quite pleased with both of these services and will continue to test each one more thoroughly in the coming months.

This time around i’ll be reviewing 3 relatively new web services. Each of these sites is unique in some way, and offers its own twist on what is quickly becoming the new mantra for web2.0: “create, upload, and share”.

The 3 services are:

• Grouper
• muveeMix
• VideoEgg

I’ll be looking at:

1. Ease of Use (obstacles, barriers, any software to install, limits on number of videos i can upload)
2. Accessability (what if you don’t have Flash installed, or you’re not running Windowz)
3. Distinguishing Features (something different, revenue sharing, partner programs)

Grouper:

1.
- Max file size for uploaded videos is 110 MB

- This has the best upload indicator (progress bar) i have seen so far. You can see the amount in MB that remains to be uploaded, this figure is also represented as a percentage remaining, you can see your current upload speed, and the time remaining. awesome.

2.
- I was able to upload my video using FireFox without Flash installed or having to download any extra software

3.
- Intergrated partnership program, no need to sign up a second time (although some additional info is required for this)

- Generate income from video ad impressions

- Ability (as a partner) to include an upload feature directly on your website (so visitors can add videos )

- Make Your Own Video With Groovie Editor software (download but extra email verification process required)

- Get the main Grouper 2.0 software which is a complete video sharing solution (download but extra email verification process required)

- Publish Any Grouper Video or Filmstrip to MySpace, Friendster and other Blogs

muveeMix:

1.
- Free account is limited to only 10 video uploads. But if you refer 5 friends to muveeMix you get upgraded to a “bumper” account which offers unlimited video uploads. It is unclear to me whether this upgrade would be for a single year or indefinitely

- Either way, there is also a 100 MB limit on all uploads

- The upload process seemed a little overly complex and certain features (like the ability to add sound) actually stumped me because my video already had sound and so i didn’t know what to do at this point. Furthermore, you cannot move forward from this point until you choose a sound file (ie: this is not an “optional” feature). Oddly enough, leaving out the title and credits is an option.

2.
- This service is entirely Flash based. i can’t even see the site without it. too bad. at least let me edit my profile and add a photo in the meantime. oh wait, there is no profile or place to add a photo.

3.
- Mix video, images, and sound into a movie all from within your web browser (unlike Grouper, no software to download and install)

- Ability to add styles to movies (i should probably be saying muvee)

- Publish you muvees to sites like: Multiply, MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Blogger, LiveJournal, Xanga, Typepad, Tagworld and many others.

VideoEgg:

1.
- The maximum video length has been set to 5 minutes

- You must install the VideoEgg Publisher which seems to be downloaded as a browser component through InternetExplorer but once this is done everything becomes as easy as drag-and-drop. Also, FireFox “just worked” after i installed through IE

- Unforetunately, under FireFox, every video i tried to upload appear upside-down in the preview window, and under IE6, every video was noticeably crappier quality in the preview window, not sure what is up with that..

2.
- Despite some minor bugs, this service offers a relatively Flash-free interface. I was able to upload my video, name it, and give it a description. You do however still need Flash 7 to view the actual videos.

3.
- Partnership program similar to Grouper except there’s some added confusion here due to the fact that i have to sign up seperately for this program (despite having already set up a normal account with username/password) – oh, and the form you need to fill out is 10 times as long, it’s like 5 forms in 1.

- Publish your videos directly to Blogger, TypePad, or eBay (auctions) – no community component or browsing of user’s videos on the actual VideoEgg site though

- Upload from your camcorder, webcam, or mobile device

- Edit the start/stop times of your videos before uploading them (potentially very useful)

Some of you may already be thinking to yourselves: “YouTube, YouTube, when is he going to say YouTube already?”. This is because they are so damn popular now that you couldn’t even help but make that association. So, yes, one of the three services i tried out was in fact the one and only YouTube. Although, if you’ve read my previous post, you probably know that i already wrote an article on Jumpcut and it was actually the first of these services that i tried out. i was impressed by their web-based video editing software and so it is the second service i will be looking at. The third service is called Guba, and when i read about their unique marketing strategy on Techcrunch i became intrigued and signed up almost immediately.

The low down..

All of the submissions we received from our 24hr Music Video Making Contest (MVMC) on Indyish were in DVD quality (.vob format). My task was to compress these .vob files into .avi files for easy uploading and sharing via any of these services.

i chose to compare and contrast my experiences with these 3 services in the following ways:

1. Ease of Use (always one of my favorites – obstacles, barriers, like how hard was it to upload, or what is my upload limit)
2. Content Management (what can i do with my uploaded content, what tools do i get, etc.)
3. Social Component (can i edit my profile, are there groups, contacts, tags, etc.)

YouTube -

The signup process was pretty simply aside from them asking for your zip/postal code which seems a little strange to me. Once i got inside the system, i must say that it did feel intimidating at first. There are a ton of choices you can make as well as new lingo to absorb. For example, on YouTube, your “profile” page is actually called your “channel”. The upload limit is 100Mb and seemed slower to upload than i would have expected from the top video sharing site. Also, you can’t upload until you go through a second email confirmation process to prove you are not a spambot. The uploader crashed on me the first time i used it, granted i tried to upload to 2 of these sites at the same time (it seemed to be working fine until i did this). Lastly, any changes you make to the title or description of your recently uploaded video files are not immediately visible (in real-time) which can be frustrating and confusing to the user (it was for me) because they would be unaware of the delay and wondering why they can’t see their changes take effect.

Once i did get used to the interface and found my way around the site i realized that there was a lot of info and features available to me. i could easily organize my video files, save them to my favorites, create playlists, organize by category, add a description, tags and all kinds of other details. There is also a tool that will let you configure your account for sending videos directly to your blog (if you own one) although i haven’t tested it. They currently support Blogger, BlogSpot, and LiveJournal “with more blog platforms on the way”.

But i think it’s definitely the social networking aspect of the site that sets it apart from the others. Once you get used to the idea of a channel instead of a profile (like a TV channel only of You) – you can start making it you own through a variety of customization options. You can edit your channel info, channel theme, even customize your own channel URL (although there are additional requirements to get this feature working). You can also setup or join Groups where content and conversations are centered on common topics and interests. Lastly, you can add friends, family members, send and receive messages from within the system, subscribe to your favorite channels, vote, add comments and more. i think i get why it’s so popular now.

Jumpcut -

This service is great. Jumpcut lets you try their web-based video editing software even before you’ve actually signed up. i think this is the best way for a new web service to help potential users “get” what it is they are doing that makes them special. The signup process was very simple and straightforward. i like the fact that you get asked both an email address and a username write from the start because i waste time wondering whether i’ll be logging in with my username or email (but maybe that’s just me). Once inside, again, i was a little bit confused by all the new terminology surrounding the distinctions between clips, movies, group sets, grabbing, sharing, etc. I particularly liked the multi-file uploader feature, something neither of the other two services offered as far as i could tell. Uploading one file at a time can get pretty tiresome – this helps to make up for the fact that Jumpcut has a maximum file upload size of only 50Mb (way too low in my opinion). Also, the uploader hangs at 53% on the progress bar every time i used it (although uploads seem to have been completed successfully) so definitely some confusion and time wasted there. On the upside, you can update the title and descriptions of your videos in real-time (a la AJAX) – no delays, not even a page load – so that’s good.

The tools are really what this service is all about. i already mentioned the multi-file uploader, but the Jumpcut Editor is really the crown jewel of the site. You can edit, add transitions and effects, as well as mix in sound and clips shared by other users on the site. No software needs to be installed although the newest version of Flash is definitely required (all these services require Flash 9 for viewing video files but you can still do stuff like browse the community, upload clips and a few other things). Creating a movie from multiple clips is both really easy and convenient in that it lets you overcome the file-size limitations that plagues everyone one of these video based services by editing together a series of smaller clips to form a much larger movie. You can also do some more advanced things like organize your clips into group sets, tag them, and then quickly share or make a movie out of all of them. Another great bonus is the ability to add photos (you can even import your entire Flickr photostream). Pictures, a feature that is almost entirely overlooked by these types of services, is not something to be taken for granted. For instance, i couldn’t figure out how to upload an image to my profile (i mean channel) on YouTube. The only thing you seem to be able to do is use the first frame of one of your uploaded videos. Well, half of the clips i uploaded started out with a few frames of blackness severely limiting what i could use as my profile pic. why?

Jumpcut is probably the second most social site of the three i’ve tested. They have clear, easy to use features like friends and fans, i already mentioned groups but there are events too. We posted the 24hr. MVMC as an event on Jumpcut, even created an Indyish group for future projects. They also have a feature that lets you or your friends email video clips directly to your account or group. Users can add comments and vote for their favorite movies. Finally, they have a great set of export features that not only make it easy for you to email, link to, or embed your video into a website, but there’s also specific code for popular blogging systems like WordPress, TypePad and Blogger, as well as social networking services likes MySpace, and even bookmarking services like Digg and Del.icio.us.

Guba -

This service is an interesting one. The signup process is similar to that of Jumpcut with the extra choice to become a Guba Affiliate. There is definitely a more commercial feel to this service but i was impressed by their system and found the user interface intuitive with content clearly divided between Premuim and Free videos. The user exists somewhere in between these two worlds which at first i found both disappointing and comforting. i wanted there to be more back-end stuff to explore but it’s more straightforward than that. After about 15 minutes i was done looking around and (feeling caught up on everything) all that was left to do was either upload my content, or watch either a free or premium video. i could check my Guba affiliate stats, but they were probably still at zero. i was definitely not overwhelmed like with the other 2 services and i guess that’s what the folks at Guba were aiming for. The upload process was the fastest and smoothest of the 3 services from my experience. They have an upload limit of 100Mb but i found the video quality (after whatever magic compressions they all apply) to be the best of the bunch. So i’d say that, overall, i had a good user experience with this one.

Still, every service seems to have its quirks. For Guba, they do this thing where they ask you to fill in a title and description for your video clip (before you upload it) but the description doesn’t seem to show up anywhere – and believe me, i looked everywhere for it. So why ask for it in the first place? Really frustrating when they do that. Still, i like the way your video files are organized and there are a lot of little things like how it keeps track of your favorite searches and categories. A subtle feature that really stood out for me was the frame-by-frame preview you get when you hover your mouse over any given video clip. You don’t have to actually watch the video to get a quick idea if you’ve seen it before, if it’s shot well or seems low quality, etc. There are a lot of account settings (not as many as YouTube) – like your credit card details and purchase history – which might (at first) seem out of place, but then i remembered that you can buy and rent movies from Guba too. They have movie rentals from as low as $0.99 and you can buy movies starting at $4.99 – not too shabby – and so obviously they’re going to need your credit card info if you wanted to take advantage of that.

Incidentally, you can check out my favorite of the 12 MVMC submissions (the winner for the Telefauna song) right here as i’ve embeded the video directly into this page.

If you want to watch some more of the music videos that contestants submitted (including 1 of the other 2 winning videos) you can go here, and here. Also, if you like the service Guba offers, go ahead and signup for a free account and help me get those affiliate stats rolling.

That brings me to my last point. Guba is like a cool online video store with some added social networking components and i like it. A lot of big players are going to be headed into this market really soon (it has already begun), and i think Guba’s got a head start on them all. I have no idea if they’ll be able to keep this lead, but if they continue with their aggressive affiliate marketing and more and more people signup and add content.. well, only time will tell and i guess the people will decide. But if you were looking for a sort of “MySpace with Video” type thing you might be a little disappointed here. First off, you can’t really configure you profile page on Guba, or maybe i should say you don’t actually have a public profile, not even a small area of text to describe a little bit about yourself. You can upload a photo but that’s about it. There are no groups. You can however add favorites, post comments and vote on other people’s videos. you can also do some other cool stuff like email a video to a friend or download special versions for viewing on your iPod or PSP.

These are just some of the details i decided to focus on. There is so much more i want to say about these 3 services i could have probably written a separate article for each one. i really need to post more often. this post is probably too long. hope it helps you get an idea of what you can expect when you signup for one of them. if anyone has tried any of these services, i’d like to know what your experiences were. And if anyone does decide to try them out after reading this post, by all means, come back and share your thought in the comments section too.

These days, my view of desktop-based software has changed quite dramatically. I seem to have gone from: “complaining about how long it would take bloated applications to load”, to something along the lines of me going out of my way to: “avoid using them at every opportunity”.

Working as much as possible with web-based software has been my goal for the last 2 years now, and i can tell you that doing so has saved me many a headache. Gone are the days of wiping out my Windowz machine because of some virus i picked up, then having to remember every software configuration, find serial numbers i hopefully kept, go through software activation processes, updates, blah blah blah. You get the picture, right? The last time my PC got slow and crappy, i simply formatted the harddrive, reinstalled the OS, fired up a new version of Firefox and logged into all of my favorite web-based services. Gmail for email. Flickr for photos. Del.icio.us for bookmarks.. the list goes on. But everything is how i left it (not to mention they are always available from any computer with an internet connection).

I used to use a great web-based antivirus service offered by TrendMicro called Housecall. Unfortunately, they went and messed with what i thought was a perfectly good thing. Housecall used to be a fast, simple way for people who don’t want to keep desktop-based antivirus software installed on their computers to scan their local machines, it even offered to remove any viruses that it may have found. This was the best service of its kind that i had seen and i recommended it to dozens of people. But a couple of month ago they made the whole thing Java, nothing worked right for me, it was slow, complicated, basically the complete opposite of what i once like about and so i stopped both using and recommending it.

I looked for other, comparable services. Norton has a service, i think they call it “Security Center” but they don’t offer to go that extra mile and delete the infected files that were found making the process of actually cleaning out your machine unnecessarily tedious and extremely manual. Not to mention, too difficult and therefore out of reach for the average PC user.

On the other hand, i could see a service like McAfee’s SiteAdvisor as being quite useful to the everyday web surfer. What they do in a nutshell (i’m not going to get into it all here) is “Patrol the Web” for you, testing for viruses, phishing scams, annoying pop-ups and more. So essentially, all the user has to do is enter a URL of a questionable site they are considering visiting (before actually going there with their web browser) and they can get a nice, clean report about any potential hazards they may encounter along the way. The site in question gets a “safety rating” of either a green checkmark, grey questionmark (no data), or a big, fat, red “X”. The entire process is balanced out with a large number of voluntary user reviews, comments, and summaries.

Aside from entering each URL (one at a time) into the form on their front page to get a report, the user can also download a convenient Firefox extension that automatically shows you SiteAdvisor results by just browsing the given site. But i have to say that this second method, while being way more practical (you just go to the site), seems to defeat the point of getting a report in the first place. I mean, isn’t it too late to find out whether a site is sketchy once you’re already there? Granted the extension does add safety ratings to your google search results, which is pretty cool. Still, this just seems to me to be more of a research tool than a browser accessory.

While i can see many uses for this service, what i actually found most interesting about SiteAdvisor was how “other” services have begun to leverage / integrate SiteAdvisor reports and safety ratings into their own web-based services. A perfect example of this (i already mentioned the google integration) would be a service called StumbleUpon. They offer a type of advertising service for content publishers that promises to send targeted visitors to your site. I was thinking of testing out their ad services for a site i am working on, and wanted to learn more before actually giving it a try. On the StumbleUpon FAQ page there’s a section that reads: “make certain that the content you are submitting isn’t flagged by McAfee SiteAdvisor” or your content may not be shown at all. I thought, hey, this would probably be a good time to make sure none of my sites are flagged. Big, fat, red X’s are bad, and fortunately for me, all of my sites were either green checkmarks or grey questionmarks (for newer or smaller sites). So, all of a sudden, McAfee’s SiteAdvisor mattered to me. Hmm, very interesting. But all in all, i think SiteAdvisor is a great services and i will continue to use it whenever i am in doubt.

[ update: Microsoft has finally released it's Security update for WMF vulnerability. To apply the patch, simply visit the Windows Update web site, automatically scan for updates and install. ] Thanks Fuzzie for bringing this to my attention.

The purpose of this article is to clearly lay out all the information i could find on the recent Windows exploit, namely the WMF (Windows Metafile) vulnerability. Instead of adding to the current state of panic, my hope is that this post will help to clear up some of the apparent contradictions surrounding this issue and provide a kind of reference in the decision making process (ie: overall severity and what actions to take).

I’ll begin with a brief overview of the current state of affairs:

A Windows Metafile (WMF) – is a 16-bit metafile that can be used by all versions of Windows to display a picture. Similar to a .jpeg, .gif or bitmap.

A Metafile – is simply a list of commands that can be executed to draw a graphic. Normally, these commands are used to style objects such as lines, polygon and text. In this case, the WMF is being used to trigger potentially malicious code (ex: trojans).

For more background on Windows Metafile you can read the Wikipedia definition here.

i was also planning on quickly going over the events that have unfolded in reaction to the news about the widespread potential of this type of exploit. However, it turns out that the Wikipedia, once again, has done this job for me (and probably better than i could have done). If you’re late on the scene for this whole thing, i recommend you spend a few minutes reviewing that page as well.

Still, here’s a short list of the key points related to the most recent Windows Metafile Vulnerability:

• First reports of affected computers: December 28, 2005. [more info here and here]
• List of Vulnerable Systems: All versions of Windows. [ see full list here ]
• How it spreads: via email attachments [ although Microsoft is now saying otherwise ] or even just loading a website with WMF graphics. Read more here.

There seems to be some uncertainty surrounding the list of vulnerable systems. Some sources believe that older systems like Win95/98 and even WinME/2K can not easily be exploited in this manner. Read here, here and here for more info.

Protection against this exploit -

• The Workaround according to Microsoft: unregistering the dll [ type: "regsvr32.exe /u shimgvw.dll" in the command prompt ]
• The Unofficial Patch: by Ilfak Guilfanov version1.4 can be found here.
• The Unofficial Patch: based on the fix by Ilfak Guilfanov can be found here. [ .msi installer version 1.4 ]
• The Unofficial Patch: developed by ESET version1.1 can be found here. [ updated: Jan. 05, 2006. ( source: eWEEK.com ) ]

The best description of what these fixes actually do to your system can be found here [.pdf format]

Additional Notes -

• This is not an actual virus outbreak [it is an exploit, meaning just leaving your pc online but unpatched does not guarantee that you will be attacked].
• Some people have reported minor “issues” related to installing this patch such as printing problems.
• There is already a Microsoft patch available that is a pre-release which leaked onto the internet this morning and is said to be tested on Winxp/2k3 systems, but every link i’ve found was broken and had the file taken offline. For those interested, the file was named WindowsXP-KB912919-x86-ENU.exe and i’m sure it will surface again sooner or later.
• McAfee has added WMF exploit detection to its latest DAT file, which can detect exploits created by this tool.
• ESET claims its NOD32 anti-virus stops hackers from using all 206/206 tested WMF vulnerability exploits. They offer a 30-day trial version of their software which would protect you from this exploit “without having to take any special actions”, according to ESET (presumably until Microsoft releases an official fix). [ updated: Jan. 05, 2006. ]

That’s all i could find at this time. Hope it helps in some way.

So i’m on a new mission: find a web hosting provider that meets my current requirements, test a couple out and slowly move over some of my current domains to said provider. i figured that i’d document my research and post it for any who might be in a similar situation. i’ll begin with a brief list of my requirements, followed by a summary of the hosting services being considered and compared. Lastly, i am going to try and sort out various features and determine which service would likely be the best match for my needs.

Key web hosting features (required):

1. multiple domain add-ons (at least 15)
2. unlimited mysql databases (or minimum 50)
3. 1 Gb disk space or more
4. no restrictions on email addresses, forwarding, autoresponders, mailing lists, etc.
5. cpanel, with file manager, disk usage viewer, directory protection, etc.
6. some type of backup (full site backups as well as individual mysql db backups)
7. general domain management (including unlimited subdomains)
8. lots of stats (site-wide stats, subdomain stats, overall bandwidth usage, etc.)
9. other features: phpmyAdmin, ftp access, ssh shell

Many of the features mentioned above come standard with a mid-range web hosting plan priced at approximately $15.00US per month. Other features such as multiple domain add-ons will likely be harder to find in a plan of this price range. i’ll probably have to make some compromises here and there. The objective is to match as many of these features with one of the following provider’s hosting plans.

Here are the web hosting providers being considered for this comparison:

• IX Web Hosting
• StartLogic
• Globat Web Hosting
• Clear-Data Internet Services
• Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting
• Site5.com
• PagesGarden
• HostGator [ update: added Dec.10/05 ]
• A Small Orange [ update: added Dec.10/05 ]

Final Notes -

Some obvious things to look out for when deciding on a web hosting provider:

• don’t go with a provider who’s own company website appears to be slow. chances are, if their site runs slow, yours will too.
• don’t go with a provider who’s own company website is sometimes unavailable. if you go to their homepage twice in two days and one of the times you get: “The page cannot be displayed”, check that you typed the URL correctly in the address bar. if you did, then it might be time to move on. that’s 50% uptime, since your users are likely not interested in calculating averages over time.
• don’t go with a provider that doesn’t display the prices for their hosting plans until well into the signup process. ask yourself, why would they be trying to hide something that every other company is trying to put directly in your face?