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Angelic CMS ;)

There’s a new “Wikiblog-Blogwiki” called EngelWiki:

Those features are:

1. Everybody can read and comment the EngelWiki content, but only registered users can add and change existing content. To become a member you can ask one of the members to create you a login.
2. The contents of the EngelWiki are called pages (like in a Wiki). They are versioned and additional files like images, audio, video, pdf … can be added to the page. Following the permalink of a page you get links to all versions and attachments of that page.
3. The content of a page is formatted using WikiSyntax.
4. The WikiSyntax allows you to use WikiWords?. When creating a new page, you can give your page a title and a WikiWord?. Through the WikiWord? you can link to that page (always the latest version). When you want to link to an older version, you can use the permalink.
5. Aside from the pages there are profiles. A profile is a page of a user. Only he/she can change the contents of the page according to his/her ideas.
6. The orientation in the navigation bar helps to give an overview over all the Pages, Profiles and files in the File Garden.

Elke, I am looking forward to test-driving it on OpensourceCMS.com! :)

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OpensourceCMS.com

maol, I suggest you take a look at OpensourceCMS.com, which is, as odd as it may sound, one of the best things since sliced bread[1]. It allows you to test-drive the most current stable versions of many Open Source CMSes without needing to install them. This saves a lot of time and therefore widens your evaluation matrix. For example, you can easily evaluate several dozens of CMSes in just one day. Select your killer criteria and you’ll end up with a couple of CMSes you’ll want to take a closer look at (e.g. code inspection, estimations about the maintenance effort, performance measurements etc.). Great :)

As I’m looking for an alternative to Moveabletype myself, I’ve evaluated quite many open source CMSes with the help of OpensourceCMS.com (kudos to the people behind that service at this point! :) My current favorite is WordPress as it doesn’t suffer from an amateurish architecture such as MT (tedious rebuilding of static pages, duh!) and it offers some distinct features for bloggers (e.g. a smart editor with the possibility to look up words in dictionary.com on a finger-tip, password protected posts, integrated blogrolling features, standards compliance etc.). Probably the best weblog server-side software at the moment. Last but not least WordPress is open source software (Free Software, GPL) and not covered by a proprietary license like MT :)

If you’re looking for general (not blogging-specific) CMS software, I don’t have a favorite yet. But OpensourceCMS.com will be of valuable help for sure. The best choice probably depends heavily on the intended use and purpose of the CMS (there are quite many CMSes which are well suited for very large sites but an overkill for a more or less personal website).

K, so far. I’ll be off skating as long as the sun is shining down on me that kindly ;) Eventually I’ll take my cam with me to shoot some lousy “action” movies.. hehe ;)

[1] Seriously: Somebody should adopt the idea behind OpensourceCMS.com, a test-drive farm for open source content management systems, to open source (eventually even closed-source, depending on the target group) operating systems. Reason: There are so many different open source operating systems and distributions – it’s virtually impossible to evaluate them all. Having the possibility to quickly compare the different OSes and distros in action would be beneficial for both users and developers as it would intensify competition and reward good projects or good approaches and ideas more quickly. I know there is an OS test-drive farm by HP, but that one just covers a couple of (partly closed source) OSes. I also remember there was a test-farm where you could test-drive RedHat Linux when they presented their unified Gnome/KDE desktop for the first time.
What we need, is a test-drive farm that covers most (if possible all) of the open source distros and OSes out there. One that is well maintained and current. So if somebody picks up this idea, this would be great :)

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About hacking the Xbox

Meanwhile, I’ve finished reading Andrew “Bunnie” Huang’s Hacking the Xbox – An Introduction to Reverse Engineering. It’s a great book (apart from some formal deficiencies due to lacking publisher support) and I can highly recommend it to anybody who’s interested in any of the fields such as reverse engineering, hardware hacking, HW-/IT-security, video game consoles (particularly the Xbox), US laws and others.

Some points what this book is all about (in my very personal view as someone who read it):

* It’s about reverse engineering. It’s about HW-security and security in general. It’s about HW-hacking in the age of the DMCA. It’s about your rights to explore and excel and how to keep doing it despite of/in accordance with DMCA. It’s about having fun with challenges. It’s about online hacker communities and their backgrounds.
* It’s about (US) laws and ethics.
* It’s about economics of video game consoles.
* It’s about HW-hacking basics. It rather covers practice than theory.
* It’s not a step-by-step guide about hacking a Xbox as this would not match with current (unfortunate) american laws (DMCA).
* Important note: The entire book is legal according to US laws

My take: Unsurprisingly, I didn’t read this book for hacking a Xbox. I don’t even have a video game console as I’m not an avid “gamer” (I prefer having a nice joystick instead of a rather limited game pad and I prefer using a PC as I’m more into simulations than typical game console games -> well yeah, I know the Xbox is a PC in fact). Needless to say I don’t intend to buy one in the future, not even for running Linux on it. IMHO, hacking a Xbox mere for getting a cheap LinuXbox is not that attractive anymore (nowadays, you can probably get better HW for the price of a Xbox.. even saving you the efforts and expenses to hack the Xbox). However, it might still be attractive if you see it as fun or an educational challenge (although with today’s alternate-rom-chips and with the know-how provided by the Xbox hacker pioneers, it’s probably not that much of a challenge anymore). I’ve solely read the book to get a first-hand insight into the general topic of HW-hacking with the goal to learn judge the security-concepts of current security architectures such as TCPA, Palladium/NGSCB etc. And that’s exactly what I recommend this book for in the first place. Of course you can’t expect to be a security expert or a HW-hacking guru just after reading a book. In fact, you’re far away from it. But you get an idea of how much it takes to get there (i.e. to an equal level with Bunnie & Co.) and you get an idea of how difficult (probably impossible) designing secure hardware is. You also learn about the general problems and disadvantages of HW-based security approaches and how to do it better.

Unfortunately, many people don’t seem to understand the main aspect of the book. For example I suggested the local library to buy some exemplars, as I consider it to be a very valuable (a “must-read”) book for any CS/IT/EE student. Their answer: “We don’t cover books about game consoles”. Poor judgement (though not atypical). As a consequence, students who are interested in reading this book will need to purchase it (Domestic: See the Orell-Füssli shop at the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich or books.ch; Intl.: See the web sites of NoStarchPress, Amazon etc.). I recommend to do so however. It’s definitely worth it as it will broaden your horizon in a new way.

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CeBIT 2004 gallery online

Now I’ve entered the captions of my CeBIT 2004 gallery :)

Let me point out once again, that i’ve uploaded all of the pics i’ve taken (“as is”) – no matter how bad their quality may be. I’ve just muted and converted the short movie captures (which can be found at the end of the gallery). I hope you don’t mind about their “suboptimal” quality- it’s rather impossible to avoid camera shake if the cam is as small as mine.. Some pictures are very blurry too (I probably caught the wrong focus mode).. To my excuse, I’m neither a photographer nor a film director (yet ;).

I’ll add a link to Stephan‘s pics, as soon as he put them online. He’s also taken some pictures on behalf of me as my cam’s rechargeable battery ran out of power on the second day (probably due to me taking “too many” 30fps movies ;).

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cu @ cebit :)

i’ll be at the cebit (hanover.de) from mars 19 to 21.

* if you happen to be there too, please notify me via mobile/sms: (deleted).
* if you want me to take some pictures of a particular device that is shown at cebit, just add a comment to this entry (notifications about must-see events or gadgets are welcome too :). i’ll post the pics on this blog.
* if you’re a friend of mine and you want me to buy there sth on behalf of you, just tell me so and i’ll see what i can do.

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two new feeds

it’s amazing.. blogs are all around :> i think i just found the blogs of fabian [1] and dani (i’m not so sure whether this is his blog though) i’ve met today at the icu “stamm” . supposed i’m right [update 20040318: confirmed, thx], i’ll add them to my blogroll..

[1] ..and his interesting web site: iswitch.ch (thx to ben for hints ;)

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mt-3.0, the spam buster?

i’ve just deleted three blogspam comments that were posted within a couple of hours. that’s the highest blogspam rate i’ve experienced so far. as mt-2.661 only features some minor anti-blogspam functionality, i have the slight hope that mt-3.0 will offer a better blogspam-protection, as promised.

else i’ll might want to install wordpress instead. wordpress offers almost the same features as mt but is less popular and therefore probably less attractive for spammers.

[update 20040322: today i’ve deleted another 8 blogspam comments which took me more time than deleting the five spam mails i’ve received (spamassassin trashed 49 of them)]

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knoppix 3.4 c’t hd installation guide

i’ve just found a nice news forum posting which concisely explains how to install knoppix 3.4 (c’t edition, featuring kernel 2.6) on a hard disk.

eventually, this is the most convenient way how to end up with “debian” on your hard disk! ;) as knoppix is a relatively slim distro (fitting on a single cdrom) there might even be enough space for it on my notebook’s “shrunken” hd.

ps. don’t forget to update to kernel 2.6.4 after installing knoppix (recently, some serious kernel security holes have been found -> always run the the most current kernel version. i’d also recommend to patch your kernel with exec-shield for better protecting your box)

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this was foreseeable ;)

running win98 se on my notebook didn’t match my needs very well (e.g. network throughput when using pscp was only about 40 kb/s). consequently i quickly replaced it by windows xp pro (downloaded from codezone.ch). using windows xp, pscp throughput is about the tenfold (~400 kb/s). i guess scp on linux would yield even better rates, but as i lack space i decided not to install linux on that box anymore.