Information about what is new in this release of MVC

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern is an architectural design principle that separates the components of a Web application. This separation gives you more control over the individual parts of the application, which lets you more easily develop, modify, and test them.

ASP.NET MVC is part of the ASP.NET framework. Developing an ASP.NET MVC application is an alternative to developing ASP.NET Web Forms pages; it does not replace the Web Forms model.

You can get the most up-to-date version of the ASP.NET MVC framework from the ASP.NET MVC download page. For information about what is new in this release of MVC, see ASP.NET MVC 3 on the ASP.NET web site.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg416514%28v=VS.98%29.aspx

Malware found on HTC Android phone from Vodafone

An employee at Spanish antivirus firm Panda Security received a new Android-based Vodafone HTC Magic with malware on it, according to researchers at Panda Labs.

“Today one of our colleagues received a brand new Vodafone HTC Magic with Google’s Android OS,” researcher Pedro Bustamante wrote on the Panda Research Blog on Monday.

“The interesting thing is that when she plugged the phone to her PC via USB, her Panda Cloud Antivirus went off, detecting both an autorun.inf and autorun.exe as malicious,” he wrote. “A quick look into the phone quickly revealed it was infected and spreading the infection to any and all PCs that the phone would be plugged into.”

The malware began “phoning home” for instructions, Bustamante wrote. It’s likely the user’s credentials would have been stolen, he speculated.

The malware turned out to be related to the Mariposa botnet, but there was other malware on the device too–Conficker and a Lineage password-stealing Trojan, he said.

A Vodafone spokesperson did not return an e-mail from CNET seeking comment, but The Register published a statement from Vodafone that said it is investigating the matter.

“Following extensive quality assurance testing on HTC Magic handsets in several of our operating companies, early indications are that this was an isolated local incident,” the statement said.

Last week, three people were arrested in Spain on charges of operating a massive botnet composed of 12.7 million PCs that stole credit card and bank log-in data and infected computers in half of the Fortune 1,000 companies and more than 40 banks. The botnet was dubbed “Mariposa,” which means butterfly in Spanish.

This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.

Evolving cyber threats target appliances

As the threat of malware continues to evolve over time with cybercriminals now targeting non-conventional electronic appliances such as battery chargers and digital photo frames, companies need to pay even more attention to their quality control practices.

According to Ronnie Ng, Symantec Singapore’s senior manager for systems engineering, cybercriminals are constantly finding new means and ways to exploit vulnerabilities. This focus now extends to devices not usually known to inhabit malware such as USB appliances and mobile phones.

"The proliferation of USB appliances, mobile phones and PC peripherals as well as their increased use simply mean there will be continued attempts by cybercriminals to exploit various platforms and devices for their personal gain," he said in an e-mail to ZDNet Asia.

Ng also pointed out that companies should implement "stringent standards and policies" to ensure appliances are safe for use, particularly anything that has or [can] potentially access sensitive data or information. These appliances have flash or bootable storage, which would be anything from memory cards to MP3 players, he stated.

The Symantec executive’s point of view is shared by another security expert. Eric Chong, the regional marketing director of Trend Micro Asia-Pacific. He thinks quality control, whether for hardware or software, is "definitely a necessity" now that cyber attacks are taking on new forms.

He told ZDNet Asia in his e-mail: "Essentially, anything that has the ability to connect to the Internet could potentially be vulnerable to attack, or worse, could secretly contain malware that would lead to data or identity theft."

Calls have come for stricter diligence in checks and quality control after products from Energizer and HTC were found with security breaches.

ZDNet Asia’s sister site, CNET News, had in March reported about a software that could be downloaded for use with the Energizer Duo USB battery charger, which contained a backdoor that could allow an attacker to remotely take control of a Windows-based PC.

The article cited a U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team statement as saying: "The installer for the Energizer Duo software places the file UsbCharger.dll in the application’s directory and Arucer.dll in the Windows system32 directory. Arucer.dll is a backdoor that allows unauthorized remote system access via accepting connections on 7777/tcp. Its capabilities include the ability to list directories, send and receive files, and execute programs."

The battery maker said in the same statement that "it did not know how the Trojan got into the software" and that it has since discontinued sales of the product and removed the download site for the software.

In the same month, a Panda Security blog post written by senior research advisor Pedro Bustamante revealed how one of his colleagues received a brand new HTC Magic smartphone from Vodafone that came with a Mariposa bot client in it.

"The interesting thing is that when she plugged the phone to her PC via USB, her Panda Cloud Antivirus went off, detecting both an autorun.inf and autorun.exe as malicious. A quick look into the phone quickly revealed it was infected and spreading the infection to any and all PCs that the phone would be plugged into," he stated in the post.

Bustamante added that the computer, once infected with the malware, was seen "phoning home" to receive further instructions. He said this was probably to "steal all of the user’s credentials and send them to the malware writer".

He noted that Mariposa was not the only malware in the phone, sharing space with "Conficker and a Lineage password stealer" malware, too.

Spanish language blog, Movil Zona, later reported that Vodafone had pinpointed the fault to the memory cards that came with the phone, stating that 3,000 of the handsets were "exposed" to the virus.

ZDNet Asia contacted consumer appliance makers such as Philips and Samsung to find out how they conduct their quality control measures, but both declined to comment, while Energizer could not respond by press time.

Consumers beware
While the cyber threats are evidently real, Symantec’s Ng said consumers should not stop buying electronic appliances altogether, either.

Rather, people should "be aware, adopt best practices and exercise caution during use", such as using an effective antivirus solution to scan any external storage device for malware before use, he advised.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/evolving-cyber-threats-target-appliances-62062519.htm

How to join Ubuntu to a Windows Workgroup

Although many Windows networks take advantage of Active Directory and Domains, I see plenty of smaller networks out there that only use the workgroup solution to enable machines to see one another (and share folders/printers). Most people assume the Workgroup is something that only Windows machines can enjoy. Not so.

Linux machines can also take advantage of this networking feature with the help of Samba. Through the magic of blogging, I am going to illustrate how you can join your Linux machine to a Windows Workgroup.

For the purpose of simplicity, I am going to demonstrate this task on a Ubuntu 10.04 machine. The process will be similar on just about any distribution (with the biggest difference being the installation of Samba). So, with that said, let’s get to it.

Installing Samba
This, of course, is the first step in this process. To install Samba open up a terminal window and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install samba smbfs

You will need to enter your sudo password for this to work. There might also be dependencies to install, which will be dictated by what you currently have installed on your system. Once complete, you will have the Samba system installed and ready to be configured.

Configuring Samba
Now it’s time to open up the /etc/samba/smb.conf file and look for the line:

workgroup = WORKGROUP

You can always open that file with gedit if you like. I prefer using nano as my text editor (no need to start a text editor flame war here). What you need to do is to change WORKGROUP to match the actual name of the Workgroup you need to join. After you have that complete, save the file, and restart Samba with the command:

sudo /etc/init.d/smbd restart

You can also restart Samba with the command:

sudo service samba restart

Your Ubuntu machine should now show up for anyone else who happens to be in the same Workgroup. You can also begin sharing out folders to other users. This is very simple to do from within the Nautilus file manager. Just right-click a folder and click the Sharing Options entry. This will allow you to easily set up file sharing as well as specific permissions for that folder.

Final thoughts
I well remember the days when sharing folders out with Windows computers was a far more challenging task than what you see today. Fortunately, Linux has finally caught up to the idea that being on a homogeneous network should be a no-brainer for users. Hopefully the developers of Samba will eventually create an even simpler way for Linux machines to join a Workgroup–without having to ever open up a command line.

Jack Wallen was a key player in the introduction of Linux to the original Techrepublic. Beginning with Red Hat 4.2 and a mighty soap box, Jack had found his escape from Windows. It was around Red Hat 6.0 that Jack landed in the hallowed halls of Techrepublic.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/how-to-join-ubuntu-to-a-windows-workgroup-62204782.htm?scid=nl_z_tgos

Slow Network copy in Windows 7

If you experience Slow Network Connection or file copy from and to the Windows 7 PC or laptop takes ages to completes or connection disconnects then this could be caused by the Task Offload settings. The task offload settings are enabled by default at the NIC level and globally at the system level. This should work for Windows Vista as well.

These could be

TCP Checksum Offload

UDP Checksum Offload

TCP Large Send Offload

IPSec Offload

To quickly resolve the problem, disable Task Offload globally that disable all the above Offload settings by doing the following:

1. Click Start and type “cmd” at the search box.
2. Right-click “cmd” icon and select “Run as Administrator“. This should lainch the command prompt with elevated permisions.
3. Run the following command to check the enabled offload tasks:
   

   C:\Windows\system32> netsh int ip show offload

   Interface 11: Local Area Connection

   ipv4 transmit checksum supported.

   udp transmit checksum supported.

   tcp transmit checksum supported.

   tcp large send offload supported.

   ipv4 receive checksum supported.

   udp receive checksum supported.

   tcp receive checksum supported.

4. Run the following command to disable all Task offloads:
   

   C:\Windows\system32> netsh int ip set global taskoffload=disabled

   OK.

   This should disable all the offloads.

5. Disable and Enable the NIC from “Control Panel – Network and Internet Connections – View Network Status and tasks – Change Adapter Settings“.
6. To check if all Offloads are disabled run the following command:
   

   C:\Windows\system32> netsh int ip show offload

Nothing should be listed. This should help.

Also you may try disabling the power management option on the NIC as follows:

1. Click Start, right click “Computer” select Properties.

2. Click Device Manager. Right-click your NIC and choose Properties.

3. Choose Power Management tab and uncheck “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.”

4. Restart the computer and check if it works.

This should help especially with the Network disconnects

http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-vista/slow-network-copy-and-connection-drops-in-windows-7/

Ungkapan Sederhana Untuk Istri Tercinta

Penulis: M. Fauzil Adzim

Bila malam sudah beranjak mendapati Subuh, bangunlah sejenak. Lihatlah istri Anda yang sedang terbaring letih menemani bayi Anda. Tataplah wajahnya yang masih dipenuhi oleh gurat-gurat kepenatan karena seharian ini badannya tak menemukan kesempatan untuk istirahat barang sekejap, Kalau saja tak ada air wudhu yang membasahi wajah itu setiap hari, barangkali sisa-sisa kecantikannya sudah tak ada lagi.

Sesudahnya, bayangkanlah tentang esok hari. Di saat Anda sudah bisa merasakan betapa segar udara pagi, Tubuh letih istri Anda barangkali belum benar benar menemukan kesegarannya. Sementara anak-anak sebentar lagi akan meminta perhatian bundanya, membisingkan telinganya dengan tangis serta membasahi pakaiannya dengan pipis tak habis-habis. Baru berganti pakaian, sudah dibasahi pipis lagi. Padahal tangan istri Anda pula yang harus mencucinya.

Di saat seperti itu, apakah yang Anda pikirkan tenang dia? Masihkah Anda memimpikan tentang seorang yang akan senantiasa berbicara lembut kepada anak-anaknya seperti kisah dari negeri dongeng sementara di saat yang sama Anda menuntut dia untuk nenjadi istri yang penuh perhatian, santun dalam bicara, lulus dalam memilih kata serta tulus dalam menjalani tugasnya sebagai istri, termasuk dalam menjalani apa yang sesungguhnya bukan kewajiban istri tetapi dianggap sebagai kewajibannya.

Sekali lagi, masihkah Anda sampai hati mendambakan tentang seorang perempuan yang sempurna, yang selalu berlaku halus dan lembut? Tentu saja saya tidak tengah mengajak Anda membiarkan istri kita membentak anak-anak dengan mata membelalak. Tidak. Saya hanya ingin mengajak Anda melihat bahwa tatkala tubuhnya amat letih, sementara kita tak pernah menyapa jiwanya, maka amat wajar kalau ia tidak sabar. Begitu pula manakala matanya yang mengantuk tak kunjung memperoleh kesempatan untuk tidur nyenyak sejenak, maka ketegangan emosinya akan menanjak. Disaat itulah jarinya yang lentik bisa tiba-tiba membuat anak kita menjerit karena cubitannya yang bikin sakit.

Apa artinya? Benar, seorang istri shalihah memang tak boleh bermanja-manja secara kekanak-kanakan, apalagi sampai cengeng. Tetapi istri shalihah tetaplah manusia yang membutuhkan penerimaan. Ia juga butuh diakui, meski tak pernah meminta kepada Anda. Sementara gejolak-gejolak jiwa yang memenuhi dada, butuh telinga yang mau mendengar. Kalau kegelisahan jiwanya tak pernah menemukan muaranya berupa kesediaan untuk mendengar, atau ia tak pernah Anda akui keberadaannya, maka jangan pernah menyalahkan siapa-siapa kecuali dirimu sendiri jika ia tiba-tiba meledak. Jangankan istri kita yang suaminya tidak terlalu istimewa, istri Nabi pun pernah mengalami situasi-situasi yang penuh ledakan, meski yang membuatnya meledak-ledak bukan karena Nabi Saw. tak mau mendengar melainkan semata karena dibakar api kecemburuan. Ketika itu, Nabi Saw. hanya diam menghadapi ‘Aisyah yang sedang cemburu seraya memintanya untuk mengganti mangkok yang dipecahkan.

Alhasil, ada yang harus kita benahi dalam jiwa kita. Ketika kita menginginkan ibu anak-anak kita selalu lembut dalam mengasuh, maka bukan hanya nasehat yang perlu kita berikan. Ada yang lain. Ada kehangatan yang perlu kita berikan agar hatinya tidak dingin, apalagi beku, dalam menghadapi anak-anak setiap hari, Ada penerimaan yang perlu kita tunjukkan agar anak-anak itu tetap menemukan bundanya sebagai tempat untuk memperoleh kedamaian, cinta dan kasih-sayang. Ada ketulusan yang harus kita usapkan kepada perasaan dan pikirannya, agar ia masih tetap memiliki energi untuk tersenyum kepada anak-anak kita. Sepenat apa pun ia.

Ada lagi yang lain: pengakuan. Meski ia tidak pernah menuntut, tetapi mestikah kita menunggu sampai mukanya berkerut-kerut. Karenanya, marilah kita kembali ke bagian awal tulisan ini. Ketika perjalanan waktu telah melewati tengah malam, pandanglah istri Anda yang terbaring letih itu. lalu pikirkankah sejenak, tak adakah yang bisa kita lakukan sekedar untuk menqucap terima kasih atau menyatakan sayang? Bisa dengan kata yang berbunga-bunga, bisa tanpa kata. Dan sungguh, lihatlah betapa banyak cara untuk menyatakannya. Tubuh yang letih itu, alangkah bersemangatnya jika di saat bangun nanti ada secangkir minuman hangat yang diseduh dengan dua sendok teh gula dan satu cangkir cinta. Sampaikan kepadanya ketika matanya telah terbuka, “Ada secangkir minuman hangat untuk istriku. Perlukah aku hantarkan untuk itu?”

Sulit melakukan ini? Ada cara lain yang bisa Anda lakukan. Mungkin sekedar membantunya menyiapkan sarapan pagi untuk anak-anak, mungkin juga dengan tindakan-tindakan lain, asal tak salah niat kita. Kalau kita terlibat dengan pekerjaan di dapur, memandikan anak, atau menyuapi si mungil sebelum mengantarkannya ke TK, itu bukan karena gender-friendly; tetapi semata karena mencari ridha Allah. Sebab selain niat ikhlas karena Allah, tak ada artinya apa yang kila lakukan. Kita tidak akan mendapati amal-amal kita saat berjumpa dengan Allah di yaumil-kiyamah. Alaakullihal, apa yang ingin Anda lakukan, terserah Anda. Yang jelas, ada pengakuan untuknya, baik lewat ucapan terima kasih atau tindakan yang menunjukkan bahwa dialah yang terkasih. Semoga dengan kerelaan kita untuk menyatakan terima-kasih, tak ada airmata duka yang menetes dari kedua kelopaknya. Semoga dengan kesediaan kita untuk membuka telinga baginya, tak ada lagi istri yang berlari menelungkupkan wajah di atas bantal karena merasa tak didengar. Dan semoga pula dengan perhatian yang kita berikan kepadanya, kelak istri kita akan berkata tentang kita sebagaimana Bunda ‘Aisyah radhiyallahu anha berucap tentang suaminya, Rasulullah Saw., “Ah, semua perilakunya menakjubkan bagiku.”

Sesudah engkau puas memandangi istrimu yang terbaring letih, sesudah engkau perhatikan gurat-gurat penat di wajahnya, maka biarkanlah ia sejenak untuk meneruskan istirahatnya. Hembusan udara dingin yang mungkin bisa mengusik tidurnya, tahanlah dengan sehelai selimut untuknya. Hamparkanlah ke tubuh istrimu dengan kasih-sayang dan cinta yang tak lekang oleh perubahan, Semoga engkau termasuk laki-laki yang mulia, sebab tidak memuliakan wanita kecuali laki-laki yang mulia.

Sesudahnya, kembalilah ke munajat dan tafakkurmu. Marilah kita ingat kembali ketika Rasulullah Saw. berpesan tentang istri kita. “Wahai manusia, sesungguhnya istri kalian mempunyai hak atas kalian sebagaimana kalian mempunyai hak atas mereka. Ketahuilah,” kata Rasulullah Saw. melanjutkan, ‘kalian mengambil wanita itu sebagai amanah dari Allah, dan kalian halalkan kehormatan mereka dengan kitab Allah. Takutlah kepada Allah dalam mengurus istri kalian. Aku wasiatkan atas kalian untuk selalu berbuat baik.” Kita telah mengambil istri kita sebagai amanah dari Allah. Kelak kita harus melaporkan kepadaAllah Taala bagaimana kita menunaikan amanah dari-Nya apakah kita mengabaikannya sehingga gurat-gurat an dengan cepat menggerogoti wajahnya, jauh awal dari usia yang sebenarnya? Ataukah, kita sempat tercatat selalu berbuat baik untuk isti, Saya tidak tahu. Sebagaimana saya juga tidak tahu apakah sebagai suami Saya sudah cukup baik jangan-jangan tidak ada sedikit pun kebaikan di mata istri. Saya hanya berharap istri saya benar-banar memaafkan kekurangan saya sebagai suami. Indahya, semoga ada kerelaan untuk menerima apa adanya.

Hanya inilah ungkapan sederhana yang kutuliskan untuknya. Semoga Anda bisa menerima ungkapan yang lebih agung untuk istri Anda.

10 things you can do when the drive on your Linux box is full

Do you remember the days when keeping a hard disk from getting full was essential to keep your machine running well? That was then, this is now, right? Well, not quite. The truth is, “The more you have, the more you need.” Today, people are saving more on their drives, and that “more” consists of files that are far larger than what hard drives were once filled with. I see people filling up even terabyte drives faster than they can name the videos they just saved.

So… What do you do when that drive is full and your operating system is Linux? Do you have to do some special incantation or magical programming trick? Or do you just need a bit of common sense to help you through? Although common sense will be a great aid in this task, it also helps to know a few things about the operating system in general and how to use it properly. Let’s take a look at some things you can do when your Linux box begins running out of space.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

1: Use Computer Janitor (or its equivalent)

Ubuntu Linux has a handy tool called Computer Janitor. (You’ll find it in the Ubuntu Software Center.) It will analyze your system and report which applications are no longer supported or no longer required. The tool is incredibly simple to use and will gain you some space, depending upon how many unsupported applications you have on your machine. This tool probably won’t recover gigabytes of space, but you may recover a few hundred megabytes. And in the quest to gain as much space as you can find, every little bit helps.

2: Add an external drive

Linux really loves external drives. In modern incarnations, it doesn’t matter if that drive is ext2/3/4, reiserfs, fat, vfat, NTFS, hfs… Linux can read it. Naturally, you’re not going to move your applications to the external drive (although you could). But you can certainly use it as a data drive and move all of those precious family pictures, home movies, and MP3 collections to it.

3: Install the OS with /home on a separate drive

This makes sense on a number of levels. First, it moves all user data off the drive housing the OS. This also means when you reinstall the OS you don’t have to worry about overwriting your user data. Of course, that’s assuming you remember NOT to install the OS on the drive that contains all the data on your /home drive. (But if you forget and do that, this article won’t help you anyway.)

4: Check your log files

Although this isn’t nearly as common as an Exchange log getting out of hand, I have seen instances where a log file did not rotate and exceeded the normal size. The Linux operating system has a good log rotational tool, and usual logs shouldn’t get the chance to grow overly large. But if that should happen, you can take advantage of the built-in logrotate tool to solve that issue. As a general rule, I have found this to be an issue only with non-system (or non-default system) software. Remember, all log files are usually housed in /var/log.

5: Clear your package manager cache

If you use a distribution that employs a package manager like apt, you can free up a good amount of space by clearing the cache. Apt retains the .deb packages it uses in /var/cache/apt/archives. You don’t want to just delete those file, as that could have negative repercussions on the apt tool. Instead, use the built-in apt-cache tool to purge the cache and free up a good amount of space.

6: Clear application caches with Bleachbit

Another outstanding tool (also found in Synaptic) is Bleachbit. This tool clears only the various caches that applications use, but you will be surprised at how much space you can free up from clearing the cache of Adobe Reader, APT, Bash, Browsers, Evolution, Flash, GNOME, KDE, and many more applications. On a single run, without clearing the cache of all available applications, I was able to free up 485.9 MB. Not only will this give you more space, but some of those applications (the ones that tend to hold onto more cache than others) will begin running with more snap.

7: Write your own script

This is the approach that most hard-core Linux users prefer. Why bother with a fancy GUI when bash is all you really need? You can create a simple bash script to traverse the directory hierarchy and report which files are taking up the most space and delete them, if applicable. For example, this simple one line script:

find /home/jlwallen -size +1000000k

will print out the results of a find command, but only those files found that are larger than .95 Gb. Or you can find and delete duplicate files with a script like this:

#!/bin/sh

find -type f | while IFS= read vo

do

echo `basename “$vo”`

done

Call that script duplicate.sh and then pipe its results through uniq, like so:

./duplicate.sh | uniq -d

This will print out all duplicate files you have on your drive, and you can then decide whether you want to delete them.

8: Remove applications

I know this sounds silly, but I bet if you went through the hierarchy of your menu you would find a good number of applications you simply do not use. Why keep them on there if you’re not going to use them? Delete those bad boys and recover some space. This especially holds true if you like to install numerous applications just to test the waters. The best approach is to use your GUI package manager so you can simply scroll through what is installed and remove away.

9: Empty your Trash

In some instances (and distributions), Delete works similarly to how it works in Windows — instead of actually deleting the file, the file goes to the Trash. I have seen cases where the Trash was very full, and the act of emptying that directory freed up quite a bit of space. To clear it, simply right-click on the Trash icon and select Empty Trash.

10: Reinstall

Although this should be used only as a last-ditch effort, a clean installation certainly does restore that factory fresh smell, as well as giving you the chance to migrate to the latest, greatest version without the bad taste of doing an upgrade installation. Here’s the kicker: If you have a TON of files in your ~/ directory, when you copy those back, you will wind up with the same tonnage on your newly installed system. Take this opportunity to either move those files to a new location or just weed out that huge collection of wallpapers you have from the ’90s and the redundant backups of all your movies and MP3s.

Portion control

You would be surprised how quickly even a terabyte drive can fill up. With more and more people downloading video and audio onto their machines (and that process growing ever more user friendly), it’s no wonder the size of hard drives continues to grow increasingly EPIC! But with the help of the above tips, you should be able to prevent your Linux system from getting overstuffed and slowing down

Larger hard drives should mean the end of disk space worries, but our appetite for bigger files has kept pace with all that increased capacity. Here are some effective ways to keep your Linux box from busting at the seams

 

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1943&tag=nl.e040