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OpenSSL, Apache and IIS and Citrix

Recently I needed to convert SSL certificates between Windows (IIS/Cirtix Secure Gateway). I made a cheat sheet for myself and I’m sharing it here in hope that it will be useful.

To view certificate request:

openssl req -text -noout -in request.csr

To view certificate:

openssl x509 -noout -text -in [cert.pem | cert.cer]

To convert bundled certificate (one destined for Windows):

openssl pkcs7 -in bundled.cer -print_certs -out certificate.pem

To pack key and certificate into pfx for importing on Windows:

openssl pkcs12 -export -out certificate.pfx -inkey key.pem -in [cert.crt | cert.pem]

Remote Desktop

I think that most of the geeks would agree that Microsoft’s Remote Desktop is one of the best remote access solutions, as far as the user experience is concerned. It beats VNC hands down, and there’s nothing else besides VNC for Linux. Or is there? Of course there is! FreeNX – the free version of an excellent remote desktop solution by NoMachine. Here’s an excellent post on how to set it up painlessly on Ubuntu. It’s almost as good as RDP.  Their commercial version has all the bells and whistles that RDP has, and more.

Streaming media to your TV

For a few years now, I have been streaming media from my computer to my TV, using excellent and inexpensive D-Link DSM-520 HD “Media Lounge”.  I have tried other brands, but D-Link beats them all hands down. One caveat, though – don’t even try to stream HD video over the wireless link. It never worked for me. I guess there’s just not enough bandwidth with the wireless connection. I rarely watch DVDs now, preferring instead to rip them to my computer and instead of putting the DVD in the player, I just select the movie from the media server menu. So far, the best media server application has been TwonkyMedia.  It is better than the free media servers I have tried, and it’s very inexpensive. They have Windows, Linux and Mac versions, as well as binaries for quite a few of NAS devices.  Their new version if the server, 5.x gave me some problems with media players being frequently disconnected while playing, but after downgrading to 4.x, the problems went away. I was very happy with 4.x, and the only reason I upgraded was that I was hoping I would get subtitle support. But this is unfortunately one feature which the software is still lacking. Another media server, MediaTomb, which is free, has subtitle support, but is slightly more difficult to set up and manage. I like it, but it’s media browsing by folder isn’t as good as TwonkyMedia’s. TwonkyMedia treats each folder added to the share list separately, making it the “root” entry  in the list, which is very clear and convenient.  MediaTomb uses the real folder tree, so if you share a folder which is several levels deep from your root folder, you’ll have to deal with the same layout on the TV screen.

Hamachi menu, AppleScript and Remote Desktop

A lot of Mac concepts are new to me as a Linux user with occasional Windows.  I have heard about AppleScript, but never paid much attention to it, assuming that it is some kind of another shell script/batch type. I discovered that Hamachi GUI for Mac has a context  menu with actions defined through AppleScript scripts. It looked really simple and way better than an ordinary script language. Great! – I thought, I can now add RDP to it, using either Microsoft’s own program, or Cord. I started researching the subject. The greatest obstacle was for me how to start. I googled, and found this site: http://www.tandb.com.au/applescript/tutorial/. Great! Section 3 explains all about the Dictionary. Aha, so that is how I know what commands I can send to programs. I immediately put the script editor icon in the dock and dragged Cord icon onto it. Bummer: “Unable to read the dictionary of the application or extension because it is not scriptable.” Tried with Microsoft’s RDP, result was the same. I guess I’ll have to find another way to do it.

Back to Mac

First thing I did ater installing WordPress was to search for good themes. Then came a question of modifying a theme, so that it has a personal touch. I found an excellent article about modifying a theme without touching the original one through creation of a child theme.  It’s at http://themeshaper.com/how-to-protect-your-wordpress-theme-against-upgrades/.

On another note, I’m back to using Mac OS X on my Mac Pro. I use this machine as a workstation an media server. Initially, I had Mac OS on it, then switched to Linux. I use an excellent media server from TwonkyMedia. I had problems in Linux where the media player would frequently lose connection with the server. Then I switched to Windows. That was better, but after a while the system got very slow and developed lot of problems. I’m a geek, and I’m constantly messing with my OS. Anyway, I’m back to Mac OS now, and after installing Firefox and bunch of other essentail programs, I installed Fink. I used it before, it was considered more stable than Mac Ports and supposedly has more packages available. I did not have any particular problems with it before, but this time I noticed that most of the “good stuff” is not available as binary packages, but only as source through unstable tree. I made checnges to Fink to use it, but then it started giving me problems. To make the long story short – I tried MacPorts and so far, I’m impressed. Good bye Fink!

Welcome!

I finally decided to set up my own blog. Why? Many times I wanted to share some piece of information I found valuable with womever could use it, or point ot a product or site I liked.  And I would always think “well, I don’t have a blog…” Well, not anymore! I’ve had my personal page for years (http://www.draxen.org), but no blog. I hope that it will be useful, now that I finally have it.