Sending mail via telnet

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Sending mail via telnet through your SMTP server

There have been many times over the course of my time working with computers that I have had to manually test email functionality. Email is one of those things that everyone has to have for various reasons. It’s great for getting status info and results from scripts for example. However, it’s also one of those ornery things that is affected by everything from network settings and firewall rules to spam filters and DNS problems.

The point is that sometimes you need to be on the machine that is sending the message, and verify that it can in fact send a message. This article will help you not only test connectivity, but walk you through sending an email message via a telnet connection, going through the SMTP commands much like your mail client uses.

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Take your Firefox bookmarks with you

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Do you have a nice collection of bookmarks within Firefox? Do you have them arranged all nice and neat, just the way you like them? Are you like me and would just be real unhappy if you lost all of your bookmarks? Well, this quick tip is a simple one, and most of you probably already know about it, but for any that don’t, I thought I would share. You can save or export your Firefox bookmarks to a flat HTML file so you can copy it somewhere for safe keeping. Or maybe toss a copy onto a thumb drive so you can take it with you, whatever you want. The operation is simple, just click on the following:

Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks > File > Export > Enter the destination filename!

There you have it, a nice and shiny copy of all of your bookmarks to do with as you please. Enjoy!

Labeling disks in Linux

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There’s a new article up that discusses Linux, and how it uses labels to mount disks in many cases, instead of the device paths of yesteryear. In the article I explain what this is and why we do it, as well as how to manage the labels of your disks. This is one of the things that when I first saw it, blew me away. I didn’t realize what it was, and once I learned more about it, I was blown away again by just how cool this is. All in all, I think the idea of mounting disks via a label so that it just doesn’t matter what the device name or path is, is an awesome idea. I hope I put together an article that is helpful, and can shed some light on it for you.

With Converber, you can convert anything!

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It’s time once again for another post about Cool Tools, which are tools, utilities, programs, etc., that I have found in my travels that are really cool (in my opinion anyway, but hey, I am an expert in my own opinion!). I think it’s good for admins and users alike to share nifty little gems that they have found that make life a little easier.

In this case, this is a great tool, simple to use, very well written and FREE! It’s called Converber, and it’s awesome for converting one factor to another. Weight, volume, area, computer measurements (Kb to KB anyone?), whatever you want. It sure seems to have a calc in there for everything I have been able to think of. I suggest grabbing this keeping it in your bag of tricks. It has come in handy for me many times. It’s a Windows app, but it runs well under WINE for me in Linux, not sure how our Mac brethren can run it, but if you can I’d recommend it.

As always, feel free to share your feedback about the app, and feel free to recommend something you like and want to share. Either put it in the comments, or send me an email by using the Contact button at the top of the site. Enjoy!

Replacing failed disks in SVM

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This article could be called a continuation of the article I posted yesterday about creating mirrors in SVM, only this time I am talking about replacing failed drives in those mirrors we just created.  Take a look and see some options for dealing with failed drives, and how to make Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) happy with it!

RIAA Goofs Again

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This isn’t a technical post per se, but I found it interesting because the big behemoth that is the RIAA is using technology (inappropriately in my opinion) to go after everyone it can even remotely think is sharing files.  They really don’t seem to care about the privacy of the person that is in their sights, nor do they seem to do a whole lot of work to validate their claims.  It seems to me they simply load the scatter gun and start firing away.  I think this article over at ars technica shows some good examples of their approach.  I don’t think they are even good enough that I can call it a methodology.