Thursday, October 23, 2008

Cannot update/(un)install VMware - already installed

Sometimes you get this message when updating VMware Workstation:

"A previous version of VMware Workstation is already installed. Setup will uninstall the previous version before proceeding with the installation."

Try the steps in Cleaning Up After Incomplete Uninstallation on a Windows Host or go directly to VMware_Install_Cleaner.exe link at the bottom of the page.

It worked for me...

Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

If your registry becomes corrupted during installation or software upgrade, you can get into a loop of

  • Can't install because
  • Can't uninstall because

The Windows Installer CleanUp Utility does a very nice job. It even tidies up any broken uninstalls while its actually installing itself.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Download:http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/9/d/e9d80355-7ab4-45b8-80e8-983a48d5e1bd/msicuu2.exe

image

One wonders why "Control Panel" » "Add Remove Programs" doesn't incorporate the same functionality.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

linuXploit_crew attacked my WEB Server using FrontPage Extensions

My test WWW site (hosted on Windows XP) recently had the start page replaced by a page that includes the following text in the first line:

[linuXploit_crew]

The full HTML of this file is included at the bottom of this post.

The offending files were written on 17-Oct-2008 [UTC +11]

image

Examination of the IIS log file (ex011016.log) shows that the files were put in place (POSTed) via author.dll which is part of the FrontPage extensions.

image

I have uninstalled FrontPage extensions using

Control Panel -> Add Remove Programs -> Windows Components ->
   IIS -> Details ->
image

I suggest you do the same.

The offending HTML

<html>
<head>
<title>linuXploit_crew</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div align="center">
<p>[linuXploit_crew]</p>
<p>O grupo linuXploit_crew foi criado em 05/04/2007. </p>
<p>Os membros da época Hualdo / c0d3_bl4ck_ninja / _seri4l_kill3r_ /
lordx / derf-</p>

<p>Atualmente ano de 2008 tem Hualdo / derf- e o lordx que voltou ao grupo e
_Seri4l_Kill3r_ esta off</p>
<p>O nome você criado meio na loucura e sem frescuras</p>
<p>Na época foi criado devido a revolta contra o grupo core-project um
membro antigo do grupo core-project se achou o grande hacker so porque catavamos
maquinas windows e disse que não aceitava isso porém estranhamente
eles mesmos criarão 1 ferramenta para catar pdw</p>
<p>Um dos motivos de aparacer mais um grupo brasileiro defacers é não
aceitar postar subdir em nome do grupo ou seja somente página principal
alterada ou seja a index</p>

<p>Sempre acreditei que deface é a pagina principal alterada e não
www.site.com/blablabla.htm lembro do site alldas somente index alteradas porém
um dia acabou o alldas</p>
<p>Entrava em cena o site zoneh muito bom no começo depois de um tempo
começou aparecer grupos postando /subdir na grande maioria turcos e
chineses postando para crescer no hank</p>
<p> linuXploit_crew não é o melhor ou pior somente tentando fazer
a diferença nos defacers</p>

<p>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
<p>The group was created linuXploit_crew on 05/04/2007. </p>
<p>Members of the season Hualdo / c0d3_bl4ck_ninja / _seri4l_kill3r_ / lordx
/ derf - </p>
<p>Currently year 2008 has Hualdo / derf-lordx and he has returned to the group
and _Seri4l_Kill3r_ This off </p>
<p>The name was created in madness and a half without fanciness </p>
<p>At the time it was created due to revolt against a group core-project former
member of the core group-project found the hacker so great because windows
machines and said it did not accept it but strangely themselves create 1 tool
to attract PDW </p>

<p>One of the reasons come from another group Brazilian defacers is not post
SUBDIR accept on behalf of the group or whether only main page changed ie
the index I have always believed that deface and the main page changed and
not www.site.com / blablabla.htm remember the site alldas index only changed
but a day just to alldas</p>
<p> Entered the scene at the site zoneh very good start after a while groups
began appearing posting / SUBDIR mostly Turkish and Chinese posting to grow
in the Hank </p>
<p>linuXploit_crew is not better or worse just trying to do the difference in
defacers</p>
<p>:: Membros:: </p>
<p>Hualdo - _Seri4l_Kill3r_ - DeRf- - LordX </p>
<p>Greetz Elite Top Team - OutLaw - Spykids - Red Eye - H4ckersBr </p>

<p> </p>
<p> </p>
</div>
</body>
</html>


Saturday, October 11, 2008

Google's Dynamic Feed Control Wizard - Put feeds on Your Web Page - makes life easy.

I used this feed control to provide a preview of stories on my Creative Writing WEB log (see http://blog.johnsawyer.info/) image

It's pretty easy with the wizard they provide at http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/wizards/dynamicfeed.html.

  1. Choose "Vertical Stacked"
    image
  2. Add the name of your Feed to the Feeds Expression
    image
    The wizard is pretty smart and finds the URL for us
    image
    Your site is now part of "Hollywood News" 
    image
  3. Now Generate the code
    image
  4. Copy it
     





    Loading...














  5. Paste it to your blog widget

    image


  6. And fix this important unkown bug


    Change feed-control to feedcontrol

SpringWidgets - An RSS reader and consolidator - Part 2 "How to add more than one feed"

See Google's Dynamic Feed Control Wizard - Put feeds on Your Web Page - makes life easy. for another (pure JavaScript) feed reader/consolidator.

SNAG-0947

Click on the gear wheel under the widget - up pops another window.

SNAG-0948

Click "Prefs" and manage away to your heart's content

SNAG-0950

From JavaScript Widget

You'll see in the snippet below that the feeds are separated by a "|" [concatenate] character.
[<feed1>|<feed2>]

<!-- SpringWidgets | RSS Reader (#23) | Blogger | Generated on 09/18/2008 -->
<object allownetworking="all" allowscriptaccess="always" align="middle" data="http://downloads.thespringbox.com/web/wrapper.php?file=RSS Reader.sbw"
codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="318" id="springwidgets_23" allowfullscreen="true"
width="230">
<param value="all" name="allowNetworking" />
<param value="always" name="allowScriptAccess" />
<param value="true" name="allowFullScreen" />
<param value="http://downloads.thespringbox.com/web/wrapper.php?file=RSS Reader.sbw"
name="movie" />
<param value="param_param=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2FJohnSawyersLatestWriting|http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.johnsawyer.info%2FLglf|http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2Fjohnsawyer%2FJkyY¶m_style_borderColor=0x33FFFF¶m_style_brandUrl=¶m_compactView=false¶m_blurbLength=256"
name="flashvars" />
<param value="high" name="quality" />
<param value="transparent" name="wmode" />
<param value="0x000000" name="bgColor" />
</object>
<div style="font: 11px/12px arial; width: 250px;">
<a href="http://www.springwidgets.com/widgets/view/23/?param_param=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2FJohnSawyersLatestWriting|http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.johnsawyer.info%2FLglf|http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2Fjohnsawyer%2FJkyY¶m_style_borderColor=0x33FFFF¶m_style_brandUrl=¶m_compactView=false¶m_blurbLength=512&width=250&height=300"
target="_blank">Get this widget!</a></div>
<div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;
font-size: 11px; line-height: 12px; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;
-x-system-font: none;">
</div>
</div>