This week on twitter 2009-05-31

May 31, 2009 · Posted in General · Comment

hmm maybe regfly is not so bad after all, they did have that "close my account" button so thanks @regflydotcom for making it easy this time #
moved email accounts from courier to dovecot. I wish tunderbird had a "subscribe to all subfolders" button #
@mihaibrehar deja nr tau de card se vinde pe irc in reply to mihaibrehar #
I wonder if spammers remove an email address from their list if the mail server responds with a "no mailbox" message... #
... if they do and we lie to them for some time we might get rid of them ... #
Just added myself to the http://wefollow.com twitter directory under: #programming, #email, #linux #
RT: @AlexVolocaru: List of official Twitter accounts for ESPs, email marketing agencies/bloggers http://idek.net/Caj (via @MarkatEMR) #
RT: @StephanieSAM: Why would you pay ANYTHING for dirt? So asks the author's 13-yr-old daughter. #emailmarketing http://bit.ly/799Wk #
RT: @swhitley: RT @mtlb: Ashton Kutcher, Martha Stewart, Oprah, Kirstie Alley, Tila Tequila, Ryan Seacrest, Dane Cook #notfollowingfriday #

Tags: tweets

This week on twitter 2009-05-24

May 24, 2009 · Posted in General · Comment

http auth needs an improvement. The server needs to be able to tell the client when to stop sending the credentials #
@vvladescu yeah but some people still like the http auth dialogs...what can you do? in reply to vvladescu #
@sergiubiris La Multi Ani! Sa Traiesti si la fel si Crocodilu #
@swhitley you let the sender know you got it, maybe they have to send it again to the right recipient in reply to swhitley #
11 Striking Findings From an Eye Tracking Study http://ff.im/32UNg #
@Twilert how do I delete my twilert account ? #
The Value of Play III: Children Use Play to Confront, not Avoid, Lifeâ€™s Challenges and Even Lifeâ€™s Horrors... [pic] http://ff.im/38APu #
RT @vladstan: 6 Small Things You Can Do When You Lack Discipline http://ow.ly/8igo #
RT: @PaulKinlan: I propose an #unfollowthursday where you unfollow people ready for #followfriday gems #
http://www.calicowebdev.com/blog/show/23 [pic] http://ff.im/39DoI #
Check out: " ShoeMoneys Awesome Free Internet Marketing Course" (http://twitthis.com/4rnqxh) #
@mihaibrehar sigur firma asta se numeste AdSCAM in reply to mihaibrehar #
@divinewrite I'm not a big fan either, I subscribed mostly to see how it is in reply to divinewrite #
@adiPintilie "fallow" asta e noul slang pentru follow ? in reply to adiPintilie #

Tags: tweets

This week on twitter 2009-05-17

May 17, 2009 · Posted in General · Comment

@unmarketing they should definitely not automate auto-dm or auto-reply, the rest is fine #socialmedia in reply to unmarketing #
does anyone know how to make video work on inspiron 1501 ubuntu 9.04 ? http://ff.im/2QTtB #
Flash Tutorial | swfObject help when placing a div over flash object | BrianYerkes.com [pic] http://ff.im/2Rdh3 #
Diamond mining is backbreaking labor done by the poorest earning less than $1/day...while the people at the top make... http://ff.im/2SfS4 #
Rock, Pebble, Sand Time Management [pic] http://ff.im/2Sjgu #
DKIM and DomainKeys patch for qmail | Brandons Blog [pic] http://ff.im/2SE8j #

Tags: tweets

Qmail TLS + SMTP Plugins on FreeBSD

May 15, 2009 · Posted in Patches · Comment

Problem

One of the worst problems in qmail is that it accepts messages for non existent users and then sends back a bounce to the sender. This is the perfect setup to be exploited by a spammer. I'm using the qmail-tls port configured with vpopmail on FreeBSD.

Solution

There might be some patches that make qmail use the vpopmail command line tools directly to check if a user exists before accepting messages but I either didn't find them or thought that using the SMTP Plugins patch is more elegant and gives me more flexibility (It might be slower but this was not a high traffic server so I didn't care).

The SMTP plugins patch adds hooks at all STMP stages and the plugins can use those hooks to accept or reject a message based on the data in the smtp statements sent by the sender.
I used the Qmail-SPP - Vpopmail check user Script written by Werner Maier.

The only problem was that I had to patch the source code for qmail-tls with the qmail-spp patch and there were quite a few rejects because of the other patches applied by freebsd ports system.
I managed to adapt the code to make this patch work and here is how I did it...

First I built the original freebsd port:

cd /usr/ports/mail/qmail-tls
make config # pick up the options you want here ... I needed tls, smtpd-auth,vpopmail and a few others
make
make install

This will also install the files and then after we apply the spp plugin we just copy the modified file ( qmail-smtpd )
Next step if to download the qmail-spp plugin into /usr/ports/mail/qmail-tls/work and apply it.

cd work
tar -xzpf qmail-spp-0.42.tar.gz
cd qmail-1.03
patch -p1 < ../qmail-spp-0.42/qmail-spp-smtpauth-tls-20060105.diff

This will give you some rejects but don't worry because you'll fix them with my next patch : Qmail-tls-spp-FreeBSD patch-0.1 (4.73 KB)

patch < qmail-tls-spp-freebsd.patch
make
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/svscan stop
cp qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/svscan start

At this point qmail-smtpd should have smtp plugins working and we can set up the vpopmail user verifier script.

cd /var/qmail
mkdir plugins
fetch http://www.maiers.de/qmail/vpopmail_check_recipient.sh
chown root:qmail vpopmail_check_recipient.sh
chmod 755 vpopmail_check_recipient.sh

Now edit vpopmail_check_recipient.sh and make sure the correct paths to vpopmail directory ( /home/vpopmail on freebsd ) are set in the script.

To test it, connect to smtp and try to send a message to an nonexistent account, you should see a reject message instead of the usual "ok".

Tags: freebsd, patch, plugins, Qmail, smtp, spp

This week on twitter 2009-05-12

May 10, 2009 · Posted in General · Comment

liking the new design of http://freshmeat.net . Ok maybe it's not new but it's the first time I see it #
Thinking about business models http://ff.im/2BG2Z #
RT: @danzarrella: If u have a bunch of followers, but r following more people than r following u. I assume u just followed-to-get-followers. #
Twitter Connect for WordPress | Shannon Whitley [feedly] - http://bit.ly/UoPDC
(via... http://ff.im/2D6OS #
if you're forking in perl with DBI and MySQL, make sure you connect in the child process or you mess up the parent's connection #
I just realized I can safely unsubscribe from the loud news accounts ( like @mashable, @techcrunch , @chrispirillo ,... http://ff.im/2D8C7 #
RT: @dacort: Oooh, Twitter new follower emails now include followers/following/updates information. #
@AnnePMitchell they're not so bad. I like more info about the new followers. I was hoping I would get the bio too in reply to AnnePMitchell #
@problogger maybe he consults experts #
@scour your email news can be categorized as spam because you offer no easy way for me to unsubscribe. I'm not talking about invitations #
looking for a good color picker for jquery #

Tags: tweets

Comparing float values in PHP

May 6, 2009 · Posted in php · 6 Comments

I had to learn this the hard way. It seems in php 27.64 is just not quite 27.64 , but something close to it ( that's what some people say here anyway: http://www.php.net/ternary ) .

And that's why the following code wouldn't echo the text "dude" as you might think it should:

 
< ?php
function t($amount){
$amountdue=10.00+2.88+2.88+2.88+9.00;
 
echo "amountdue: $amountdue, amount: $amount\n";
if($amountdue == $amount) echo "dude\n";
else echo "but still no match\n";
}
$amount=27.64;
t($amount);
?>

Run this script and you should see:

amountdue: 27.64, amount: 27.64
but still no match

That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. A similar code written in C gives the good results. Isn't php written in C? They should have copied C's good behavior.
If conversion from float to string gives the right results, why not use the same results when comparing float values?
So if you're having this problem it seems this will work:

 
if((string)$amountdue == (string)$amount) {

The fact that php can't compare float values reliably and that you have to resort to this to make it work just makes php look bad.

Tags: bug, comparison, float, php

This week on twitter 2009-05-03

May 3, 2009 · Posted in General · Comment

Sleek Javascript Calendar (Date Picker) for Mootools http://ff.im/2oqSe #
The hacking business model - Askmonty.org [pic] http://ff.im/2ouS9 #
can anyone show me which is better mootools or jquery, and why ? any comparison article ? #
@rahsheen I do this regularly. I also unfollow those that abuse the #followfriday thing in reply to rahsheen #
@corvida bad move in reply to corvida #
@matt_kruse thanks, the graph says a lot, but it seems there are still some big names using mootools. Or that's what they claim anyway in reply to matt_kruse #
trying firebug 1.4 and not liking the new interface... I think i'll go back to 1.3 #
@anutron I love the "With Frameworks, What Matters Is Hidden Deep Inside" but if I have to dig in before I make the decision I lose time in reply to anutron #
geolocation and improved privacy... little contradiction in the new firefox don't you think ? #
@nonsequitir I doubt that is actually patching. I guess they just replace a lot of files in reply to nonsequitir #
A million blind squirrels http://ff.im/2tByH #
Mechanics vs. intent http://ff.im/2wnjz #
trying to download a custom jquery ui but I just get an empty (0 bytes ) zip file #
Jeditable with jQuery UI Datepicker - Stack Overflow [pic] http://ff.im/2wrff #