It would be safe to assume that PDF or Portable Document Format is a convenient and widely supported format, specially if you wish to distribute documents that don’t have to be edited.

The problem is that not all applications support exporting or printing to the PDF format natively. While plenty of online services will happily covert documents to other formats they usually come with inconveniences and the result may not look professional when a document is watermarked with the name of a third party.

Meet CutePDF Writer a printer subsystem or in simple terms “CutePDF Writer is a plug-in that appears as if it was a printer, instead of a paper copy the result will be a PDF”, applications only have to support printing in order to use CutePDF Writer. When the subsytem is installed you can choose between printing to a regular printer or CutePDF Writer.

CutePDF Writer has several advantages over online PDF convertion services like:

• No unwanted watermaks or ads on the resulting files
• No unecessary conversion from say .doc to PDF, output directly to PDF
• No need to modify local applications
• No limits on how much or what you print, privacy is in your hands
• Free for commercial and non-commercial use

To start using the subsystem first you need to go over to cutepdf.com and download CutePDF Writer (CuteWriter.exe) and optionally the free PDF coverter (coverter.exe). I say optionally because CuteWriter.exe alone has the capability of downloading converter.exe over the Internet and install it for you. However, if you do not expect to be near an Internet connection you should download both files.

Ghostscript is an example of a PS2PDF, its a must if you wish to output file in to PDF

Once the download in complete, double click on CuteWriter.exe to start the installer. Begin the installation by clicking on the Install button.

Since the CutePDF Writer installer did not find any sings of a PS2PDF on the system you are being given the option to automatically download and install coverter.exe for you. Click on Yes to install coverter.exe on the system.

Internet connection required, allow some time for the download to complete.

When CutePDF Writer and all of the components are installed you will be presented with a page in your browser explaining how to use it. We will use this page to print out first PDF.

Let’s try it for the first time, depending on the browser you are using try to print a page or use Ctrl + P.

To print to a PDF select CutePDF Writer and hit the Print button.

Name the document and select the location where the file will be saved.

Go to the location where the file was stored and open it, as you can see the result is a PDF file. Saving documents to PDF could not be easier and might even help you save on the cost of printer ink.

For More Information Visit:

CutePDF Home Page
Wikipedia Entry On PDF

In a blog post Google announce that Gmail will now integrate support for VOIP, the service will continue to provide free calling to countries like the United States and Canada, calling rates for other countries will vary (U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan pay $0.02 a minute).

However, Google Apps users and non-US users will have to wait longer.

Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?”

In order to be able to use the new service users will need to install the Voice and video plug-in before using it. The service is expected to become functional over the next few days.

The most important aspect of this announcement is the convenient user experience, while raising questions on how much of your personal information Google now manages.

Q) I have a brand new Ubuntu Server installation with port 22(SSH) facing the Internet, while looking at the logs I noticed that no information such as failed log-in attempts are being logged. What file and parameter do I need to change in order to start logging failed attempts?.

A) by default OpenSSH on Ubuntu is not set to log failed log-in attempts, I guess the logic behind this decision is to reduce the amount of logs being generated. The risk associated with not logging failed attempts is that you will never know if your server is being targeted by the bad guys, pretty much anything exposed to the Internet is bound to be a target of some sort.

Solution

In order to start logging failed attempts you need root, a text editor, and access to the sshd_config file.

Open the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config with your favorite editor.

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

And look for the line starting with #Logging and change the parameter from LogLevel INFO to LogLevel VERBOSE.

# Logging
SyslogFacility AUTH 
LogLevel INFO

The new configuration should look like this:

# Logging
SyslogFacility AUTH 
LogLevel VERBOSE

From now on the system will log all failed attempts to /var/log/auth.log. Just don’t be surprised about your popularity with the bad guys!.

If you are a college student with an email address ending in .edu then you may qualify for a free membership program offered by Amazon called Amazon Student. The membership is basically a free year membership of Amazon prime (cost of $79), all qualifying Amazon purchases will be sent via two day shipping (UPS) or you can pay $3.99 to upgrade to one day shipping.

Of course Amazon will verify the email address by sending you a confirmation email to the provided address, you will then be sent to a page at Amazon.com where you will also need to provide the name of the school you are attending and indicate you major.

Hopefully, you will take advantage of this great offer available only to college students.

Links

Amazon Student

Recently, I had to enable logging for several firewall rules on a pfSense box, of course this was going to result in an increase in the number of logs and possibly fill the 4GB compact flash card pfSense is installed on.

Fortunately pfSense makes it very easy to send logs over to a remote syslog server, in my case the remote syslog server is a Windows system running Kiwi Syslog Server as a service.

Note: pfSense outputs all logs in the syslog standard.

Asides from preventing the logs from using all the available space in the firewall, its good practice to centralize all logs into a single system. Its easier than having to access each network device to view the logs the contain.

Install and configure the Syslog server

First you need to download Kiwi Syslog Server from its home page at Kiwisyslog.com, you can choose between the paid version (only $245 USD) or the Free version. Registration is necessary in order to access either version. The paid version comes with a web interface for anywhere access, to name just a few advantages of the paid version.

Once the download is complete you will notice two .msi files and one .exe only install Kiwi_Syslog_Server_9.1.0.setup this is the file we want to start the syslog server installation.

Agree with the END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT.

Now you get to decide whether the Syslog server should run as a Service or an Application. If the Syslog server is supposed to run 24/7 then you want to choose Install Kiwi Syslog Server a Service , otherwise Install Kiwi Syslog as an Application will be dependent on the user login in. Click on Next when done.

You need to be an Administrator in order to install the service. My account is part of the administrator group, so I am using The LocalSystem Account. Click on Next when done.