Fnode Networks: Internetworking & Tech by Nish Vamadevan

Should UK Monitor Internet Activities

by Nish Vamadevan on 21/04/2008 · 1 comment

This is a controversial question among people whether UK should monitor all Internet and communication activates like the USA. When this subject is brought up, people automatically go on the defensive and starts to argue the fact about privacy and human rights; Granted, privacy is a major issue, and when it involves national security, it will spark some inimitable questions among us.

I am not in favour of the Government breaching privacy and human rights issues; on the contrary, in my opinion, national security should be given priority among other things.

This is a very sensitive issue and when this subject is brought up, people seem to think that all their internet activities are going to be watched, including their internet shopping. This is not the case here, and if the government goes ahead and do such monitoring system, it will cost billions.

I think the word monitoring should be redefined when it comes to this topic and should be balanced in a way that it does not interfere with people’s privacy issues, thus a flagging system to use for such monitoring would an ideal choice. This way, people’s privacy won’t be compromised and at the same time it would allow the government to monitor the internet.

All we see in the news lately is terrorist activities directly linked to the internet and how they used the net to communicate with each other. So, if such system was in place, in theory the chances of stopping such thing would be extremely high.

I think it’s safe to say, UK should monitor all Internet and communication activities so they can rule out terrorism in their home soil.

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301 Redirect WordPress Posts To New Domain

by Nish Vamadevan on 01/04/2008 · 19 comments

301 Redirect is considered as a permanent redirect compared to a 302 redirect which is temporary. Therefore when moving wordpress to a new domain, it is a good idea to redirect all the posts to the new domain.

This way all the search engine records will be kept intact and this means you won’t lose any traffics / hits to the website.

This doesn’t mean redirecting from nishv.com to fnode.com, it will also redirect every single URL associated with nishv.com to fnode.com.

For instance, if a user is looking for a particular post and goes to nishv.com, they will be redirected to the corresponding post on fnode.com

Here is an example of one of the most popular post on the site…

http://www.nishv.com/2007/06/02/make-bisoncam-work-on-windows-vista/

When users clicks on the above link, they will be automatically redirect to

http://www.fnode.com/2007/06/02/make-bisoncam-work-on-windows-vista/

This way, the user won’t notice the domain change because it is 99% directed via search engine or linked URL.

This method is also a good way to let GoogleBot to know that the domain has been moved permanently from nishv.com to fnode.com

Here is the code below and I used which goes into the .htaccess file. All you got to do is to replace the URL to make it work with your own domain.

# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.nishv.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.fnode.com/$1 [R=301,L]
# END WordPress

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Moving wordpress blog to new domain

by Nish Vamadevan on 19/03/2008 · 0 comments

I have finally decided to move this wordpress blog to the parent domain (www.fnode.com) and going to be concentrating on more Tech, Online, News, and Reviews and I have decided to use this domain for mainly Journals and Tip / How-To purposes. I think that way, I can separate the media side of things from personal journals.

This is how I moved my wordpress blog from nishv.com to fnode.com

Install wordpress on fnode.com
Went to nishv.com and copied the wp-content Directory and replaced it with the Directiory on fnode.com (So all the theme, plug-in and the uploaded contents are all there…)
Went to nishv.com and used phpMyAdmin to drum an .sql file of the database. (You may prefer .gz depending on the file size)
Went to fnode.com and used phpMyAdmin to drop all the tables on the wordpress database.
Imported the backed up database from nishv.com

Ran the following SQL Queries…

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://www.nishv.com', 'http://www.fnode.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';
UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://www.nishv.com','http://www.fnode.com');
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://www.nishv.com', 'http://www.fnode.com');

That’s it, All set, now you can tweek the blog!

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Choosing Internet Provider

by Nish Vamadevan on 13/03/2008 · 0 comments

BT had finally called for action on internet speed and how they are advertised to the customers, and this brings me to the topic on how to choose your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

For an average person, it sounds pretty straight forward and all you have to do is, choose the one who are cheaper and offers you free equipments. This post is mainly going to be concentrating about DSL connection and not Cable, which I will be covering in the coming days…
When choosing an ISP, in my opinion the lesser the contract period the better, so if you are not happy about their services, you can always move on…

When an ISP offers free equipment, you are pretty much tired to a lengthy contract just like a Mobile phone contract, which could last up to 12 or even 18 months. Think about it, it makes sense… they need to get the equipment money from somewhere…!

Do not go with an ISP by looking at their Adverts, what you should do is to research about the ISP, there are some great websites out there who writes reviews and comparison about ISPs, one of them is called broadbandchoice.co.uk… You can always search around Google and find the ones in your Country!

You have to bear in mind, you won’t normally get the Advertised speed, and for example only 15% of the UK people get the advertised speed of eight megabit per second packages actually got the speed… So if your line can only handle only 4 Mbps, then there is no point paying extra money for an 8 Mbps line which you are not going to get the speed anyways..

The speed depends on a few variables but the main two are, you’re Line and how far away from the Exchange do you live… In a nutshell, you need to live within 1 Mile radius of your exchange to get even close 8 Mbps.
And finally, read the terms and condition and especially contract length, what happens If you decide to cancel the contract, What happens when you want to move house, how much is the cancellation fees etc…

If you are one of those people who are confused about the internet speed and how long it will take to download files over a connection… That’s about 90% of the people…

These days it is typically measured in Mbps (Mega bits per Second) and some case Kbps (Kilo bits per second). Note, we are talking about Bits and NOT Byte those are totally different things and if you are curious, 1 Byte = 8 Bits

What people get confused is the fact that when an Internet speed is advertised, for example 1 Mbps (1 Mega bit per second) they would automatically think it takes 1 Seconds to send a 1MB file through the internet connection. Please don’t think it will only take you around 4 Seconds to send a typical .mp3 (around 4MB); in fact it will take a longer…

This will show how long it will take to send 1 MB file through a 1 Mbps internet connection…

1 MB = 1 x 1024 KB = 1024 x 1024 bytes
1 KB = 1,048,576 bytes ( x Eight)
= 8,388,608 Bits

So we have a file size of 8,388,608 Bits, and you have a connection speed of 1 Mbps; let’s just assume that your line is fully capable of transferring at the speed of 1 Mbps…

1 Mbps = 1000 Kbps = 1,000,000 Bps

So you have a line which is capable of Carrying 1,000,000 Bits per second and you have a file the size of 8,388,608 Bits… So how long will it take to send it…?

8,388,608 / 1,000,000 = 8.388608 Seconds which is roughly 8 Seconds…

So whenever you see an advert saying 8 Mbps, don’t think it will take you less than a second to send a typical .mp3 file to your friend!

I hope you find post informative for you and thank you for reading!

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OpenDNS

by Nish Vamadevan on 11/03/2008 · 2 comments

OpenDNS is a free DNS provider who does the Web-content filtering on their end. You don’t need to install any software to filter any content. All you need to do is register and follow the setup instructions, once that is done you will have access to your own area where you can filter phishing sites, give you the power to filter out adult sites and proxies among more than 40 categories, and provide the precision to block individual domains.

All you have to do is, set the DNS server to 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220 and do the content filtering on your very own control panel!

Also this is a great advantage to parents and you will save a lot of money on buying content filtering software like Net Nanny etc…

Everything you need to know can be found on http://www.opendns.com/ and I highly recommend anyone to use this Free service.

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Security Software (Antivirus / Firewall)

by Nish Vamadevan on 11/03/2008 · 1 comment

Antivirus

This is one of the most important software one should have, even though I prefer to use GPL / Free software but when it comes to Antivirus, I fully support a paid version of Antivirus or a Security Suit which consists of Antivirus, Firewall etc compared to a Free version.

If you are going to pay for an Anti-Virus, I would recommend Kaspersky Internet Security (Currently Version 7.0) this cost around £25 per year with 3 licences, so you can install it up to 3 PCs, and if you prefer to have one licence, it cost around £18/Year. This will include an All-In-One protection suit which consists of an Anti-Virus, Firewall, and Intrusion Protection and so on…

I have used a lot of Anti-Virus software in the past and Kaspersky is definitely the far most advanced AV I have ever come across, I would personally say away from Norton because it is…

A Resource Hog, i.e. It takes a lot of time to start up, which will dramatically slow down your PC.
It is very expensive, simply because Norton is a well known brand compared to Kaspersky or Avast.
Detection rate: Unfortunately Norton does a sloppy job at detecting a lot of Worm / Trojans (Mainly comes from P2P software like Limewire) compared to Kaspersky / Avast Pro.

See the following URL for more info http://www.kaspersky.com/kaspersky_internet_security

If you are going to use a Free Version, I would recommend Avast, only thing you have to do is, register with them for Home use and you will get a Free Key. Please see the following URL for more info… http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Firewall

There are many standalone Firewall software around but for an average user, it is recommend to get a Firewall integrated into with the Antivirus Software such as Kaspersky Internet Security. If you are connected to the Internet via a Router, you are pretty much covered and the Router will act as a Firewall up to a certain point preventing unauthorised access to the computers connected to the Router.

This doesn’t mean you don’t need a firewall, you still need a firewall to stop unauthorised access from your computer in case you’re infected with a Virus / Trojan.

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