Peter Luk's Blog

wordpress plugin : wp-hightlight

Installed the plugin wp-highlight to highlight search terms

Power rating of home applicance

1. ASUS WL500 : ~12W

2. Eight Group settop box : ~8W

3. Philip 26″ LCD TV : 52W

4. ASUS EEEPC 1000H : charge : 12W, on AC & charge : 16W

5. Compaq nx 8220 NB : on AC without battery : ~1.34W-2.34W Max : 18W

6. AirCond at Bedroom (energy saving model in lowest cool mode) : 62W

7. AirCond at sitting room : ~760W-800W

7. P4 3.0Ghz WB: ~20W-150W

8. AMD Athlon 3500+ : ~45W-60W

9. Boiler in keep warm mode : ~28W

10. Fan : lowest speed: ~35 W, highest speed : ~50W

11. Hair Dryer : Low heat mode : ~350-400W, high heat mode :~750-800W

Power rating of my Office PC and equipments

Today I used a Waltage and current meter to measure the power rating of my office PC :

(The Max power rating is measured when the machine is running the prime95 torture test)

1. Core i7 920 oc to 3.33Ghz/6GB DDR3-1333 RAM/Nvidia GT260+ GPU/2x1TB Seagate HD+1x500GB WD HD

Idle : ~165W (core temp : 47C), Max : 316W (core temp : 89C), 6W-9W when poweroff

2. Dell Otiplex GX620 Pentium D 2.8Ghz/2.5 GB DDR2-800 RAM,/Nvidia NVS280

Idle : ~104-110W, Max : 196W

3. Dell Precison 530,/Pentium Xeon 1.8Ghz x2/2GB Rambus RAM, Nvidia Quadro NVS 280

Idle : 95W, Max : 160W

4. Dell Otiplex GX755 C2D E8400 3.0Ghz

Idle : 56W, Max : 96W

5. Mac Mini Core Duo 1.6Ghz

Idle : 18W, Max : 32W

6. UltraSparc II 440Mhz/1 GB RAM/2×73 GB SCSI disk/6×36 GB SCSI disk box

Idle : ~153-155W, without the 6×36 GB SCSI disk box : ~63-64W

Other Computer Accessories

1. Dell 24″ UltraSharp LCD : 50W

2. Dell 15″ UltraSharp LCD : 10W

3. Dell 19″ UltraSharp LCD : 15W

4. Cisco 2950T switch : 2W~5W

5. 3com 6 ports Gigabit sw : ~8W

6. Cisco 1721 router : 1W~8W

7. Cisco IP phone : ~< 1W

Other Computer models

1. Dell Precision 470, 2xPentium Xeon Processor 2.8Ghz, 2x 146 GB SCSI disk

Idle : ~170W, it still consume ~8W when poweroff until you unplug the power cord…

2. Dell Precision T5400, 1 Xeon 5420 2.5Ghz processor, 2x 146GB SAS HD

Idle : ~143-147W, consume ~13-15W when poweroff

3. Dell Precsion 490, 2x Xeon 5120 1.86Ghz, 2×146 GB SAS disk

Idle : ~187-193W

4. Dell Precsion 490, 2x Xeon 5120 1.86Ghz, 2x500GB SATA disk

Idle : ~~167-172W (it seems that using SATA disk save ~20W)

5. Dell Precision 450, 2x Pentium Xeon 2.4Ghz, 1×36 GB SCSI disk, 1x146GB SCSI disk

Idel : ~143-146W, consume ~6W when poweroff

6. Thecus NAS5200, 5X500GB SATA disk : ~72W

7. Thecus NAS4100, 4X500GB SATA disk : ~58W

8. H3C S5100 24 ports Gigabit switch : ~15W (1/2 load)

9. Cisco 2960G 24 ports Gigabit switch : ~44W ( 9 ports used)

10. Dell PowerEdge 850, Pentium D 2.8Ghz, 2x500GB SATA disk

Idle : ~104-110W

11. Dell Optiplex GX280, Pentium 4 2.8Ghz, 2x320GB SATA disk

Idle : ~84W, consume 4W when poweroff

12. Dell Optiplex GX270, Pentium 4 2.8Ghz, 1×80 IDE disk

Idle : ~45W

13. Dell Optiplex GX260SD, Pentium 4 1.8Ghz, 1×40 IDE disk

Idle : ~40W

VMware Server 2.0.1 does not see 8 cores on Intel Core i7, only 4

What a pity. I have bought a no. of Dell Servers (PE T610) and workstation using Xeon 55xx. Hope this support will add the to the coming build asap. But will Vmware Server 1.0.x will have update?? I run most of the vms on VMware server 1.0.x wor.

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1185430;jsessionid=315B9C298F77AFEE72965D4845D7AFD4

Restrict the wordpress login page by IP

Today I just wonder could I restrict the wordpress login page by IP since my wordpress system have only one user and there’s probably no need to allow the world to login my wordpress. Moreover, I also don’t want the hackers to have a chance to attack my admin a/c

After a simple search, the solution is just to add a .htaccess in the wp-admin directory and would be enough to do the job.

Sync Calendar & Contact data between My Palm, Outook, Windows Mobile & Google

這幾天研究怎樣將我部Palm Treo 650 D calendar & contacts 同步落 outlook 2007, Acer N300 (Windows Mobile) & Google Calendar & Contacts.

1. Google Apps Sync for Outlook可以 Sync between Outlook 2007 同 Google Calendar & Contact. 個flow就可以係甘 : Treo< -> outlook 2007<–>google & WM. 但係Google Apps Sync for Outlook要Google Premium a/c 先用得, 吹脹。

2. 跟住就用google sync for phone, 呢個service可以做到 Google<->WM. 個flow就變成咁: Treo <-> Outlook <-> WM <-> Google

3. 其實仲有個google calendar sync, 不過剩係可以sync到calendar, 冇咗contacts囉.

最後雖然做到可以sync囇Treo, outlook, WM 同 Google嘅 calendar & contacts. 但然又唔係真係咁實用, 因為google sync contact有好多限製, 起碼sync唔到WM contact嘅category, 所有WM 上嘅contacts sync到google會落囇My contact group. 我想有好多人嘅contact都會分門別類, 如果sync唔到category會好唔方便囉. 唉, google整咗個咁方便嘅service, 但係D功能又係半天吊, 正一雞肋.

Extract from one of the comments from internet :
“I think that the contacts in Gmail is beyond horrible. How do you expect people with detailed contact lists to ditch their blackberries and switch to android? Have you tried importing contacts from Outlook into gmail? Its a joke. Its not even about mapping for the CSV files. The contacts in gmail doesn’t even have the fields / categories available. Many users (especially business customers) have multiple addresses, multiple phone numbers. You are telling me you are a senior developer and leading a team that developed this system? Utter fail, I will be sending my G1 back before I open it.”

其實已經係差唔多時候要replace我部Treo 650, 佢雖然未壞, 但係就神下神下咁, 個display着咗幾秒就會自動熄, 加calendar entry落個datebook到成日都會reset, hostsync完個ringtone會轉番default, etc, 咁樣緊係想換電話啦. 如果換電話, 佢緊要有Ｄ新功能, 要有wifi, 用得嘅相機(>500million pixe, etc), > VGA嘅screen, etc. 起碼要support UTF-8. 而家部Treo剩係support到BIG-5, sync中文嘅contact同calendar都不知幾麻煩. Iphone我就一定唔會考慮, D outlook contact category落到iphone又係冇囇, 裝Apps又一定要經apps store, jailbreak又話冇保養, 又話犯法, 全部都係一派胡言, 最緊要係我唔需要data plan, 我用部電話主要係用嚟貯contact同calendar, 睇offline嘅報紙, 用wifi上下網就得, android同iphone一樣, 冇data plan就唔係好有用, 個contact list sync又冇得分category(見上). 所以WM phone其實最啱我心水, 選擇又夠多, 但係真係慢, 624Mhz嘅cpu行wm 6.1我都係覺得慢, 希望下一水嘅800Mhz CPU嘅機行wm 6.5會快D. [我部WM mobile PDA (Acer N300) 用緊SamsungS3C2400 400Mhz CPU, 行wm 6.1, 用Agenda One load我個contact list (145 entries only)要 6 秒, load calendar要 5 秒. 我部Palm Treo650 load以上兩樣都係少過1秒架, multimedia同Dfancy野係重要, 但係都冇理由整到D基本野甘差至得架]

Sample .htaccess for mod_authnz_ldap/mod_auth_ldap for apache

AuthName "Pls login with your  username and  password"
AuthType Basic
AuthBasicProvider ldap
AuthLDAPURL  "ldap://ldap.abc.edu.hk:389/dc=abc,dc=edu,dc=hk?uid"
AuthzLDAPAuthoritative  off
Allow from mynetwork/24
Deny from all
Satisfy Any
Require  valid-user

This .htaccess will ask the user to enter the usernanme and password when connecting from outside mynetwork/24

Still working on how to do a posix group based authentication, however just based on the example given from the apache manual of using mod_authnz_ldap, I can’t make it work…

Writing LDAP search filter

LDAP search filter is useful in Apache LDAP authentication and Ironport.

Under Ironport, I use the below filter to search for valid user with his aliase :

(|(uid={u})(cn={u}))

I use the below to search if an user/alias is in a specific posix group :

(&(cn={g})(memberUid={u}))

Under OpenLDAP, to search a user :

ldapsearch -x -b ‘dc=xxx,dc=yyy,dc=edu,dc=hk’ ‘(&(objectClass=*)(uid=test))’

A bit of search filter syntax :

match more than one attribute?

(&(objectClass=person)(objectClass=user))
(|(objectClass=person)(objectClass=user))
(&(objectClass=user)(cn=*Marketing*))

How do I match 3 attributes?
(&(&(objectClass=user)(objectClass=top))(objectClass=person))

Notice how we weave one query into another. For 4 attributes, this would be:

&(&(&(objectClass=top)(objectClass=person))(objectClass=organizationalPerson))(objectClass=user))

Ironport : difference between message filters and content filters

Message Filters and Content Filters use the same scripting language and regular-expression matching. Content Filters support a subset of the rules and actions used by Message Filters. Content Filters include all the rules and actions needed to identify and act upon the content of a message, and are very easy to configure in the GUI. Message Filters are more flexible, and give access to the meta-data of a message, such as the receiving listener, the sender IP, the SenderBase reputation score of the sender, the number of recipients in the message, the size of the message or attachments, etc. (A subset of the meta-data is available in Content Filters as well.)

Message Filters are applied as the first Policy processing step in the IronPort email pipeline. When a Message Filter is applied, its actions apply to all recipients of the message (i.e. if the action is Drop, then no recipient will receive the message, even if the rule which matched the message matched only one recipient.)

Content Filters are applied as the last Policy processing step in the email pipeline – after messages have been ‘splintered’ into separate copies depending on the Mail Policies (and therefore different recipient groups) defined in your configuration. Because of this, Content Filters can be applied to a more finely-grained grouping of senders or recipients. If you are performing an action on all recipients, it is therefore more efficient to do so in a Message Filter before message splintering takes place. This is especially true in the case of content scanning (body-contains or attachment-contains rule), or if the action is to drop or bounce a message, which would then avoid anti-spam and anti-virus scanning on a message destined for non-delivery.