Aun’s Blog

Getting an IMAP client to use Gmail contacts

A lot of people prefer using a thick client for their e-mail instead of the Gmail web interface. I thought I’d give it a try - there are numerous things I like about Gmail, and having used it for a while now, my contacts list is humungous. If you start using a thick client, that means you have to somehow get a new contact list going, or import from somewhere else… no! Thanks to the creator of GCalDaemon - this OS-independent Java program will allow you to set up an LDAP server on your local machine, that acts as a middle man between your client and “Google Data”. The instructions on the page are quite detailed and you should be up and running in approximately 10 minutes. Now you should be able to auto-complete the addresses in your thick client, just like you can in Gmail. Enjoy!

Migrating from Windows to Ubuntu

I was primarily a Windows user, before I started to play around with Ubuntu. First off, I installed it on my home laptop, to see how well it would work… I was thoroughly impressed. Of course, on this laptop, I didn’t need anything but a browser, pidgin, and the basic Office suite. The real test was going to be switching to Ubuntu at work. Migrating away from the beast, Outlook, to Thunderbird / Lightning. Surprisingly, it was very easy:

• Install Thunderbird on your Windows box (the one with Outlook)
• Fire it up, and you’ll get the option to Import - follow the steps to import from Outlook
• After the mail is imported, browse to the C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\(username)\. Copy the folder with the random letters.

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Tags: linux, outlook, thunderbird, ubuntu, Windows

64-bit IPSec VPN client for *nix

Looking for a Cisco IPSec VPN Client to use on your 64-bit *nix OS? Well, for those of you who have already figured out that Cisco has not developed one for 64-bit OS’s, there is, however, a great alternative for people who use a 64-bit *nix OS. As mentioned in a previous post, there is a client developed by Maurice Massar that works with Cisco VPN Concentrators (ASA, 3000 Concentrator and IOS Routers), called vpnc that has worked well for me thus far. I have been using it on my 64-bit Ubuntu 8.04 desktop, and have yet to see any issues. You can use vpnc with Cygwin on Windows, however, I am not sure how well Cygwin works with 64-bit Windows.

Disclaimer: This client is not developed or supported by Cisco Systems. So, use at your own risk.

Installed Ubuntu and loving it!

Installed 64-bit Ubuntu on my z61p - it “just works”! The best part of it was the live cd, which allowed to me to preview it on the laptop without installing it. Worked flawlessly! Impressive! Time to install. On the Desktop of  your “live” session, there is an Install link. Double-click and you’re on your way! Wooooo!! It takes the settings from your live session and configures them on your actual installation - perfect! Now, to make this my primary workstation, the only thing I would need is to be able to VPN into work. There is no 64-bit Cisco IPSec VPN Client! Alas! A quick search through the Synaptics Package Manager for “vpn”, I found vpnc. Worked like a charm! Ubuntu far exceeded my expectations. I… LOVE… IT!

Encryption / Signatures for web mail

Gmail is my client of choice for personal e-mail. However, it doesn’t offer any sort of encryption or signatures for that matter. The other day my wife got an e-mail from an acquaintance - someone who rarely writes to her, but this person was asking for money - the e-mail looked genuine with a story to back it up. The only thing that gave it away was that the person was asking the money to be sent through Western Union, and the punctuation etc seemed a bit “spam-like.” My wife did recognize that it might not be from that person - turns out, it wasn’t. The “real” person e-mailed back the other day letting people know that she had not sent any e-mail, and thanked people for e-mailing her asking her how to send the money. So, the point being that a lot of people did believe it was really their friend in distress. There was no way of verifying that through the e-mail, except to look at the From address.

Security is something that has been missing from e-mail for a while now - everyone talks so much about security of networks, servers, etc, but e-mail mostly always contains information that you don’t want people other than your intended recipient(s) reading. And it mostly traverses the internet in clear-text. How easy is it to sniff traffic and read what someone’s sending! If encryption is something that is not do-able for someone, then how about signatures, to verify that the person sending it is really the person sending it. I need that - I do. Everyone should have it. And surely, someone must’ve thought of this, so I decided to google around, and came across this awesome Firefox extension for Gmail (FireGPG), which utilizes GPG (GNU version of PGP). All you need to do is install GPG software (found here) on your PC, which FireGPG uses to encrypt/sign, etc. You will then see buttons when you hit compose to sign/encrypt etc right on Gmail. SWEET! Now to get my public key out to people and convince them to get this running! Oh yeah, here’s my public key if you want to send e-mails to me. Spread the word people!!

Update: Here’s a reason to start thinking about this -  Monster attack steals user data