Dumitrache.net

I first listened to this yesterday on VH1’s Hard Rock Countdown. I think it captures the spirit of the 80’s pretty good.

18 and life…

This tip is for those of you that want to be connected with friends over Yahoo or MSN Messenger while working at a computer that hasn’t got these programs installed and installing them is restricted due to various reasons. This could be the case of your computers at school, work or any other facility where the administrator might choose to set up software such as DeepFreeze to prevent you from installing your own applications.
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The fear that inspired Microsoft in the recent years has come true. Google, initially only the largest search engine in the world, now plans to take on the market of operating systems dominated by Microsoft since the release of the first version of Windows.
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Earlier this week, Google announced that a series of cyber attacks have been directed at their servers in mid-December, 2009. The attacks, considered highly sophisticated even by Google standards originated in the People’s Republic of China and could influence Google to adopt a new strategy in this country, or so they say.

According to Google sources, there were two types attacks targeting their network. One attack was internal and consisted in intellectual property being stolen from the company. Most likely, the theft consisted in source code and technology. Some of you might laugh at how sophisticated this attack really was.

Various voices on the Internet, including Wired.com, described how the attackers infiltrated the Google network by sending e-mails with a malicious PDF attachment to the GMail accounts of a few Google employees that had access to the network! The attackers took advantage of a Zero Day Vulnerability in Adobe Reader to install a trojan on the victim’s computer in the form of a DLL. The sad thing is that although this happened in December, Adobe only recently published a patch. By the way, I highly recommend that you upgrade you Adobe Reader application, or use Foxit PDF as a replacement which is more lightweight than the Adobe application.

The internal attack also targeted several GMail accounts of human rights activists. According to Google sources, only two accounts have been breached. However, the attackers only got access to information about the accounts such as date of creation and to the subject names of several e-mails. The content of the e-mails remained undisclosed.

The external attack was not performed explicitly on the Google network but was directed against it and its users. Several GMail users have been targeted and tricked into revealing their login data by means of phishing. The attackers also took advantage of yet another vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Microsoft said that it only affects IE6 but Elinor Mills says IE7 and 8 are also affected. My advice to all Internet Explorer users: switch to Chrome.

According to Google, these attacks targeted over 30 companies, the main objective being source code theft. Among these companies there are notable names such as Yahoo, Adobe or the antivirus producer – Symantec.

As a response to these attacks, the Internet Giant announced that it will stop censoring search results as required by the communist regime and will discuss the issue with the Chinese Government in the context of the recent attacks. The authorities clearly stated that anyone is welcome to trade in the country but within the restrictions of the law. Considering this fact, I am almost certain that negotiations on the matter of displaying uncensored results will be pointless.

If they won’t reach a consensus with the Chinese authorities, Google even considers the possibility of closing their offices in China and cease to operate in the country. Allow me to laugh at that. Currently holding over 360 million Internet users, China represents a highly attractive market for Internet companies and Google works with money, just like any other corporation and China, with its flourishing economy and huge population is one country than can afford to remain in the communist era.

My cover of “Patience” by Guns & Roses. My guitar is an Ibanez S470 and is tuned half-step down here.

Thankfully, it happened at 2am and not many people need electric current this time at night (Well, except for those like me who can’t sleep well). My hometown, the second largest in the country was left entirely without electricity. No big deal as long is it doesn’t last till the morning. I still have two hours left on my battery, well enough to finish his movie I’m re-watching (it’s called Bicentennial Man).

Hmm… there’s nobody on YM anymore. I’m guessing not all my pears have the latest magic stick that gives one the power of mobile internet from RDS with only 3 EURO per month.

A few months ago I was going over my picture archive from the 2008 edition of InfoEducatie. I found one picture that captured me with its imperfection and mystery and I think it fills the current darkness that took over this small urban teritory.

There you go

It wasn’t taken by me. I don’t remember who took it. It’s a girl playing with a lit up branch at the camp fire last year. She calls herself “Ana from everywhere”, she’s an excellent guitarist and the proud owner of a beautiful voice, the voice of Hotel California. She’s a mistery, a an independent soul living through music and photography, living free unlike so many of us today.

Power back on

As a Romanian citizen who recently turned 18, I voted for the first time. I heard many people saying that they will refuse to make use of this basic right guaranteed by The Constitution because of their disgust for the entire political class. This is somewhat easy to understand taking into consideration the various leaders that we had, who took stealing and disrespect as qualities of an upper standard but is this really the right choice to make?
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Mountains, starry nights, bonfires, guitars, incredibly smart people, programming, design, innovation… these are the keywords that describe InfoEducatie, a national (in Romania) IT competition that takes place every year between the 4th and 10th of August, in the Carpathian Mountains at camp Galaciuc

In this competition, students from all over the country showcase their own personal projects which consist of software applications or web pages that they developed at home over the last year. I participated with Xpression News 3, the latest version of my news publishing script that was not yet officially launched.

This is the third time I participate at InfoEducatie. I also participated at the 2007 and 2008 editions but this edition was the most important for me. (continue reading…)

That was actually yesterday. This trip to Istanbul wasn’t planned too much in advance. My mother suddenly decided to visit the city along with one other family and insisted that I come. Even though I have a lot of important projects that I need to finish this month and such a journey didn’t thrill me, I accepted the offer.

And so we went on a 11 hour bus journey from Constanta (Romania) to Istanbul (Turkey). (continue reading…)

In a previous article I told you about a free web based control panel for managing a web hosting company. Today I am going to tell you how to fix the most common error that occurs while running ispCP:  ”500 Server Error”.

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