Kevin Skelly's Software Support Blog

At UMass, most web sites come in two general classes: Official UMass sites, and Personal Sites. Official UMass sites usually start with the URL: http://www.umass.edu/xxxx with xxxx representing some school or department at UMass. The URL for a personal site takes the form http://people.umass.edu/xxxxx, where the xxxxxrepresents your NetID. Here I want to demonstrate how to use Dreamweaver to connect to a Personal site at UMass. This consists of going into Dreamweaver and setting up a site definition. The site definition contains all the information Dreamweaver needs to help you keep track of your web site files.

In all cases, your web site will consist of a single folder, the “root folder” containing all of the files that make up your site, hosted on our server, webadmin.oit.umass.edu. Using Dreamweaver, you will maintain a mirror version of your site on your computer. Your site on your computer should be maintained the exact same way as the live site on the server: it should all be contained in one “root” folder. By setting up the site definition properly, you ensure that Dreamweaver will maintain that mirrored structure correctly for you.

In Dreamweaver:

1. Click on the Site menu. Choose New Site.
2. Provide your site with a name by typing the name into the field labeled Site Name:
3. Click on the folder icon next to the field labeled Local Site Folder. Navigate to the folder where you want the local copy of your site to reside on your computer.
   Here’s a shot of the Site Setup dialog in Dreamweaver, with the Choose Root Folder dialog open on top of it. Note that I have named the site after the fictitious Alex Jones. The root folder is called abjones, the Alex’s fictitious NetID, which I have chosen to indicate the contents of the folder, to reduce later confusion:

   

    

4. Click Select to close the Choose Root Folder dialog box.
5. Click Servers in the panel on the left, the the Plus sign in the panel on the right to open the dialog box where we enter the server settings. This is where we set up the connection to the Web server, where your files must be in order to be viewable on the Web. This dialog has seven values that may be set. The first one is the Server  Name, and it is up to you what you want to name it. It will not have an effect on the connection to the server. I recommend Webadmin. The final value is also optional, and I will describe it below. Steps 2 through 6 must be correct. If you don’t know your NetID and password, contact the OIT Help Center and they will help you with it.
   1. Server Name: Webadmin.
   2. Connect using: SFTP.
   3. SFTP address: webadmin.oit.umass.edu
   4. Username: [your NetID].
   5. Password: [your password].
   6. Root Directory: public_html.
   7. The final field is Web URL. What Dreamweaver automatically fills in here is invariably incorrect when connecting to Webadmin. It is not essential in most cases. You don’t have to correct it, but if you care to, the correct value is http://people.umass.edu/[your NetID]
   8. Once you have filled in Numbers 2-6 above, you can click on the Test button to see if your are correctly connecting to Webadmin. If you get an error, check very closely the details of the information you have entered above. It’s easy to miss a comma instead of a period, for example.
   9. Finally, hit Save, to save your settings, and close the dialog box.
6. Hit Save, to save your Site settings, and close the dialog. This brings you back to the main Dreamweaver window. To the right, among the panels of settings, is the Files tab, which lists the files in your site. This is circled in the screenshot:

   

    

7. Now you are ready to:
   1. Download any files you may have previously posted on your site, make changes to them and upload them agin, to update your site.
   2. Create new HTML files, and/or a whole new site, using Dreamweaver.

All of the management of the files is done via the Files Tab, circled in the photo above, and seen up close in this photo:

• Click on Local View to see the files on your computer.
• Click on Remote Server to see the files on your sever.
• Click on the Up arrow to copy selected local files to the server.
• Click on the Down arrow to copy selected remote files to your computer.
• Click on a file to select it.
• Double-click a Local file to edit it in Dreamweaver.

There is a known problem with Acrobat X as included with our current license for Creative Suite 6 for Windows. The problem occurs 30 days after installing the suite, when Acrobat doesn’t start up anymore. There’s no error message; it just doesn’t run.

Solution:

Follow this link:
http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/acrobat-failed-launch-30-days.html

There are multiple solutions listed on that page. I think Solution 1 is the easiest.

Having trouble with the unannounced changes in the Apple Store for Education? Suddenly all institutional users of the Apple Store, attempting to spend the University’s good money on Apple products, were locked out of the system, after some changes had been made in how we authenticate to Apple’s sites. We’ve been pleading with them to put the appropriate instructions on their web site, so people could see it when they need to: when they’re trying unsuccessfully to make a purchase. No go.

However, I just got a message from Apple, with links to a video tutorial, and a phone number to call for help:

Htaccess is available on the Webadmin server for securing access to folders within your web site. There is a PDF totorial describing this on the OIT Site: How to Password Protect a Web Directory. There’s one for personal web sites (people.umass.edu/xxxxxx, or courses.umass.edu/xxxxxx), and one for departmental web sites (www.umass.edu/xxxxxx). The instructions are the same, but the locations of your files are different in those two scenarios, so we describe it in each of those contexts.

The general steps are:

1. Create the directory you want to be secure, if it doesn’t already exist.
2. Create a file called .htaccess in that directory, with the contents as described in the linked article.
   • This file must contain specific information that you have to supply.
   • You can start by pasting the information from the PDF file into the text editor nano, on Webadmin, but then you will have to fill in the changes, as described in the handout.
3. Use the htpasswd command as described in the handout to create the .htpasswd file with the usernames and encrypted passwords.
4. Some tips:
   1. The .htaccess file has a line that identifies the path to the .htpasswd file. this must be correct. It’s normally the only thing you have to change in the .htaccess file.
   2. Both the .htaccess file, and the .htpasswd file, have to be readable by all.
   3. The directories containing those files also have to be readable by all.

There are a lot of details to this. Usually, after following the steps in the tutorial, I try going to the secured location in my browser, and it doesn’t work. I check out the points in those tips, and I’ve usually forgotten one of those.

Your Apps Are Watching You

“These phones don’t keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.”

More:
MSNBC
CNet.com
The Register

According to a report by Trend Micro, the education sector is the most affected by malware, with 44 percent of all infections. Also, according to an article in SC Magazine:

Based on the total number of malware samples collected in 2009, Trend Micro estimates that a new piece of malicious software is created approximately every 1.5 seconds. In addition, estimates place the number of unique new malware samples introduced every day at more than 600,000.

Trojans made up approximately 60 percent of new signatures created by Trend Micro during the first half of the year, followed by backdoors and trojan-spyware. Further, the majority of trojans lead to data-stealing malware, the report states.

This is a really cool gadget that gives you lots of information about the wireless networks near you:

http://www.xirrus.com/library/wifitools.php#gadget

There’s a Windows 7 gadget, which installs natively, and there are Yahoo widgets for Windows XP and Mac OS X. You need to install and run Yahoo Widgets to use the Xirrus widget.

Some wireless troubleshooting tips for OS X:

http://osxdaily.com/2007/01/18/airport-the-little-known-command-line-wireless-utility/

http://osxdaily.com/2009/11/24/option-click-the-airport-menu-for-extra-wireless-info/

http://osxdaily.com/2010/07/07/test-wireless-signal-strength-from-the-command-line/

Articles like this are a recurring indication that we are in trouble, security-wise, in the world of computing. Not to mention the growing skepticism about the effectiveness of security software. I recommend a good understanding on the part of every user of a computer of what an effective password policy is for you, and stick to it. But it’s not easy. Beyond that, remember that you are the most likely vector for what infects your computer, so be careful what you click on.

Please do not change your password

“Now, a study has concluded…that instructions intended to spare us from costly computer attacks often exact a much steeper price in the form of user effort and time expended.”

Are users right in rejecting security advice?

“We argue that users’ rejection of the security advice they receive is entirely rational from an economic perspective. The advice offers to shield them from the direct costs of attacks, but burdens them with far greater indirect costs in the form of effort. Looking at various examples of security advice we find that the advice is complex and growing, but the benefit is largely speculative or moot.”

Today’s most popular password? 123456.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/technology/21password.html?hp