Samba is a free software re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, originally developed by Australian Andrew Tridgell. Samba is released under the GNU General Public License. The name Samba comes from SMB (Server Message Block), the name of the standard protocol used by the Microsoft Windows network file system.

I am posting some basic steps below on how to implement a simple samba server using slackware linux with IP address 192.168.0.5 for linux newbies out there:

STEP 1: Download and unpack the Samba source codes

#cd /usr/local/
#wget_http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/samba/samba-3.2.0.tar.gz
#tar -xzvf samba-3.2.0.tar.gz

STEP 2: Compile and install Samba

#cd samba-3.2.0/source
#./configure
#make
#make install

STEP 3: Configure Samba

#cd /etc/samba
#pico smb.conf (or use your favorite text editor like vim)

Copy and paste the sample config below:

[global]
workgroup = lintekfileserver
server string = akalainmonglinuxto
security = user
log file = /var/log/samba.%m
load printers = yes
max log size = 100
socket options = TCP_NODELAY

[home]
comment = Home Directory
path = /home/lintek/
valid users = lintek
writable = yes

STEP 4: Add a samba user and set the password

Make user you have an existing linux user named lintek (based on the configuration above), if you don’t have then you can use the command below:

#adduser lintek

NOTE: Make sure that lintek user’s home directory is /home/lintek

#smbpasswd -a lintek
New SMB Password:
Retype new SMB Password:

STEP 5: Start the server

#chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/rc.samba
#/etc/rc.d/rc.samba start
Starting Samba: /usr/sbin/smbd -D
/usr/sbin/nmbd -D

STEP 5: Mount SMB share from another Linux Machine

#mount -t smbfs -o username=lintek,password=lintektalaga //192.168.0.5/lintek /mnt/lintek

CONGRATULATIONS! You have successfully created a very simple samba server.

Popularity: 7% [?]

At the end of the Open Source Convention being held in Portland, Oregon, Microsoft has donated $100,000 to the Apache Software Foundation,  a non-profit group of decentralized community of developers who developed the open-source Apache Web Server. 

“We thank Microsoft for their generous sponsorship that goes towards supporting The Apache Software Foundation and the over 60 top level projects in use and development within the ASF,” ASF Chairman Jim Jagielski said.

The Apache Web Server is a direct competitor of Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS).  Apache Web server runs approximately 49.12% of all web servers while Microsoft’s IIS runs 35.39%. Microsoft said that its $100,000 contribution to the Apache is a show of appreciation for the Apache Foundation’s work.  

Popularity: 7% [?]

Cuil Inc. a Menlo Park technology company has launched a massive search engine having an index of 120 billion web pages.   Since Google doesn’t disclose the actual size of their index even if they claim that they have an index of about 1 trillion unique web pages, Cuil can be considered as the current most comprehensive search engine on the web.

Cuil (pronounced as “cool”) provides organized and relevant results based on Web page content analysis with complete user privacy. The project was founded by husband and wife team Tom Costello (CEO) and Anna Patterson (VP Engineering) and were joined by Russell Power. Patterson and Power are  ex-Google employees.

Click here to visit cuil.

Popularity: 4% [?]

OpenSUSE has released the first version of openSUSE 11.1.  However, this edition is an Alpha edition which means it has a lot of rough edges. 

According to Christop Thiel “While testing this on a Thinkpad R51, the system didn’t boot after first stage installation. We are still looking into this issue (#411937). In addition to that, the default GNOME installation will complain about a missing package (providing gnome-session-branding). With the current bootloader issue, using the DVDs for installing is not recommended, until we have a workaround. Please try the LiveCDs instead!”

Below are what you can find in the openSUSE Alpha release which will be included in the final version of openSUSE 11.1 to be released on December 18th:

• Linux kernel 2.6.27
• KDE 4.1.1
• KDE 3.5.10 (optional)
• GNOME 2.24
• OpenOffice.org 3.0

Download openSUSE 11.1 Alpha 1

Popularity: 5% [?]

ShoreTel is a leading provider of Pure IP Unified Communications solutions and known for exceptional customer satisfaction. The company  has been named the Best Best Overall VoIP Provider for fifth year in a row in the annual Nemertes PilotHouse Awards for Unified Communications & Collaboration.

Twenty four (24) VoIP vendors were assessed this year by 426 customers based on their views and experiences. ShoreTel won the Best Overall VOIP Provider award when they achieved a total score of 4.22 out of a maximum high score of 5.  ShoreTel’s score was the highest average rating across all categories.

ShoreTel topped the following categories:

• Technology - covering underlying software, platforms, intelligence and standards compliance.
• Product Features - focusing on handset and switch capabilities. Customers like the architecture, built-in redundancy and ability to scale by stacking additional switches.
•  Customer Service - focusing on response time, account service, RFP process, and warranty issues. Customers like that ShoreTel listens well to suggestions for upgrades and improvements.
• Value - focusing on “bang for the buck” - customers feel they received value for their expenditure. Customers like that the capital, implementation and operational costs are lower than competitors and that ShoreTel includes its Personal Call Manager desktop client with every license.
• Solution Experience - focusing on the ability to understand business requirements and craft solutions that meet customer needs.
• Ease of Installation and Troubleshooting.
• UC Vision - indicating the best plan and outlook for moving customers from VOIP to a full UC deployment.
• ShoreTel was also one of the top three rated vendors for integration capabilities, which tracks how well products integrate with third-party products and applications.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Last December, I blogged about Google’s Knol, a Wikipedia competitor platform where to read and write articles on all kinds of subject. Google Knol is now open to the public and it is accessible via http://knol.google.com.

Like Wikipedia, Knol is a service designed to let people create pages of knowledge on any topic they choose. However, Knol uses “moderated collaboration” by default, which will potentially solve issues like vandalism while allowing a broad group of people to contribute to any topic. This means anyone can contribute to a particular topic but contributions can only be seen after the author or authors of the main page allow the contributions to be added.

Having Knol as a service from today’s leading search engine could mean that search results may not only have entries from Wikipedia but with a lot of Knol entries as well. However it is still early to conclude if Wikipedia will become a big loser to knol in the future.

But what if Wikipedia offers ads and moderate their contents too? Hmmn…. that will be a  very interesting move because Wikipedia has been offering tremendous amount of information for years now and it has a lot of viewers and contributors too.

Popularity: 9% [?]