Alternative to Google Search

There is not much to explain here, as I’ve dedicated a whole post to this topic. The more I use Duck Duck Go, the happier I am with it. Particularly because it is quite easy to change between a world wide search or a local (country) search. I use the former for general queries like programming issues, info about books, etc., and the other when looking for restaurants, leisure activities, etc.

Alternative to Google Maps

This one is a bit tricky. I have to admit that Google Maps offers better search capabilities than its main competitors: Open Street Map, Yahoo! Maps, and Bing Maps. You can misspell the name of a business or just provide some keywords, and it will try to find the best match.

But (there is usually a but), I like quite much the “art” of Open Street Map, because it reminds me paper maps and some bonuses like detailing the exact position of the underground entrances (which Google doesn’t, just the approximate location of the station). So, sometimes I use one, and sometimes the other.

Alternative to Gmail

There was not much sense on switching to Hotmail, Yahoo or any other company if privacy was an issue. More or less they all share the same practices. So, the best solution was having my own mail server. I have a modest VPS on Linode, so I set-up the server as you can see on this guide. Therefore, I have an IMAP server which I can use with Thunderbird or when in roaming with the nice Roundcube webmail.

The only lacking functionality is server-side filtering, which I still have to set-up (if you know a way to extend a day to more than 24 hours, please tell me!). I could live with client-side filtering on Thunderbird, but I also want to enjoy it when using the webmail interface.

Alternative to Google Calendar

Having already a mail server, why do not have a calendar server? I took the same approach, and set-up a calendar server using CalendarServer which I can sync with Thunderbird and my iPhone. For even more functionality, I added a web interface with AgenDAV. This time, there is not any feature missing.

Alternative to Google Reader

I wanted to use my feed aggregator on several computers, so setting up a desktop client on each one and trying to get all of them synced was not a viable option. Therefore, I opted for an in-the-cloud solution with a web interface, as Google Reader is. And again, my server comes to rescue! I liked what I saw on Tiny Tiny RSS webpage, I installed it, and I’m very happy with how if works. Nothing to be jealous from Google Reader. It even have a mobile-optimized interface, so it’s not a hassle to check it from the phone.

Alternative to Picasa

To make it clear, I didn’t check the terms of service of Flickr and other providers. I suppose they’re good enough because they’re used by several artists, but I decided to choose the hard way: build my own web gallery. I found Piwigo, with all the features I was looking for and with enough eye-candy to please me. So, after one afternoon of work, I had it working on my server.

Conclusions

I realize that all the options I’m using are not an option for everybody, because of the simple fact that you need your own server and set it up. This simplify the issue to your priorities. If you want privacy and company-independence, learn how to do it or pay somebody to do it for you. If you don’t care, you can just keep using the free services.

Up to now, and after a heavy use of it, I’m very happy with the decision I’ve taken. It has also been useful to learn some new things, and as learning is fun, it has been a nice leisure activity. Mmm, maybe they’re right when they call me geek :P

Installation

The packages I installed were:

gamin postfix postfix-mysql courier-imap courier-imap-ssl libsasl2-2 libsasl2-modules php-auth-sasl sasl2-bin libpam-mysql

I think that these are enough (with its dependences) to get a working system. I’m not 100% sure because I documented this part a posteriori, after playing a bit around installing/uninstalling things.

Configuration

Postfix

On /etc/postfix/master.cf I used:

submission inet n - - - - smtpd
 -o smtpd_tls_security_level=encrypt
 -o smtpd_sasl_auth_enable=yes
 -o smtpd_client_restrictions=permit_sasl_authenticated,reject
 -o milter_macro_daemon_name=ORIGINATING

The file /etc/postfix/transport did not exist, so before

postmap /etc/postfix/transport

I did

touch /etc/postfix/transport

Courier

All the references to

/etc/authlib/

and

/etc/courier-imap/

must be changed to

/etc/courier/

On /etc/courier/authdaemonrc, instead of

MYSQL_MAILDIR_FIELD maildir

we must use

MYSQL_MAILDIR_FIELD     concat('/home/vmail/',maildir)

Cyrus

Instead of editing /etc/conf.d/saslauthd we have to edit /etc/default/saslauthd to say:

START=yes
MECHANISMS="pam"
OPTIONS="-c -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r"

Instead of /usr/lib/sasl2/smtpd.conf we have to edit /etc/postfix/sasl/smtpd.conf to:

pwcheck_method: saslauthd
 mech_list: plain login
 saslauthd_path: /var/run/saslauthd/mux
 log_level: 7

Rouncube

To make the directories writable to the server, we have to use:

chown -R www-admin:www-admin temp logs

rc.conf

There is no rc.conf to control boot services on Debian. All the services installed on this guide are automatically startup at bootup, so nothing to do here.

The end

And that’s all. With that we should have a working mail server, using MySQL to store user’s info, mail storage on the filesystem, PostfixAdmin to manage accounts and aliases and a nice webmail with Roundcube.

I remember that I did it with Gimp, following a tutorial about how to do a 3D cube. I even used the same colours and did everything exactly as explained there, so it was not very original… but I liked it. Geez, so many years have passed since then…

The old cube

This time, I tried asking my brother (who is supposedly studying graphic design or something like that :P) for help, but after a few weeks he has not shown much interest on it. So, “ni corto ni perezoso”, one afternoon of boringness I opened Inkscape and started to play with it. The results are what you can see below.

The new cube?

So, what do you think? Actually, I’m open to new options, therefore if you think you can do something much better and appealing than that (quite easy to achieve), just sent it to me and I will praise you on this so cool place that my blog is. Or if you have a suggestion about how I could improve it by myself, leave a comment, it will also be welcomed :).

To cool:

Check it :)

De fet, el que és molt útil (sobretot si t’has de moure amb moto) és la imatge del radar que es pot consultar per la web de Meteocat. Amb aquesta imatge pots veure exactament a on està plovent i amb quina intensitat d’una ullada ràpida. Però la pàgina de Meteocat no està molt optimitzada per terminals mòbils, i vaig pensar que era una llàstima malgastar tants kilobytes només per fer una ullada ràpida d’una imatge.

Així, doncs, m’he fet una pàgina per consultar el temps des del telèfon, que mostra de forma ràpida els mateixos mapes de Meteocat. L’únic que em queda pendent és millorar el tema de la predicció a 8 dies, que ara redirecciono “a lo bèstia” a un menú en JavaSript que és massa pesat pel telèfon.

• Tinc molt mala memòria, i em servirà per refrescar que he fet fins el moment, i tenir-ho per escrit per si ho necessito més endavat.
• Si algu detecta algun error o forat de seguretat, si us plau que me n’informi! :P

De moment hi ha informació bàsica i sobre com montar un FTP, l’aniré ampliant de mica en mica amb temes com xarxes P2P, web, blog, correu… Ah, i ho podeu trobar aquí! EDITAT: He canviat el contingut de la web, i ja no ofereixo aquesta informació

I’ve started a new section about how I’ve configured my server, for two reasons:

• I have a bad memory, so it should help me to remember how I did it. And I will have it written if I need it on the future.
• If someone detects any error of security hole, please, tell me! :P

Now you can find info about the basic issues and how to set up an FTP server. I will expand it with topics such as P2P networks, web, blog, e-mail… Oh, and you can find it here! EDIT: I’ve changed the web content, and this information is not provided anymore.

Llavors vaig optar pel camp de les ciències i les matemàtiques. Lletres gregues, paraules que definissin fenomens naturals, paraules propies d’una peli de sci-fi… totes possibles opcions, però totes també registrades pel algun bandarra a l’espera de revendre-la al millor postor! I jo, obviament, no estic tan desesperat com per entrar en aquest joc.

Després d’un temps de deixar-ho estar, ja faltat de idees, un bon dia vaig tenir una idea feliç. Qüasi totes les paraules curtes ja estaven registrades (de 3 caracters, fins i tot algunes que no signifiquen res :S), però ho estarien també les formades per una combinació de lletres i números? Vaig buscar una mica, i em vaig adonar que si buscaves el domini amb una escriptura leet, les possibilitats de que estigués registrat eren casi nules! Per fi començava a veure la llum.

Ara només faltava trobar la paraula adient, i que no sonés molt rara. I pensa que pensa, barrina que barrina, vaig trobar la candidata ideat: cub3. Concretament, cub3.net. Per què?

• El cub, a.k.a. hexaedre, el cos geomètric de 6 cares que ens ve primer a la majoria a la ment quan sentim parlar de les 3 dimensions.
• El cub d’una quantitat és la seva tercera potencia.
• El cub és la forma típica d’una dau de 6 cares, el dau més utilitzat en la historia de la humanitat. La representació de l’atzar, de la sort.
• Per tant, cub3 és un cub al cub (cub³)? O simplement vol dir cube, cub en anglés, en lleguatge leet? O el 3 és per relacionar el cub amb les 3 dimensions? O com si fos un dau, ha estat escollit aleatoriament, i el 3 és només la mitja dels seus resultats arrodida cap a baix? Altres suggeriments sobre el seu possible significat són benvinguts :).

A part de tot aixó, són només 4 caràcters, ràpids d’escriure i de recordar. I també fàcil de comunicar verbalment.

Per últim, el .net, només ha estit escollit seguint les recomanacions sobre els TLD, que crec que molta gent i companyies no segueixen i haurien de seguir.

Per cert, qualsevol bug o falla que trobeu al servidor, web, blog, el que sigui, feu-m’ho saber per correu, MSN o jabber. Gràcies :)

I have the old one being buried by a mountain of dust, but on a honour place in my heart, for his service during several years. It was a good computer, until its hardware started failing randomly. Nobody can scape to the pass of the years.

But a new generation is here, and with only a few hours is offering some of his services at full performance (for example, this blog). I will explain more about it (and the distribution I am using on it – not debian this time) on future posts, so keep an eye on it ;).

Oh, and for all of you who don’t like my long domain name, I have a surprise that could be showed soon…

Anyway, I have detected problems with the graphic card and network card, and I solved it replacing it with another ones that I had on my house (at least, save all these crappy computer parts has served for soemthing useful! :D), I think that the main problem is with the mainboard, and it could be damaging the other components. Perhaps it’s time to buy new hardware for my server (Dell maybe?), and do a clean debian sarge installation, instead of the mess that I have now (Mepis + Debian testing).