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This article is going to help you using LDAP to authenticate users rather than relying on a users table with a password column. I will be assuming you will be using cakephp 1.3 and that you have completed Auth and/or ACL setup on your application similar to the ACL tutorial on the cakephp book. Because we want to control the logging in of the user ourselves and not leave it to the cake magic we need to override the auth component. To do this copy your auth.php from your CAKE_CORE/controllers/components/ to your APP/controllers/components/ folder. Next open it up and fine the login function. It should be around like 684. Once you find it comment out everything inside the function, but leave the function intact. It should look something like this: ...

Backstory A few years ago when the local Circuit City was going out of business I decided to stop by to see if there where any good deals. Unfortunately most of their inventory was at a very low discount (if at all). However they where getting rid of some of their CRM and sales equipment. I picked up a 3M touch-panel LCD monitor for $20 or so, sold “as-is”. When I got home I realized that the LCD panel was only 800x600px, and had a broken back-light. I tried to get the touch panel working but for some reason it was not receiving power and I could not find any drivers for it. Into storage it went. ...

This is about a piece of software I wrote over a year ago to fit a need I had at the time. It probably will not receive any updates but I have released the source to anyone is free to do as they please with it. Background PHPRepo is a PHP CMS for managing Debian package repositories. A while ago I wanted to start my own repository for some of my own packages, so I looked for an easy way to do this. I found none. At the time the only way to run and manage a Debian package repository was through apt at the command line, and since at the time I was learning PHP I decided to write my own software to fill this void. Thus I created PHPRepo. PHPRepo has very minimal requirements and can work alongside an existing repository that is managed with apt. ...

This is a minimalistic how-to to get a Debian environment running on almost any (rooted) android phone. I adopted the method here: https://www.saurik.com/id/10 to be more universal and added some new features. Preparing the Debian Image You will need access to a computer running a Debian based distribution to create the image for you phone. I used Ubuntu 10.04. To create the image you need to install a program called debootstrap. debootstrap will allow you to create a mini Debian install in your image. ...

The official HTC Incredible 2.2 update added a new feature to the ROM. When the phone is connected to a computer via USB, even if the memory card is not mounted, it will act as a virtual CD-ROM. It basically just acts as a CR-ROM drive with the disk image found in /system/etc/CDROM.ISO. The default ISO was some annoying Verizon thing. Most (rooted) users simply deleted the ISO from their system. I however found a way to make this feature a bit more useful. ...

The PC I wanted a HTPC that I could use to play anything, and that could do anything. And since it was going to be hooked up to a big TV, it might as well be powerful enough to play some modern games on the big screen. I chose to use a relatively new computer (Core 2 Duo 2Ghz, Nvidia GeForce GT 220) and run Windows 7. My previous HTPC ran Linux, but with a powerful enough computer, the ability to play games on the HTPC made me move to Windows. ...

This is a simple how-to on using Microsoft’s Active Directory for user authentication on Linux systems. The method described in this guide should work for Cent OS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and Fedora. Debian based distributions do not have the tools used in this method and require a different setup. This guide used Cent OS 5.5 with a minimal text only install, however it should apply the same to other compatible versions of Linux. ...

A car inverter will take the 12 volts DC from your car, usually from your cigarette lighter, and turn it into 110 volts AC, which is what you get out of your home power outlets. This allows you to plug household electronics into your car. The most common would probably be your laptop. Home UPS systems do the same thing, except instead of using a car outlet they use a 12 volt battery. I used a old home UPS system I had laying around that had a bad battery. (We don’t use the battery in this mod) ...

This guide will tell you how to let a windows computer make use of your N810’s GPS as if it was its own. While the Nokia N810 does not have the best GPS in the world it is still better than no GPS. On a recent road trip I wanted a way to visualize my trip route on a more powerful device than my N810’s 400MHz processor and Maemo Mapper. I wanted the full use of my laptop, Google Earth and the Internet. ...

I recently got a HTC Incredible to replace my aging LG Chocolate. One feature of the Incredible was video out. Specifically the ability to output composite video to a TV. The cable was first demoed by WireFly here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJyt463AoOA And since then threads like these have started trying to hunt down the cable. And it looks like one day it may be sold at HTC Pedia or at Ben’s Bazaar. But for the time being this cable is not being sold anywhere, and there is a rumor that it may never be commercially sold. ...

PXE is a method for booting an operating system over a network, it stands for Pre-Executable environment. Here I will show you how to build a PXE server to boot and or install operating systems over your network. Installing the server OS I made this server inside VMWare, however the steps are the same if you are using a different virtual machine server or a physical machine. I used Debian 5.0 and used the net-install iso. Since we will only be needing a bare Debian install and just a few extra packages there is no need to download/install the entire OS. ...

This guide will tell you how to rename or switch network controller names in Linux. Often when installing Linux the installer will automatically pick the names of the network controllers. And for some reason the order it names them is almost always not the order I want them in. I usually like the primary/on-board card eth0, and all additional cards eth1-n, however the installer often has its own ideas. So this is how to correct it! ...

Part 1 - Screen Screen is a program that can create virtual terminals inside your current session. If you are familiar with tabbed web browsers, think of screen as adding tabs to your terminal. And if your server allows it can allow you to disconnect sessions and keep them running in the background, even if you log out. You can install screen on Debian with apt-get by running sudo apt-get install screen and yum install screen for rpm based systems. ...

Here is how I added an AUX input to my Delco Radio/CD player and a nice mount for my N810. Part 1 - Adding The AUX Input First off This worked on my Delco radio. It may work on yours, it may not. On My radio there is a nice AUX button right under the CD button. This goes to an AUX connector on the back of the unit. This is a Delco AUX plug. It was meant to go to a separate tape deck. Unfortunately, this AUX plug requires an intelligent device to be connected in order to function. There is also a device you can buy that will plug into this AUX port and give you a normal RCA connection. However, the goal of this project is to spend as little money as possible while having the fun of doing it yourself. ...

Conky is a system monitor for Linux. It can tell you almost anything about your computer, such as CPU usage, memory usage, network information, and almost anything else. Here is what my Conky configuration looks like on my desktop. To install Conky on a RPM based distribution run yum install conky Or on a Debian based distribution run sudo apt-get install conky To get yours to look like that you need to put a file named .conkyrc in your home folder. Your home folder is usually /home/$USER. ...