...making Linux just a little more fun!
[ In reference to "Review of the Plat'Home OpenBlockS" in LG#152 ]
s. keeling [keeling at nucleus.com]
[Hmm ... I appear to have, yet again, subtly broken your lovely pinehelper.pl script. I mean, should Subject: be that plain? Production version at end. When I mouse-over the link, I see mailto:tag@lists.linuxgazette.net?subject=Talkback:152/okopnik.html, so I must have broken some quoting stuff in the script. Or maybe you already fixed this, and I should check old mail for the fix? Good idea. :-]
But I digress.
Re: Review of the Plat'Home OpenBlockS
You editors make tough reviewers. I imagine the poor guys at Plat'Home are shaking their heads and muttering "never again" over and over.
In the early days of Linux, all the documentation read like it had been written by one of Ted T'so's worshippers, shipped to Germany for reformatting, filtered through Chef, then translated by Vietnamese into English (out of this was born the LDP). Others aren't so lucky as us in this modern age of ours.
I thought it courageous (though perhaps obviously doomed to failure) to ship you their latest for review. Were you trying to buy and use this thing, or did they think you were only reviewing it for publication?
I envy you that secret weapon of yours. It's fascinating reading to hear you two go at translating their dox into meaningfulness. I hope you passed on your notes to Plat'Home?
And, yeah, frankly, telnet/ftp ought to be locked down to the serial interface *until you* open them up! That is good security. Both of them transmit pwords en clair, dammit. Cut 'em some slack (I humbly suggest).
Have you any experience with Soekris boxes or Mini-ITX form factor? That's likely what you're really looking for (if you weren't just offering to review the thing), though they aren't really "palm sized" either. OpenBSD uses Soekris in demos showing their pf firewall running in parallel on two boxes, cleanly failing over when power's cut on one of them, no transmission loss. Slick.
Interesting review. I think I would have taken the thing with a bit
more of a grain of salt than you, but I wasn't there. At least I know
this is not the next box to try to move Mom to. 
However, I've
been intrigued by it since I heard of it too.
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# pinehelper.pl - Original from Ben Okopnik of LinuxGazette.net
#
# i) install wherever you want, make it world execute.
#
# ii) edit the user's prefs.js (via "about:config") in
# ~/.mozilla/firefox/$blah.default:
#
# user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.mailto",
# "/path/to/pinehelper");
#
# iii) edit "$fn" and "geometry" to taste.
#
# restart FF and click on a mailto: link should fire up
# an xterm running mutt. To: will already be filled in. if
# the link provided a Subject:, it should be as well.
#
# 13Nov2005 Ben Okopnik 0001 Fix Firefox mailto: handling
# 16Jun2007 sbk 0002 bulletproofing, strict, my().
# 13Aug2008 sbk 0003 broke Subject: handling?!?
#
use diagnostics;
use warnings;
use strict;
my ( $fn, @chunks, $key, $value, %header, $opts, $geom );
# xterm font
#
# $fn = q(-*-*-medium-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-15);
$fn = q(-*-*-medium-r-normal-*-15-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-15);
$geom = q(105x57-84+64);
@chunks = split /[?&]/, shift;
for ( @chunks ) {
( $key, $value ) = split /[:=]/;
# Cheap-ass entity conversion; populates %header hash as:
#
# key value
# --- -----
# subject "subject string"
# mailto "who@where.com"
#
( $header{ $key } = $value ) =~ s/%(..)/pack("H2",$1)/eg;
}
# Define Mutt switches for any headers we're interested in, including
# optional ones
#
$opts = qq[ -s "$header{subject}" ] if exists $header{subject};
$opts .= $header{mailto};
exec qq(/usr/bin/xterm -fn $fn -geometry $geom -T Mutt -e /usr/bin/mutt $opts) ||
die qq(Blue? No, red?! Aiiii!: $!);
_END_
-- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. (*) - -
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 04:11:53PM -0600, s. keeling wrote:
> [Hmm ... I appear to have, yet again, subtly broken your lovely > pinehelper.pl script. I mean, should Subject: be that plain? > Production version at end. When I mouse-over the link, I see > mailto:tag@lists.linuxgazette.net?subject=Talkback:152/okopnik.html, > so I must have broken some quoting stuff in the script. Or maybe you > already fixed this, and I should check old mail for the fix? Good > idea. :-]
I'm not sure what you think it is that's broken, but that's exactly what 'mailto' links display when moused over in a number of browsers. Why is 'Subject:' supposed to be such a big secret?
> But I digress. > > Re: Review of the Plat'Home OpenBlockS > > You editors make tough reviewers. I imagine the poor guys at > Plat'Home are shaking their heads and muttering "never again" over > and over.
If they vow to never again ship, or send for review, a product that is not ready to be used by the average human who is likely to buy it, I have achieved my purpose in that review.
> In the early days of Linux, all the documentation read like it had > been written by one of Ted T'so's worshippers, shipped to Germany for > reformatting, filtered through Chef, then translated by Vietnamese > into English (out of this was born the LDP). Others aren't so lucky > as us in this modern age of ours. > > I thought it courageous (though perhaps obviously doomed to failure) > to ship you their latest for review. Were you trying to buy and use > this thing, or did they think you were only reviewing it for > publication?
Can you tell me why you'd expect to see any difference in the review based on that distinction? It seems to me that anyone who would give more leniency to a product they're reviewing just because they didn't pay for it is guilty of a) pandering to the vendor and b) doing a disservice to any future purchasers of the product, thus undercutting their own reputation as a reviewer. Not to mention prostituting their integrity (if any.)
There's too many of those out there already, thank you - the greatest majority, in my opinion. The current Editor-in-Chief of LG - that's me, until things change - prefers his reviews honest to a fault, with products tested to destruction if necessary, and with any warts clearly labelled. Any company that wants to piss in the tall grass had better be able to lift its leg at least that high, or it's going to get laughed at. By the same token, when we hand out a positive review, it should be a gold standard of its own. That's my take on it, period. (If you visualize me sitting in an office - which I don't - and with a picture of Edward R. Murrow behind and above me, overseeing everything I do - which it's not - you'll have my perception of my job at critical moments just about right.)
> I envy you that secret weapon of yours. It's fascinating reading to > hear you two go at translating their dox into meaningfulness. I hope > you passed on your notes to Plat'Home?
Of course. I sent a very detailed email to their tech guy - who was, by the way, quite professional and pleasant, as was everyone I've communicated with at Plat'Home. This does not, however, affect what is true about their product.
> And, yeah, frankly, telnet/ftp ought to be locked down to the serial > interface *until you* open them up! That is good security. Both of > them transmit pwords en clair, dammit. Cut 'em some slack (I humbly > suggest).
This would be true IF - and only if - the rest of the product showed anything like good security. Didn't you read the actual review? Default login via http (which sends passwords in the clear), using the root account - ONLY - and no ability to change passwords? A serial console (hell-loooo, 1998!), which requires fiddling with XON/XOFF, bits, port numbers, etc., instead of a simple USB connection? You've got to be kidding me.
> Have you any experience with Soekris boxes or Mini-ITX form factor? > That's likely what you're really looking for (if you weren't just > offering to review the thing)
That's exactly what I offered - a review. Again, as stated in the article.
>, though they aren't really "palm sized" > either. OpenBSD uses Soekris in demos showing their pf firewall > running in parallel on two boxes, cleanly failing over when power's > cut on one of them, no transmission loss. Slick. > > Interesting review. I think I would have taken the thing with a bit > more of a grain of salt than you, but I wasn't there. At least I know > this is not the next box to try to move Mom to.
Kinda my point. It's 2008; there's no reason in the world that an appliance like this shouldn't be a simple plug + tweak + play, with a good default config. Not what they shipped me; not even close.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *