Securing phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu 10.04

Posted on July 13, 2010 by Nicholas Pier

This will be the first in a number of tutorials which I plan to post regarding IT topics and solutions to problems which I run into both in a business environment and personal tinkering.

I currently run a Linux home server for the purpose of website development and testing prior to making content available online. However, it occurred to me following installation that the ‘www.hostname.tld/phpMyAdmin’ directory, while requiring authentication, is open to the internet and likewise, subject to brute force attacks. This tutorial will attempt to offer a number of solutions to securing such an installation. Continue reading →

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Subnet Calculator

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Nicholas Pier

Recently, I’ve decided to begin working toward the CCNP certification and have required significant review of CCNA material. As such, in order to review some of the subnet math, I decided to write a subnet calculator in PHP.

I’ve spent most of today working on it and hopefully it works well in all cases. However, the form handler may still allow some improper values. As long as proper input is provided, the calculator should produce accurate results. To view the calculator, visit the ‘Subnet Calculator‘ via the link provided above.

As always, I’m providing the source to my program. It’s currently set up to be used as a page template. Paste the code into a .php file and place it in the directory of a WordPress template to use it. Click here to download the source or ‘Continue Reading’ to view the source. Continue reading →

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Steam XML Parser

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Nicholas Pier

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve developed a WordPress plug-in to display a user’s Steam Stats as a widget. It’s available for download here. However, this does no good to anyone without a WordPress-based-site and I wanted to make the source freely available. As such, I’ve included it below. Valve provides Steam profiles as an XML feed which can be parsed and formatted according to a developer’s needs. To personalize the script, simply edit the URL following the “$profileURL” variable.

<?php
/* Steam Community Widget
*/	
 
	//Variables. Edit Profile URL to match the link to your personal Steam Community Page.
		$ProfileURL = 'http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970479548/';
		$xml = simplexml_load_file($ProfileURL . '?xml=1');
 
			//Begin Widget Content
					echo '<p><strong>SteamID:</strong> ';
					echo $xml->steamID . '<br /><strong>Member since:</strong> ';
					echo $xml->memberSince . '<br /><strong>Steam Rating:</strong> ';
					echo $xml->steamRating . '<br /><strong>Playing time:</strong> ';
					echo $xml->hoursPlayed2Wk . " hrs past 2 weeks</p>";
					for($i = 0; $i < 4; $i++){
						if ($xml->mostPlayedGames->mostPlayedGame[$i]->gameLink != "") {
							echo '<p><a href="' . $xml->mostPlayedGames->mostPlayedGame[$i]->gameLink . '"><img src="' . $xml->mostPlayedGames->mostPlayedGame[$i]->gameIcon . '" /></a> ' . $xml->mostPlayedGames->mostPlayedGame[$i]->gameName . ' ' . $xml->mostPlayedGames->mostPlayedGame[$i]->hoursPlayed . ' hrs</p>';
						}
					}
				echo '<p><a href="' . $ProfileURL . 'games">View all games</a></p><p align="center"><em>&copy ' . date(Y) . ' <a href="http://nicholaspier.com">nicholaspier.com</a></em></p>';
			//End Widget Content
?>
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Steam WordPress Plugin / Widget

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Nicholas Pier

Today I completed my very first WordPress Plugin to display a user’s Steam Gameplay Stats. To those unfamiliar with Steam, steam is a windows community application for video gaming. It allows users to store and purchase titles from many different publishers online and also offers an excellent community element to chat, browse the web and compare stats with friends. More information is available here: www.steampowered.com Steam is likely the future of pc gaming as it allows a much more secure and economical publishing method for many game studios.

I’ll likely be posting the widget for free distribution on WordPress’s site soon. I’m in the process of making the widget more accessible to normal users as it currently requires the manual input of a user’s steam account URL into a text file.

Update: I’ve release version 1.01 of my Steam Community Gamestats Widget. I’ve been sick recently and had a lot of time to revise the code and better adapt it to WordPress’  Widget Class implemented in WordPress 2.8.

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Cisco CCNA Certified

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Nicholas Pier

Today I passed my Cisco CCNA exam with a score of 917 / 1000 which has left me incredibly content! The whole Cisco course has really taught me a lot about networking and I am pleased to have accepted it as a challenge. Furthermore, I did all of this a month before my goal of Thanksgiving and only a month after my last certification. One could say that I’m really on a roll. I hope I can continue to excel in college while getting my technical education on the side with these certifications.

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Cisco CCENT Certified

Posted on September 26, 2009 by Nicholas Pier

I’m pleased to post that yesterday I passed the Cisco ICND1 exam with a score of 916 / 1000 ! This places me closer to my short term goal of obtaining the CCNA certification by Thanksgiving and in the meantime attributes me with the Cisco CCENT certification.

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