dump/output/list Linux password expiry info for all users

problem: you need password expiry info for all users

solution: one line bash script to the rescue :)

Check out my thread @ Server Fault for a number of simple, one line bash solutions.

citation:

Props to: Zoredache @ ServerFault for his quick answer

Free 90 day Norton Internet Security 2011 - English, German, and more!

UPDATE: superseded by Free 90 day Norton Internet Security 2012 - English, German, and more!

I recently figured out this rather handy to know tip for Norton Internet Security (NIS) and possibly for Norton Anti Virus too (NAV).

To cut a long story short, it is possible to transfer licences between different localisations of NIS and perhaps also NAV.

Lets say you want 90 days free NIS, but in German?

1. You download and install the 90 day NIS trial from Norton, Thanks to ING Direct
   (this is English but don't worry!)
2. You make sure to register a valid email address with your Norton Account for said install
3. You then have 90 days free NIS trial, fully operational etc
4. You then sign in to the created Norton account
5. You copy, paste and save the licence from the trial, per screenshot
   
6. Now, you need to procure the German version of NIS! Get it direct from Norton!
7. You now uninstall the EN version of NIS, I think its needs a reboot.
8. Then you install the DE version of NIS
9. When NIS launches, hit the Subscribe link/button for the given language
   
10. When presented with the subscription screen, just enter the product key you saved earlier and progress the form as normal. JOB DONE.

This might work for other Norton products too, like Antivirus 2011? If you try it, please do share your results!

Here are some handy direct links to some Norton products in various locales, courtesy of Smokey's Security Weblog.

all products are version 2011 v18.5
EN	DE	NL	FR
NIS 90 day 30 day	NIS	NIS	NIS
NAV	NAV	NAV	NAV

(all links in this table are direct from Norton)

Props go out to:

Smokey @ Smokey's Security Weblog
AND
MAYUR @ webtrickz.com

Get your iPhone officially unlocked - for FREE - via iTunes

problem: Your iPhone is SIM locked

Your provider had your phone locked when you took on your contract... now you want to use a different SIM but it doesn't work.

solution: Ask your provider to unlock the phone!

It really should be very simple and FREE. For example o2 in the UK provide a online form for their customers and they'll unlock the phone within 14 days. This probably works for more than just iPhones too. Read more about o2's process on their site.

What is the catch? As you can imagine, there is likely a minimum contract term that needs to be fulfilled with most providers or at least they might claim that there is. Most countries have laws related to SIM locking and it depends on the providers and countries stance on such laws. Read more on SIM locking on wikipedia.

I went through the o2 process with a family members iPhone and it was totally painless. They quoted 14 days but it took less than 48 hours. A picture of the official unlocking in iTunes!

The process went like this:

1. Googled iPhone unlocking, found Olly's post linked below
2. Went to o2's site and search for unlocking etc
3. Found the unlocking FAQ article on o2's site
4. Filled out the unlocking form (dead easy)
5. Received the SMS from o2 that the phone had been unlocked
6. IMPORTANT: Inserted non o2 sim in to the phone
7. Powered the phone on
8. With an computer connected to the net, sync'ed the iPhone with iTunes
9. After a brief wait, the iPhone received updated carrier programming and the new SIM was operational

citation:

A big thanks and props to Olly Farshi @ giga om for sharing his knowledge and experience on this topic.

Force vmware Fusion guest to shutdown or restart

problem: VMware Fusion guest is locked up and won't shutdown

You want to force a shutdown/power off OR force a restart/reset

solution: use the alt/option ⎇ key

Open the Virtual Machine menu and press the ⎇ key and you will see the menu options change to their alternatives. Choose one of the options, e.g. Power Off
I believe this works from version 2 onwards.

citation:

Props to: Team Fusion @ VMware Community Blogs

Parsing NCSA combined log format - working with columns

problem: You want to work with columns of an NCSA combined log file

You might have some apache or squid NSCA combined based logs. For example you might want to get the UserAgent column so you can sort and find unique values

solution: Perl Regular Expressions to the rescue!

Check out my Q+A thread on Server Fault

citation:

Props to:
Me
The PHP Cookbook

Great online tool for checking password strength

Password meter

Generating passwords at the command line

I posted this gem over at Stack Overflow for generating random passwords on the Linux command line.

echo $(</dev/urandom tr -dc A-Za-z0-9 | head -c8)

Enjoy

Kudos to aigark's share