Microsoft Office 2010 Opens for Beta Testing!

Microsoft is inviting IT professionals around the world to test Office 2010 and reflect feedbacks. This is a pre-release version of Office Professional Plus 2010, so take your pre-caution before installing.

To register and download this beta version, click here.

Make sure you have the following:

Internet access (to download Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta and get updates)

A PC with these minimum recommended specifications:

• 500 MHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor or higher
• 256 MB of system memory or more
• 3.5 GB of available disk space
• 1024x768 or higher resolution monitor
• DVD-R/W Drive

Supported Operating Systems:

• Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 3 (32-bit)
• Windows Vista with SP1 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 with SP2 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)

Keyboard Shortcuts for Google Search Results

I've always wonder why can't I navigate through the Google search result using my keyboard. There are plugins and Firefox extensions that add keyboard shortcuts to web pages but wouldn't it be nice if the webpage itself just equips this feature? Finally Google is running an experiment on this idea.

To enable Keyboard Shortcuts in Google search results, go here and be part of their experiment.

Initial Setup for CentOS

Set up users and groups

Create staff group with gid 123

$ /usr/sbin/groupadd -g 123 staff

Create users (with uid 1234, with user gid 123)

$ /usr/sbin/useradd -c "John Doe" -d /home/jdoe -u 1234 -s /bin/bash -g 123 jdoe

To see useradd default: $ useradd -D

Force user to change password upon login

$ passwd -e jdoe

# If not available, just expire the account by
$ chage -d0 jdoe

Add user to wheel group

# Enabled sudo for wheel group
$ visudo

# uncomment this line:
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Add user to wheel group
$ usermod -G10 jdoe

Set hosts.allow to allow ssh (port 22) for specific network (e.g. 123.456.789.* with subnet 255.255.255.0) and hosts.deny to deny everywhere else.

$ cat /etc/hosts.allow
#
# hosts.allow   This file contains access rules which are used to
#               allow or deny connections to network services that
#               either use the tcp_wrappers library or that have been
#               started through a tcp_wrappers-enabled xinetd.
#
#               See 'man 5 hosts_options' and 'man 5 hosts_access'
#               for information on rule syntax.
#               See 'man tcpd' for information on tcp_wrappers
#
sshd: 123.456.789.0/255.255.255.0

$ cat /etc/hosts.deny
#
# hosts.deny    This file contains access rules which are used to
#               deny connections to network services that either use
#               the tcp_wrappers library or that have been
#               started through a tcp_wrappers-enabled xinetd.
#
#               The rules in this file can also be set up in
#               /etc/hosts.allow with a 'deny' option instead.
#
#               See 'man 5 hosts_options' and 'man 5 hosts_access'
#               for information on rule syntax.
#               See 'man tcpd' for information on tcp_wrappers
#
All:All

Disallow root login in via ssh by uncomment the following line.

$ vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

#PermitRootLogin no

$ /etc/init.d/sshd restart