MakeUseOf Directory » server

htaccess Tester: Test htaccess Rules Online

TehseenBaweja — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:01:20 +0000

htaccess or hypertext access is the default name of a directory level configuration file for Apache servers. These files are used to specify security restrictions for a specific directory so a greater control can be implied. If you want to test your htaccess rules but don’t want to go through an elaborate effort, htaccess Tester provides a quick alternative.

Simply enter the URL you want to apply changes to, and then paste the contents of your htaccess in the provided space. Once submitted, the tool will perform the commands or return errors for the statements it does not understand. No registration is required to use this tool and a few commands that are not yet supported are also highlighted.

Features:

Test htaccess rewrite rules for web servers.
Provides an output URL and debugging info.
Does not support all the functions yet.
No registration required.

Visit htaccess Tester @ http://htaccess.madewithlove.be

Vortexbox: Turn your unused computer into a standalone music server/jukebox.

Israel Nicolas — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:01:21 +0000

If you have an unused PC lying around, you might be wondering how to make the most use of it. Well, how about a standalone music server with Vortexbox? This open-source app lets you rip any CD or DVD into audio files which are then loaded into your hard drive and serve as you music server.

The beauty of Vortexbox is that it does the manual task automatically such as ripping CDs, downloading cover art, ID3 tag files, and more. This tool also hosts the files to the rest of your network of PCs and media players. Although playing files in Windows, Mac, or Linux is a given Vortexbox can also power your media players like Logitech Squeezebox, Boxee and Roku Sandbridge. It also works with your X-Box, Playstation 3, and Apple TV.

Since Vortexbox is based in Fedora, installing it is as easy as following the on-screen instructions. It is recommended to use Vortexbox with a dedicated CPU, although you can also try dual-booting if you know how. Once the box is configured for the network, it will begin to work by processing every file that you load automatically. The music library is organized by the standard categorizations like artists, genre, album, and song, where you can also create your central playlist.

Vortexbox is useful for anyone who want to setup a powerful media server that works for all devices. This is definitely a great addition if you have a stale PC lying around.

Features:

Based on Fedora
Standalone ISO to server your music to other devices
Automatically rips music fromCDs and DVDs
Automatically downloads covert art and ID3 tags
Works with Xbox 360, PS3, and Apple TV
Serves files through SMB or Bonjour

Check out Vortexbox @ www.vortexbox.org

AuditMyPC: Online Security & Monitoring Tools

abhijeet — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:34:22 +0000

Audit My PC is a free online suite of security and monitoring tools that could be useful to any computer user who wants to do things like a quick audit of his broadband speed and security check of his website or system. The tools are categorized under Security Tests, Online Tools, For Your Website, Security Tips and Something Else. Firewall test and broadband speed test are the two most popular tools that help in checking your firewall’s security and internet speed respectively.

Other main tools include Anonymous Surfing & Privacy Check, Sitemap Generator test and more. While some tools, like the free website monitoring tool, are yet to be made available to the public, it’s a good site to bookmark and make use of as and when you need its collection of tools.

Features

Free vulnerability assessment and auditing tools.
No registration required.
Tools like broadband speed test and firewall test available.
Tools for both home users and webmasters.
Similar websites: You Get Signal, Test Everything, ServerCheck and TraceBullet.

Check out Audit My PC @ www.auditmypc.com (By Abhijeet from Jeet Blog)

Pingdom: Monitors Website Downtime & Sends Alerts

Israel Nicolas — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:01:45 +0000

Nothing gets more annoying for webmasters than a website in downtime. Downtime incidents can cost a lot of wasted revenue and traffic. It even hurts more if you have no idea when and why your website is down. Enter Pingdom, it is a handy web service that monitors website downtime and lets you know when your website is down with alerts.

Pingdom works by monitoring your website from multiple servers and making sure they are working. It can check your websites, private directories, FTP servers, email servers and more. When one of your servers is out, Pingdom will know and will alert you immediately through SMS, e-mail or iPhone app.

The Pingdom control panel lets you view the downtime, how long each downtime lasted, the error that caused them and more. It also checks if your DNS lookups work, locates network problems, detects the header response from your server and more. This will help you analyze errors so that you can fix them and get your website up and running quickly.

Most importantly, you can track the performance of your servers over time. You can review the various causes of downtime and see trends in response time and load time.

Pingdom offers a free account that lets you monitor one website with up to 20 SMS alerts. If you need more websites tracked, they have basic and business accounts that allow you to monitor up 30 websites, get unlimited e-mail and Twitter alerts, up to 200 SMS alerts and more.

Features:

Check downtime statistics of your website.
Provides uptime statistics, response time, load time.
Helps you analyse causes of downtime errors.
Automatic notification via SMS, email, and Twitter.
Send alerts to third-party contacts.
Track website performance and trends over time.
Free and paid options available.

Check out Pingdom @ www.pingdom.com

Backupify: Backup Your Online Accounts Easily

Israel Nicolas — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:53:30 +0000

Nowadays we depend heavily on web apps without realizing that we do not have much control of the data we have online. We leave it up to the cloud to take care of our data without ever worrying of losing them. However, there will be times where you could lose all of it when your account gets hacked, deleted or when a web service goes down permanently. Backupify is a web service that helps prevent such problems by backing up your online accounts automatically.

Backing up your accounts with Backupify is fairly easy. After signing up, input the login details of web accounts that you want to backup. Then choose the frequency of backups, either daily or weekly. Backupify will automatically backup your data and send regular email notifications whenever backups are done.

After successfully setting your accounts, you can view your history or retrieve the backup files in the archives. If something bad happens to any of these accounts, Backupify will restore it for you.

This handy app supports a wide range of web products like Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, Zoho, Google Docs, Photobucket, WordPress, Basecamp, Gmail, Facebook, Friendfeed, Blogger and Hotmail. More support for apps are being developed in the pipeline.

As we input tons of photos, videos, documents, contacts, messages, notes, links, and connections in the cloud, it just makes sense to have a backup for all of them. Backupify is a great tool that gives us a way to do just that.

Backupify is free if you signup before January 31, 2010. After which, new users will probably be charged a small fee with a free plan going forward.

Features:

Backup your data in various web services: Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, Zoho, Google Docs, Photobucket, WordPress.
Web services supported that are in beta: Basecamp, Gmail , Facebook, FriendFeed, Blogger, Hotmail.
Web services coming soon: YouTube, Xmarks, RssFeed, Tumblr.
Backup your data either daily or weekly, automatically.
Easy to setup and use.
Stores your data in Amazon S3 online storage service.
Email notification every time a backup is performed.
Low cost of backup.

Check out Backupify @ www.backupify.com

Just-DNSLookup: Remote DNS Lookup Tool

Kaly — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:39:20 +0000

Just-DNSLookup is a simple web application for webmasters that lets you perform remote DNS lookup for any given host or domain name. It checks the host from 30+ locations worldwide. This comes in handy when your site is slow or inaccessible, and you are not sure what causing it, your host or the network in between.

Features:

Check your DNS server from 34 locations world wide.
Free and simple to use.
Similar tools: Just-Traceroute, TraceBullet, WhatIsMyIPAddress and DomainTools.

Check out Just-DNSLookup @ www.just-dnslookup.com

DirProtect: Online .htaccess and .htpassword Generator

Israel Nicolas — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:41:18 +0000

If you are worried with snoopers viewing your web files, then you should definitely use DirProtect. As the name implies, this dead-simple tool protects your web directories by generating .htaccess and .htpassword files. All you need to do is add the web directory that you want to have protected, set username and password for them, and then upload the generated files to that directory on the your server.

Once the generated files are uploaded to your server, anyone who wants to tries to access the protected directory will be asked for a username and password that you set-up.

If you liked this tool you can also check a similar application called htaccessEditor and also read earlier MakeUseOf article on how to create and edit the .htaccess file for your website.

Checkoutt DirProtect @ www.dirprotect.com

TraceBullet: Quick Server, WhoIS, IP & Port Testing

Kaly — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:12:14 +0000

TraceBullet is a must bookmark website for webmasters. It combines 6 different net testing tools (IP check, ping request, WHOIS check, etc) and provides quick access to all on one page. This is much better then having a bunch of bookmarks with sites scattered around the web.

To use TraceBullet, simply select desired test, enter required data and click on “Submit this Bullet!” button. The result will be presented on the same page.

Features:

Combines 6 different net testing tools on one page. These tools are:
Free, quick and easy to use.
Similar sites: Test Everything, ServerCheck and You Get Signal.

Check out TraceBullet @ www.tracebullet.com

Hurl: Easily Make HTTP Requests

Srikanth AD — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:16:38 +0000

Hurl is a free web based tool that makes it easy to make custom HTTP requests, save them online or share with others. The application comes in handy for anyone who is working with APIs, the service is a great time-saver to quickly view responses & develop accordingly.

To use the site, simply enter a URL and click ‘send’. Hurl will then fetch the URL and display the headers as well as the body of the webpage. It enables you to choose the request method, customize headers and POST parameters. You can add basic authorization and even follow redirects.

It provides you with suggestions while adding custom headers and parameters. With an optional registration, Hurl can remember the requests you make for future reference. You can always edit and modify the hurls accordingly.

Watch the demo video below:

Features:

Make HTTP requests.
Choose the request method, customize headers and POST parameters.
Keeps a history of all made HTTP requests.
Share your Hurls with others by forwarding a URL.
Free to use, optional registration.

Check out hurl @ http://hurl.r09.railsrumble.com (by Srikanth AD from Techonaut )

ServerFault: Q&A for Server Problems & Network Related Issues

azim — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:51:21 +0000

ServerFault is a user contributed Q & A site for system administrators, IT professionals or anyone who has to deal with server problems and network related issues. Users can ask and answer question without registration. To vote on questions and answers sign up is needed.

Questions are sorted according to their popularity, as measured by the number of views, answers and votes. Users can browse questions by tags, by popularity or search topics using site search engine.

Active members can collect reputation points and enjoy further editing privileges, which includes retagging others’ questions, creating new tags, editing user posts and more.

Features:

Q & A site for server problems and network related issues.
Questions are sorted according to their popularity as measured by the number of views, answers and votes.
Ask or answer questions without registration.
Sign up to be able to vote on questions and answers.
Enjoy further member privileges by collecting reputation points.
Similar website: TechGuy.

Check out Serverfault @ www.serverfault.com