Requirements:

• installed and working shoutcast DNAS
• lame (for mp3 transcoding)
• libshout (if not available through your repos you can get it here)
• shout-perl
• MP3::Tag perl module
• Encode perl module (to make your id3 tags utf8 if a non-latin and non-utf8 charset is used)

perl Makefile.PL

make

make install

More information is provided here. If you face any problems make sure that you have libvorbis, libogg and libtheora libraries as well as their corresponding devel packages installed.

Install the MP3::Tag perl module through your repos (available in Centos rpmforge repo) or through CPAN otherwise (perl -MCPAN -e ‘install MP3::Tag’).

Before installing the Encode perl module check if it is already installed by trying to use it! In centos it is part of the perl installation so there is no need to install it!

Now for the nice part! I edited the example2.pl script that was included with Shout.pm installation files. You can see my script here:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use bytes;
use Shout;
use MP3::Tag;
use Encode;

###############################################################################
###	C O N F I G U R A T I O N
###############################################################################
use vars qw{$Debug $Lame};
chomp( $Lame = `which lame` );
my $Bitrate = 64;
my $Samplerate = 44100;

### Create a new streaming object
my $streamer = new Shout
	host		=> 'localhost',
	port		=> 8000,
	mount		=> '',
	password	=> 'my password',
	name		=> 'my radio name',
	url			=> 'http://myurl.example.com/',
	genre		=> 'my genre',
	description	=> 'my description',
	bitrate		=> $Bitrate,
	format		=> SHOUT_FORMAT_MP3,
	protocol	=> SHOUT_PROTOCOL_ICY;

$streamer->set_audio_info(SHOUT_AI_BITRATE => $Bitrate, SHOUT_AI_SAMPLERATE => $Samplerate);

###############################################################################
###	M A I N   P R O G R A M
###############################################################################

### Try to connect, aborting on failure
if ( $streamer->open ) {
	printf "Connected to %s port %d...\n", $streamer->host, $streamer->port;
	printf "Will stream to mountpoint '%s'.\n", $streamer->mount;
} else {
	printf "couldn't connect: %s\n", $streamer->get_error;
	exit $streamer->get_errno;
}

### Stream each file specified in the playlist file on the command line

open(PLSFILE, '<', $ARGV[0]) or die $!;

while (<PLSFILE>) {

	my $file = $_;
	chomp($file);

	print STDERR "Can't read '$file': $!\n" unless -r $file;
	print "Sending $file...\n";

	my $mp3file = MP3::Tag->new($file);
	my $mp3title = $mp3file->title();
	my $mp3artist = $mp3file->artist();

	eval {
		$mp3title = Encode::encode("utf8", Encode::decode("iso-8859-7", $mp3title));
		$mp3artist = Encode::encode("utf8", Encode::decode("iso-8859-7", $mp3artist));
	};

	print "$mp3title - $mp3artist\n";

        $streamer->set_metadata(song => "$mp3title - $mp3artist");

	### Run lame in downsampling mode on the file we're going to send
	open( LAME, "-|" ) || exec $Lame, qw{--mp3input -t -b}, $Bitrate, qw{-m j -f -S}, $file, "-";

	my $buff;
	READ: while ((my $len = sysread(LAME, $buff, 4096)) > 0) {
		print STDERR "Read $len bytes...\n" if $Debug;
		$streamer->send( $buff ) && next;

		warn( "send failed: ", $streamer->get_error, "\n" );
		last READ;
	} continue {
		$streamer->sync;
	}

	close LAME;
}

close (PLSFILE);

### Disconnect from the server
$streamer->close;

Copy and paste the above code in a file named streamer.pl and then make it executable (chmod +x streamer.pl).

Edit the fields in the configuration section to suit your needs, especially the host, port and password fields.

On lines 61-64 is the code for converting you id3 tags to utf8 if they are in some other charset. Many of my MP3s have greek characters so I used iso-8859-7 as the source encoding. You may have to edit this if you have id3 tags in other languages with non-latin characters. Or you can comment out (with #) these lines if you don’t need the conversion. Keep in mind that the webpage from shoutcast server defaults its encoding to a latin only charset. So to display your utf8 id3 tags you have to change the encoding manually in your browser. Nevertheless winamp displays utf8 id3 tags correctly so you listeners will be able to read the song title and artist without problems.

You can comment out (with #) lines 55 and 66 if you don’t want anything displayed on the command line while your music is streamed to the server.

You may see the error “fatal error: can’t update LAME-tag frame!” after each song ends. This is a bug in lame and you cannot disable it. I hope it will be fixed in a future version of lame.

Now create a playlist file that will be streamed to the server by doing this:

find / -name *.mp3 > myplaylist

That’s it! You are ready to stream your music by doing this:

./streamer.pl myplaylist

Happy streaming!

The first thing that must be noted is that samba does not allow to share the same folder more than once! So the solution to that was to create a link to this folder and share the original folder as RW for an admin and share the link as RO to everyone else

So if /MYFILES is the original folder you need to do this

ln -s /MYFILES /MYFILESlink

Next use this smb.conf :

[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
netbios name = FILESERVER
server string = samba ver. %v

security = user
encrypt passwords = true
map to guest = bad user
guest account = nobody

passdb backend = tdbsam
obey pam restrictions = yes
invalid users = root

[myfilesADM]
comment = Private Share
path = /MYFILES
browseable = no
read only = no
create mask = 0644
directory mask = 0755
valid users = adminuser

[myfiles]
comment = Public Share
path = /MYFILESlink
read only = yes
guest only = yes
guest ok = yes

If you want to hack the code a little bit here are some examples:

By using javascript you can display your own image instead of the default green buddy icon like this:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
function msn_status(json) {

if ( (json.status != ‘Offline’) && (json.result.code == 200) ) {
document.statusimage.src = ‘Online.gif’;
}
}
</script>

<a target=”_blank” href=”http://settings.messenger.live.com/Conversation/IMMe.aspx?invitee=<insert_your_id>@apps.messenger.live.com&mkt=en”>
<img style=”border-style: none;” name=”statusimage” src=”Offline.gif”/>
</a>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://messenger.services.live.com/users/<insert_your_id>@apps.messenger.live.com/presence/?cb=msn_status”></script>

In any case replace <insert_your_id> with the id number you will get from the live messenger web settings -> “Create HTML” page that I mentioned above.

more info on the available data can be found here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb936687%28v=MSDN.10%29.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb936688%28v=MSDN.10%29.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742832%28v=MSDN.10%29.aspx

You can also use PHP. In php ver. 5.2 and above there is a function called json_decode tha will be very helpfull. But in earlier versions you can use some code like this:

echo msn_status();

function msn_status() {

if ( !function_exists(‘json_decode’) ) {
function json_decode($json) {
// Author: walidator.info 2009
$comment = false;
$out = ‘$x=’;

for ($i=0; $i<strlen($json); $i++)
{
if (!$comment)
{
if ($json[$i] == ‘{‘)        $out .= ‘ array(‘;
else if ($json[$i] == ‘}’)   $out .= ‘)’;
else if ($json[$i] == ‘:’)   $out .= ‘=>’;
else                         $out .= $json[$i];
}
else $out .= $json[$i];
if ($json[$i] == ‘”‘)    $comment = !$comment;
}
eval($out . ‘;’);
return $x;
}
}

$url = ‘http://messenger.services.live.com/users/<insert_your_id>@apps.messenger.live.com/presence’;
$file = @ fopen(($url),”r”) or die (“Can’t read input stream”);
$json = fread($file,1000);
$obj = json_decode($json);

$status = $obj['status'];
$resultcode = $obj['result']['code'];

if ( ($status != ‘Offline’ ) and ($resultcode == 200 ) ) {
return “ONLINE”;
}
else {
return “OFFLINE”;
}

}

thanks goes to the guy on this post:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php#91216

All I had to do was change this registry key:

HKLM\Comm\GSPI86861\Parms\RegionCode

for Europe I changed the key to 0×30 (HEX) and reboot the phone!

the available region codes are:

0×10 USA FCC,

0×20 Canada IC

0×30 Europe ETSI

0×31 Spain

0×32 France

0×40 JP MKK

thanks to:

http://www.eten-users.eu/index.php?showtopic=18122

All of this means we need to toggle the three thread-related settings from their default value in order to get the behaviour I expect. To do so we go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Config Editor. After promising to be careful we filter for “thread” and observe the following settings and their values:

• mail.correct_threading with default value true
• mail.strict_threading with default value true
• mail.thread_without_re with default value false

Now we double-click each of these to change their value and close the dialog. Then for each folder we need to go to Edit -> Folder Properties -> Rebuild Index.  Now Thunderbird 3 should display messages in each folder threaded in exactly the same way as had the previous version!

bonus tip for ThunderBird 2

In TB2 if you are viewing messages in threaded view, clicking on a column name (other than the thread column) will turn off threaded view. If we want to keep threaded view on we must go to the Config Editor as above, search for the preference mailnews.thread_pane_column_unthreads and double click to change its value to false. In TB3 this is by default set to false so not change is needed.

First you need to download and install WLM to a supported OS

Then if you browse to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache you will find some folders with arbitrary names. In one of those folders you will find the “Messenger.msi” file which is the installer we were looking for. In the rest of the folders you will find the following files which might become handy if you face any problems:

• Contacts.msi (for contacts)
• dw20shared.msi (DW 2.0 Client)
• crt.msi (MS Visual Studio Runtime)

In my case (win 2K3) i had to install (besides Messenger.msi) the crt.msi and the Contacts.msi

The best  news is that ESXi is FREE! You just need to register to the VMware website in order to obtain your free license key (as was the case with VMware server). After that you install it on your server, make some configuration changes (IP address and root password specifically). Then you can connect with your browser to your new ESXi server and download the Infrastructure Client through which you can administer the virtual machines and the ESXi server.

Some tips to get you started can be found here.

Good luck!

First of all do not forget to enable CGI through the plesk control panel for the specific domain!

After that you should create a “.htaccess” file in the directory you wish to run the scripts and add these lines:

DirectoryIndex index.cgi
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
AddHandler cgi-script .pl
Options +ExecCGI

The second and third line instruct the apache server to handel .cgi and .pl files as cgi scripts and the forth instruct it to execute those scipts in this directory (and all subdirectories).

The first line exists so that when you point your browser to the diretory containing the scripts, the index.cgi script is executed without you having to specify its name (index.cgi) in the browser address bar.

So to open up phpmyadmin you follow this route on the control panel

in plesk 8.4 : Server -> Database Servers -> Local MySQL server -> Databases -> DB WebAdmin

in plesk 9.2 : Home -> Database Servers -> Local MySQL server -> Databases -> WebAdmin

From (Databases) on the left you select “psa” database and then on the new menu on the left you select the “domains” table, click browse and find the id of the domain whose account you are looking for. Then you select the “mail” table, click browse again and find the dom_id (last column) that matches the id you found earlier. Then you can see the mail accounts of the domain and their respective account_ids and you can find the account_id of the email that interests you. So now you select the “accounts” table, click browse, find the proper id (obtained from the previous step) and edit that row (the pencil icon) to see the account password in clear text.

I also tried changing this value in an attempt to change the specific password. It didn’t work because i could still login with the old password so don’t mind trying this.