When I first started out with Linux permissions were sorta hard to grasp, most likely because I never took the time to really sit down and understand them, but also because they are quite different than Windows permissions.

In Windows you can really put some detail in the ACLs, but with Linux you either need ACLs implemented or you need to understand how file permissions work. So first off, lets use the following example

# ls -l /
drwxr-xr-x  13 root root  4096 Apr 27  2007 usr
drwxr-xr-x  20 root root  4096 Oct  3 00:33 var

As you can see these are both owned by user root and group root and that the user has read, write, and execute permission permissions, while the group and others do not. So lets make a change to that to better explain permissions. So lets say we created /home/johndoe/usr and /home/johndoe/var.
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Today I was in need of sending text msgs to my cell phone using email, but without it arriving as an email it needed to arrive as a standard SMS message. I came across an article on Tech Recipes that solved my problem. Here is the combined list of email addresses. Replace ‘phonenumber’ with your 10 digit phone number (5405551212@tmomail.net).

T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net
Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com
Cingular: phonenumber@cingularme.com
Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com
Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
US Cellular: phonenumber@email.uscc.net
SunCom: phonenumber@tms.suncom.com
Powertel: phonenumber@ptel.net
AT&T: phonenumber@txt.att.net
Alltel: phonenumber@message.alltel.com
Metro PCS: phonenumber@mymetropcs.com

This is inspiring me to write a monitoring script that is just for sending email to phones, but that will be another post.

Social Networks

My friend Jermaine was asking what some of my social network accounts were, because lately I have become a whore to the social network world. For the longest time I used handles and didn’t have a thing for social networking, but since I have been able to catch up with so many people and make some really good connections I am enjoying it much more. Also not all of these sites are that important to me in respect to adding friends. Sites like Dopplr that let you enter information about trips and your travels is just cool.

Security Cameras

I was curious the other month what my dog was doing while I was gone, and I wanted to be able to monitor my apartment. I have found a Linksys wireless webcam on Newegg for about $85. I am considering picking up a couple of them and setting up some surveillance. In one hand I think it would be just plain cool and in the other I think it is a bit paranoid.

Kind of a quiet day.