10 AOL services you probably won't hate!

Everyone hates AOL ! However, with all the hatred against them, they do have few products and websites which are very useful..

Here we go!

1. MapQuest

Before Google Maps, MapQuest was the best source to find maps, street level direction detail in many countries including US, Canada, most of Europe and parts of South America. They have MapQuest Mobile which provides maps and directions on your web enabled phone.

2. AOL Radio

AOL has a tie up with XM Satellite Radio and lets you listen to the best of XM radio - for FREE! There are hundreds of other stations as well - Don't complain about 16 Kbit audio now! Check out those XM 70s and XM Comedy channels !

3. Engadget



If you love Gadgets, you have to check out Engadget - they cover Gadgets comprehensively and is the most popular blog on the web according to Technorati

4. XDrive

If you are looking for a free online backup - XDrive is for you - allows 5 GB of free data storage - they have paid options too. Works like a charm!

5. AOL Safety and Security Center



AOL has teamed up with Kaspersky to provide AOL Safety And Security Suite. It's a memory hog but then, you are getting the best antivirus + updates for free. Wouldn't you take it ?

6. SingingFish

SingingFish according to few people is the best audio/video search engine out there! Do you think so as well ? Try it!

7. Tegic

Have you used T9 on your phone? Well, AOL's Tegic makes it!

8. Moviefone

Movie tickets on Moviefone ? Available nationwide and probably the most popular service

9. Netscape

Okay. Diggers hate the current Netscape and Jason Calcanis. However, you won't hate Netscape for Mozilla - would you ? Netscape's Talkback is widely used to report bugs in various Mozilla software even now

10. Screenname Service

AOL was probably the first to have a unified access system which would work across multiple websites - Passport was a just a rip off.

Why you should use SQLIite!

Some of you may have heard of SQLite being mentioned once in a while - But then, you hardly noticed - didn't you ?

SQLite is a C library implementation which supports most of the SQL 92 syntax.

If you are looking for a really FAST database engine which doesn't involve too much of complex tables, SQLite is for you!

It's no client-server! No need to configure a server, the server resides on the host you program! And almost zero configuration

Hey, its fast ... check the speed comparisons with MySQL, PostgresSQL and FirebirdSQL

C, C++ API if you like coding in them or plenty of other choices as well!

Public domain source code - do whatever you want - they don't care!

Not Popular ? Are you kidding ? Mcafee uses it and so do all these folks!

Hey its portable too ! I got it working on my StrongARM based machine! Other ports!

SQLite is a Google O'Reilly Open Source Award Winner!

And finally....

One person was able to get Python, Perl & PHP people to all agree on something. No small feat. They all agreed on the success of SQlite, and began using it in earnest by being small as well as extremely fast for all the most common database functions.

Dr Richard Hipp (SQLite)

Try it out ! You will like it!

xmlwf - validate your XML file

You can use xmlwf on your *(nix) based box to check whether your XML file is valid or not.

xmwf is part of the expat package

TalkBack - making Firefox more stable..

Talkback is a client application and server (plus server infrastructure and development/administration people) contributed to mozilla.org by Netscape. mozilla.org, many years ago, agreed to make an exception and include this product with our binary nightly and milestone distributions even though it's not open source because it provides huge value in debugging and isolating stability issues. Talkback has been used to identify and debug thousands of major crash bugs in Mozilla over the years and Mozilla is very happy to be able to include it in the Firefox testing builds.

How it works: A Talkback binary is packaged up with the Firefox browser binary. When the browser crashes, the Talkback application is triggered and it offers the user the option to participate. If a user says no then nothing happens. If a user agrees to help the Mozilla effort by submitting crash data then she is prompted with optional fields for including her e-mail address, the URL that triggered the crash and a comment. That user-entered data along with a stacktrace of the crash is sent to a Talkback server at Netscape which is accessible to many of the Mozilla developers. In aggregate, all of the crash data can very quickly point out specific problems being encountered by large groups of users. A small team of engineers pour through these aggregate reports and turn them into bugzilla bugs with good debug information which leads to quick fixing of the most high-profile stability problems. To see some of these bugs, query bugzilla for the keywords topcrash and topcrash+

What else: Talkback is not spyware, adware or anything of the like. Users are clearly prompted and asked to submit the report. User data unrelated to the Mozilla crash isn't at all useful to us. We only care about making Mozilla more stable. If you don't want to help Mozilla and Firefox become more stable by submitting your crash reports then don't. No data is being sent without your explicit consent. I'd encourage anyone that wants to see this browser improve to submit those reports. They are very, very helpful. But, like I said, if you don't want to, then don't. Just remember that we can't fix the bugs we can't identify. If you're happy seeing the same crash over and over then don't worry about sending in that report.

So, the next time you see a Firefox Talkback dialogue, submit that debug information!

Gmail Search Power Tips!

Search on your Gmail like a pro with these power tips! Ofcourse you could use the search options to do these, but learning the "keyword" options is plain faster and little more powerful especially when you want to find mails between particular dates.

There are few keywords that you can use in the search box you see above (appears when you load Gmail)

from:
to:
subject:
label:
after:
before:
in:
is:
has:

For the above, you could provide the following options as below

from:

from: {email address}
from: {name}

to:

to : {email address}
to : {name}

subject:

subject: {subject}

after:

after: {date in any known format} - For example : March 25, 10/10/2006, etc

before:

before: {date in any known format} - For example : March 25, 10/10/2006, etc

in:

in: inbox (Searches Inbox)
in: chat (Searches Chat)
in: drafts (Searches Drafts)
in: spam (Searches spam)
in: trash (Searches Trash)
in: anywhere (Searches All the Mail including Trash & Spam)


is:

is: starred (Searches Starred Mail)
is: sent (Searches Sent Mail)
is:read (Searches Read Mail)
is:unread (Searches Unread Mail)

has:

has:attachment (Checks for mail with Attachment)

label:

label: {label_name} (Checks in mail with Label name)

Other general options include

{search_keyword} and - {search_keyword} which means search for {search_keyword} or doesn't have {search_keyword} in your mail


Example:

Find all mail which was addressed to techflock before 19th Dec 2006 and After 1st November 2006 and has networking but not basic in the mail with IMP as label

Your search query would be

before:2006/12/19 after:2006/11/01 to:techflock label:IMP in:anywhere networking -basic

I use these filters to re-label (or delete) old mails. You could create Filters too... however, Google doesn't have the option to use before: after: keywords in your filter.

India Vs West Indies Audio Commentary

Pass on this link!

Take a screenshot from your X terminal

You can take screenshots from your X terminal using a command called import.

Type in the following on your terminal

sleep 5; import -window root snap.png

Ubuntu Alternatives for Windows Programs

Word Processing

Windows: Word

Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org Writer

Alternatives: Abiword

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

sudo apt-get install abiword

Spreadsheet

Windows: Excel

Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org Calc

Alternatives: Gnumeric

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

sudo apt-get install gnumeric

Presentation

Windows: PowerPoint

Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org Impress

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

Database

Windows: Access

Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org Base

Alternatives: Glom

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

sudo apt-get install glom

Web Browser

Windows: Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox

Ubuntu: Mozilla Firefox

Alternatives: Epiphany, Mozilla

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install mozilla-firefox

sudo apt-get install epiphany

sudo apt-get install mozilla-browser

E-Mail

Windows: Outlook Express, Outlook, or Mozilla Thunderbird

Ubuntu: Evolution

Alternatives: Mozilla Thunderbird

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install evolution

sudo apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird


Media Players

Windows: Windows Media Player, iTunes, Winamp, VLC

Ubuntu: Rhythmbox, Totem Movie Player

Alternatives: Banshee, Muine, Beep Media Player, Mplayer, VLC

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install rhythmbox

sudo apt-get install totem

sudo apt-get install banshee

sudo apt-get install muine

sudo apt-get install beep-media-player

sudo apt-get install mplayer

sudo apt-get install vlc

Photo Editor

Windows: Adobe Photoshop or the GIMP

Ubuntu: The GIMP

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install gimp

Instant Messaging

Windows: AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, or Gaim

Ubuntu: Gaim

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install gaim

Voice Over IP

Windows: Skype or GizmoProject

Ubuntu: Ekiga Softphone or Skype

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install ekiga

sudo apt-get install skype
(Requires download or addition to apt sources)
Office and Finance

Personal Accounting

Windows: Quicken, Microsoft Money

Ubuntu: Grisbi, Gnucash

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install grisbi

sudo apt-get install gnucash

Desktop Publishing

Windows: Microsoft Publisher

Ubuntu: Scribus

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install scribus

Project Management

Windows: Microsoft Project

Ubuntu: Planner

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install planner

Drawing and Modeling

Vector Drawing

Windows: Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape

Ubuntu: Inkscape

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install inkscape

3D Modeler

Windows: Alias Maya, Blender

Ubuntu: Blender

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install blender

Diagram Editing

Windows: Microsoft Visio

Ubuntu : Dia

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install dia

Games and Edutainment

Planetarium

Windows: Starry Night, Voyager III

Ubuntu: Stellarium

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install stellarium

Space Simulator

Windows: Orbiter

Ubuntu: Celestia

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install celestia

Flight Simulator

Windows: Microsoft Flight Simulator, FlightGear

Ubuntu: FlightGear

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install flightgear

Typing Tutor

Windows: Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing

Ubuntu: Tux Typing, Ktouch

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install tuxtype

sudo apt-get install ktouch

Closer Look at iPhone

Online Password Managers - why you should use them...

If you use different passwords for different authentication systems, and you come back from a fairly long vacation, I am sure you would have felt the need for password manager to manage all your passwords :)

Traditionally, you would use Password Manager on your existing system, use a Master Password to access control to your list of passwords - its not secure at all - your system might be prone to attacks from viruses, worms that might destroy your system. Even your passwords list file might be accessible to someone who is smart enough to actually work on it show up your passwords. All said, we can say, its not the safest way to manage your passwords

Recently, there is a trend which has emerged which lets you store your passwords safely by using some very interesting technologies. These password managers allow you to access your passphrase from any browser and access your password lists.

It is important to know how exactly these password managers work and the following illustration gives a fair idea of it



From the above illustration which shows only the decryption part, your data is NEVER stored on the server in a plain format which can be even manipulated or read by even the System Administrators of the server. All the server does is send in encrypted data to a ENVIRONMENT in your browser where data is either encrypted or decrypted based on whether you are saving a new password or reading an existing password.

These password managers usually use one of the strongest encryption methods - AES (Advanced Encrpytion Standard) and is very safe from man-in-the-middle attacks.

Two online password managers which use the above techniques and which you can use would be

Passlet - www.passlet.com

and

Passpack - www.passpack.com

I had tried Passlet couple of months back, and got to know about Passpack recently. First glance, Passpack definitely seems to have better user interface.

Go ahead and create your online password manager account today - both of them are Free!

iPhone ! - Woooooo!

Is it really Woooo ? Check it out at Engadget

How to setup a blog & make money - Part 2

If you haven't read the first part of this series, you should now!

Show it to the world

Once you have setup the blog, comes the difficult time where you understand what your readers really like. However, to understand what they think, you need more visitors - So, we are in deadlock situation

Your new blog would be indexed by Google in about couple of days - which basically means appear on Google Search when someone searches for content that appears on your blog.

Labels, Tags - The new Blogger platform supports labels/tags which is basically used to make the searching job easier for the search engines

Technorati is another place where you should claim your blog - which means that you list your blog on that site and tell the Wolrd tht you own it. TECHFLOCK has a technorati page which shows the sites which link to this blog, ranking etc. Lower the ranking, the better. See the most popular blogs

Money Money Money

If you thought was that it was easy to put up a blog and make money - you are COMPLETELY wrong. Money flow can be slow and low - but usually depends on the number of visitors you get to your blog. Most of the bloggers prefer Google's Adsense program which is easiest to setup and get some ads on your site. Google Adsense is a targeted ad system - which means ads displayed are based on the content you write. There are other options such as Text Link Ads which is a flat link based ad system.

After you signup for Google Adsense, you will get Ad Code which you will have to put on your site - Again, the Blogger help would be a good reference on how to integrate those ads on your blog. You will be sent a check from Google once you earn 100$ or more.

My personal advice is to not think of the money to start off, just concentrate on the content and money will flow in - its the same as in all the other disciplines.

How to setup a blog & make money - Part 1

The other day, someone I know asked me How do I make money through blogs. This article will give a overview of how to setup a blog and sprinkle in those ads that will fetch you some moolah. While I don't claim the blog I am writing to be making loads of money, I can certainly tell you how to start off.

This is a beginner's topic, if you know it all, move away...

If you are still here, lets go....

• Write about something you know
  
  Whenever you plan to start a blog, its very desirable that you know what you are going to put in it. For example: Techcrunch mostly talks about Web 2.0 startups and the services they offer. If you know Opthalmology, offer your readers something that others don't or atleast a subset. Basically, what I am saying is be sure of what you are writing and you have enough content and updates to keep it going in the long run.
  
  
• Update as often as you can
  
  People like updates and learn new things. So, you keep your site updated as often with interesting tidbits of information. Provoke them - see the Basic Networking Commands article a little below in this page if you want an example . Non-Controversial is not good enough :-D.
  
  Hey guys, I do know about netcat, arp, arping ...etc etc. I also know about ettercap which can be used to sniff a on switch based network. Thanks for all those comments - I am sure a lot of people benefit from those very insightful comments :)
  
  Sorry for deviating. So, in summary, you write something interesting, thought and comment provoking :) and most importantly useful.
  
  
• Learn as you go
  
  Believe me, you will never make it popular when you begin. It will take time, as long as a couple of years! Be patient and at it always! You will also discover on what to write that brings in you those visitors gradually. For Example: I learnt that, people like to read content filled articles than tidbits and tips that I used to provide on this blog before. Understanding your reader is part of the process.
  
  
• Set up a blog
  
  For beginners, I would certainly recommend Google's Blogger - You will need a Google Account for that. Think of a name to suit what you write. Once you setup the blog, you will be transferred to the Blogger Dashboard from where you can Start Posting Articles. Google maintains an excellent Help section which you should look at as often as you can especially you are new to blogging.
  
  Once you get started with the above things, we will look at how to put in those money making ads in our next part of the series
  
  
  ..To be Continued ..
  

Checking for rootkits

The term "rootkit" (also written as "root kit") originally referred to a set of recompiled Unix tools such as "ps", "netstat", "w" and "passwd" that would carefully hide any trace of the intruder that those commands would normally display, thus allowing the intruders to maintain "root" on the system without the system administrator even seeing them.

Generally now the term is not restricted to Unix-based operating systems, as tools that perform a similar set of tasks now exist for non-Unix operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, regardless of the existence (or lack of existence) of a "root" in the operating system. (Wikipedia.org)

In Linux, you can check for rootkits using 2 different programs

1. chkrootkit
2. rkhunter

chrootkit

One of the popular rootkit checking programs, this program can check for any
rootkits installed on your local machine

On Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get install chkrootkit

Download from http://www.chkrootkit.org/download/

rkhunter

rkhunter does what chkrootkit does plus a whole lot more.

rkhunter can also be updated with the latest definitions and can be run
through cron as well.

On Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get install rkhunter

Download from http://rkhunter.sourceforge.net/

Apache Performance Tips - Part 1

A few basic tips will go a long way in enhancing your Apache performance. You will have to put in the directives in your httpd.conf or the through a seperate .conf file which you can include through the httpd.conf file.

1. Cache those frequent pages!

How often do you see the Home Page being very slow to load up? A tip would be to use a caching module to cache those pages you think will be loaded very frequently. These pages will be loaded in the memory instead of being retrieved from the filesystem everytime.

Module to use:

mod_file_cache

How and What to use:

There are 2 directives that you can use MMapFile and CacheFile which you can use to Cache the pages you want.

Read the differences between MMapfile and CacheFile

For Example:

CacheFile /home/web2/index.htm
CacheFile /home/web2/about.htm

The above two directives will cache index.htm and about.htm

Don't forget to read the above module page to find out how to cache the contents of a entire directory ;-)

2. Don't use DNS lookups

You don't use the HostNameLookups directive to lookup for dns names in your log file - This is disabled by default in Apache 1.3 and above versions.

Also, make sure you always use a IP address instead of a domain names in your Allow or Deny directives either. It will cost you a lot of performance.

If you need hostnames in your logfile, you just use logresolve

How to use:

HostNameLookUps Off

3. Keep your site alive

HTTP works by requesting for a document over a new connection. So, everytime you request a document, a new socket connection is established, once served, the connection is closed. The time spent for establishing a connection and closing it can be avoided using a directive called KeepAlive

How to use:

KeepAlive On

Other Related Directives

With the above KeepAlive directive, there are 2 other related directives - MaxKeepAliveRequests and KeepAliveTimeout.

MaxKeepAliveRequests is the number of requests to be allowed over a single connection. Default value for MaxKeepAliveRequests is 100. If you have a lot of memory to spare, you could consider putting MaxKeepAliveRequests to 0 to allow unlimited number of connections

KeepAliveTimeout is used to timeout the connection - you don't want to keep the connection established with the client even though they are not using your site - do you ? 15-20 seconds should be a ideal value for KeepAliveTimeout

How to use:

MaxKeepAliveRequests 100
KeepAliveTimeout 20

4. Consider mod_perl

If you are using CGI perl based web application, it pays to consider to using mod_perl

Read this excellent article on mod_perl

How to do it:

PerlModule ModPerl::PerlRun Alias /cgi-bin/ /opt/apache2/cgi-bin/
<location >
SetHandler perl-script
PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
Options +ExecCGI
< /location >

or

PerlModule ModPerl::Registry
Alias /cgi-bin/ /opt/apache2/cgi-bin/
<location >
SetHandler perl-script
PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::Registry
Options +ExecCGI
< /location >
As you see, there are 2 ways to go about using mod_perl, one is the PerlRun method and other is the Registry method basic difference being that in Registry method, code is cached after compilation whereas it isn't . Read more about the porting guidelines

5. Share the load

If you have 2 or more webservers - you can share the load amongst them by shifting some of the pages to the other webserver.

Module to use:

mod_proxy

How and What to use:

ProxyPass /images/ http://web2.techflock.com/
ProxyPassReverse /images/ http://web2.techflock.com/

Read about the above directives at Apache documentation

...to be continued ..

Meanwhile you can also go through Apache Tuning

10 useful Linux programs you hardly use!

We list out 10 Linux (available on other platforms too!) programs and commands you would probably wouldn't know, nevertheless, and probably very useful.
Not related to each other and just a assorted collection...

Few of these programs have to be installed either through your distribution's package manager

1. catdoc

Got a M$ doc file and don't want to use OpenOffice to open that ? Check the contents of a doc file on your terminal! Get catdoc which does a decent job of converting your doc to text file

Get catdoc

Ubuntu/Debian Users - sudo apt-get install catdoc

Usage: catdoc {name_of_file.doc}

2. pdftotext

Have a pdf and want to convert to a text file ? pdftotext which is included in most of the distributions lets you do just that. pdftotext is part of the xpdf package and can be downloaded here

Ubuntu/Debian Users - sudo apt-get install xpdf

3. pdftk

The swiss-army knife if you have to do anything with pdf manipulation! Read more and get pdftk

Ubuntu/Debian Users - sudo apt-get install pdftk

4. whois

Don't spit fire on me but I know quite a few people who don't know about this one. Hey! there is no shame in learning. This one lets you check who is the domain owner of a ipaddress or domain name. Get it here

Ubuntu/Debian Users - sudo apt-get install whois

5.vimtutor

Want to learn vim? Use the vimtutor - Comes bundled with vim. Gets you started for sure

6. zless, bzless

Have a gzipped or bzipped text file? No need to gunzip or bunzip2 them. View them directly !

Usage:

zless {name_of_file.txt.gz}

bzless {name_of_file.txt.bz2}

7. strings

Mostly used by programmers to check printable "strings" in binaries and libraries - VERY Useful when you want to find out where exactly the error messages are coming from when you are using man third party libraries

strings {name_of_file}

8. x11vnc

x11vnc is a vncserver that lets you run a vncserver on your current X display. I just love it! Are there any other ? I found this and didn't go beyond it find any other!

Get it here

Ubuntu/Debian - sudo apt-get install x11vnc

9. tidy

Got badly idented code ? tidy it up using this nifty program - there are perl, Java and Python versions of tidy too

Get it

10. ssh-agent

Do you type in those passphrases everytime you ssh to a machine? Make those passphrase logins go away with ssh-agent

Read here

Debian package management basics you should know !

For people who shift from the platforms like Fedora, Mandriva to Ubuntu or Debian - Package management is much more pleasant that you would love using it almost everyday.

These are the most basic commands & utilities that I use on my debian based
system (Ubuntu) which will enhance your package management experience even
more!

The commands are

dpkg

dpkg is at the heart of debian package management system. All the other
programs invoke dpkg which does the package operations and returns the status.

Options of dpkg that I use:

Install a deb package - dpkg -i {packagename}.deb
Remove a deb package - dpkg -r {packagename}
Search for a file in all the installed packages - dpkg -S {name_of_file}
Status of a package - dpkg -s {packagename}

apt-get

apt-get is a frontend to dpkg and is probably the most packaging command for
debian users. It finds out exactly what the dependencies are, fetches them and
installs them

Options of apt-get that I use:

Install a package and its dependencies - apt-get install {packagename}
Remove a package and its dependents - apt-get remove {packagename}
Update the list of packages - apt-get update
Upgrade the package list - apt-get upgrade
Get the source of package - apt-get source {packagename}

apt-cache

apt-cache is mostly a add-on to help you find new packages :)

Options of apt-cache that I use:

Find all the packages which have {keyword} in name/description - apt-cache search "{keyword}"

apt-cache showpkg {packagename} - same as dpkg -s

apt-file

apt-file is a nifty command to find out which package a file belongs to

This was covered a few days back - here

synaptic

Okay, don't like command line? synaptic is a graphical interface for doing all the above :)

Please Note that you will need root access to most of the above commands except for ones where you just check status, etc.

Basic Networking Commands you should know!

This would be mostly (*)nix based command set - Here we go...

1. ping {hostname}
   Lets you check whether your internet connection is alive or lost
   Example : ping techflock.blogspot.com
   
   
2. traceroute {hostname}
   Lets you trace packets and find if your connection is broken beyond your ip address. Also can be used to track the number of hops to get to the hostname
   Example: traceroute techflock.blogspot.com
   
   
3. ifconfig
   Find out your ip address, your network interfaces, transferred and received data information
   Example : ifconfig
   
   
4. nslookup {hostname}
   Find out the dns name resolves to a IP - a way to test your dns server
   Example: nslookup techflock.blogspot.com
   
   
5. dig {hostname}
   Does the same as above and provides other dns related information
   Example: dig techflock.blogspot.com
   
   
6. netstat -a
   Find out all the open ports on your machine
   Example: netstat -a
   
   
7. netstat -nt
   Display all the tcp based established connections on your machine
   Example: netstat -nt
   
   
8. telnet {hostname} {port}
   Telnet or connect to a machine at the specified port to find out whether that machine/server is working right
   Example: telnet techflock.blogspot.com 80
   

Ofcourse, there are many other options within each of these commands which you can find out through the manual pages by typing man {command}

Update: Some of the commands might be in /sbin or /usr/sbin paths and might not be in default PATH. So go and execute it from there! For Example: /sbin/ifconfig

apxs - APache eXtenSion tool

apxs is a apache tool which lets you build and install apache extensions. All the modules built using apxs are loaded dynamically at runtime using the LoadModule directive

To know more about apxs - head to the Apache site

Mask your Site

We present to you a few feature as well as security enhancements to mask your webserver and site from web attacks!

• Do not use a default extension even though you use a language like php or aspx. If you can make it go away in entirety - the better! And do use Clean URLs Search engines love Clean URLs
• Modify your header information so that it returns something not so obvious. Take a look at mod_headers module
• Do not use CGI or SSI (Server Side Includes) - both of them are heavy on the server and vulnerable to attacks
• If you have a popular site, you might want to consider using something like Modsecurity which is a web application firewall which allows real time monitoring and analysis
• Get a book - Apache Security is a good start
  

CSS Cheat Sheet

See here