My Software and Related Goodies

This page contains links to some of the little tools and libraries that I've written to make my life easier. Unless otherwise marked in the package, these codes are freeware: you are free to modify or distribute them as you see fit. You may send questions or comments to me at brabec@ncsu.edu and I'll answer them as my time allows.

This is a mod_perl PerlAccessHandler that provides an additional level of security on Apache webservers that allow the FollowSymLinks option. See the manpage for more information.

I may try to submit this to CPAN at some point. If you find this module useful, please let me know.

This module is a TIEHASH interface which lets you tie a Perl hash to a directory of eval-able Perl datafiles. This allows you to store a large hash of complex values of perl references, and manipulate it with a controlled amount of in-memory overhead. See the manpage for more information.

I may try to submit this to CPAN at some point. If you find this module useful, please let me know.

This script consists of a self-contained simple HTTP server and a proxy agent for making searches at AltaVista. The proxy is written to automatically repeat queries so you can collect more than 10 results at a time. It also strips out any images and banner ads, leaving you with just the search results and no clutter. To use it, start the script on your machine and point your browser to http://localhost:8880/. (Unless you change the port number in the top of the code.) The script will run under the standard perl 5.004_02 binary distribution for Windows.

This code is obsolete... AltaVista has changed their output format at least once since I wrote it and I do not care to keep it up. It really should be rewritten to use the new WWW::Search perl module anyway.

This is my quick-and-dirty nslookup replacement. If you give it a named IP address, it will lookup the IP number, and attempt to reverse-lookup the name registered to that number. If you give it an IP number, it will lookup the registered name. It can also parse some email addresses and URL's and lookup the IP portions. It can parse and decode long-integer IP addresses, a favorite trick spammers use to try to hide the domains in their spam.

This is a Perl/Tk port of another author's Tcl/Tk interface to the standard whois program. This code is specifically written to lookup people in NCSU's whois database, but it could be modified to other environments fairly easily.

This is a Perl/Tk script. It creates an xwindow that lists the unread email in my mailboxes. I am a Mutt user, so I only know for certain that it works with Mutt mailboxes. Basically, you need to go into the script and tell it where your mail directory lives, which files to watch, whether you want to display each unread message or just a count in each mailbox, and the polling rate for updates.

I see there are a few poeple who find this page looking for a free software way to generate PDF files. The CD Cover program below uses the free Aladdin Ghostscript 5.50 package to perform the conversion. From what I've seen it will do as good a job at converting simple PS documents as Adobe Distiller. This perl module is a trivial wrapper for the 'gs' command that does the actual conversion. You can use it as is (after setting the two paths in the top of the code) or modify it to suit your needs.

I have lots of little scripts like these that I find handy. I'll add them here as my time permits.

A CGI tool that I wrote to generate a simple jewel-box liner. A handy thing for people with CD burners who assemble their own CDs. The code generates Postscript, but it can also convert that on the fly to Acrobat PDF for those that prefer it.

MKPasswd is a simple Palm Pilot application which generates a list of 8 character passwords. The program selects an initial character at random and then chooses following characters based upon pair-frequencies in the English language. The result is usually a pronounceable nonsense word. The passwords can be further randomized by changing a few random characters to uppercase, or by replacing a few characters with random numbers.

A few examples: vaseZin8, coIlcic4, Igi0fona, vEniency.