Ok starting from the beginning.

1. RealTek Audio & Vista:

This has been bothering me for a while actually but I finally found a way to fix it. occasionally programs would lose sound. This persisted across restarts and updating drivers hadn’t helped. So what I noticed is that when programs stop working the sound mixer app would have a listing for “unnamed application” that was permanently stuck there. So the thing I’ve found that fixes it is to go to “control panel” then click on “sound” select your active output then click on “Properties” go to the “Advanced” tab then under the “default format” and select anything other than what you have now. click apply and then change it back and click apply again. For me this works 100% of the time. And has fixed issues with games such as crysis and COD5 where they lost there sound.

as for #2. The IRC Bot:

I’ve recently managed to get a test irc server setup on my local network so that I don’t have to make changes on a live system. And found that it doesn’t work right on this system (ubuntu 8.04 and inspircd) it appears that the welcome method isn’t triggered when it connects to the server. so it just sits there without joining any channels (among other things). I’m working to fix this and will post an updated version eventually.

In response to the search terms that are bringing people here to find my modified irc bot I’ll give you the following.

if you want to be able to private message the irc bot to kick someone from your channel it’s very easy to add (or if your a network oper this bot does support a server kill and a kline with very little effort).

The following is the only thing you would need to add to the bot to kick people on command. Please note that this does not check to see who sent the command so if people find out the command anybody could kick anybody with a lower privilege than the bot (for instance if the bot is half op ANYBODY that knows this command could kick people with voice or below but not a full chan op or chan founder)

   def kick(m,origin,args,text,bot=bot):
       cmd = text.split() #get the individual words in the command
       bot.kick(cmd[1],cmd[2]) #cmd[1] is the channel cmd[2] is the persons nick
   bot.rule(kick,'kick',r'!kick')

so the bot now looks like.

#!/usr/bin/python
"""
ircbot.py - An IRC Bot Basis in Python

License:
   W3C Open Source License; share and enjoy!

http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software-19980720

Original:

http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2000/scribe-bot/ircAsync.py

   Dan Connolly and Tim Berners-Lee
   Copyright (c) 2001 W3C (MIT, INRIA, Keio)

Augmentations' Author:
   Sean B. Palmer, inamidst.com

This version updated by: Serinox

"""

import sys, os, re, socket, asyncore, asynchat, re, commands

protect = True
filename = "irc.log"
FILE = open(filename,"a")

proxyacl = "/usr/local/proxy/conf/access.conf"

PACL = open(filename,"a")

class Origin(object):
   def __init__(self, origin):
      self.origin = origin
      self.split(origin)

   def __str__(self):
      return self.origin

   def split(self, origin):
      if origin and '!' in origin:
         self.nick, userHost = origin.split('!', 1)
         if '@' in userHost:
            self.user, self.host = userHost.split('@', 1)
         else: self.user, self.host = userHost, None
      else: self.nick, self.user, self.host = origin, None, None

   def replyTo(self, nickname, args):
      if (not args) or (len(args) < 2): return
      target = args[1]
      if target == nickname:
         self.sender = self.nick
      else: self.sender = target

def ctcp(s): return 'x01%sx01' % s
def me(s): return ctcp('ACTION %s' % s)

class Bot(asynchat.async_chat):
   def __init__(self, nick=None, userid=None, name=None, channels=None):
      asynchat.async_chat.__init__(self)
      self.bufIn = ''
      self.set_terminator('rn')

      self.nick = nick or 'Ted'
      self.userid = userid or 'Ted'
      self.name = name or 'Ted'

      self.documentation = {}
      self.info = {}
      self.dispatch = []
      self.msgstack = []

      self.channels = channels or ['#test']
      self.rule(self.welcome, 'welcome', cmd='001')
      self.rule(self.help, 'help', '%s[:,] help (w+)??' % self.nick)

   def run(self, host, port):
      port = port or 6667
      self.create_socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
      debug("connecting to...", host, port)
      self.connect((host, port))
      self.bufIn = ''
      asyncore.loop()

   def welcome(self, m, origin, args, text):
      for chan in self.channels:
         self.todo(['JOIN', chan])
      self.msg("nickserv","identify NICKSERV PASSWORD")
      self.todo(['OPER',"Phil Poper123!"])

   def help(self, m, origin, args, text):
      command = m.group(1)
      if self.documentation.has_key(command):
         doc = self.documentation[command]
         self.msg(origin.sender, '%s: %s' % (command, doc))
      else: self.msg(origin.sender, 'No help available for %s.' % command)

   def todo(self, args, *text):
      command = ' '.join(args)
      if text: command = command + ' :' + ' '.join(text)

      self.push(command + 'rn')
      debug("sent/pushed command:", command)

   def handle_connect(self):
      debug("connected")

      self.todo(['PASS',"IRC SERVER PASSWORD"])
      self.todo(['NICK', self.nick])
      self.todo(['USER', self.userid, "+iw", self.nick], self.name)

   def collect_incoming_data(self, bytes):
      self.bufIn = self.bufIn + bytes
      FILE = open(filename,"a")
      FILE.writelines(self.bufIn+"n")
      FILE.close()
   def found_terminator(self):
      line = self.bufIn
      self.bufIn = ''

      if line.startswith(':'):
         origin, line = line[1:].split(' ', 1)
         origin = Origin(origin)
      else: origin = None

      try: args, text = line.split(' :', 1)
      except ValueError:
         args, text = line, ''
      args = args.split()

      if origin: origin.replyTo(self.nick, args)
      debug("from::", origin, "|message::", args, "|text::", text)
      self.rxdMsg(args, text, origin)

   def rule(self, func, name, regexp=None, doc=None, cmd=None):
      if isinstance(regexp, basestring):
         regexp = re.compile(regexp)
      if self.documentation.has_key(name):
         raise "DispatchError", "Function %s already added" % name
      doc = doc or func.__doc__
      if doc and doc.strip():
         self.documentation[name] = doc
      self.dispatch.append((cmd or 'PRIVMSG', regexp, func))

   def bind(self, func, cmd, regexp):
      self.dispatch.append((cmd, re.compile(regexp), func))

   def rxdMsg(self, args, text, origin):
      if args[0] == 'PING':
         self.todo(['PONG', text])

      for cmd, pat, thunk in self.dispatch:
         if args[0] == cmd:
            if pat:
               m = pat.search(text)
               if not m: continue
            else: m = None

            if protect:
               try: thunk(m, origin, args, text)
               except Exception, e:
                  try: self.msg(origin.sender, "%s: %s" % (e.__class__, e))
                  except: print >> sys.stderr, "%s: %s" % (e.__class__, e)
            else: thunk(m, origin, args, text)

   def pushMsg(self, msg):
      self.msgstack = self.msgstack[-9:]
      self.msgstack.append(msg)

   def msg(self, dest, text):
      # Flood protection
      if self.msgstack.count(text) >= 50:
         text = '...'
      if self.msgstack.count('...') >= 20:
         if text == '...': return

      if len(''.join(self.msgstack[:-3])) > 200:
         import time
         time.sleep(2)

      self.pushMsg(text)
      self.todo(['PRIVMSG', dest], text)

   def kick(self, dest, text):
      self.todo(['KICK', dest], text)

   #def join(self, chan):
   #   self.todo(['JOIN', chan])

   def safeMsg(self, channel, lines):
      import time
      for line in lines:
         if line: self.msg(channel, line)
         time.sleep(1)
         if len(line) > 50: time.sleep(0.7)

   def notice(self, dest, text):
      self.todo(['NOTICE', dest], text)

def debug(*args):
   sys.stderr.write("DEBUG: ")
   for a in args:
      sys.stderr.write(str(a))
   sys.stderr.write("n")
def doubleFork():
   # http://swhack.com/logs/2004-05-12#T10-20-11
   # http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/66012
   try:
      pid = os.fork()
      if pid > 0: sys.exit(0)
   except OSError, e:
      print >> sys.stderr, "fork #1 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
      sys.exit(1)
   os.chdir("/")
   os.setsid()
   os.umask(0)
   try:
      pid = os.fork()
      if pid > 0:
         print "Daemon PID %d" % pid
         sys.exit(0)
   except OSError, e:
      print >> sys.stderr, "fork #2 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
      sys.exit(1)

def test(host, port, channels):
   bot = Bot(nick='Ted', channels=channels)

   Troutex = re.compile(".*?(trout)")
   def trout(m, origin, args, text, bot=bot):
      bot.kick(origin.sender, origin.nick)
   bot.rule(trout, 'trout', Troutex)

   def action(m,origin,args,text,bot=bot):
       cmd = text.split()
       chan = cmd[1]
       cmd[0] = ""
       cmd[1] = ""
       cmd.remove("")
       cmd = " ".join(cmd)
       bot.msg(chan,"
ACTION "+cmd+"
")
   bot.rule(action,'action',r'!action')

   def kick(m,origin,args,text,bot=bot):
       cmd = text.split() #get the individual words in the command
       bot.kick(cmd[1],cmd[2]) #cmd[1] is the channel cmd[2] is the persons nick
   bot.rule(kick,'kick',r'!kick')

   bot.run(host, port)

if __name__=='__main__':
   test('SERVERIP', PORTNUMBER, ['#CHANNEL'])

Telling the bot to kick someone would be done like so.

/msg <BotName> !kick <channel> <targets nick>

I’ve used this in the past to give semi-trustworthy people the ability to kick people from the room without giving them anything above +v in a channel. Alternatively this could be extended to kick people when they say something specific (e.g. trout).

From engadget With sequential read speeds of 1.2 GB/s and sequential write speeds of 1.3 GB/s on can imagine how fast a basic operating system would load (vista would border on usable!) at 2tb in size you could replace all of your hard drives with one of these doodads in raid 5.

If only I had a desktop (and several thousand dollars.)

Since most people come across the site after searching for a python irc bot I thought I would clean mine up and make it a little more generic (the previous version had triggers that only worked on my system) this new version is generic.

So once again in python!

#!/usr/bin/python
##"""
##ircbot.py - An IRC Bot Basis in Python
##
##License:
##   W3C Open Source License; share and enjoy!
##   http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software-19980720
##
##Original:
##   http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2000/scribe-bot/ircAsync.py
##   Dan Connolly and Tim Berners-Lee
##   Copyright (c) 2001 W3C (MIT, INRIA, Keio)
##
##Augmentations' Author:
##   Sean B. Palmer, inamidst.com
##
##This version updated by: Serinox
##"""
##
import sys, os, re, socket, asyncore, asynchat, re, commands

protect = True
filename = "irc.log"
FILE = open(filename,"a")

class Origin(object):
   def __init__(self, origin):
      self.origin = origin
      self.split(origin)

   def __str__(self):
      return self.origin

   def split(self, origin):
      if origin and '!' in origin:
         self.nick, userHost = origin.split('!', 1)
         if '@' in userHost:
            self.user, self.host = userHost.split('@', 1)
         else: self.user, self.host = userHost, None
      else: self.nick, self.user, self.host = origin, None, None

   def replyTo(self, nickname, args):
      if (not args) or (len(args) < 2): return
      target = args[1]
      if target == nickname:
         self.sender = self.nick
      else: self.sender = target

def ctcp(s): return '\x01%s\x01' % s
def me(s): return ctcp('ACTION %s' % s)

class Bot(asynchat.async_chat):
   def __init__(self, nick=None, userid=None, name=None, channels=None):
      asynchat.async_chat.__init__(self)
      self.bufIn = ''
      self.set_terminator('\r\n')

      self.nick = nick or 'Ted'
      self.userid = userid or 'Ted'
      self.name = name or 'Ted'

      self.documentation = {}
      self.info = {}
      self.dispatch = []
      self.msgstack = []

      self.channels = channels or ['#test']
      self.rule(self.welcome, 'welcome', cmd='001')
      self.rule(self.help, 'help', '%s[:,] help (\w+)\??' % self.nick)

   def run(self, host, port):
      port = port or 6667
      self.create_socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
      debug("connecting to...", host, port)
      self.connect((host, port))
      self.bufIn = ''
      asyncore.loop()

   def welcome(self, m, origin, args, text):
      for chan in self.channels:
         self.todo(['JOIN', chan])
      self.msg("nickserv","identify NICKSERV PASSWORD")
      self.todo(['OPER',"Phil Poper123!"])

   def help(self, m, origin, args, text):
      command = m.group(1)
      if self.documentation.has_key(command):
         doc = self.documentation[command]
         self.msg(origin.sender, '%s: %s' % (command, doc))
      else: self.msg(origin.sender, 'No help available for %s.' % command)

   def todo(self, args, *text):
      command = ' '.join(args)
      if text: command = command + ' :' + ' '.join(text)

      self.push(command + '\r\n')
      debug("sent/pushed command:", command)

   def handle_connect(self):
      debug("connected")
      self.todo(['PASS',"IRC SERVER PASSWORD"])
      self.todo(['NICK', self.nick])
      self.todo(['USER', self.userid, "+iw", self.nick], self.name)

   def collect_incoming_data(self, bytes):
      self.bufIn = self.bufIn + bytes
      FILE = open(filename,"a")
      FILE.writelines(self.bufIn+"\n")
      FILE.close()
   def found_terminator(self):
      line = self.bufIn
      self.bufIn = ''

      if line.startswith(':'):
         origin, line = line[1:].split(' ', 1)
         origin = Origin(origin)
      else: origin = None

      try: args, text = line.split(' :', 1)
      except ValueError:
         args, text = line, ''
      args = args.split()

      if origin: origin.replyTo(self.nick, args)
      debug("from::", origin, "|message::", args, "|text::", text)
      self.rxdMsg(args, text, origin)

   def rule(self, func, name, regexp=None, doc=None, cmd=None):
      if isinstance(regexp, basestring):
         regexp = re.compile(regexp)
      if self.documentation.has_key(name):
         raise "DispatchError", "Function %s already added" % name
      doc = doc or func.__doc__
      if doc and doc.strip():
         self.documentation[name] = doc
      self.dispatch.append((cmd or 'PRIVMSG', regexp, func))

   def bind(self, func, cmd, regexp):
      self.dispatch.append((cmd, re.compile(regexp), func))

   def rxdMsg(self, args, text, origin):
      if args[0] == 'PING':
         self.todo(['PONG', text])

      for cmd, pat, thunk in self.dispatch:
         if args[0] == cmd:
            if pat:
               m = pat.search(text)
               if not m: continue
            else: m = None

            if protect:
               try: thunk(m, origin, args, text)
               except Exception, e:
                  try: self.msg(origin.sender, "%s: %s" % (e.__class__, e))
                  except: print >> sys.stderr, "%s: %s" % (e.__class__, e)
            else: thunk(m, origin, args, text)

   def pushMsg(self, msg):
      self.msgstack = self.msgstack[-9:]
      self.msgstack.append(msg)

   def msg(self, dest, text):
      # Flood protection
      if self.msgstack.count(text) >= 50:
         text = '...'
      if self.msgstack.count('...') >= 20:
         if text == '...': return

      if len(''.join(self.msgstack[:-3])) > 200:
         import time
         time.sleep(2)

      self.pushMsg(text)
      self.todo(['PRIVMSG', dest], text)

   def kick(self, dest, text):
      self.todo(['KICK', dest], text)

   #def join(self, chan):
   #   self.todo(['JOIN', chan])

   def safeMsg(self, channel, lines):
      import time
      for line in lines:
         if line: self.msg(channel, line)
         time.sleep(1)
         if len(line) > 50: time.sleep(0.7)

   def notice(self, dest, text):
      self.todo(['NOTICE', dest], text)

def debug(*args):
   sys.stderr.write("DEBUG: ")
   for a in args:
      sys.stderr.write(str(a))
   sys.stderr.write("\n")
def doubleFork():
   # http://swhack.com/logs/2004-05-12#T10-20-11
   # http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/66012
   try:
      pid = os.fork()
      if pid > 0: sys.exit(0)
   except OSError, e:
      print >> sys.stderr, "fork #1 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
      sys.exit(1)
   os.chdir("/")
   os.setsid()
   os.umask(0)
   try:
      pid = os.fork()
      if pid > 0:
         print "Daemon PID %d" % pid
         sys.exit(0)
   except OSError, e:
      print >> sys.stderr, "fork #2 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
      sys.exit(1)

def test(host, port, channels):
   bot = Bot(nick='Ted', channels=channels)

   def hi(m, origin, args, text, bot=bot):
      bot.msg(origin.sender, "hi %s" % origin.nick)
   bot.rule(hi, 'hi', r'hi %s' % bot.nick)

   def action(m,origin,args,text,bot=bot):
       cmd = text.split()
       chan = cmd[1]
       cmd[0] = ""
       cmd[1] = ""
       cmd.remove("")
       cmd = " ".join(cmd)
       bot.msg(chan,"
ACTION "+cmd+"
")
   bot.rule(action,'action',r'!action')

#   def oper(m,origin,args,text,bot=bot):
#       bot.todo(['OPER',"OperName Operpass"])
#   bot.rule(oper,'oper',r'oper')

   def kill(m,origin,args,text,bot=bot):
       cmd = text.split()
       cmd = "%s killed_you_dead" % cmd[1]
       bot.todo(['KILL',cmd])
   bot.rule(kill,'kill',r'!!!kill')

#   def ip(m, origin, args, text, bot=bot):
#      bot.msg(origin.sender, "Getting IP informantion")
#      cmd = text.split()
#      cmd = "nslookup %s" % cmd[1]
#      result = commands.getoutput(cmd)
#      print cmd
#      fixed = result.splitlines()
#      found = 0
#      for i in fixed:
#           if (i.find(r"Address:") != -1 and i.find(r"#") == -1):
#                 bot.msg(origin.sender, i)
#                 found = 1;
#      if found <> 1:
#            bot.msg(origin.sender, "Not Found")
#   bot.rule(ip, 'ip', r'!ip')
#
#   def whois(m, origin, args, text, bot=bot):
#      bot.msg(origin.sender, "Getting WhoIs informantion")
#      cmd = text.split()
#      cmd = "whois %s" % cmd[1]
#      result = commands.getoutput(cmd)
#      print cmd
#      fixed = result.splitlines()
#      found = 0
#      for i in fixed:
#           if i.find(r"Name Server:") != -1:
#                 bot.msg(origin.sender, i)
#                 found = 1;
#      if found <> 1:
#            bot.msg(origin.sender, "Not Found")
#   bot.rule(whois, 'whois', r'!whois')

   bot.run(host, port)

if __name__=='__main__':
   test('localhost', 6667, ['#test'])

This bot has only 2 commands (its very easy to add more!) the first is a kick command:

   Troutex = re.compile(".*?(trout)")
   def trout(m, origin, args, text, bot=bot):
      bot.kick(origin.sender, origin.nick)
   bot.rule(trout, 'trout', p)

This command reads what people are saying in a channel and will kick them if they mention trout (either in a sentence or a /me action) The bot needs to be op’ed in the channel to kick the person.

The second command is a action command.

   def action(m,origin,args,text,bot=bot):
       cmd = text.split()
       chan = cmd[1]
       cmd[0] = ""
       cmd[1] = ""
       cmd.remove("")
       cmd = " ".join(cmd)
       bot.msg(chan,"
ACTION "+cmd+"
")
   bot.rule(action,'action',r'!action')

this command causes the bot to look for a line that looks like this “!action #channel I like fish” this will cause the bot to output something like “/me I like fish” into the channel specified.

So hopefully this helps all you people out there looking to make your own irc bots. This is stripped down pretty much to the basics (except for the fact that it logs all of its debug messages and input to a file called irc.log in the same folder as the script) so have fun with it.

EDIT: when I posted this an invisible character got added to the code that caused it not to run. I think I have fixed it.

Today I got attacked by several ip’s trying to force my website’s php system to load a url include that would have taken down the site if it had been successful (or if the php had been written correctly, which it wasn’t).

Sadly all the attacks came from spoofed ip address’s (and appear to have been bots because there was less than one second between the attacks) that lead back to marketing firms in Europe, some banks in Korea, Plesk the anti-spam group, and a cpanel configuration login page. So sadly I can’t report any of these because there all spoofed. But at least my website is still working .