Kok-Yan's blog

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:46:39 GMT

If you like watching TV shows involving meaningful relationship dramas, "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" is definitely worth watching.

You can get more information on the show here, or you can download them here.

A reminder to myself

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:18:51 GMT

This is a message written for myself, may the wise advise and rebuke my words.

I have loved, but yet my heart is still broken.
I have worked, but yet achieved nothing.
I have slept, but yet I'm still restless.
I have been fed, but yet I'm still hungry.

Life is full of disappointments, but...

Treasure every moment you have, for happiness never last.
Seek wisdom before the night is upon you, for the ensuing pain will disable you;
Trust and have faith, for many questions will bring sorrow,
Be careful and concise with words, for fools of fools speak quickly and verbosely,
Choose honorable actions over words, for a picture is worth a thousand words,
Be honest and earnest, for deceptions will not go unpunished,
Learn from disappointments, for you will gain invaluable experiences.

Without guidance from the wise, you will be condemned for eternity.

Boston Typewriter Orchestra

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:00:15 GMT

If you like listening to weird sounds, the Boston Typewriter Orchestra is surely up your road.

They are a group of people who use old typewritters to make really interesting rhythmic beats. You can check out their website here and get some audio samples here.

A must-see lecture on how you should live your life

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:17:08 GMT

I must admit, the past week had been very difficult and I was deeply upset by a chain of events that I cannot comprehend at the time. The following lecture allowed me to see the reasons behind those events and have changed my view on the situation entirely, and also life in general, for the better.

The lecture was given by professor Randy Pausch in September 2007 (after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer) and is titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.". In the lecture, he talks about his own life and his life philosophies, and is deeply meaningful and very positive.

Please spend some time watching the video and looking at the slides - I'm sure you'll find something really positive from it.

Unsure messages

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:16:36 GMT

I don't usually write about personal stuff on here but recent events has taught me to never forget a very important rule - if you are not sure about saying something, don't say it - no exceptions.

The last 2 words "no exceptions" are very important; the last time this happened, I managed to refrain from pressing the "send" button and I was glad I did that. This time round, I let one such message slip through and it made a simple situation really complicated, and may have far-reaching and tremendous consequences because of this.

So please, for everyone who is reading this, if you can't refrain from writing that email, at least save whatever you're planning to send until the next morning. Think about it, think some more, and delete / archive it - but never send it.

BSG Toaster

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:49:07 GMT

Lol, this just cracked me up when I saw it.

It is actually availiable for sale at the NBC Universial store!

Returning an array from a Bash function

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:39:18 GMT

For those of you who are still learning Bash (including me...), I'm sure one of the things you would have asked yourself is "How on earth do I return an array from a bash function?".

Well I've written a small script that will explain this:

#!/bin/bash
IFS=$'\n\t'

function fnGo () {
	array=(
		a	s	d	f	
		"gh ij"	"kl mn"
	)
	echo "${array[*]}"
}

# -------- out - String variable --------
out=$(fnGo)
echo "\"out\" isn't an array: ${out[1]} - nothing"

echo $'\n'"\"out\" Works with iteration:"
for item in $out; do
	echo "item:"$'\t'"$item"
done

# -------- out2 - An array --------
out2=($(fnGo))
echo $'\n'"\"out2\" now an array:"
for ((i=0; i<${#out2[*]}; i++)); do
	echo "item $i:"$'\t'"${out2[i]}"
done

echo $'\n'"Though \"out2\" cannot be iterated anymore...:"
for item in $out2; do
	echo "item:"$'\t'"$item"
done

Basically, it's exactly as you'd do for returning a single value from a function (use echo) - but, you need to make sure you surround the variable with quotes (in the function - echo "${array[*]}"), and receive it as an array - out2=($(fnGo)).

Note you can only either choose to use an iterator method (out1), or an addressing method (out2), but not both - run the script and you'll see what I mean.

Oh, one more thing (just as a tip for those who don't already know) - pay attention to your IFS variable (which determines how parameters are separated)! This is especially important if you're taking in quoted (escaped) command-line parameters that may have a space in them (such as file names) - in that case, I normally use "\n".

MPlayer resume script (v2-alpha)

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:43:13 GMT

A while back I attempted to write a wrapper script for mplayer to resume a file. Unfortunately, that script was rather limiting where:

File name must be first entry
You have to manually specify the "-profile" parameter
You cannot specify a global profile (i.e. the profile you specify only applies to the last file)

Now I have a new script that resolves the above issues! Unfortunately, there are some new issues with the new script:

It's slow at generating command for many files
Extension-less file won't work...
Per-file manual profile definition is not yet implemented - though automatic RegExp profile definition is working :-P !
This script is very much in the alpha stage and more testing is needed - so use at your own risk!

Sounds cryptic? It'll be clearer after I've shown you some examples.

As with the previous script, an example usage (we'll assume we're trying to resume a file called "mediaFile.avi" at timecode 300, and the script is named "mp"):

echo 300 > mediaFile.avi.txt
mp mediaFile.avi

Also as with the previous script, you'll probably want to enable the "statusline" display by adding "msglevel=statusline=9" into your mplayer config file (at "~/.mplayer/config" | "/etc/mplayer/config"), and ensure "quiet=0".

Now, to use a profile for all files (at the moment, it doesn't matter where you place "-profile" and "-ss" - they just get applied to every file...):

mp -profile hd file1.avi "file 2.avi"

However, the real magic of the v2 script comes into play when you have multiple files, matching multiple profile switching definitions, with different resume files! For example:

$ ls -d *.avi*
file1.mts
file1.mts.txt
2x03 SomeEpisode.mkv
2x03 SomeEpisode.mkv.txt
file2.avi

$ less mp
...
profiles=(
	# [PF name]	[RegExp]
	"hd"	"(/|^)[0-9]{,2}x[0-9]{,2} .*\.mkv$"
	# ---- Generic profiles ----
	".mts"	"\.mts$"
)
...

$ mp file1.mts "2x03 SomeEpisode.mkv" file2.avi

The script will now use the ".mts" profile for the mts file, the "hd" profile for the .mkv file, the "global" profile for the .avi file, whilst picking the values out of the resume files and resume at the point specified in the .txt files!
(Just in case you're wondering, the "global" profile is defined in the "$defaultProfile" variable in script.)

Anyway, you can get the script here.

Of course, if anyone's interested in improving it, they're more than welcome to do so! Just don't forget to email me a copy!

Restoring SMB sharing on XP

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:22:09 GMT

A couple months ago, my brother's PC suddenly stopped sharing files via SMB (port 445). Since my brother told me he hasn't done anything, I was a bit mystified as to what exactly is going on.

Initially I though it was a firewall problem - so I checked the firewall config and tried to access the share from localhost (on his PC), which failed as if nothing is shared (i.e. "net view \\127.0.0.1" just times out). I then tried "netstat -an" to see if the SMB server is actually listening for a connection, and it turns out nothing is listening on port 445!

A restart of lanmanserver and lanmanworkstation (services) and a reboot didn't help, so in a last ditch attempt to get something shared I enabled NetBIOS over TCP/IP, which seems to have done the trick (i.e. I can now access the shares). However, port 445 is still no where to be seen in "netstat -an"...

After a lot of searching on Google, I found this article which more less describes the problem I've been having.

After turning off NetBT, applying the registry fix (adding HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT\Parameters:SmbDeviceEnabled = 1) and rebooting (I had also re-installed "File and Printer sharing" at the time), the shares were now accessible again via port 445.

Unfortunately, I never got to the bottom of what caused this problem - seeing it wasn't simply a missing registry value, as all my other systems don't have the SmbDeviceEnabled value. But I guess I can consider this one being resolved via a work-around as sharing is back to normal...

Re-partitioning Xubuntu

Mon, 19 May 2008 19:34:44 GMT

Note: if you prefer the bare-essential steps and code, please jump straight to the "The re-partition process" section.

Having used Xubuntu for a while now on my transition test rig, I've decided to re-partition the HDD to better suit my needs. Here's why I'm doing this:

Data security - Not encryption, but rather to ensure the data is (most likely) safe on an OS re-installation
The default swap partition is not flexible - It always takes up space even when you don't need it to
Makes backup easier - I can simply image the small OS partitions and back them up onto several DVDs

However, the main drawback (and my original reason for not having a separate data partition) is that your HDD's capacity is effectively reduced (Data = HDD - OS - Swap), and not to mention when your OS partition runs out of your space, you're boned (alright, I know what you're thinking, but let's not get carried away with hacks like creating symbolic links to the data partition...).

First thing first, let's figure out what the setup should look like and how much space we need, then we can explore different options when we encounter them.

Partition, swap and hibernation config

As much I want to make a complete transition over to Linux, there are some situations where Windows is required (like certain applications and firmware updates), so we need a Windows partition.

The best way to judge how much space is required is to look at the existing space usage of "%SystemRoot%" and "%ProgramFiles%" - you can use a tool like "diruse" (from the Windows XP support tools) or folder properties in explorer.exe...

Windows: In a clean(ish) install of XP SP3, %SystemRoot% + %ProgramFiles% comes to about 2.7 GiB (say, 3GiB), and allowing 1 GiB each (yeah, I know it's rather generous) for MS Office, IDEs, .NET, JDK/JRE and AutoRoute the minimum size so far comes to about 8 GiB. Adding a 15% defrag free space requirement, overhead for old (un)installation files, system restore files, pagefile.sys, hiberfil.sys, and some free space, the minimum size for the Windows partition comes to 12 GiB (which also fits nicely onto 3 DVDs when imaged).

It is worth point out that if you have a lot of RAM and want to hibernate your Windows session, you'd obviously want more space to accommodate hiberfil.sys. A safe suggestion would be the next multiple of 4, say, 16 GiB (if you have 3 GiB of RAM) (to fit onto 4 DVDs). As for page file, it's up to your judgement / Windows's to determine how much is needed - and if you have a second HDD, put the page file there instead.

Linux: As for the Linux partition, it's a little bit more difficult to estimate (seeing I haven't really used it for that long) - but base install rounds up to about 3 GiB. For now, I've assigned 16 GiB to it as I plan on installing some of the software above using WINE (like MS Office), OpenOffice, IDEs. Though I'd probably use a 12 GiB partition when I partition my main system - but I'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

As per the Xubuntu default setup, the OS(es) should reside on a primary partition of its own, with the rest being on extended, logical partitions - you can only have up to 4 primary partitions on a volume.

As for swap and hibernation (suspend to disk), I've opted for a 512 MiB swap file and a 512 MiB swap partition dedicated for hibernation, for the 512 MiB of RAM (though there are usage problems with this setup - I'll talk about that next).

The reason behind using a swap file is because it is more flexible (can be resized dynamically) with no reported performance difference under the 2.6 kernel comparing to a swap partition.

As for the swap partition, it is used because there doesn't seem to be a way to configure Xubuntu's in-kernel hibernation implementation to use a hibernation file. The main problem with this setup is that hibernation would fail if the entire swap file had been filled and overflowed onto the hibernation swap partition. Unfortunately, swapoff-ing the swap partition will result in a hibernation failure.

The only usable hack around the the filled swap file problem is to run swapoff after boot and resume from hibernation, and swapon just before hibernation. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a way to do swapoff after resuming from hibernation (I'd welcome any suggestions on this!) - I could use upstart on boot for swapoff and modify "/usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-hibernate-linux" to run swapon (this is used by GDM (and the logout GUI) to hibernate), but I still need to run swapoff on resume from hibernation... However, saying that, you could modify and use "/etc/acpi/hibernate.sh" to do the swapon and swapoff as the script stops at "echo -n "disk" >/sys/power/state" and resumes execution afterwards on wake.

~~The only command I haven't had time to explore is "/usr/sbin/pmi" (called with parameters "action [hibernate|sleep]") - I found this in gdmsetup --> "Edit Commands...".~~

Update: 2008-05-27 @ 03:09
You can use "pmi" to put your system to sleep / hibernation and be able to do swapon and swapoff at the appropriate time - just do swapon before calling pmi, and swapoff after, since pmi doesn't detach itself. I'll post some scripts on how to do this later.

Hacks aside, there are actually solutions to enable proper hibernation to a file - such as TuxOnIce, but it requires patching and re-compilation of the kernel - which is something I don't plan on doing in this project.

While we're (kinda) still on the subject on partitions, there is something that can resolve the issues with partition sizes - LVM (Logical Volume Manager). In theory, pretty much everything (except "/boot") can be setup to use LVM, but I've decided against it because:

My inexperience to Linux - I think it's best to keep it simple at this stage
Compatibility - LVM volumes cannot be read by the "Ext2 Installable File System for Windows" FS driver
Reliability - A disk failure or (somehow) a LVM Volume Group corruption would be disastrous
Performance - Since the data goes through another abstract layer, there may be issues there

For now, I'll leave LVM alone until I need a heavy-duty file server with RAID (or equivalent) that runs only on Linux.

File system

So far, we've decided on the partition configuration and now, it's time to choose the file systems.

Since the aim of this project was to re-partition the drive, I've decided to stick with Ext3 in Linux as I don't see any benefits in using another FS for my needs. As for Windows (XP), it's a no-brainer - NTFS (linux can mount that as ntfs-3g type).

I have chosen Ext3 as the file system for the data partition as I will be using Linux primarily, and Windows XP can use the "Ext2 Installable File System for Windows" to access that partition.

Pre-requisites and tools

We're now almost at the point where we can start re-partitioning the drive - now that we know what the disk setup is going to be.

We obviously need a re-partitioning tool, but we'd also need something to backup and restore the drive (in case anything horrible were to happen), and somewhere to store the HDD images.

Not long ago, I came across the SystemRescueCd (possibly on Hak5 or this article on linux-mag.com (free subscription required) - can't remember exactly which...) which demoed the imaging and bare-metal restore capability of the live CD.

As well as the partimage tool on the live CD, it also contains GParted (for re-partitioning) and samba (for smb-based network backups). But there are so many more tools on this CD it is definitely worth keeping in your toolbox.

The re-partition process

Here's the target partition configurations (for a single HDD setup):

12GiB NTFS (primary):
	(Windows) C:\

16GiB ext3 (primary):
	(Xubuntu) /

* (extended):
	[*]GiB ext3 (logical):
	/home/[user]/	# Replace [user] with the users

	[RAM]GiB swap (logical):
	hibernation "swap" partition == RAM size

The essential steps of this project are:

Boot into SystemRescueCd
1. ifconfig ... - If you need network access to store the partition image
2. mount ... - Create a mount point to save the drive image
3. partimage - Image the existing OS + Data partition and note down the partition sizes
4. startx - We'll need a GUI
  1. gparted - Re-size and create partitions
    - IMPORTANT: Note down the existing partition sizes! - in case you need to do a restore
    - IMPORTANT: Make sure you have a backup of the partitions! - go back to step 3 if you don't
    - IMPORTANT: Keep actions to a minimum! - ALL actions will be replayed in the re-partitioning process!
    - IMPORTANT: Keep actions to a minimum! - Sorry, I cannot stress this enough - For I've been burnt by it and had to go through a lengthy restore process...
    - If you screw up, re-create the size of the original partitions and restore image, then try again
5. shutdown -r 0 - Cross your fingers!
  (note the Xubuntu boot screen will exit with a segfault error, just ignore it for now, will fix later)
login and gain root access
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap bs=1M count=512 - create a 512 MiB swap at /
mkswap /swap - Configure the swap file - note we'll edit fstab instead of using swapon to activate it on next boot
mkdir /mnt/h - Make a new mount point

fdisk -l - Note down which partition is for what. For instance:

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7294 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x########

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        2089    16779861   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            2090        7294    41809162+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            7231        7294      514080   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6            2090        7230    41295019+  83  Linux

cd /dev/disk/by-uuid/ && ls -lFa - Take note of uuids and the partitions they point to - we'll need this next. For instance:

6db5296a-0bf4-4773-a9f5-22eb1abbd066 -> ../../sda1
bc3216cf-32f3-49ff-87af-6e2fdb7ce376 -> ../../sda6
c9e7c3c8-6f49-44be-9cdf-1387ce320b27 -> ../../sda5

cd /etc/ && cp fstab fstab.bak && vim /etc/fstab - Backup then edit fstab according to fdisk and ls output, don't forget to change the "pass" number for disk check - see man fstab for more information. The edited part of fstab should look something like:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
...
# -------- HDD mounts --------
# /dev/sda1 - avoid mounting it as /c ...
UUID=6db5296a-0bf4-4773-a9f5-22eb1abbd066       /       ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro      0       1
# /dev/sda6 - Home drive - symbolic links are then made from /mnt/h
UUID=bc3216cf-32f3-49ff-87af-6e2fdb7ce376       /mnt/h  ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro      0       2
#
#
#
# -------- Swap --------
/swap           none            swap    sw,pri=-1       0       0
# ---- Update: 2008-05-27 @ 03:09 ----
# You can use "pmi" to do this - you can ignore the swap partition configuration below
# /dev/sda5 - swap partition for hibernation... - hence pri=-2
#UUID=c9e7c3c8-6f49-44be-9cdf-1387ce320b27       none    swap    sw,pri=-2       0       0

(Note I've left the other stuff like "proc", "/dev/scd*" out in the example above - keep them in fstab!)

~~As you can see, I've set the hibernation swap partition as "pri=-2" (i.e. lower than the swap file's) in an attempt to not use it - as mentioned before, I still need a proper workaround for this...~~ - Use "pmi" instead - see update description above.

vim /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume - Change the UUID to that of the new "swap" partition, e.g.:
```
RESUME=UUID=c9e7c3c8-6f49-44be-9cdf-1387ce320b27
```
update-initramfs -u - Update (fixes) the boot screen
shutdown -r 0 - Make sure everything still works and boot screen fixed
Log back in as root

swapon -s - Check the output to ensure there is 1 mounted swap:

Filename    Type       Size    Used    Priority
/swap       file       524280  38216   -1

cp -r /home /mnt/h/home - Copy the existing home directory
mv /home /home_old - Make way for the new home
cd /mnt/ && chown -R [user]:[group] h - Makes the new user own everything in the data partition (since I'll be the only one using the data partition for now), then tweak it to your liking...
ln -s /mnt/h/home /home - Link the new home in - make sure you use the full path or you'll get link errors.

That's it! Simple eh? lol.

Some links to the interesting articles:

MPlayer resume script

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:14:03 GMT

I might as well share this - below are 2 scripts I've written for MPlayer to resume playback at a position saved in a text file.
(Note the scripts below also attempt to load the "global" profile - I use it for chaining profiles - i.e. I have other profiles that includes "global".)

It works by appending the "-ss" parameter to mplayer when a resume file, in the format "[mediaFileName.ext].txt" is detected.

An example usage (we'll assume we're trying to resume a file called "mediaFile.avi" at timecode 300, and the script is named "mp"):

echo 300>mediaFile.avi.txt
mp mediaFile.avi

You'll probably want to enable the "statusline" display by adding "msglevel=statusline=9" into your mplayer config file (at "%ProgramFiles%/MPlayer/mplayer/config" | "~/.mplayer/config" | "/etc/mplayer/config"), and ensure "quiet=0".

Windows installation:
0 - Get a copy of "grep" and "head" somewhere - such as UnxUtils.
1 - Save script as mp.bat (or something simple to type)
2 - Put into a directory in your %PATH% env. variable.
3 - Play files using the "mp" command, and create resume file as specified in example above.

@echo off
setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION

set mplayerbin=%ProgramFiles%\MPlayer\mplayer.exe
set cli=

FOR /F "usebackq delims==" %%c IN (`echo %*^|grep -c -i " \-profile "`) DO set count=%%c
if !count! == 0 (
	set cli="!mplayerbin!" -profile global %*
) else (
	set cli="!mplayerbin!" %*
)

REM Resume stuff - this'd only work if filename is specified as first argument.
FOR /F "usebackq delims==" %%c IN (`echo %*^|grep -c -i "\-ss"`) DO set count=%%c
set resumeFile=%1.txt
if exist "!resumeFile!" (
	if !count! == 0 (
		FOR /F "usebackq delims==" %%c IN (`head -n 1 "!resumeFile!"`) DO set pos=%%c
		set cli=!cli! -ss !pos!
	)
)

echo ^>^>^>^> !cli!
!cli!

endlocal

Linux installation:
1 - Save script as mp (or something simple to type)
2 - Put into a directory in your $PATH env. variable.
2 - chmod +x mp
3 - Play files using the "mp" command, and create resume file as specified in example above.

#!/bin/bash

# Script to launch mplayer and resume if [filename.ext].txt exists
# TODO - Integrate the new parser into the old windows script below

mplayerbin=mplayer

# Unfortunately, something simple like: for i in $*; do echo $i; done
# doesn't work with spaces (even when it's escaped) - it'd separate parameters out by space...
# This also assumes the first argument with a space is the filename
argc=$#
i=0
while ((i < argc)); do
	# escape spaces - can't use <code>echo $1|grep "\ "</code> or it'll display the params...
	if [ "$(echo $1|grep -cE "[ ()$]")" == 1 ]; then	# Any others?
		argv[$i]=\"$1\"
	else
		argv[i]=$1
	fi
	shift; ((i++))
done


cli=${argv[*]}
# Old windows port of the script below
count=$(echo $cli|grep -c -i " \-profile ")
if [ $count == 0 ]; then
	cli="$mplayerbin -profile global $cli"
else
	cli="$mplayerbin $cli"
fi

# Resume stuff - this'd only work if filename is specified as first argument.
count=$(echo $cli|grep -c -i "\-ss")
resumeFile="${argv[0]}.txt"
# -f ensures the file (not directory) exist
if [ -f "$resumeFile" ]  && [ $count == 0 ]; then
	pos=$(head -n 1 "$resumeFile")
	cli="$cli -ss $pos"
fi
echo \>\>\>\> $cli
eval $cli

There is however a bug in the Windows version due to the use of delayed expansion - if you have a file with an exclamation mark, you'd need to escape it with "^^" (e.g. "^^!").

Also, it'd be a good idea to specify the filename as the first parameter - I haven't done any extension check to figure out which parameter the filename is at.

You can find more information about the command-line parameters for MPlayer at:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.html

Update: 2008-07-10 @ 03:54
I've made a new version - v2-alpha. The new post is here

XP SP3 is out!

Wed, 07 May 2008 19:33:42 GMT

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is out, you can get it at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5B33B5A8-5E76-401F-BE08-1E1555D4F3D4&displaylang=en

Synaptic or Aptitude?

Sun, 04 May 2008 02:28:23 GMT

Short answer: Aptitude!

Long answer (and the story):
I was evaluating various video editors for Linux today when I noticed various files weren't being removed after removing "kdenlive" using Synaptic.

Here's a list of executables beginning with "k" before installation:

kbd_mode    kbdrate     kill        killall     killall5    klogd       koi8rxterm

And here's the list I got after specifying complete removal of "kdenlive" and "kdenlive-data":

kab2kabc                kde-config              kdostartupconfig        kinstalltheme           koi8rxterm
kaddprinterwizard       kded                    kfile                   kioexec                 kpac_dhcp_helper
kbd_mode                kdeinit                 kfmexec                 kio_http_cache_cleaner  ksendbugmail
kbdrate                 kdeinit_shutdown        kgrantpty               kioslave                kshell
kbuildsycoca            kdeinit_wrapper         khotnewstuff            kio_uiserver            kstartupconfig
kcmshell                kde-menu                kill                    klauncher               ktelnetservice
kconf_update            kdesu_stub              killall                 klogd                   ktradertest
kcookiejar              kdontchangethehostname  killall5                kmailservice            kwrapper

Turns out Synaptic forgot to remove the "kdelibs4c2a" and "kdelibs-data" package...

Even after installing "deborphan", as well as following this advice to filter for orphaned packages, Synaptic still didn't present those 2 packages for removal.

Aptitude on the other hand took care of all the dependencies on installation and removes the 2 extra packages upon removal!

So next time when you want to install a package using Synaptic, or see a command like:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install some_package

Make sure you use Aptitude UI or the following command instead, so you can uninstall with Aptitude later:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install some_package

Note: This was tested on Xubuntu 8.04 so I'm not using an outdated version of Synaptic / apt-get.

Oh, just in case you are interested in my video editor of choice (for now at least...) - it's Kdenlive!
If you want me to explain my decision, drop me a comment.

Save and restore iptables over reboot (making it persistent) using upstart

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:09:37 GMT

As you may already know, the configurations of iptables disappears after a reboot. My solution below is to create 2 scripts to run on shutdown and startup to save and restore the iptables rules. (Note I'm using upstart as opposed to SysVinit to ensure future compatibility)

You'll need to login as root ("su"), then go to "/etc/event.d" and create the following 2 files (name it whatever you want):

iptables_save:

# Save the iptables entries on shutdown

start on runlevel 0	# Shutdown
start on runlevel 6	# Reboot

script
	SCRIPTDIR="/var/tmp/sys"
	SCRIPT="iptable_rules.txt"
	if ! test -d "$SCRIPTDIR"; then mkdir "$SCRIPTDIR"; fi
	iptables-save > "$SCRIPTDIR/$SCRIPT"
end script

iptables_restore:

# Restores the iptables entries on startup / create secure default if file not present

# Debian doesn't distinguish between 2 --> 5, i.e. == 2
start on runlevel 2

script
	SCRIPTDIR="/var/tmp/sys"
	SCRIPT="iptable_rules.txt"
	if test -f "$SCRIPTDIR/$SCRIPT"; then
		iptables-restore < "$SCRIPTDIR/$SCRIPT"
	else
		# Block * incoming, allow associated outgoing connections
		
		# Flushes all chains
		iptables -F
		# Delete all chains
		iptables -X
		
		# Default policies
		iptables -P INPUT DROP
		iptables -P FORWARD DROP
		iptables -P OUTPUT DROP
		
		# Allow related connections - new connections are allowed in following block
		iptables -A INPUT   -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
		iptables -A OUTPUT  -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
		iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
		
		# Allow new connections be made - Allow localhost --> any
		iptables -A OUTPUT  -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT
	fi
end script

The second part of iptables_restore is meant to restore a set of secure(ish) default rule (as opposed to iptables' default of allowing everything...) if no saved rules exist. Replace it with your own defaults if mine suck (and drop me a comment saying why!).

Please evaluate the script before using it - I've only tried this on my Xubuntu 8.04 setup.

As usual, if you have any suggestions / comment about this, I would love to hear from you!

Just in case you are interested, here's a great article on linux.com about upstart:
http://www.linux.com/feature/125977

Windows Command Prompt (cmd) behaviour emulation in Linux terminal (Bash)

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:58:55 GMT

Update 2008-03-25 @ 00:32: This post was originally titled "Emulate Command Prompt (cmd) tab auto-completion behaviour in Linux terminal (Bash)" (originally posted on 2008-03-20 @ 23:45), and have since been updated to cover more grounds.

Being a long time Windows command prompt (cmd) user, there are 2 things that the Linux terminal really annoyed me - tab auto-completion and case-sensitivity.

For instance, if you have "file-1.txt", "file-2.txt" and you do "fi[tab]", you'd get "file-", instead of "file-1.txt". And if you try doing something like "ls -l File*" you wouldn't get anything returned...

Luckily, you can change the above behaviour by editing 2 files.

Tab-completion:

In order to get the windows command prompt's tab-completion behaviour, you can edit / adding the following to "/etc/inputrc" (or "~/.inputrc"):

# Tab
TAB: menu-complete
# Shift-Tab (reverse menu-complete)
"\e[Z": "\e--\t"

# Ignores the case of the letter
set completion-ignore-case on

According to the blog entry where I got this from, the "--" part of the Shift-TAB entry acts as an argument to the menu-complete function. In this case, it takes the previous entry of menu-complete.

Also, to enhance the terminal, you can also make the following amendments:

# The old style auto-complete (now mapped to Ctrl+space) - so you can still use it...
Control-SPACE: complete

# Automatically show everything instead of you having to press Ctrl+Space (as configured here) twice...
set show-all-if-ambiguous on
set show-all-if-unmodified on

# Display a "/" at the end for symlinked directories
set mark-symlinked-directories on

# Shut the bell up...
set bell-style none

Case-insensitive expansion ("globbing"):

If you want "ls -ld File*" to also display "file-1.txt", "file-2.txt", as well as "FiLe.txt" and "FILE.txt", you can add the following to "/etc/bash.bashrc":

# Disable case sensitive expansion - for command like "ls ld a*" to list "A_file"
# Note for things like "ls -ld a_file.txt", we still need to force it to glob by "ls -ld [a]_file.txt"
shopt -s nocaseglob

However, as mentioned in the comments, listing a complete filename is still sensitive - you'd have to force it to glob by doing "ls -ld [a]_file.txt".

If you know of any other useful modifications, drop me a comment!

Padded street furniture, you kidding me!?

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:01:48 GMT

Are you frigging kidding me? Has it really gotten to a point where we need to pad street furnitures for people on the phone who can't be asked to look at where they're going?

Not only does the padding make the street look stupid, it also puts out the wrong message to people - please, just walk however you like and go wherever you want, you don't have to be careful and watch where you're going!

I'm sure one day, those people will learn the lesson the hard way when they get run over by a car or something - and in that case, should we also attach giant-ass cushion in front of cars? I don't think so.

<rant>
I'd rather the money be used to lower the cost of travel - it costs me £11.30 to go into Guildford in the morning and returning in the afternoon with young persons rail-card discount! That's just crazy!
</rant>

Here's the video of the scheme, watch it, you'll realize how stupid it is:

Strange looking lists...

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:59:18 GMT

Sorry if my lists look strange at the moment - MS decided to hide the descriptions beneath the headers a month ago...

I've submitted a feedback asking for them to be restored to how it was before... Hopefully, they'll do that, like last time when I requested for an increase of the width of the page.

Dirt season 2 is out!

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:07:48 GMT

Woohoo! The first 2 episodes for season 2 of "Dirt" is out now - go get it, it's good:

2x01 - http://www.bt-chat.com/download.php?info_hash=d36ad5ba6333b7836abdce3645d508bbae7a6343
2x02 - http://www.bt-chat.com/download.php?info_hash=861634036bf7f77a56a355851037a2b08e58d2d5

Software recommendation: Visual Task Tips

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:57:42 GMT

Here's a utility I'm sure you'll like - it's called Visual Task Tips.

This application runs in XP / Vista and provides a preview for each window "task" on the taskbar:

Version 3 adds the essential preview delay customization - now you can make the preview appear immediately!

MochiKit Tip: Un-register (delete) a draggable

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:58:38 GMT

Alright, a quick tip for those of you who don't know - here's how you can unregister (delete) a draggable in MochiKit:

dragHandle = new Draggable( [...] );    // Registers the drag handle
dragHandle.destroy();                   // Destroying the drag handle

You can then check by looking in:

window.MochiKit.DragAndDrop.Draggables.drags

and

window.MochiKit.Signal._observers

The draggable and the signal "observer" should be gone.

Custom List: Favorite songs

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:40:35 GMT

Favorite songs

Avril Lavigne - Sk8er Boi
Within Temptation - The Truth Beneath The Roase
Nightwish - Nemo
Evanescence - My Immortal
Tarja Turunen - The Eyes of a Child
Nightwish - Sleeping Sun (1998 version)
Masahiro Andoh - Moon Over the Castle (Gran Turismo 2 version)
Nightwish - Dead Gardens
Jerry Goldsmith - "End Credits" - "Star Trek: First Contact" OST
Phil Collins - A Groovy Kind of Love
Nightwish - Ghost Love Score
Liz McClarnon - Woman In Love
Evanescence - My Last Breath

Custom List: My internet presence

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:36:34 GMT

My internet presence

Email / IM
My email address
Facebook
Social networking
Blog
My Blog - the one you're reading now!

Custom List: Announcements

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:42:18 GMT

Announcements

2007-08-14 @ 07:25
Looking to find something? Try Google's blog search (follow link in title)
2007-12-06 @ 01:18
Oops, it looks like some of my old blog entries aren't XHTML 1.0 Strict complaint... - partly due to me editing blog entries in MSIE and partly due to me being stupid... Sorry!
2008-03-07 @ 19:07
Posts with flash video embedded won't validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict - WLS requires <embed> tag be used...
2008-05-19 @ 21:08
Since WLS strips out the "id" attributes, you'll find some blog entries with broken links...
2008-07-09 @ 04:42
Oops, there is something majorly wrong with the v2 alpha version of the mplayer resume script - I forgot about all the ^other^ parameters... I think I know how to fix it but I don't have a lot of time at the moment to actually do it...

Custom List: Solved :-)

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:27:07 GMT

Solved :-)

2005-07-12 @ 06:59
Custom port solution to Remote Desktop Web Connection
2005-07-14 @ 14:38
Dust in computer
2005-10-17 @ 01:43
DBDesigner connection problem to MySQL database
2006-12-17 @ 03:22
Repairing broken NTFS security permissions after running chkdsk
2007-03-30 @ 01:32
SQL error - "Syntax error converting from a character string to uniqueidentifier."
2007-08-03 @ 02:58
Network file shares (SMB shares) with ZoneAlarm Pro slow / no file access problem
2007-08-11 @ 23:36
Network connectivity problem with ZoneAlarm Pro, VMware / Microsoft Virtual PC
2007-08-13 @ 23:39
"Access is denied." error when moving folder
2007-08-14 @ 05:29
Media Player Classic (MPC) crash on seeking FLAC file
2007-10-12 @ 16:40
NetBeans web app deployment problem (to Apache Tomcat)
2007-10-19 @ 00:55
MySQL Query Browser variable assignment problem
2007-12-10 @ 05:10
Xubuntu 7.04 to 7.10 CD-ROM upgrader execution error
2008-03-25 @ 04:42
Windows Command Prompt (cmd) behaviour emulation in Linux terminal (Bash)
2008-04-30 @ 07:10
Save and restore iptables over reboot
2008-05-20 @ 07:09
Re-partitioning Xubuntu
2008-06-27 @ 07:26
Restoring SMB sharing on XP

Custom List: Unsolved :-(

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:48:19 GMT

Unsolved :-(

2006-08-27 @ 01:03
Force a network drive to disconnect via command-line
2007-08-06 @ 22:59
X session logout / logoff command for Xubuntu
2007-12-06 @ 01:17
NetBeans space insertion bug with tab indentation
2008-01-13 @ 00:32
Dell Inspiron 531 BIOS POST duration

Custom List: Top Audiocasts

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:22:40 GMT

Top Audiocasts

Custom List: Top Videocasts

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:22:24 GMT

Custom List: Comments

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:13:35 GMT

Comments

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