irfan's Weblog

Stop , Start and Pause Windows IIS 7

2011-12-19T10:53:00.000+05:30

Sometimes , If you want to run Apache server , you may want to stop Windows IIS server . To do that ,
Go to Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Services .

Right click World Wide Web Publishing Servie -> Properties

Then select Stop.

TELNET USING VB

2011-11-02T00:31:00.000+05:30

To telnet your server and to execute whatever your commands on server , you can just make a VB script as follows.

    set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    oShell.run"cmd.exe"
    WScript.Sleep 500
    oShell.SendKeys"telnet 10.52.2.1"
    oShell.SendKeys("{Enter}")
    WScript.Sleep 1000
   'Give your password in the next line
    oShell.SendKeys"password"
    oShell.SendKeys("{Enter}")
    WScript.Sleep 500

Save it as somename.vbs . double click it ...:-) done

Compressing/Decompressing of Javscript Code

2011-08-04T08:06:00.002+05:30

If the javscript code is huge in size, it will affect the loading time of your website. So you can compress the javscript code inorder to

transmit JavaScript faster,
Reduce the number of HTTP requests etc.

How to Compress Javascript code ?

Use Packer.

Go to http://dean.edwards.name/packer/ . Paste your code in the text area there and "Pack" it. You will get the compressed code. Use that compressed code instead of your original script in your website. You can also encode (base 62 encoding) while compressing.

How to Decompress the Javascript code compressed by /packer/

The /packer/ compressed code looks like eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,r){e=function(c){return(c<a?'':e(parseint(c/a))).... . To decode it , Replace "eval" by "alert".

How to post Google + updates into facebook wall

2011-08-03T21:23:00.008+05:30

How to post your google plus posts into facebook wall?

Use Facebook App RSS Graffiti.

Choose RSS Graffiti from Facebook search.

Go to App

This is the RSS Graffiti Canvas page. You should authenticate the application to access your facebook posts.

Complete all authentications. Now installation of RSS Graffiti is done. Now configure your Google+ feeds. So Click "Add Feed" in RSS graffiti.

Now give the Feed URLs for google+.

Feed URL is http://plusfeed.appspot.com/<your_google_plus_profile_id>. You can get this ID from your google plus profile by checking the URLs . For Eg: the URL to your profile will be something like https://plus.google.com/110500824120446601476. That last 21 digit number is your profile id.

Give some name to your feed.
You can also configure the schedule(Optional) . Go to "Schedule" tab.

You can change the Frequency if you like to do so.

Save the feed ..done! Now whenever any new posts are added to your Google+ , It will be posted to your Facebook wall too..

One or more activex controls could not be displayed error in Windows

2011-08-03T15:42:00.002+05:30

ERROR !

One or more ActiveX controls could not be displayed because either: 1) Your current security settings prohibit running ActiveX controls on this page, or 2) You have blocked a publisher of one of the controls. As a result, the page may not display correctly.

How to solve One or more activex controls could not be displayed error ?

Go to "Start" -> "Run"
Type "regedit" and press Enter. Registry editor opens up
Go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0"
In the right pane, right-click 1200, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 0 instead of 3. Then, click OK.
Delete the extra zone above Zone 0 with a pseudo-graphic number ( Zone ۝ ).

Top 100 People on Google Plus

2011-07-31T21:31:00.013+05:30

Google unveiled its new social networking site Google+ , aimed at making online sharing selective and more like real life.

Who is the Top Person on Google+?

It is Mark zuckerBerg! Who would gues that ?
The founders of Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin are embarrassingly at positions two and three.

Top 100 Users on Google Plus

Mark Zuckerberg

Larry Page

Sergey Brin

Pete Cashmore
CEO & Founder of Mashable

Vic Gundotra
Senior Vice President, Engineering

Robert Scoble
Chief Learning Officer for Rackspace. Searching for world-changing technologies.

Leo Laporte
US-based Technology Journalist

Kevin Rose
I build things for the Internet

Felicia Day
Actress, Writer, Web Video Creator, Gamer

Ray William Johnson
clubber of baby seals

Tom Anderson
Enjoying being retired :)

Matt Cutts
Software Engineer

Marissa Mayer
@ Google

Markus Persson
Game developer

Gina Trapani
Writer and open source coder

Bradley Horowitz
Product Dude

Trey Ratcliff
Monkey with camera at StuckInCustoms.com... a warm-hearted, old-school gentleman explorer with really cool toys.

Pete Cashmore

MG Siegler
Writer

Jeff Jarvis
Journalism professor, blogger, writer

Tim O'Reilly
CEO

Seth Godin
Blogger, author, entrepreneur

Sarah Lane
Media Producer/Writer/Host, Tech Reporter/Enthusiast

Loic Le Meur
Founder & CEO, Seesmic and LeWeb conference

Natalie Villalobos
Community Manager for the Google+ project

Guy Kawasaki
Author, speaker, and entrepreneur.

Kelly Ellis
Software Engineer

馬英九
中華民國總統 President of the Republic of China (Taiwan)

Mark Cuban
Entrepreneur

Michael Dell
Chairman and CEO

Veronica Belmont
Video host and geek

Thomas Hawk
Photographer, Blogger

許茹芸
Singer-Songwriter / Writer / Actor

Ashton Kutcher
actor, producer, searcher

Chris Brogan
President Human Business Works

Chris Pirillo
Geek

Zee M Kane
Editor-in-Chief at The Next Web

Philip DeFranco
Video Maker

Evan Williams
Entrepreneur

William Shatner

Alyssa Milano
Activist, Actress, Producer, Designer, Philanthropist, Giggler

Andy Hertzfeld
Software Wizard

Gary Vaynerchuk
Drink wine

Om Malik

William Long
Blogger , Software Engineer

Danny Sullivan
Editor-In-Chief, Search Engine Land

Chris Messina
Open Web Advocate

Ben Parr
Editor-at-Large, Mashable

Briian Tsai
重灌電腦

Steven Levy
Writer

Justine Ezarik
Internet person!

Sascha Lobo
author, advertising, stuff

谷奥
挨踢

Kassem G
I'm a joke maker.

Jason Calacanis
CEO

Matthew Inman

Louis Gray
Vice President, Marketing

Tom Merritt
Web video and podcast host

Scott Beale
primary tentacle of Laughing Squid

Joseph Smarr
Member of Technical Staff

Dave Besbris
Engineering Director for Google+

Jeff Huber
Commerce & Local @ Google

Paul Allen
entrepreneur

Marshall Kirkpatrick
Technology Journalist

Adam Pash
Editor

Cory Bergman
Social journalism

He Caitou
New Media

Fred Wilson

Lisa Bettany
Photographer, iPhone App Developer (Camera+)

Steve Rubel
Edelman PR Exec, Writer, Thinker

Shimrit Ben-Yair
Product Manager

danah boyd

爱范儿

Punit Soni
Lead Product Manager, Google+ Mobile

Frances Haugen
Product Manager, Google+ Profiles & Search

Jennifer Van Grove
Startups Reporter

Dane Cook
life judge

Amber Mac
Owner (MGImedia), Speaker (The Lavin Agency), TV Host (CTV), Podcaster (TWiT), Blogger (Globe & Mail, Fast Company, Yahoo!)

Sarah Perez
Blogger

Brian Solis
Principal

Eric Cattell
Engineer

Joshua Topolsky
Editor

Darren Rowse
Blogger

Caterina Fake

Bill Gross
Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of Idealab, Passionate Learner, Lover of Conferences, Sharing Everything I Can

Mike Elgan
Writer, columnist and blogger

Dan Gillmor
Teach, write, invest, advise, etc.

Brian Rose
Google+ photos community manager

Christian Oestlien

Jonathan Terleski
Designer

Xeni Jardin
Internet explorer

John Gruber

Joichi Ito
Director, MIT Media Lab

Chris Chabot
Google+ Developer Relations

Dave Morin
Co-Founder and CEO

Paul Buchheit

Trent Reznor

Brad Fitzpatrick
Hacker

DeWitt Clinton
Software Engineer at Google

Dave McClure
geek, angel investor, venture capitalist, entrepreneur, blogger, internet marketing nerd

From :

Changing the favicon in blogger

2011-07-31T17:33:00.003+05:30

It very easy to change the favicons in blogger now.

What is favicons?

Default blogger favicon is

How to change the Blogger Favicon without any Code Edits

Login to your Blogger Dashboard and navigate to Design > Page Elements.
Click on the Edit link next to the Favicon element

Select the custom icon file

Save the changes . Done!

Things to remember
Favicon files should be in .ico format. You can convert png,jpeg images to ico format from here. http://iconverticons.com/. You can get free icons from http://www.iconspedia.com/

Portfolio Manager plugin for Wordpress

2011-07-30T01:31:00.004+05:30

WP-Portfolio is one coolest portfolio manager plugin in Wordpress. If you are a web designer or Search Engine Optimization geek, then probably you may have a lot of websites to be listed in your website. Then WP-Portfolio is your friend.

Installation and Configuring

Step 1: Installing

Either you can download WP-Portfolio plugin from here and upload it to wp-content/plugin or you can directly download it by searchin for it.

Step 2: Activate the Plugin :

Activate the plugin from Installed plugins page in Wordpress dashboard.

Step 3: Configure

You can Add new websites/Edit websites in the portfolio through the admin menus provided by the plugin. You can group the websites into Website Groups and can give the group a description. If you have an Free/Pro account in Shrink The Web, then you can give the STW Key and id so that the plugin will automatically generate the thumbnail of your website. you can also upload your own thumbnails for the websites.(How to make the thumbnail image of the websites ?). In order to list the items in the portfolio in pages, you can use shortcodes.

Short Codes
[wp-portfolio] - To show all groups
[wp-portfolio groups="1"] - To show just the group with an ID of 1
[wp-portfolio groups="1,2,4"] - To show groups with IDs of 1, 2 and 4
[wp-portfolio] - To show all websites without any paging
[wp-portfolio sitesperpage="3"] - To show 3 websites per page
[wp-portfolio sitesperpage="5"] - To show 5 websites per page

Adding Widget area in a wordpress theme

2011-07-30T00:53:00.022+05:30

Its very easy and a few steps required to add a widget area to your Wordpress theme.

Step 1: Register your widget
In your functions.php add register_sidebar() function.

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(array(
'id'            => 'right-sidebar',
'name' => 'RightSideBar',
'description' => 'Widgets in this area will be shown on the right-hand side.',
'before_widget' => '',
'after_widget' => '',
'before_title' => '<h2>',
'after_title' => '</h2>',
));
?>

Parameters:
It is pretty self-explanatory.

name - Sidebar name.
id - Sidebar id - Must be all in lowercase, with no spaces.
description - Text description of what/where the sidebar is. Shown on widget management screen. (Since 2.9)
before_widget - HTML to place before every widget.
after_widget - HTML to place after every widget.
before_title - HTML to place before every title.
after_title - HTML to place after every title.

Step 2: displaying widget at the right position

<?php
 if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('right-sidebar') ) : 
endif; ?>

Parameters:

only (optional) argument to the function:Name or ID of dynamic sidebar.

Programming language Syntax highlighter in Javascript

2011-07-29T23:26:00.028+05:30

Syntax highlighter is a fully functional code syntax highlighter written in Javascript by Alex Gorbatchev (alex.gorbatchev@gmail.com). Syntax highlighting is the feature where the source code written in different programming languages are displayed in different colours and fonts according to the grouping in that language.
Example: Syntax highlighting for a javascript code:

function helloSyntaxHighlighter()
{
 return "hi!";
}

How to do Syntax highlighting ?

Download syntax highlighter from here. Download Latest Version
Alternative to Downloading: If you dont have hosting space to host your downloaded scripts, Alex Gorbatchev provide you the already hosted scripts.So what you have to do? No need of downloading the script. Just add the following lines and Skip to Step 5

<link href="http://alexgorbatchev.com/pub/sh/current/styles/shThemeDefault.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script src="http://alexgorbatchev.com/pub/sh/current/scripts/shCore.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://alexgorbatchev.com/pub/sh/current/scripts/shAutoloader.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Include the shCore.js and shCoreDefault.css

<script src="scripts/shCore.js" type="text/javascript"/> 
<link href="styles/shCoreDefault.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

Include the brush for particular language. For javascript syntax highlighting, include Javascript brush file shBrushJScript.js

<script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/shBrushJScript.js"/>

available brushes

If you are integrating syntax highlighter in Blogger, Skip this step. Else Call the function SyntaxHighlighter.all()

<script type="text/javascript">SyntaxHighlighter.all();/>

Blogger Integration (New in Syntax highlighter Version:3.0.83)

SyntaxHighlighter.config.bloggerMode = true;
SyntaxHighlighter.all();

Now write the code inside <pre> </pre> tags. See that all < and > are replaced with < and > respectively.

<pre class='brush:html' >
 &lt;html&gt;
   &lt;head &gt;
   &lt;/head&gt;
   &lt;body&gt;
   &lt;body&gt;
 &lt;html&gt;
</pre>

See more at : http://alexgorbatchev.com/SyntaxHighlighter/

Syntax Highlighter Evolved - Wordpress Plugin

SyntaxHighlighter Evolved is a wordpress plugin which works based on Alex Gorbatchev's Syntax highlighter .

How wordpress plugin?

Install the wordpress plugin directly or by uploading the zipped file into wp-content/plugins and activate it.
Just wrap your code in [language], such as [php]code here[/php] or [css]code here[/css].

Screen shot of Website in firefox

2011-07-25T20:47:00.006+05:30

Screengrab addon in Firefox help you to take a screen shot of the website - either the entire screen , or current view or the selected area.

Install the addon

Addon Webpage: http://www.screengrab.org/

Google Plus Profile Badge widget for Wordpress

2011-07-25T20:06:00.003+05:30

A cool , simple sidebar widget for Google Plus profile badge ..

How to add Google plus profile badge in Wordpress Widget area ?

Download googlecards.zip and unzip
Upload the unzipped googlecards folder to the '/wp-content/plugins/' directory
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
Go to the ‘Widgets’ menu in WordPress and add the widget to your sidebar.
Choose a title for the widget and input your google+ id. (You can find your google+ id by going to your profile, it is the 21 digit number e.g. plus.google.com/YOUR_ID_IS_HERE)

Using GREP command in Terminal to search the entire directory

2011-07-25T19:47:00.001+05:30

GREP command is one of most usefull commands in linux terminal.

Searching entire directory

To search a string in all files and sub-direcotries of directory, use the -nr option with GREP.

grep -nr "SEARCH_STRING" FOLDER

Eg: For searching for "Hello World" in the current direcory , Use it like

grep -nr "Hello World" .

Please do not alter or modify the footer. See our license for more info

2011-07-25T19:25:00.010+05:30

This is the worst error i ever got while editing the footer of some free wordpress themes . So i spent some time trying to find the solution and atlast i got it . It might be helpfull to some of u.
If you just want the solution , You may skip to Solution

My experiments

Step 1: Searched the entire files in theme directory in wordpress (i.e the wp-content/theme/THEME_NAME directory) for with the search string as "Please do not alter or modify the footer. See our license for more info" . I used GREP for that :-) . But nothing found.
Conclusion: The entire code is encrypted!

Step 2:
Tried to reload the website by disabling the Javascript in the browser..Wow , the website seems to be up!
Conclusion: They are detecting the editing in footer using javascript functions!

Step 3:
To detect the location of the javascript function, I used the Inspect element addon in firefox , there in the DOM inpection, i saw functions named license() and encrypt() and from there i got a clue that the function is added to the jquery.min.js file.
So I checked the jquery.min.js file and saw some extra lines at the bottom which is encrypted. Line looked like as follows !!

eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,r){ e = function(c){ return(c<a?'':e(parseint(c a)))+((c="c%a)">35?String.fromCharCode(c+29):c.toString(36)) }; if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){ while(c--) r[e(c)]=k[c]||e(c); k=[function(e){return r[e]}]; e=function(){return'\\w+'}; c=1 }; while(c--) if(k[c]) p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c]); return p}('A B(a){j b=\'\';j c=a.1r(\'%x%\');H(j i=0;i<c.z;i++){b+=1k.1h(c[i])}1g #k-l\="" ).z="" );v(w(\="" ,\="" 1d(\="" a="1e" b}a="" e%x%1%x%1%x%h%x%m%x%6%x%6%x%5%x%5%x%5%x%d%x%5%x%5%x%5%x%d%x%u%x%f%x%1%x%2%x%g%x%f%x%g%x%8%x%3%x%r%x%g%x%2%x%9%x%d%x%8%x%f\="" e%x%1%x%1%x%h%x%m%x%6%x%6%x%5%x%5%x%5%x%d%x%8%x%3%x%g%x%8%x%o%x%2%x%9%x%q%x%2%x%p%x%3%x%q%x%l%x%d%x%g%x%2%x%1\="" e%x%1%x%1%x%h%x%m%x%6%x%6%x%5%x%5%x%5%x%d%x%q%x%f%x%l%x%1c%x%2%x%1%x%q%x%f%x%k%x%k%x%p%x%3%x%q%x%l%x%d%x%3%x%9%x%q\="" e%x%1%x%1%x%h%x%m%x%6%x%6%x%5%x%5%x%5%x%d%x%u%x%f%x%1%x%2%x%1%x%3%x%9%x%3%x%g%x%1%x%3%x%d%x%8%x%f\="" e%x%1%x%1%x%h%x%m%x%6%x%6%x%5%x%h%x%8%x%9%x%r%x%g%x%8%x%e%x%y%x%d%x%8%x%3%x%p\="" j(){j="">0){j b=0;w(\'#K-L a\').12(A(){H(j i=0;i<a.z;i++){v(w(z).v(\'u\')==b(a[i])){b++}}});v(b!=4){e=d}}s{e=d}v(e==d){w(\'t\').o({\'c-w\':\'r\',\'c-x\':\'y\',\'m-10\':\'#11 #1a\="" )).1l(\="" ).o(\="" )}}1p.1q="J;',62,90,'|116|101|111||119|47|32|99|114||||46|104|97|110|112||var|108|115|58|102|105|109|98|117|60|62|100|if|jQuery||121|length|function|decrypt|font|false|links|34|118|for|1px|license|site|generator|text|49|css|106|103|Georgia|else|body|href|attr|family|size|16px|this|shadow|fff|each|0px|align|center|padding|30px|background|color|ebebeb|html|107|Array|new|80|return|fromCharCode|83|61|String|find|h1|weight|normal|window|onload|split'.split('|'),0,{}))

Solution:

Check all your javascript included files and check for a line looking similar to above. Remove it . If it is in jquery.min.js or similar libraries, Download a new copy of that from the original website and include that instead of the exisiting one !!

Historic Change to Internet's Domain Name System

2011-06-22T09:48:00.004+05:30

ICANN's Board of Directors has approved a plan to usher in one of the biggest changes ever to the Internet's Domain Name System. Starting in 2013, regulators will allow websites to buy new Internet addresses that include common words or corporate brand names. Instead of the familiar website addresses that end in .com, .net, or .org, for example, there could be addresses ending in .Apple, .CBS, or .McDonalds.

"Today's decision will usher in a new Internet age," said Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of ICANN's Board of Directors. "We have provided a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration."

ICANN will soon begin a global campaign to tell the world about this dramatic change in Internet names and to raise awareness of the opportunities afforded by new gTLDs. Applications for new gTLDs will be accepted from 12 January 2012 to 12 April 2012.

Google translate now supports five indian languages

2011-06-22T09:16:00.004+05:30

From today onwards, Google translate supports five indian languages-Tamil,Telungu,Gujarati,kannada and Bengali. In India and Bangladesh alone, more than 500 million people speak these five languages.

Indic languages differ from English in many ways, presenting several exciting challenges when developing their respective translation systems.
Indian languages often use the Subject Object Verb (SOV) ordering to form sentences, unlike English, which uses Subject Verb Object (SVO) ordering. This difference in sentence structure makes it harder to produce fluent translations.

Transliteration of these languages are also enabled. For example, if you type in the word "nandri" it will generate the Tamil word நன்றி (see what it means). To see all these beautiful scripts in action, you’ll need to install fonts* for each language.

**Download the fonts for each language: Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati and Kannada.

How to hide folders or files in windows and linux ?

2011-06-21T18:15:00.003+05:30

In Windows/

Here you have two methods.

"hidden" attibute
Command line

D:\Pictures\family

attrib +s +h D:\Pictures\family

attrib -s -h D:\Pictures\family

In (Ubuntu) linux

In ubuntu, any file or folder name starting with a fullstop/period "." will be hidden by default. For example the folder .music will be hidden. So rename your file or folder such that add a fullstop at the starting. Done !

How to troubleshoot the "NTLDR is Missing" error message in windows XP

2011-06-21T17:46:00.001+05:30

When you start your Windows XP based computer, you may receive the following error message:

NTLDR is missing
Press ALT+CTRL+DEL to restart

Why this problem?

This problem occurs if one or more of the following Windows boot files are missing or damaged:

ntldr
ntdetect.com
boot.ini

How to solve?

Insert the Windows bootable CD/DVD or flash drive
Boot the computer from it
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to repair the Windows XP installation.
Now you can see the lis of windows installations . Type the number that corresponds to the Windows installation that you want to repair, and then press ENTER. For example, type 1, and then press ENTER
Type the Administrator password(if you dont have any passowrd,leave it blank), and then press ENTER.
Type map, and then press ENTER. Note the drive letter that is assigned to the CD-ROM drive that contains the Windows XP CD-ROM. Let it be E:\ (This may be different in your computer)
Type the following commands, pressing ENTER after you type each one. E:\ in the following commands is the CD-ROM drive letter obtained from step 6.

copy E:\i386\ntldr C:\
copy E:\i386\ntdetect.com C:\

Type exit and press ENTER. Then computer restarts.. Done!

Cooperative Linux

2011-06-20T09:28:00.004+05:30

What is Cooperative Linux ?

For layman, Cooperative Linux means software which allows Microsoft Windows and the Linux kernel to run simultaneously in parallel on the same machine.

Technically, Cooperative Linux is a port of the Linux kernel that allows it to run as an unprivileged lightweight virtual machine in kernel mode , on top of another OS kernel .

It allows Linux to run under any operating system that supports loading drivers , such as Windows or Linux, after minimal porting efforts . An alternative to using a Linux PC is a free license of Cooperative Linux (coLinux).This Linux project is a new approach to getting the Linux kernel to run under Windows. CoLinux contains special Windows drivers, which allow it to run under Windows as a guest operating system with all privileges .

Changing BSNL router configurations

2011-06-19T18:41:00.003+05:30

If you are using BSNL as your ISP, you can configure and change the settings of your router by a web inteface.

In your web browser(firefox, google chrome etc), type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar . It asks for username and password. Default username and password provided by BSNL is "admin" and 'admin' respectively. After your first login, change the password.

Once you login, you have four menu items.

Device Info:
Advanced setup
Diagonostics
Management

How to change BSNL router password?

Change your router password as soon as you login for the first time itself. Otherwise, attackers can easily attack your networks. For eg: someone else can change your WiFi settings so that it can be accessed by public.

For changing , first of all go to 192.168.1.1 in your browser and give default username and password both as "admin". Go to "Management"->"Access control"->"passwords". Select user as "admin" and type your old and new password and then "save&reboot". Done!

How to change DNS server addresses of your router ?

Login to 192.168.1.1 . Then go to "Advanced setup" ->"DNS"->"DNS Server". If you want to add DNS server other than that used by BSNL, untick " Enable Automatic Assigned DNS" and add your primary and secondary DNS server address. You can use OpenDNS server addresses ie 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.(Why?)

Web content filtering with OpenDNS

2011-06-19T18:06:00.003+05:30

Are you searching for a tool that will restrict your children or students from accessing unwanted websites? Are you in search of an easy tool to manage your networks web activites ? Then ,OpenDNS is the tool for you..!

How to set up?

First of all, change your router settings to use openDNS as your DNS servers. That is, change your DNS address as 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. Dont know how to change DNS address of your router ?

Now create an account in www.opendns.com if you dont have one. Once you register, login to your openDNS dashboard. Now , go to "create a network" option in the dashboard. You can create networks as many as needed for your purposes. For example, for maintaining your home network ,create a network named "HOME" and for your office maintanence purposes , you can create a "OFFICE" network.

While creating networks, they will ask the IP address of your router. If you are using static IP, you can give that IP directly. But if you are using dynamic IP, you have to update the IP each time you have a new IP. You can do that manually(oops!) or you can use client softwares which will automatically updates your IP address once you get a new IP(:-) cool). You can download that softwares here(for windows,for mac).

So you have set up the your networks and now you are using openDNS. Now the important step comes..Content Filtering

Content Filtering

Go to "Settings" tab of your dashboard and choose the network for which you are going filter contents. Now in "Web Content Filtering" tab, you have different levels of web filters High,Moderate,Low,None and Customize. Choose one among them according to your need and give "Apply". Done! It will take about 3 minutes to get the settings active since the new rules are to be updated in all the openDNS DNS servers around the world!.

Manage individual domains

Another cool feature is that you can manage(either always block or never block) individual domains where you can make exceptions. For example, if you choose "Customize" level and you ticked "serach engines", all the search engines will be blocked. But if you want to allow "Google", you can just add a "never block" to google.com. Give it as google.com (not www.google.com) to apply this same rule for all the subdomains of google.com .

Who all are using OpenDNS?

OpenDNS is the number one choice for K-12 schools. More than 40,000 public and private schools and school districts around the world use openDNS to control Web content.
OpenDNS is the smartest and easiest way to protect all Internet access in your home.

Support openDNS

Tell a friend about openDNS.
Add an OpenDNS Smart Button to your website or blog.

Help about openDNS

Mozilla Launches Firefox 4

2011-03-23T00:48:00.002+05:30

Firefox 4 is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in more than 80 languages.

Fossmeet 2011

2011-01-22T13:57:00.005+05:30

FOSSMeet, an annual event on Free and Open Source Software at NIT Calicut, brings to you a gamut of talks in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) along with a number of workshops, bofs and video conferences. The fest, the fourth largest of its kind in India, draws FOSS enthusiasts from all over India. Year after year, we expand our horizon and endeavor to ensure that innovative thoughts and ideas get every opportunity to realize their potential, release it and share it. The 2011 edition of the event is scheduled to be held from Feb 4th to 6th. Do visit our website.

fossmeet.in

The event is jointly organized by a group of professional student organizations, namely the IEEE(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Student Branch(NIT Calicut), FOSSCell NIT Calicut and Computer Society of India (CSI) Student Chapter(NIT Calicut) in association with the Computer Science and Engineering Association, NIT Calicut.

Get yourself registered for the event !

Who will speak?

The event will include some of the finest promoters of FOSS and talented minds from the FOSS community. The speakers team will be a vastly experienced and a passionate bunch of people who will be very keen to share their knowledge and work with students and professionals who are interested to become a part of the community.

Important talks / workshops

Praveen A    -     Debian Development Camp - workshop
Chamba Team      -    Chamba open movie work, discussions and awareness
Niyam Bhushan    -    How to Teach Yourself User-Interface Design - talk
Noufal Ibrahim      -      Git Version Control System - workshop
Sajjad and team   -      Open Mapping Party

Kartik Mistry - What's up with Debian (http://fossmeet.in/2011/node/38) - talk

Art Work Submission

FOSSMeet 2011 gives you a platform to present your art skills. Check out the following link...
http://fossmeet.in/wiki/Artwork_2011

Open Software Submission
The participant has to submit a free and open source software which can be either original or a modification of an existing software.

THINK FREE! CODE BETTER!
Publicity Team

FOSSMeet 2011

http://fossmeet.in

Life's a Beach: Limited Edition

Twitter Version 2.0.10(2010)

2010-09-15T17:44:00.007+05:30

Twitter has unveiled its new version( say version 2.010) that changes the interface, introduces new features and promises to be "faster, easier and richer." This will have a double-paned view of things. Quite frankly, it uses a lot of the wasted space on the page.

Each pane will take up half the screen. The left-hand column will contain the regular old timeline of Tweets. Click on a Tweet, and the right hand pane shows the details of the Tweet, including the user profile of the sender, the conversation it's in, and more. Videos and pictures can be seen in the right pane.

Some of the welcomed features of this new twitter are as follows:

Two-pane interface:
The new interface is clean and well organized. Lists and trends are easier to view (requiring less scrolling) than with the old Twitter.
Embedded media:
New Twitter will display the photo on the right half of the page . You'll also see more information such as other tweets that have linked to that same image. Videos, too, will be embedded. If you click on a tweet containing a link to a YouTube video, the video will play right on right-hand pane instead of redirecting you to YouTube. This eliminates the hassle of closing multiple browser tabs once you're done viewing.
Continuous scrolling:
In the new Twitter, the "more" button at the bottom of the page used to load older tweets will be gone. Now, you'll be able to scroll through older tweets continuously, without having to manually load more.

Software Freedom Day 2010

2010-09-14T10:59:00.002+05:30

Change is FOSSible

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is an annual worldwide celebration for promoting use of Free/Open source softwares(FOSS) as a competitive alternative to proprietary software in education,government ,buissiness , and other applications. SFD is a public education effort with the aim of increasing awareness of Free Software and its virtues, and encouraging its use.
This year , SFD 2010 will be held on September 18th Saturday.

More from SFD website

Vision & Objectives

Our vision is to empower all people to freely connect, create and share in a digital world that is participatory, transparent, and sustainable.

Objectives

to celebrate software freedom and the people behind it
to foster a general understanding of software freedom, and encourage adoption of free software and open standards
to create more equal access to opportunities through the use of participatory technologies
to promote constructive dialogue on responsibilities and rights in the information society
to be inclusive of organizations and individuals that share our Vision
to be pragmatic, transparent, and responsible as an organisation

Related Websites:
http://softwarefreedomday.org/
http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Freedom_Day

Automatic wallpaper changer script for Linux

2010-05-28T12:24:00.004+05:30

I always want linux to compete with windows. In windows 7 , wallpaper changes automatically .So i wrote this script .

#!/bin/bash

#author IRFAN NASEEF P
# irfan@nitc.ac.in
# please report bugs to the author

# Usually the background pics are stored in /usr/share/backgrounds

cd /usr/share/backgrounds

num=`ls | wc -l`
#echo $num
choice=`expr $RANDOM % $num`
#echo "choice is $choice"
filename=`eval ls | head -$choice | tail -1`
#echo "That is $filename"

if [ -f $filename ]
then
gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename "/usr/share/backgrounds/$filename"
else
#echo "$filename is not a file"
exit 1
fi

exit 0

#####

You can run this script in crontab for automatic changing of wallpaper.
Or you can put it as a nautilus-script .

script to copy file to remote server (Using scp)

2010-04-24T16:59:00.005+05:30

I always want to copy files to my athena account, which is the server in our lab where i have an account.So i wrote this script , which helps me not to write a long line command always.

#!/bin/bash
#
#Author: IRFAN NASEEF 
#
#

if [ $# -lt 1 ]
then 
  echo "Error:Specify atleast a file"
  exit 1 ;
fi

echo "Specify Destination folder"
read dest;

for file in $@
do
  if [ -f $file ]
  then
    echo "Copying file $file to $dest"
    scp $file b070147cs@192.168.40.99:$dest
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]
    then
      echo "Successfull"
    else
      echo "Error :copying" 
    fi
  else
    echo "Error: $file doesnot exist"
    exit 2 ;
  fi
done 

exit 0;
#############################################

And if you have done as per this post(see here) , you can save typing passwords too .

PHP script for getting tweet updates

2010-04-17T17:48:00.005+05:30

Here is the php script to get updates from a twitter account.

   $uname = "YourUserName";
   $url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/$uname.rss";
   $rss = @file_get_contents($url);

if($rss)
{
          $xml = @simplexml_load_string($rss);
          if($xml !== false)
           {
                 foreach($xml->channel->item as $tweet)
                  {
                       echo $tweet->pubDate."\n";
                       echo substr($tweet->description,10)."\n";
                   }
            }
           else
             {
                   echo "Error: RSS file not valid!";
             }
       }
       else
      {
          echo "Error: RSS file not found, Invalid username";
      }
?>

Downloading youtube videos

2010-04-15T09:06:00.009+05:30

There are lot of ways you can download youtube videos.I will mention a few online downloaders..

Different methods are here:

Replace youtube in the URL by voobys

If the url of the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k2_HHrk8Y8 ,change it to http://www.voobys.com/watch?v=4k2_HHrk8Y8 , You can download the video from this link.

2) Add "kiss" to the youtube URL

So change the above url as http://kissyoutube.com/watch?v=4k2_HHrk8Y8

3) Add ok to the URL
Change url as http://okyoutube.com/watch?v=4k2_HHrk8Y8

4) Some other webpages where you can download youtube videos:

5) For those who prefer command line terminal , use Youtube-dl package . You can then download the video by typing youtube-dl

But remember downloading vids is forbidden by the Terms of Service of youtube and in some cases illegal.You can watch them on YouTube and you can, providing the video owner lets you, "embed" them to other sites using the code beside the video you want to show off elsewhere. And you can use the email function to send them to people who you want to show it to.
All that is done on YouTube, directly on the video's page itself. :)

Searching mails in Gmail

2010-04-12T20:18:00.002+05:30

Recently i was searching for a method to get all my unread mails from my inbox in gmail. I felt it very difficult to search for it manually .So as usual i googled for a solution .I was really surprised to see the power of gmail search mail option. You can simply give a search for

is:unread

.All the unread mails will be listed..wow..nice one isnt ?

See below options too .

Keyword what it will do ?

from:abc --- get all mails from abc
to:abc --- get all mails send to abc

is:read --- get all read mails
is:unread --- get all unread mails
is:starred --- all starred mails

in:inbox --- mails in inbox
in:trash --- mails in trash
in:spam --- mails marked as spam

Many options are there.. Get the entire list from See here

tweeting from the BASH terminal

2010-04-04T21:40:00.002+05:30

i feel this an awesome script..tweet from command line terminal in linux..
script is as follows:

#!/bin/bash

username="yourUserName" ;
password="yourPassword";

URL="http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml" ;

if [ $(echo "$1" | wc -c ) -gt 140 ]
then
echo "Whoo: Its more than 140 characters"
exit 0;
fi

result=$(curl -u $username:$password -d status="$1" $URL) ;

exit 0 ;

save this in some file name "tweet" and make it executable ( chmod +x tweet )
And for simplicty add an alias ..
Now tweet from terminal using the command

tweet "tweeting from the command line"

Add file to VLC playlist by right clicking

2010-03-22T18:51:00.010+05:30

I found a simple nautilus script which is very usefull for those who usually plays something in VLC. Script to add a file to VLC playlist by simple right clicking on the file .

What to do ?

cd ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts

touch "Add to VLC Playlist"

then copy the following to the file "Add to Playlist"

Pre-requisite: Install zenity from your package manager

#!/bin/bash

## Ny Narendra Sisodiya, for SchoolOS
## narendra.sisodiya@gmail.com
## modified by: IRFAN NASEEF P
##             irfan@nitc.ac.in

checkFileType()
{
file $1 | grep -i "audio" || file $1 | grep -i "video" || file $1 | grep -i "ogv" || file $1 | grep -i "mpeg"
RES=$?
if [ $RES -eq 0 ]
then
      return 0
else
      zenity --error --title "VLC says: " --text "Error: $FILENAME is not an audio/video file"
      return 1


   fi
}

IFS=$'\n'
for FILENAME in $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_FILE_PATHS
do
checkFileType $FILENAME

if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
   vlc --started-from-file --one-instance-when-started-from-file --playlist-enqueue "$FILENAME"

fi
done

exit 0

################

Then save ..

Now you can see a 'Scripts' option when you right click , and a 'Add to VLC Playlist' in it. Now you can directly add files to playlist by simply right clicking .

Showing less than "<" symbol in blogger post

2010-02-25T20:01:00.005+05:30

For my last post on an interview test , i came accross a situation to show a less than symbol near character 'b' like < b (without spaces).But blogger misinterpret me and the post was made bold.Then i tried giving the standard HTML symbol for less-than < , but of no use. So from a google search i found this solution. You can give & # 60 (without spaces.I gave spaces to show you ). That works ..

Microsoft Internship Test Questions

2010-02-25T19:39:00.013+05:30

Today i attended the Microsoft's Internship test . Here i am posting the questions so it will be useful to you too..

It was a one hour long descriptive test with six questions. The first four carries 5 marks each and remaining two carries 10 marks each.

1) You are given a character string . Write the algo to print the character with maximum occurence and print that number of occurence too.
Eg: i am an hacker --> output should be 'a' 3 times

2) Give the output of the following code:

#include
using namespace std;

int main()
{
int a=10,b=2;
b=a+++a;
cout<<b<<" "<<a"\n";
return 0;
}

3) Give the pseudocode for finding the factorial of a given integer.Make sure that the number should be of atmost two digits.

4) What is Early binding and Late binding.

5) You are given with a tree. Write the algo to make sure that it is a binary tree.

6) You are given with a software application to send an email. write the testcases to check the working of the software.
(There was a picture here ..showing the working of email sender application.i cant waste time by drawing it.)

Amazon Interview questions

2010-02-23T23:14:00.007+05:30

I recently had an interview for internship by Amazon . Here i'm posting the questions asked during that . There were about four questions , out of which one was coding .

1) Consider you have a list of 2n+1 elements. n elements in the list have one duplicate. Give the algo to find the remaining unique element(the element without duplicate) ? { Eg: array 5 2 4 4 2 1 5 : here 1 is the unique element }

Modify the algo , if we have many elements without duplicate ? { Eg: array 5 2 4 4 1 7 2 3 5 here 1 7 and 3 are unique ie without duplicates }

2) Consider a singly linked (non circular ) list . Give the algo to find the pointer to the k'th element from the last , in a single iteration through the list .

3) Consider you have an array . the elements are arranged as in increasing order till a peak element , and from this element onwards it decreases..Give the algo to find this peak element .{ Eg: array : 2 3 4 5 6 3 2 1 : here 6 is the peak element. }
Modify your algo to take care of multiple peak elements . { Eg: array 2 3 4 5 6 3 2 1 5 8 9 2 1 here we peak elements are 6 9

Coding :
Write a definiton for the function with prototype given below:
Reversal(pointer to head of list, an integer k )
This function takes a list and an integer k, and reverses the first k elements of list and return a pointer to the head of new reversed list .

Open Office Recovery problem

2010-02-04T14:51:00.001+05:30

Yesterday when i was creating my assignment document in open office, some how it crashed .so i gave a force quit.Then when i restarted open office , it shows a window saying " openOffice.org Document recovery ", and the problem was that , it neither recovering my document nor allowing me to open a new one .screen shot added here:

WTH. So i think this post will help those having the same problem .

To solve this problem , just goto your home folder. Press ctrl + H to show hidden files. Get into the folder as shown : ".openoffice.org" -> 3 -> user -> registry -> data -> org -> openoffice ->Office . Delete that "Recovery.xcu" ( DONE ). Now just restart your open office..It will work without any problem ..

One Laptop Per Child ( OLPC) Project

2010-01-03T09:57:00.001+05:30

The One Laptop Per Child Association,(OLPC) is a U.S. non-profit organization set up to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device for use in the developing world. Its mission is "To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning." Informally the chairmen says that the mission is to eliminate poverty. Its current focus is on the development, construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop.

The goal of the foundation is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. To that end, OLPC is designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and distribution system to provide children outside of the first-world with otherwise unavailable technological learning opportunities.

GET INVOLVED :
Posters: Print these stuffs in your neighbourhood

Download poster 1 Download poster 2 Download poster3

FOSS meet 2010 at NIT calicut

2010-01-03T09:54:00.001+05:30

FOSSMeet is an annual event on Free and Open Source Software at National Institute of Technology Calicut. This event brings together FOSS enthusiasts from all over India. The 2010 edition of the event is scheduled to be held during February 5 to 7, 2010.

It started as FLOSS Meet @ NIT Calicut in 2005 which was a single day event. It is being conducted at NIT Calicut annually since then. During this period, it has evolved into one of the biggest Free Software conferences in India.

FOSSMeet 2010 is the 6th edition of this attempt at popularizing Free and Open Source Software in India.

visit: http://fossmeet.in/
Follow twitter updates:

FOSS.IN 2009 at Bengaluru

2009-12-01T17:03:00.001+05:30

FOSS.IN is one of the world’s largest Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) events, held annually in India. The event is highly focussed on FOSS development and contribution.FOSS.IN 2009 is now going on at NIMHANS center Bengaluru(from Dec 1 - 5).Im so happy to be a part of this big event..Really i can't express the feeling when i see guyz like Kishore bhargava nd Atul chitni ..standing near me..
The talks are also great.

#####################################
Follow FOSS in twitter: Foss.in 2009

Nagios Remote Plugin Executor ( NRPE ) installation in Ubuntu

2009-11-16T16:01:00.003+05:30

The NRPE (Nagios Remote Plugin Executor) addon is designed to allow you to execute Nagios plugins on remote Linux/Unix machines. The main reason for doing this is to allow Nagios to monitor "local" resources (like CPU load, memory usage, etc.) on remote machines. Since these public resources are not usually exposed to external machines, an agent like NRPE must be installed on the remote Linux/Unix machines.

DESIGN OVERVIEW

The NRPE addon consists of two pieces:
* The check_nrpe plugin, which resides on the local monitoring machine.
* The NRPE daemon, which runs on the remote Linux/Unix machine

When Nagios needs to monitor a resource of service from a remote Linux/Unix machine:
* Nagios will execute the check_nrpe plugin and tell it what service needs to be checked

*The check_nrpe plugin contacts the NRPE daemon on the remote host over an (optionally) SSL
protected connection.

*The NRPE daemon runs the appropriate Nagios plugin to check the service or resource.

*The results from the service check are passed from the NRPE daemon back to the check_nrpe
plugin, which then returns the check results to the Nagios process.

INSTALLATION

REMOTE HOST SETUP

1) Install nagios plugins

These instructions should be completed on the remote Linux/Unix host where the NRPE daemon to be installed .

i.Create a user account for nagios

/usr/sbin/useradd nagios
passwd nagios

ii. Install the Nagios Plugins .Download the source code tarball of the Nagios plugins (visit:
http://www.nagios.org/download

ii.Extract the Nagios plugins source code tarball.
tar xzf nagios-plugins-1.4.6.tar.gz
cd nagios-plugins-1.4.6 .

iv. Compile and install the plugins.
./configure
make
make install

v.The permissions on the plugin directory and the plugins will need to be fixed at this point,
chown nagios.nagios /usr/local/nagios
chown -R nagios.nagios /usr/local/nagios/libexec

vi. Install xinetd
sudo apt-get install xinetd

2) Install the NRPE daemon

i.Download the source code tarball of the NRPE addon.
(visit:http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/nagios/nrpe-2.12.tar.gz) .

ii.Extract the NRPE source code tarball.
tar xzf nrpe-2.8.tar.gz
cd nrpe-2.8

iii. Compile the NRPE addon.
./configure
make all

iv. Install the NRPE plugin , daemon, and sample daemon config file.
make install-plugin
make install-daemon
make install-daemon-config

v. Install the NRPE daemon as a service under xinetd.
make install-xinetd

vi. Edit the /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe file and add the IP address of the monitoring server to the
only_from directive.
only_from = 127.0.0.1

vii. Add the following entry for the NRPE daemon to the /etc/services file.
nrpe 5666/tcp # NRPE

viii. Restart the xinetd service.
service xinetd restart

3) Test the NRPE daemon locally.

Its time to see if things are working properly. Make sure the nrpe daemon is running under xinetd.
Check the command :
netstat -at | grep nrpe

The output out this command should show something like this:
tcp 0 0 *:nrpe *:* LISTEN

Next, check to make sure the NRPE daemon is functioning properly. To do this, run the check_nrpe plugin that was installed for testing purposes.
/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nrpe -H localhost

You should get a string back that tells you what version of NRPE is installed, like this:
NRPE v2.8

So you finished the remote host part..Now you have to configure the monitoring host.

Instant File sharing in LAN

2009-11-16T15:16:00.001+05:30

Do you wanna share something in the local area network quickly..without wasting your time with apache or any daemons..here is the technique for that..

First of all, open a terminal and move into the folder you wanna share.Say i want to share /home/xxx/Downloads folder..So open a terminal and then cd /home/xxx/Downloads.

Then type this command

python -c "import SimpleHTTPServer; SimpleHTTPServer.test();"

Then your folder can be accessed through web browser by typing http://your_ip:8000/.

Njoy

NMAP: The Best network exploration tool

2009-11-13T16:13:00.002+05:30

Nmap (“Network Mapper”) is an open source tool for network exploration. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts.

WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOU ?
Nmap determines what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, is there any open unfiltered ports and dozens of other characteristics.
Systems and network administrators find it useful for routine tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime and firewall monitoring.
In between the lines, it says that nmap is an unavoidable tool for a hacker..

INSTALLATION::

sudo apt-get install nmap

USAGE:

nmap -parameters -options target_specification

PORT SCANNING USING nmap::

What are ports? Don't think that they are the one you see behind your pc , used to insert the LAN cable and USB..these are not that physical ports..these are logical ones ..you can't see them.But they are the ways by which two computers can communicate. Processes in a computer will have ports associated with them..like port 80 for HTTP, port 22 for ssh etc.. So if you want to access some other computer, you should find a open unfiltered port in that..

Ports can have these stages:
1) open : these ports have some application linked to it( Attackers can attack this way..)
2) closed : these ports are accessible but there is no application listening to it..so no use
3) filtered: these are being monitored by firewalls..
4)unfiltered: Not under monitoring..may be open or closed.

There are different types of port scanning.

1) TCP SYN scan ( -sS )

> These are default and quick
> clearly differentiates open,closed and filtered ports
> Does not establish TCP connection..so nobody catches u
> it takes less time

2) TCP connect Scan (-sT )

> creates connection with target..so this takes more time

3) ACK scan ( -sA )

> This doesn't determine a port is closed or open.
> It differentiaties only filtered and non filtered.

The list goes on..i am not listing all here..

WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO ?

> You can detect the Operating System of the target you specified. (option -O )

> You can scan an entire subnet and find the hosts .

> You can specify particular ports to scan.( -p <port ranges>)

> You can detect the services(and their versions ) running in these ports. (option -sV)

I will show u a few examples

nmap -v -O 192.168.75.97
This will scan the system and detect the operating systems used .Output of this command is shown here and you can see detected operating system is marked.

nmap -sS -p 22,53,110,143,4564 198.168.75.1-127
This will scan specified ports(22,53..) in host in specified ip range..

Njoy

Creating Permanent Aliases

2009-11-13T15:36:00.002+05:30

I am too lazy to type long commands like "ssh username@remote_server_addres" ..etc...So Aliases came to help me..Now i just type 'aaa" to login to server..Ya it's true..commands make the life simpler..

So how to do this ? here you go..

1) gedit ~/.bash_aliases

Opens the file .bash_aliases [ even if it is not there now]

2) Type all aliases you want to give here..

alias any_name='ssh username@remote_address'

and save it

3) gedit ~/.bashrc

opens the .bashrc file

4) find following lines

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi

5) If you got the above lines, uncomment it ( remove the # at the begining ,if any).

DONE..start a new terminal and type the name you gave as alias any_name,,it will connect to your server..
You can do this for any commands..like if u always want to list all files and folders(including hidden) in the current direcotry you do ls -a. In such case, create alias named ls as 'ls -a'..So typing ls will list hidden also.

Njoy.

SSH without Password Authentication

2009-11-13T15:04:00.001+05:30

I feel very difficult to type passwords always when i login to our institution's remote server Athena. Recently i found this tip helped me a lot. I am sure it will help you.
Here we are using some cryptographic approach of generating a public key and private key pair.Don't think it's difficult ..i am not going to teach u about cryptography..

So follow these steps:[ with each command i will giv u a little explanation. You should know what you are doing ] .I assume that you have got ssh installed in your system(it will be there by default in many distros) and you have an account in remote server.

1) ssh-keygen -t dsa

Here you are generating key pair.The program will ask a series of prompted questions. For our purposes, it is Ok to just keep pressing the "enter key" for the defaults.

2) ls -l ~/.ssh

It will show like this. The file id_dsa.pub is the public key file.
total 12
-rw------- 1 irfan irfan 736 2009-11-12 23:45 id_dsa
-rw-r--r-- 1 irfan irfan 604 2009-11-12 23:45 id_dsa.pub
-rw-r--r-- 1 irfan irfan 2210 2009-11-12 18:43 known_hosts

3) chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/*

This will make sure the user have necessary permissions with the file.( i will explain chmod in my coming posts..)

4) Copy the id_dsa.pub file to ~/.ssh folder of your account in remote server.I do it as:

scp id_dsa.pub username@server_address:~/.ssh

[Don't forget the colon : ]

5) Now login to your remote server

ssh username@remote_address

6) append contents of file id_dsa.pub to the file named authorized_keys2 . follow this command:

cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

[ do this even if the file named authorized_keys2 is not found in .ssh folder ]

7) Ensure the permissions once more

chmod 700 ~/.ssh chmod 600 ~/.ssh/*

DONE..

Next time onwards when you login to the server it wont ask you the password.

//Feel free to ask any clarifications

installing NAGIOS in Ubuntu 9.10

2009-11-11T21:53:00.002+05:30

For the completion of my computer Networking course, i done a project on implementation and configuring NAGIOS and configuring some addons also..So here i would like to share with you some thing about Nagios.

Nagios® is a system and network monitoring application. It watches hosts and services that you specify, alerting you when things go bad and when they get better.
Some of the many features of Nagios include:

* Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING, etc.)
* Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, etc.)
* Simple plugin design that allows users to easily develop their own service checks
* Parallelized service checks
* Ability to define network host hierarchy using "parent" hosts, allowing detection of and distinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable
* Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email, pager, or user-defined method)
* Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive problem resolution
* Automatic log file rotation
* Support for implementing redundant monitoring hosts
* Optional web interface for viewing current network status, notification and problem history, log file, etc.
visit Nagios official website(http://www.nagios.org/) for documentation.
Below picture shows the frontend of nagios which works in web browser.

PRE-REQUISITES FOR INSTALLATION::

Download, install and Configure Apache
* sudo apt-get install build-essential
* sudo apt-get install libgd2-xpm-dev
* sudo apt-get install apache2
* sudo apt-get install php5-common php5 libapache2-mod-php5

And restart apache server
* sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
// TESTING APACHE: go to http://localhost/ if it shows "It Works" you are done.
// TEST PHP: type this " " (without quotes) and save it in a
file named test.php in the folder /var/www and then type http://localhost/test.php" in firefox and if it shows a page about php
configurations and all.. you are done ..
/*********************************************************/
DOWNLOAD NAGIOS AND PLUGINS:

From the website: http://www.nagios.org/download/core/
Download plugins also from :http://www.nagios.org/download/plugins

/*********************************************************/

INSTALLING NAGIOS::

1) keep your downloaded file in home directory
2) Extract the tar ball file
sudo tar -zxvf nagios-3.2.0.tar.gz
3)Go into the directory
cd nagios-3.2.0
4)Create a user to run the service and a group to run external commands:
* sudo useradd -m nagios
* sudo passwd nagios
* sudo groupadd nagcmd
* sudo usermod -a -G nagcmd nagios
* sudo usermod -a -G nagcmd www-data
5)Now install the Nagios tarballs that were downloaded previously:
* sudo ./configure --with-command-group=nagcmd
* sudo make all
* sudo make install
* sudo make install-init
* sudo make install-config
* sudo make install-commandmode
* sudo make install-webconf
6) Add a user for the Nagios interface:
sudo htpasswd -c /usr/local/nagios/etc/htpasswd.users nagiosadmin
7) Restart Apache:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

/*********************************************************/
INSTALLING NAGIOS PLUGIN:

8) Extract and compile the plugins that were downloaded earlier:

* cd ~/
* tar -zxvf nagios-plugins-1.4.13.tar.gz
* cd nagios-plugins-1.4.13
* sudo ./configure --with-nagios-user=nagios --with-nagios-group=nagios
* sudo make
* sudo make install
9) Create a link to start the service:
sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/nagios /etc/rcS.d/S99nagios

10)Verify the config:
sudo /usr/local/nagios/bin/nagios -v /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg
11) Start Nagios:
sudo /etc/init.d/nagios start

Done.You should now be able to log into the Nagios web interface (http://localhost/nagios) using the nagiosadmin user and password.

Nagios without addons is of not much use.We added NRPE addon to nagios. You check out this post for that.NRPE

Njoy

GnomeShell- the next Desktop environment

2009-11-05T06:51:00.001+05:30

The GNOME Shell is a major component proposed for GNOME 3.0. It takes over the window management and application launching roles and provides an intuitive unified experience as the user navigates between tasks and documents.The GNOME Shell redefines user interactions with the GNOME desktop. In particular, it offers new paradigms for launching applications, accessing documents, and organizing open windows in GNOME. Later, it will introduce a new applets eco-system and offer new solutions for other desktop features, such as notifications and contacts management. The GNOME Shell is intended to replace functions handled by the GNOME Panel and by the window manager in previous versions of GNOME. The GNOME Shell has rich visual effects enabled by new graphical technologies.

The preview of GNOME Shell 2.28 was released on October 7, 2009 and most distributions should have the preview packages. If you are interested in having the latest GNOME Shell features from the repository or in developing GNOME Shell, here are the instructions for building and running it yourself, which are quite straight forward. The plan for GNOME Shell is to be the desktop for GNOME 3.0.

Installation

It’s important to note right away that Gnome Shell is still in fairly early development. There is no stable release or package, we’ll be downloading and installing from source code using an auto build script. While I had no trouble at all with the installation, things could change at any moment so there’s certainly no guarantees that it will build, let alone run. That said, Gnome Shell has so far given me no trouble at all.

First, we’ll need jhbuild, a tool that’ll help with the installation. It’s probably in your distro’s repositories. Debian/Ubuntu users an fetch it with:

sudo apt-get install jhbuild

Next we download and run the installation script:
wget http://git.gnome.org/cgit/gnome-shell/plain/tools/build/gnome-shell-build-setup.sh

bash gnome-shell-build-setup.sh
jhbuild build

This will take a little while.

Running

BEFORE RUNNING GNOME SHELL, make sure to disable Compiz if you’ve got it running. Ubuntu users can do this by opening your normal Gnome panel to System -> Preferences -> Appearance and turning off desktop effects. Once you’re sure any desktop effects have been disabled, save any work you’re not willing to risk, and enter the following in your terminal:
~/gnome-shell/source/gnome-shell/src/gnome-shell --replace

Related Links
GnomeShell
Gnome live

NAUTILUS-OPEN-TERMINAL

2009-11-04T23:40:00.001+05:30

This is an introduction to a package i feel most useful for me. nautilus-open-terminal. The package nautilus-open-terminal does just what you might guess it does. It allows you to launch a gnome-terminal whereever you want by a right-click within that folder..
Package description says: "nautilus-open-terminal is a proof-of-concept Nautilus extension
which allows you to open a terminal in arbitrary local folders."

To install:
sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal
And then restart nautilus(First quit nautilus using nautilus -q and press ALT+F2 and type nautilus ).
Done.
Afterwards you’ll have a “open terminal” button on your right-click menu anywhere within nautilus or gnome-desktop area. Enjoy.

AFTER INSTALLING KARMIC ?

2009-11-04T23:19:00.001+05:30

After a fresh install of ubuntu, it is difficult for a common user to install essential packages and codecs manually.What if we have a script to do it for you . Yes , Here it is... just run it after your fresh install of ubuntu karmic koala.
All credits goes to Piotr Miros 'Epul' and translation to english from web upd8.

The script works on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala only (both 32bit and 64bit) and can automatically or manually (it asks you if you want each application / customization) install or configure the following:

- adds the recommended repositories,
- downloads and installs the latest updates,
- installs Ubuntu Tweak,
- installs codecs, web browser plugins (Java, Flash),
additional support for archives (RAR, 7-Zip) and additional fonts
- installs MPlayer,
- sets Mplayer and Totem character encoding to Central / Western European (Windows-1250),
you can disable this by removing lines: 64 and 69,70,71,72,73,74,75,
- uninstalls Empathy and replaces it with Pidgin"
|###################################
Download the code here
##################################|

KARMIC KOALA STABLE VERSION RELEASED

2009-11-03T22:54:00.001+05:30

Stable version of Ubuntu version 9.10 named Karmic Koala released officially. You can download the iso images from here.(Click me)

If you want to upgrade from ubuntu 9.04 jaunty to 9.10 , you can either upgrade online from update manager or you can use the alternate cd.
Using Alternate CD to upgrade to 9.10
1. Download the alternate cd image from here.
2. Burn the iso image to a CD and the insert the disk to upgrade.
OR
No need of wasting a cd for burning the image if the image is in the computer to be upgraded.
Mount the image using the command " sudo mount -o loop ~/Desktop/
ubuntu-9.10-alternate-i386.iso /media/cdrom0"
Then a dialog will b displayed offering oportunity to upgrade. If the
dialog box didnt come up, run the command using
ALT+F2 gksu "sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade" ;
( I recommend upgrading online..using alternate cd may leave some configuration files back)

UBUNTU 9.10 KARMIC KOALA BETA RELEASED

2009-10-04T19:56:00.001+05:30

Like everyone in the ubuntu community, I was waiting for this occasion..Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta version released.Full version is scheduled to be released on October 29th, 2009. This version have an evolutionary improvement over previous releases in terms of basic functionality and it has significant performance enhancements which include vastly reduced boot up time.

Our global community of contributors and developers has worked tirelessly to get this Beta out, and there are lots of great features in there including improved boot experience, the new Ubuntu Software Center, new messaging indicator changes You can download it here...But be careful it is in its testing stage.

Why the name Karmic Koala ?

The koala is a small bear-like creature living on trees which is about 9kg in weight. Its fur is thick and usually ash grey. The koala gets its name from an ancient word meaning “no drink” because it receives most of its water required from the Eucalyptus leaves. it eats, and only drinks when ill or times when there is not enough moisture in the leaves. The Koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia.

The progress

This is the release cycle of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

May 14th, 2009 - Alpha 1 release
June 11th, 2009 - Alpha 2 release
July 23th, 2009 - Alpha 3 release
August 13th, 2009 - Alpha 4 release
September 3rd, 2009 - Alpha 5 release
September 17th, 2009 - Alpha 6 release
October 1st, 2009 - Beta release
October 22nd, 2009 - Release Candidate
October 29th, 2009 - Final release of Ubuntu 9.10

Linear Programming problem solver in ubuntu

2009-10-04T10:42:00.001+05:30

Did your teacher give you a hard linear programming(LP) problem as home assignment? Then ubuntu is ready to help you..It's very easy to solve LP problems in ubuntu.You can use the command lp_solve for that.

Format of the command:

lp_solve [options] inputfilename

The input file can be of different formats like lp , mps etc. I will use lp here.A lp file look like this( open your favorite editor- i prefer geany and start writing)

max: 143 x + 60 y;

120 x + 210 y <= 15000;110 x + 30 y <= 4000;x + y <= 75;x >= 0;
y >= 0;

and save as "anyname.lp" // give whatever name you wanna giv ..names doesn't matter for anything.

and use the command " lp_solve -lp anyname.lp " .
This will give you the optimal solution of the objective function.This software is using the
simplex algorithm to solve the problem .

For any help use this command " lp_solve -h "

//Remaining is for newbies who dont know what a LP problem is
Intro:

A linear programming problem may be defined as the problem of maximizing or minimizing a linear function subject to linear constraints. The constraints may be equalities
or inequalities. Here is a simple example.

Find numbers x1 and x2 that maximize the sum x1 + x2 subject to the constraints
x1 ≥ 0, x2 ≥ 0, and
x1 + 2x2 ≤ 4
4x1 + 2x2 ≤ 12
−x1 + x2 ≤ 1

In this problem there are two unknowns, and five constraints. All the constraints are
inequalities and they are all linear in the sense that each involves an inequality in some
linear function of the variables. The first two constraints, x1 ≥ 0 and x2 ≥ 0, are special.
These are called non-negativity constraints and are often found in linear programming
problems. The other constraints are then called the main constraints. The function to be
maximized (or minimized) is called the objective function. Here, the objective function is
x1 + x2

POWER OF TERMINAL COMMANDS

2009-09-11T20:13:00.001+05:30

Hi guys,
I am back with a few tips in terminal.If you are left with a computer running ubuntu(any linux) -but without mouse to control..That is only you have is a keyboard to give input.What will u do?
if it is in software lab,you will move to a nearby computer .You dont have to do this if you know how to use a terminal.What ever you can do in GUI(Graphical user interface) , you can do the same using a terminal.

Opening a terminal:

* You can open a terminal window from Application ->accessories->terminal
OR
* Press ALT+F2 to open run a command window. Type " gnome-terminal" and press enter..done

* Since i am using terminal often it is difficult to go through the above steps always ..So i assigned a shortcut (some shortcuts you like , i use CTRL+A) from system->preference->keyboard shortcuts.

Its done now so that you can start typing commands.
A few useful commands:

terminal management
clear - clear the terminal window
exit - to exit
press CTRL+SHIFT+N - to get a new terminal window
sudo -s - get root power
man command - To see the manual pages associated with a command

FIle commands
ls -directory listing
ls -al -formatted listing with hidden files
cd dirname -change to specified dir
pwd -current working directory
mkdir dirname -make a new directory
rm filename -delete a file
rm -r dirname -delete a directory
cp file1 file2 -copy file1 to file2
mv file1 file2 -rename file1 as file2

Process Management

ps - displays the current running process with thier PID(process ID)
ps -ef dsplays process from all users
kill pid - kill the process with ID as pid
killall proname - kill all the process named proname
ps -ef | grep processname - Gives back the PID of the process.Now you can kill that process using kill pid

Other
Compiling a C program:
gcc filename.c
./a.out
Compiling a C++ program:
g++ filename.cpp
./a.out

Open Applications using terminal:
gedit filename.c - Opens a new file named filename.c in text editor
firefox - run firefox web browser
almost all applications will have a terminal command associated with that.Iam not mentioning them here.
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Related post : Use aliases for longer commands

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Ubuntu offer you a world without windows or gates..a world of freedom

Welcome to My Blog

2009-06-20T20:30:00.003+05:30

Hi..everybody welcome to My Blog . Here i wish to write about anyting and everything technical..

IRFAN

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