Ali Ayoub's Blog

[MAC OS] Fix Home/End keys

2014-04-03T03:51:00.002+03:00

OS X version: 10.8.x

Issue: If you're used to get to the begining/end of the line by hitting home/end keys, you might already noticed that this is not the way it works on MAC

Fix: Open terminal window:

mkdir -p ~/Library/KeyBindings/

copy and paste the following:

{
/* Remap Home / End keys to be correct */
"\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLine:"; /* Home */
"\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLine:"; /* End */
"$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Home */
"$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + End */
"^\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfDocument:"; /* Ctrl + Home */
"^\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfDocument:"; /* Ctrl + End */
"$^\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfDocumentAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Ctrl + Home */
"$^\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfDocumentAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Ctrl + End */
}

Save and restart.

Credit goes to:

http://mwholt.blogspot.com/2012/09/fix-home-and-end-keys-on-mac-os-x.html

[MAC OS] "VMWare Tools has modified the user Interface size Settings. You must log off ..."

2014-02-27T05:02:00.002+02:00

If you use VMware fusion, and got the error message:
"VMWare Tools has modified the user Interface size Settings. You must log off ..."

The problem can be fixed by reinstalling VMWARE SVGA 3D" driver

Linux boot process

2013-10-20T14:47:00.003+03:00

A nice article about Linux boot process:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-initrd/

[Linux] Online tool to add prefix into each line

2013-08-22T02:01:00.003+03:00

If you need to copy/paste some text for a Linux-like Email reply, you may need an online tool to add the prefix ">" before each line. This online tool makes it possible:

http://textmechanic.com/Add-Prefix-Suffix-to-Text.html

[MAC OS] Google Drive "Retrying X files"

2013-07-07T11:10:00.001+03:00

OS X version: 10.8.x
Issue: Google drive Version 1.10.4769.0632 keeps retrying to syncup files and fails. Right click on the Google drive icon shows "Retrying X files" (e.g. Retrying 2 files), it doesn't show up the reason of the failure, or what files fail to sync.

Fix: First, locate the log file on your mac OS:
/Users/ali/Library/Application Support/Google/Drive/sync_log.log

Look for the lines that include the string "Retry Timestamps", you'll find the filename in the same line after the string "CloudEntry(file:XXX,YYY)"

Quite Google Drive, rename the file(s) on your local machine, go to your google drive online and delete the file online (if exists), then launch Google drive again.

[MAC OS] Java VPN Failure: "An error occurred while extracting one of the Network Connect components"

2013-07-04T10:53:00.001+03:00

OS X version: 10.8.x
Issue: While installing Java-based web VPN client on Safari, you get the error message "An error occurred while extracting one of the Network Connect components".
Fix: Open the terminal, and run the command below, then try to reconnect:

sudo keytool -storepasswd -new changeit -keystore /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Resources/Deploy.bundle/Contents/Home/lib/security/cacerts -storepass changeme

Update:
Along with Mavericks‘ update, Safari no longer works (even with the work around above). But Fireforx seems to work, as well as launching Network Connect directly from the Application folder. I personally will use the latter from now on.

Thanks to this post (and the comments).

[MAC OS] control vs. command buttons

2013-07-01T07:40:00.003+03:00

If you're using VNC or a Windows/Linux Virtual machine within MAC OS, you probably noticed the confusion coming from the fact the MAC OS command button is equivalent to Linux/Windows Control button. To align the buttons between the VNC/VM and MAC, you can modify the key in MAC to "swap" between command and control buttons:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Key

Another option:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Application Shortcut > All Applications, then use the settings below:

Add shortcut

Copy ^C

Undo ^Z

Cut ^X

Paste ^V

Select All ^A

[MAC OS] Enable/Disable SPOTLIGHT

2013-06-02T06:56:00.000+03:00

OS X version: 10.8.x

Issue: SPOTLIGHT consumes too much resource

Fix: Disable MAC OS indexing

Download the script
If the browser shows the script as a text file, right-click on the script content, then "save as".On Safari: "save page as", then select "Format: Page Source" and keep the file name as is.
Open mac os terminal: Applications/Terminal
In the Terminal window, go to the folder that contains the script e.g. "cd ~/Downloads"
Run: "sudo sh mac-os-spotlight.sh off" (type root password if needed)
If you wish to re-enable spotlight indexing, run same command above with "on" flag
Note: after reboot, the configuration is remembered

[MAC OS] Fix "open with" Duplicate Entries

2013-06-02T06:32:00.001+03:00

OS X version: 10.8.x
Issue: "Open With" menu has duplicate entries
Fix: Rebuild the Launch Services database
Reference: Apple Support Communities #4250905

Download the script
If the browser shows the script as a text file, right-click on the script content, then "save as".
On Safari: "save page as", then select "Format: Page Source" and keep the file name as is.
Open mac os terminal: Applications/Terminal
In the Terminal window, gGo to the folder that contains the script e.g. "cd ~/Downloads"
Run: "sudo sh mac-os-rebuild-launch-db.sh" (type root password if needed)
Relaunch the finder: ctrl+option+click-on-finder-icon, then select "relaunch"
"open with" menu should be fixed now

2013-01-30T04:47:00.000+02:00

ويحك يا دنيا رميت سهماً - اصبت من بين صفوفنا خطيبها
وان كان اوان المنيه مستقدراً -لا اصنفت حين ظفرت سليمها
الم تصغ وقت دعينا سراً - رب لا تهمد ذي الدار سراجها
وان عصينا, فلنا فيها امـاً - لا تعص والداً ولا تقطر بدمعها
رضينا ربنا بالديجور داراً - راجيك ان ينير الجنان فردوسها

How to compile Linux kernel for ARM

2012-12-05T05:19:00.001+02:00

How to Stop Receiving Catalogs

2012-11-26T18:04:00.001+02:00

Mozilla Thunderbird & Microsoft Outlook & Linux Patches

2012-08-10T02:48:00.002+03:00

Tested on Thunderbird 14.0 (2012)

Microsoft Outlook is commonly used by many enterprises, it has a lot of nice features, but it cannot be used by Linux kernel hackers to exchange Emails and submit/review patches, because it doesn't support the formatting required by the Linux kernel community, Outlook client does "too much" to beautify the Email, and end up breaking the Email headers and formatting, in such a way that all attempts to fix it have failed.

Mozilla Thunderbird on the other hand, has very nice GUI interface, and can be configured as you wish. It also supports Apple OS X.

So if your company uses Microsoft outlook for internal Email exchanges, and you'd like to take part in sending/receiving Emails with the Linux kernel community, you may find it useful to move to Thunderbird.

Note that Thunderbird doesn't support Microsoft Exchange server (w/o IMAP/POP3), so you may want to have separate Email email for Linux kernel development (could be even a Gmail or Google Apps Email, this is good for archiving and for searching Emails). My attempts of using Thunderbird with Web Outlook interface didn't show good results, also using software proxy solutions such as DevMail showed very low speed. So I don't recommend making Thunderbird work with Microsoft Web outlook or Exchange server if it's not supported natively in Thunderbird (as for version Thunderbird 14.0 - 2012, it's not supported).

Configuring your Email with Thunderbird is pretty easy, the automatic configuration tools that comes with the Thunderbird client did the job, and it worked like a charm.

Now the tricky part is how to configure Thunderbird Email formatting to work properly with Linux patches. I found some links that explains how to do so, but the instructions seem to be outdated. Below is step-by-step instructions to configure Thunderbird properly for Linux kernel patches submission/reviews or discussions (tested with Thunderbird 14.0).

1. Go to Tools/Options/Advanced, under General tab, click on Config Editor

2. Set the following:

mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed = fals
email.identity.default.compose_html = fals
eprefs.converted-to-utf8 = true
mail.wrap_long_lines = true
mailnews.wraplength = 72

3. You're ready.

Note: if for some reason, you've received an Email on Outlook, and you'd like to reply from Thunderbird, you can export the Email from outlook, and import it into Thunderbird.
- To export an Email from Outlook: drag and drop the Email item to (e..g) your desktop

- To import to Thunderbird: File/Open saved message, then select "all files" and open the Outlook exported Email.

- You may want to automatically CC your outlook address on all outgoing Emails from Thunderbird: Go to Tools -> Account Settings, then Copies and Folders (under you e-mail account name). CC/BCC any other Email address/addresses.
- To send an Email from Thunderbird "on behalf of" your Email in outlook, you can add new identity in Thunderbird by going to Tools/ Account/ Manage Identities, then you need to enable the new identity also on the server side, in case of Gmail-based account, go to Gmail/ Settings/ Accounts and Import, then click on "Add another email address you own", to change the default "From" field in Thunderbird you may find CorrectIdentity plugin useful.

[MAC OS] Automatic subtitle with VLC

2012-06-23T10:55:00.001+03:00

Subdownloader is a nice application to automatically download the subtitle of a movie.
It parses your files and connects and uses OpenSubtitles to get the list of available subtitles for a particular movie, it can be configured to fetch your favorite language(s).

With VLC player, this would be a perfect combination.
To enable "play" button on Subdownloader to automatically launch VLC player, go to Preferences -> Others -> and then fill the fields as in the snapshot below.

How to save websites passwords

2012-06-21T03:11:00.000+03:00

There are too many web accounts to remember, and their username/password plicy may vary, I bet you recall all of them. On the other hand, it's hard to trust the tools out there that promise to collect all your passwords and back them up.

Since I use my Gmail daily, and it has valuable information, it also has 2-step verification process for extra security, so I will take the chances and use Gmail to store my web account passwords. this way I need only to remember my Gmail account password (this is no big deal) and then you can use Gmail search engine to easily find the website username/password you're looking for.

Normally websites send you a verification Email with your username to your Gmail account, I forward this Email to myself with the password, and move it to "passwords" label.

If I change my password, I look for the Email in my Gmail account that holds my previous password, and reply (to myself) with the newer password
Many times, Google Chrome saves my password, with time it holds a lot of passwords that most likely I forgot.. so once in a while, I export all Chrome passwords and send it as a text file to my Gmail account (use text file to allow Gmail search to find them for you). This tool (ChromePass) is pretty simple and does the job.

Some sites don't allow you to save the password (when you log in, you won't see the "save password" button (in chrome). When you hit such a website, and you still want it to save the password:

Right Click on the username field, and select "inspect element"
Find the token autocomplete="off" and change it to "on", hit enter
go back to the username/password fields, and you'll see the "save password" button right after you fill your information

[MAC OS] Synergy for PC/MAC

2012-04-16T23:35:00.002+03:00

Synergy is a cool app that lets you share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers. If you use Macbook Air (2011), you probably know that the embedded graphical controller doesn't support dual monitor.. this is where Synergy become handy.

I've install Synergy today on my DELL 6410 laptop as a server, and on my Macbook Air 2011 as client. The idea behind the application is great, however it still have some bugs especially in the interoperability part between PC and MAC.

The first problem I've encountered is that the shift key doesn't pass from PC server to MAC client, thanks to this post, I installed the following versions and was able to have successful integration:
Win 7 - x86 version 1.4.8
MAC 10.7.x - x86_64 version 1.4.7

Search Linux Kernel code from Google Chrome

2011-10-25T08:31:00.003+02:00

If you're a kernel developer, you must be familiar with Linux Cross Reference (LXR) sites.. there are a few of them out there, but I find http://lxr.linux.no the most convinent and the the fastest, it also uses a newer version of LXR than others.

If you're a Google Chrome user, you can easily add a new custom search type for LXR:
1. Open chrome and go to: chrome://settings/searchEngines
2. Add the following entry: Search engine: lxr.linux.no, keyword: lxr, Query: http://lxr.linux.no/linux/+search=%s

3. Now you can search for any Linux kernel symbol directly from chrome, for example: go to the toolbar and type "lxr skb_dst"

4. Chrome will build the URL query for you, and results are shown directly in the browser tab.. happy kernel browsing :)

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

2011-10-06T02:09:00.002+02:00

Apple website snapshot Oct 5th 2011, 5:10 pm

Sony HX100v - GPS location

2011-06-23T11:04:00.002+03:00

The new Sony HX100 is GPS-enabled, this feature is very cool, especially when paired with Google Picasa.
For Example, when you upload a photo to picasa web album, the location on the map is viewed automatically (make sure that location permission is granted).

And, also through Picasa application on your computer, if you have Google Earth installed, you will be able to see a small icon of Google maps on the photo, then you can click on Geo-Tag button, and Google Earth will be launched and will show your picture location.. neat ha?

Sony HX100v - 10fps Collage

2011-06-23T10:22:00.006+03:00

Finally got my new Sony HX100v, a lot of features I'd like to try.

My favorite feature is the 10 frames per second (each is full resolution of 16.2MP).. this feature existed in the previous HX1 as well.. first day trying me new camera I got this collage.. click on the picture for better resolution, or check zoom-in option under this link.

To make collage (especialy for such a nice feature) you can use Google Picasa and follow these simple steps.

Select the photos and click on Collage:

Edit the Collage settings, and generate the collage photo!

Bird's kick vs. Spartan's kick

2011-06-19T00:47:00.003+03:00

I found it hard to ignore the analogy between these two..

This is Spartaaaaa
I mean: This is.. my bird-girl-frieeeend[kick]

Xen Installation on CenOS-5.5

2010-12-09T01:11:00.017+02:00

As part of my work, I had to bring up Xen Servers setup, and install some virtual machines.
I've been working on VMware ESX Servers for a while, and I must admit that VMware products are way more mature than Xen products. Below step by step installation of Xen over CentOS-5.5 and how to bring up and configure DomU Virtual Machines.

Dom0 Installation:
-----------------
1. Install CentOS-5.5 OS
   ISO is downloadable from here
2. Install Xen kernel and Tools:
# yum install kernel-xen kernel-xen-devel xen

# yum install virt-manager
# yum install virt-viewer
3. Edit /etc/grub.conf and select xen kernel

default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-194.26.1.el5xen)
   root (hd0,0)
   kernel /xen.gz-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5
   module /vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5xen ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
   module /initrd-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5xen.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-194.el5)
   root (hd0,0)
   kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.el5 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
   initrd /initrd-2.6.18-194.el5.img
4. Reboot the machine
5. Check kernel name, it will have xen substring:

# uname -a
Linux eng-023.mti.mtl.lab.com 2.6.18-194.26.1.el5xen ...
6. On my machine, yum installed Xen version 3.0.3:

# rpm -qa|grep -i ^xen-[0-9]
xen-3.0.3-105.el5_5.5

DomU Installation:
------------------
1. run virt-manager from dom0
2. select server name in the table, and select "new"
3. configure the virtual machine, when you get to the installation media, you better have the installation dir (extracted iso) available through on your network (check this link if you want to bring up your own apache) note that for full Linux installation (e.g., for RHEL-5.5) you need more than 4GB virtual disk space (I use 8GB).
4. when installation is done, machine will reboot and come up with bridged network connection
5. If you configured your VM to use DHCP, then you're ready, go ahead and ping the WAN.
- For more info on how to use virt-manager to install DomU instance (with snapshots) check this link.

DomU Network Configuration:
---------------------------
Xen supports three modes for network virtualization:
Bridging, Routing w/o NAT, Routing with NAT, each one of them need to be configured differently.

By default, the network is set up in bridging mode.
To change the network configuration, there are two main configuration files:
# /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp (hypervisor conf)
# /etc/xen/VM-NAME (virtual machine conf)

DomU in Bridging mode:
----------------------
1. Make sure that xend-config.sxp has the following lines:
   (network-script network-bridge)
   (vif-script vif-bridge)
   To use different netdev (rather than eth0) use the line:
   (network-script 'network-bridge netdev=eth1')
   To create multiple bridges, you must create your own script.
   For example, in xend-config.sxp add:
   (network-script network-bridge-multi)
   The cerate the file (with +x permissions):   # cat /etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge-multi
   #!/bin/sh
   dir=$(dirname "$0")
   "$dir/network-bridge" "$@" vifnum=0 netdev=eth0 bridge=xenbr0
   "$dir/network-bridge" "$@" vifnum=1 netdev=eth1 bridge=xenbr1
   "$dir/network-bridge" "$@" vifnum=2 netdev=eth2 bridge=xenbr2
   check this link for more details.
2. Configure DomU virtual interfaces,
   Edit /etc/xen/VM-NAME and examine the following line:
   vif = [ "mac=00:16:36:69:0d:0b,script=vif-bridge,bridge=xenbr2" ]
   where xenbr2 is an example of the bridge name
3. Note that if the netdev of the bridge your going to use was created after machine reboot, then you need to restart the xen network script, for example:
# /etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge stop
# /etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge start
If the pethX interface you expect does not come up, try to reboot the machine (I noticed that in Xen 3.0, the network-bridge may fail to create the pethX interface if you restart the script few times, reboot solved the issue)
4. Make sure that the bridge as appear in brctl is output, is configured as expected:
#brctl show xenbr2
bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces
xenbr2 8000.00.. no vif2.0
   peth2
If you configured your system in the past to work in routing mode, you may see virbr0 instead of xenbr0, to revert these changes, run:
# service libvirtd stop; chkconfig libvirtd off
If for some reason the peth2 that coresponds to your netdev is not attached to the bridge, then find your peth:
# ethtool -i peth2
and then add the interface to the bridge:
#  brctl addif xenbr2 peth2
If for some reason, peth2 link is down, run:
# ip link set peth2 up
At this point you can run the VM, configure the IP, and heck ping-pong, you can tcpdump the bridge (xenbr2) and its slaves to check the packets flow.

DomU in Routed mode:

--------------------

Note that most of the tips of this section are based on this link.
1. Update your grub entry to include the following parameters:

title Kernel-XXX-xen
   root (hd0,5)
   kernel /boot/xen.gz
   module /boot/vmlinuz-XXX-xen root=/dev/sda6 vga=0x31a resume=/dev/sda5 splash=silent showopts
   module /boot/initrd-XXX-xen
2. Set netloop driver module parameter, edit /etc/modprobe.conf and include the line (to top netloop from creating 8 useless vifs):
options netloop nloopbacks=0
3. Reboot Dom0
4. Configure Dom0 networking, edit /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp and include the line:

(network-script network-route)
(vif-script vif-route)
5. Configure DomU networking, edit /etc/xen/VM-NAME and include the line:
vif = [ 'mac=00:16:3e:33:22:11, ip=192.168.23.1, vifname=eth0' ]
Where the IP address, is the IP address you plan to give to vifname interface within the VM.
6. Power on the VM, and conifgure (for example) the eth0 interface to use the IP=102.168.23.1
7. Ping the IP address of Dom0 (run ifconfig from Dom0 and check your netdev IP, must start with 192.x.x.x [depends on your mask]).
8. To ping other machines outside the GW, need to configure the default GW in the VM, this can be done in many different ways, for example:
route add default gw 192.168.23.254 eth0

Notes:
------
- To install KVM on CentOS, check this link

Troubleshooting:

----------------

- If you get the error message:

ERROR unable to connect to 'localhost:8000': Connection refused

You probably don't have xen-http-server enabled, edit:

/etc/xen/xend-config.sxp

and include the line:

(xend-http-server yes)

then restart xend:

/etc/init.d/xend restart

Google Currency converter

2010-12-02T23:23:00.003+02:00

Nice and simple Google Currency converter:
Example, from USD to ILS:

If facebook existed years ago

2010-11-15T09:05:00.000+02:00

like it!

GIT Tips

2010-10-26T05:02:00.005+02:00

While looking for GIT configuration for "signed-off-by" line, I found this nice link for GIT tips.
It has nice git-config commands that you might find useful in general.

Specifically, to automaticaly add the "signed-off-by: NAME " line into your git commits, run the following two commands:

git config user.name 'Your name'
git config user.email 'my@email.com'

I also found this nice link while searching for git cherry-pick, thanks for sharing.