tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66463440341530071182026-05-31T12:20:36.466+02:00Ponderings of a Mad Man; focused on the topics of Linux, Java and Software Design ConceptsLouis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-28674884293986460452014-08-08T14:56:00.000+02:002014-08-08T14:56:01.101+02:00

Over the years, I've often found that the best way to make enemies with your mail server administrator is to have your system pump a few hundred thousand emails through their server in a short space of time. Never fails... Sometimes having your system send you it's error logs via mail is the only feasible alternative when you physically can't get to your error logs in a production environment.

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-53421260391521106142012-03-26T16:54:00.004+02:002012-03-26T17:01:34.801+02:00

Ever since I upgraded my Fedora Core installation from 15 to 16, I've had a problem access Samba shares through Nautilus. I know that my Samba and related libraries are up to date and functioning; for example, I can use mount.cifs to mount Samba shares using the command line.Yet, when entering the Samba address into the Nautilus location bar (e.g. smb://server/share), it prompts me for

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-83243970998846778322012-02-08T12:39:00.019+02:002012-03-14T18:10:29.836+02:00

Covered in this post are (on Fedora Core 16 x86_64)Installing and configuring oracle instant client x86_64 Installing perl-DBD-OracleInstalling and configuring ora2pgI have a system written in java, using hibernate and JPA. This allows me to run on a variety of different databases by only making a small change in a configuration file. Specifically I run this system on Oracle in production, and

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-45333941452878107702011-10-12T14:05:00.006+02:002011-10-12T14:28:49.535+02:00

A little while ago I was searching for a tool that would allow me to perform multiple search and replace operations on multiple files. I didn't look very hard before it dawned on me that this could be quite an easy problem to solve using a simple bash script. It also smelled like a challenge, and I love a good challenge so this is what I came up with:What the script requires is that you provide a

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-12441028136116613442010-04-13T07:04:00.010+02:002010-04-16T08:38:00.432+02:00

Ever forgotten your root password on a MySQL server? Or maybe you tried to change it and something went wrong. Now you're locked out of your own database. If you find yourself in this predicament, especially if you're a bit new to MySQL, you're probably panicking a bit right now; especially if you're working on a live database. Don't panic, and don't go doing anything drastic either; all is not

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-59341595851705508902009-06-23T09:18:00.003+02:002009-06-23T09:39:45.583+02:00

One problem I've had since ditching Windows for Linux at work has been no support for MS Office Communicator in pidgin. None of the standard plugins did the trick, and installing the Microsoft client in CrossOver or wine also didn't work. Since convincing everyone else to change their chat protocol didn't really seem like a feasible option, I decided to just live without it... until this morning

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-79660598027788288252009-05-14T13:37:00.004+02:002009-05-14T14:48:09.679+02:00

Finding a decent SQL IDE for linux is not easy. I'm not a big toad fan, and even if I was, I don't think I could afford to be anyway... So what practical alternatives are there ? (aside from the Oracle Enterprise application suite itself of course). Tora seems to be the quick and easy answer, until you try to work using it ... Even Oracle's SQLDeveloper is cumbersome to use.Well I've always been

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-66954422588752143712009-02-02T06:44:00.012+02:002009-02-02T14:03:17.095+02:00

Accessing your Linux machine remotely is a no-brainer on the command line thanks to built in support for services such as telnet and ssh. But what about accessing your GUI remotely?Well on a Unix-based OS, it's pretty much just as easy, right out of the box. But thanks to great open-source software like Xming, it's just as easy from windows too. Before we get started we will have to download and

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-68513285819240146302009-01-20T10:50:00.012+02:002009-01-20T15:27:10.973+02:00

If you're running Linux in a dual boot or multi boot environment, chances are good there's been times when you've needed to access some or other file on your Linux partition from within windows. Luckily there's an Ext2/3 file system driver available, for free.So you've taken the plunge and installed Linux, you've decided to be cautious and run a dual-boot environment; just to be safe in case you

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-5101561411149710372009-01-15T13:46:00.004+02:002009-01-15T14:25:32.907+02:00

I use Outlook 2007 at work, basically because, well ... I don't have a choice. Since upgrading from 2003 to 2007, I've noticed that animated gif images (embedded) are not animated. I asked around, but it seems that everyone has the same problem, a google search revealed that there are loads of people in the same boat as me. The problem has been posted on forums all over the net.Here's a

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-43288923247679917182009-01-13T21:24:00.003+02:002009-01-13T22:12:20.650+02:00

The problem that I'm about to address is nothing new at all, in fact it's been around for yonks and is specifically related to running an old shell (such as ksh, sh or csh). It's amazing how easy it is to take the bash shell for granted, until you don't have it anymore.Yesterday I had the pleasure of being granted telnet access to our development server at my new job, an AIX boxen. Before then

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-4546258655105708462009-01-12T11:20:00.006+02:002009-01-12T11:48:15.618+02:00

One major annoyance that I have with Windows (when I'm forced to use it), is that it caches the login credentials you use when accessing a network share. So once you've entered credentials to access a share, windows will always re-use those credentials when accessing that machine (until you reboot of course).Fortunately there is a neat little trick you can use to get around this. By making use of

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-35769573005405818712009-01-07T15:03:00.004+02:002009-01-07T16:09:14.775+02:00

With the pace at which most major Linux distributions are releasing new versions these days, it's sometimes hard to stay up to date with the latest and greatest in your flavor of choice. Recently I upgraded my Ubuntu from Breezy Badger to Intrepid Ibex using the command line.Here are some step by step instructions to take you through the process.The first step is to get your current system up to

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-41092250264458725272009-01-06T10:54:00.007+02:002009-01-06T13:54:30.991+02:00

Recently I decided to evaluate the latest release of Fedora Core. There is no doubt that Linux has improved exponentially as a desktop OS in the last few years, but I was really impressed with this release. The latest feature to really impress me is how easy they've made it to connect to the internet using a 3G mobile broadband connection.I've been connecting to the internet using mobile phones (

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-38585639409108632242009-01-04T22:37:00.005+02:002009-01-04T23:19:46.296+02:00

So you need a windows machine (we're not going to go into why right now), in addition to your Linux box. The box in question is a complete physical box; but you discover it's becoming cumbersome managing two mice and keyboards on your desk. What you need is x2vnc.Install x2vnc.Using your distro's package manager, install x2vnc. For example, on ubuntu : sudo apt-get install x2vnc does the trick.

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646344034153007118.post-74335797835772990572008-12-23T11:42:00.011+02:002008-12-31T12:41:02.584+02:00

If you have multiple hosts which you access via ssh on a frequent basis, you may find that it's starting to become cumbersome having to constantly provide a password to log in. Fortunately there is an alternative, one which is extremely easy to configure too.Firstly, let's examine the contents of the ~/.ssh directory (~ being the linux shortcut for your home directory i.e. /home/{user}).

Louis van der Merwehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03394297637974468621noreply@blogger.com1