Technology Geeks' Heaven

Configuring Perl in Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:35:00 +0000

Hi All,

This post explains how to configure perl in Debian based distros.

Open synaptic and search for perl and install it.

Issue this command first:

1. whereis perl
Copy the output of this command as your first bang line for your perl script.

Next perl -v command
This will issue which version of perl is being installed.

Then open gnome-terminal or your console and write this simple perl program. Copy as is.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

print "hello world";

Name this file as a.perl. In the terminal run this command: perl a.perl

Enjoy,
Ananth S Gouri

Sound on both loud speakers and headphones problem

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Hi All,

I want to scold myself a lot for not using what I knew long time back... and being careless about the same....

Right the problem that most Ubuntu and Debian users faced was - whenever any sound was played from the distro's outputs - the sound would be heard in both the loudspeakers and as well as in the headphones..

I had seen this problem a long time back and I knew that we had some solutions to the same like using PulseAudio etc... But it would still work if and only if your kernel version was above 2.6.26

But then I had tried configuring pulseaudio but in vain... May be I had not done it properly or dont know...

Today luckily - I got both pulse audio and as well as this dual sound issue solved..

1. I have already written a post earlier as to how to solve the issue of non-playback using the options provided by pulse audio..

2. For the dual sound to work - please install kernel 2.6.32 or higher... (I have written a post as to how to install a new kernel and configure it... Please read my archives..)

Once installed - login to the new kernel and also install gnome-alsamixer through synaptic...

Now open the mixer using the command gnome-alsamixer from the terminal and in its settings.. make sure

1. You set the Master volume to middle
2. You set the PCM level to null

(You have a button to drag the levels - please use it... )

Now put on your headphones and rock... :)

Tc,
Ananth

Android Protector

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Hi All,

I faced a very weird kind of problem today. I had been to a shuttle badminton tournament and while playing my match - I forgot my phone with my student who is a very good friend too.

I came back home after losing the match :( and only then I remembered that I had left the phone with him.

Though I have protected my opening menu screen with a password - my student knew the password since he was playing some games with it all day.

Though I know my student very well and trust him too... since I was not at the screen - I started getting this feeling of what if he checks my mails, what if sees my messages and many other private stuff.

He could even check my facebook profile.

I did not realise and was dumb.. I changed my gmail password with the hope that it has to solve my problem to some extent.

Ya it will solve your problem to some extent if your facebook account is linked to your gmail account.

But what if you are using some other email to link to your facebook?

After an hour or so I got back my mobile intact and I was scolding myself for having doubts at him but also thought that anybody would get these doubts for a matter of fact and it was not something unusual in me... :)

So back home I tried to see if gmail app opens.. and to my shock it did.. Though I could not refresh for new mails since it asked for the changed password, any one who gets access can search over all gmail mails stored till then.

It was only now that I wanted a permanent solution to this problem and I searched the market for a protector to gmail.

Now I am happily using an application called "Protector by Alexander Kosenkov" The free version of this app allows you to set a password for protecting upto 8 applications on your android phone.

The full version can be purchased on the market for a nominal $1 and removes the constraint put by the free version.

This is a "must have" app if you are worried about the data you have on your phone. But don't forget to do these things on hand...

1. Set your recovery email before setting the password. This way if you forget the password - the password set will be sent to your email address. Please give a valid email address.

2. Set some number as the password pin and this can be used to protect any app.

3. Just click on add before you want to protect any new app.

In the end don't forget this last step...

Don't buy the plugin before installing and trying out the free app... :)

Last but not the least... Now don't be dumb enough to give this pin too.... ;) :P

Tc and hope you can now safeguard your android phone...

Ananth S Gouri

Setting up PulseAudio in Debian Lenny

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Hi All,

This post explains how to setup PulseAudio in Debian 6 in the most simplest manner and also the need for it...

Right...

Setting it up...

Its pretty simple.. Open your Synaptic Package manager and search for these 2 packages and install them...

1. gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio

2. pulseaudio

as root and also make sure you can solve all dependencies... Do mail me: ananth dot gouri at gmail dot com for any doubts solving dependencies problems...

So this sets up your PulseAudio... So how to make sure that your Pulse Audio redirects to old ALSA or OSS??

Open a terminal and hit this command:

pulseaudio --system=1 --high-priority=1 -D

This starts the pulse audio server with a high priority...

If this does not give you any errors (Denoted by E) then you have successfully started it...

So why PulseAudio??

The recent AlsaUtils used in distributions like Debian and Ubuntu had lots of issues due to the changes done in software... Some of them being..

1. If you are playing a youtube video - then you cant get back and play a song in your local system with sound to it
2. If you were playing a local mp3 - then if you go to youtube it wont play the sound..
3. You cant play more than 1 song in 2 different players locally...
4. You cant watch a video and hear to a song as well simultaneously...
5. You cant listen to the sound from your rear headphone slot and as well as from your front headphone slot in your latest supported CPUs...
6. You can also listen to sound coming out of your loud speakers even when your headphone is put up and not a loud speaker in your laptop audio out...

and many more...

Many people suggest the users to use the older alsautil package and many others also suggest using a GTK that would help to select a Default Hardware Sound Device....

The optimum solution to this problem is to install the PulseAudio and this would solve all these above problems...

Now you can play songs in more than 2 players simultaneously, play a youtube video and then close that window and start listening to a mp3 locally...

Now to solve the step 6.. If you check your Sound preferences - you can find something as Analog Output and Analog Headphones.. Just select the Headphone option...

You can as well give a permanent solution to this problem by telling - the pulse audio to overtake (automatically redirect to) ALSA or OSS if 2 or more sound outputs are needed by doing the following..

edit the file

/etc/pulse/client.conf and

uncomment the line

autospawn = yes

Enjoy,
Ananth

Tracking your Facebook recognized devices

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:57:00 +0000

Hey All,

Before we can go in detail.. First lets discuss something more about security on Facebook.

Being the most famous social networking site now, www.facebook.com also has the problem of being insecure day-in-and-out...

Not many of us know how and when our accounts could be hacked, blocked or even for that matter deactivated...

So what are the safety measures and how do you monitor them once in a while...?

This post is all about it....

Sit back and read it relaxed and implement it step by step...

1. Once you login to facebook profile, go to Account Settings->Account Security.
2. Check the check box to do "Secure browsing"
3. Next last check both the check boxes under "Login Notifications"
4. Click save and logout
5. Relogin back to your profile.

From now on - you will be asked for a Device name before logging into your Wall.

But until here many would be knowing all these.. But what next??

You are now supposed to check once in a while at the same Account Security and make sure you have the names under "Device Name" the same as you have given during that day and time stamp.

Please make sure that you dont give common name to your device for getting recognized - like - home, shop, office, home2 etc..

This way if you give very common names - even you would lose track and would not remember if it was really you who did login at that time stamp.

Instead give some dummy names or even some junk names for your device. Example: likf3r34%6

That way - a hacker will not give the most common Device name "Home" and you can track him right away too... :)

Secure social networking and happy and safe browsing too...
Ananth S Gouri

epub

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 03:31:00 +0000

Hi All,

epub is not any electronic pub for boozing... ;) Its a e-book file format originated as an open e-book format standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF).

These files have .epub file extension.

This post explains how to open books of .epub file format in Debian.

You have 2 readers to read .epub files.

1. FBReader and 2. okular book reader

Use synaptic to search for: fbreader, okular and okular-extra-backends packages. Upon installation you can read the books.

Note that a normal compressed pdf file of around 20Mb file size is less than 10Mb size if its in .epub extension. :)

Enjoy reading,
Ananth Gouri

VCC

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:58:00 +0000

Hi,

So for all of you who thought for a while - this vcc is something similar to our good old friend gcc.. Sorry ;) And for the rest - this post is not anything related to Linux stuff at all..

Read it out to know yourself..

I was unfortunate not to get a credit card till date.. I must correct it to say - I 'am' :(

But these days - I started feeling the pinch of it more and more and I was in dire needs of getting a Credit card... I contacted most of the banks in and around my place but in vain - as they had their own criteria for giving me one or I did not like their options..

So I thought it was the end from my side and was dependent on my friends who already had one.. But many a times my friends were so busy that I could never get the job done - or buy the things I wanted on time. Me being extremely impatient - would finally let it go..

But recently when I was again in the search of an alternative for this.. I saw some posts in a forum where it said about a virtual credit card in Paypal.com.. I was thrilled - but that did not last long as I came to know that though I have a Paypal account for long time now - they dont offer any credit cards to India due to our RBI guidelines...

One last hope lost.. I was pissed off - but today... Yes I found yet another site called EntroPay.com :) visit it at www.entropay.com and create a free account.. This site provides you Prepaid Virtual Visa Card.

Once you have got a free account - you can link your regular debit card / netbanking account to this vcc... You can transfer from minimum of 20$ to max 2k$ :)

Once you have transferred the amount to the card(Note that the site would charge you 4.5% of the total amount you transfer each time to your vcc), you can do any transaction as if you own a credit card..

The best part is - the site gives you a dummy card picture in your profile with the 16 digit number, valid upto date , name of yours on the card and as well as the cvv (Card verification value).

All you need to do is - do any shopping in any of the sites that support VISA. Thats it.. Once you are in the check out page - just give in the vcc card number, valid upto date, and the cvv code and the name on your vcc card.

Some points are:

1. This is a complete debit card type process only. You transfer money from your debit card through some net banking process to this card. So if you don't have money in your account - you cant do anything...
2. The process is secure enough and need not worry at all. But I or my blog is not responsible for anything that happens by trying this out. Please do the process under your own risk. I did not face any problems - thats what I meant.
3. The whole system is maintained by a company called Ixaris Systems Ltd, Great Britain.
4. One sad thing is - you cant get the feature of a plastic virtual credit card of entropay due to the same guidelines of RBI that Paypal also follow.

Last but not the least.. You can also link your paypal account to this vc card - where this card acts as a regular Credit card. Note that Paypal.com does not link any debit cards of Indian Banks.. You would now have the advantage of doing enough online shopping since most of the sites these days support Paypal service.

Do let me know your experience if you use this :)

Dont forget to leave thanks ;)
Ananth G S

Fading out...

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:35:00 +0000

Dear All,

This is for all of you folks - who may have thought that this blog is fading to darkness.. Nope thats not the case.. I was damn busy with some exams, valuation, invigilation and stuff like that - hope you guys dont forget that I am a lecturer now and not a developer...

But any how - I would keep you guys posted and will start writing more posts over time...

But do wait for me and keep visiting my blog once in a while though not regularly...

Cheers :)
Ananth G S

How best to use wget tool

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sat, 14 May 2011 17:08:00 +0000

Hi All,

If you guys have no idea as to what exactly is wget.. Install it (It should be installed onto your linux distro by default) and then issue this below command for some basic intro:

man wget

Then onwards, this below link should be a great source to learn all specific stuff you may want to do with it... And for Social Network fans.. you will understand how he could download so many pictures with this tool once you are done reading the guide... Check it out...

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2009/09/the-ultimate-wget-download-guide-with-15-awesome-examples/

Tc and have a great weekend,
Ananth S Gouri

"apt-listbugs" package of Debian derived distros

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 06:41:00 +0000

Hi All,

I don't know how many of you have faced problems when you have performed a dist-upgrade or even many times a simple package upgrade -- which completely breaks down your system into pieces...

One worst example to give: What if you upgraded your X server and the moment you start you system next time - you get no display at all??? I have faced this and many other types of similar problems many times....

So dont we have a pre step where the package manager or the apt tells that - Boss you are trying to upgrade to a new version - through which I will break your system???

Thanks.. And yes we do have a package like that.. Called the apt-listbugs

Installation of this package:

Issue the command apt-get install apt-listbugs or use synaptic.

From there on - any time you go for upgrading your package / or a complete dist upgrade... This particular software tells you - that there exists some bugs - with the bug numbers and the associated problems with it and the severity of the bug.

It would also ask you a question in the end as to - Do you still want to proceed Yes or No and ?

At this stage - you always have an option to decide your future system. But as long as the bugs are critical or severe - its advised not to go for an upgrade and simply type n and quit out of synaptic or Unmark the selected packages....

Also there is one more package called apt-listchanges which would note you the changes wrt apt or a particular deb file..

Access the man pages for both the commands to learn more about them...

Tc,
Ananth S Gouri

Fixing the rtl_nic firmware missing warning(s) in Debian

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 06:18:00 +0000

Hi All,

I was curious to use the new Linux kernel 2.6.38 and also since I had some free time yday after a long time - I tried to install it...

I upgraded my repositories to include the sid repos and gave the apt-get update command.

Next it was a normal way of installing the kernel - as I made use of Synaptic package manager...

The installation went fine - but every other time I installed any new software I used to get some warnings about a Realtek NIC card firmware missing. This was pretty irritating - as it would not quit the synaptic happily...

I tried googling out and I got different sites with different answers. But I could fix the problem after I installed the package firmware-realtek

I installed it through Synaptic and I did not get any warnings from there on...

Hope this helped some of you..
Ananth S Gouri

Moovida

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 06:04:00 +0000

Hi All,

This post explains about a nice player called Moovida...

Its a "Moovida is much more than a simple media player... it is a cutting edge media center bringing the best of the internet to your TV screen"

Ok -- How to install it onto your Debian. I use Squeeze (Debian 6)

If you search for Moovida in http://packages.debian.org site, you can see that the pkg is available from squeeze till testing..

Enable the proper repositories in your sources.list file and issue the apt-get update command..

Then you can install Moovida using apt-get install moovida or by making use of Synaptic package manger....

Happy media enjoyment... :)
Ananth S Gouri

Gnome 3 Desktop

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:36:00 +0000

Hi All,

The much awaited Gnome 3 Desktop was released on April 6th, 2011.

You can install it using Ubuntu's PPA (Personal package archives).

But its a warning that you could break your system as the Gnome 3 team build is still not stable.

Also please think twice if you are planning to install Gnome 3 Desktop onto your Debian by using the Ubuntu PPA. Mixing Ubuntu and Debian repositories will create an unstable system.

Follow this below Digitizor link for installation:
http://digitizor.com/2011/04/07/install-gnome3-desktop-ubuntu/

Also adding the ppa repository to a Debian system has to be done manually as there is no "apt-add-repository" command in Debian.

Manually add the debian http / src line with its ppa onto the sources.list file.

Mail me for any problems.

Take care All,
Ananth S Gouri

Iceweasel 4.0

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:23:00 +0000

Hi All,

Its been long long time since me posting. Have been kinda busy with my college stuff and some cool Android work behind... ;)

Right, this post explains how to install Iceweasel 4 (Mozilla Firefox rebranded by Debian Project) onto your Squeeze.

Add this below line to your sources.list file
deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ squeeze-backports iceweasel-4.0

Issue these below commands:
As root:

apt-get update
apt-get install -t squeeze-backports iceweasel

This should install your Iceweasel 4. Restart your browser if its up and running.

Enjoy my first post of the month of April 11,
Ananth S Gouri

Sun Logos at Santa Clara

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 06:53:00 +0000

Hi All,

This is a pretty old post. But still was an interesting read to me.

http://stuartmarks.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/the-last-signs-of-sun/

Read it,
Ananth S Gouri

iText

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 06:41:00 +0000

Hi All,

How to generate pdf files from Java code??

iText is a free / open source for Java and C#.

The site link is: itextpdf.com

Also do visit this below link for some sample code:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-javapdf/

[ There is a Manning Publication book that deals with iText in depth. ]

Happy PDF Generation,
Ananth S Gouri

Super Mario Game

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 07:35:00 +0000

Hi All,

For all you game addicts.. There is a came called Super Mario Chronicles - a replica typo game of Window's Super Mario World.

Installation:

(In Lenny and Squeeze)

sudo apt-get install smc

To start the game - run smc in gnome-terminal.

Enjoy the game,
Ananth S Gouri

Configuring wifi for Broadcom wireless device

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:43:00 +0000

Hi All,

This post explains how to configure wifi for your Broadcom wireless device.

Using synaptic - install 1. wireless-tools and 2. module-assistant packages.

Then issue this command in your console:

m-a a-i broadcom-sta

In Squeeze - this will download some packages from the internet. Hope you have the latest repositories for squeeze enabled.

Finally restart your machine.

Thats it,
Ananth S Gouri

Squeezed... :P

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:35:00 +0000

Hi All,

I am extremely happy to say that Debian 6.0 was finally released after a long dev cycle of 24 months.

Code named squeeze - it consists of 8 Installation DVDs for the 32 bit architecture !!! and a whopping 52 CDs for the same architecture!!!

Since my laptop was already on the sid branch - I had to just change the sources.list file to point to the stable branch.

Download DVDs at cdimage.debian.org

Enjoy,
Ananth S Gouri

Configuring apache2 to handle perl and cgi scripts

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:10:00 +0000

Hi All,

This post explains how to handle perl and cgi scripts in your apache server.

Refer to my older posts to see how to configure apache server.

Now getting back,

Follow these steps:

1. cd /var/ww/
2. sudo mkdir public_html

Refer back to my older post and copy the perl script from there.

3. sudo cp a.perl public_html

Now open your browser and type
http://localhost/a.perl

This should open your perl file as is.

Next to configure your cgi script

1. cd /var/www/public_html
2. sudo mkdir cgi-bin

Copy this cgi script below:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

# hello.pl -- my first perl script!

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";

print "Hello, world!\n";

Paste this above to a file a.cgi and

3. sudo cp a.cgi cgi-bin

4. Next issue this in your browser:

http://localhost/cgi-bin/a.cgi

If you are able to see your cgi rendered html - then you are lucky.

Or else you need to peek around...

Steps:

1. Apache provides 2 commands: a2ensite and a2dissite

2. See the manual pages for the same - which would apache 2 enable site and apache 2 disable a site

3. See the log files from /var/log/apache/error.log

4. See the /etc/apache2/sites-available/default file

5. You need to change that file to enable cgi scripting

6. See for this line:

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/

7. This particular ScriptAlias line tells us that it has a fake name and a real name.

And above cgi-bin for the server means the path /usr/lib/cgi-bin

The server would search for any cgi scripts only in that path.

So now if you copy paste your a.cgi to /usr/lib/cgi-bin - then it would work

8. But you can change the same line to render your cgi scripts from your public_html path as follows:

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/www/public_html/cgi-bin/

After this - re-enable your site by giving the command

sudo a2ensite default

next re load or restart apache 

sudo apache2ctl restart

Now if you give the path http://localhost/cgi-bin/a.cgi 

You will find the rendered html page. 

Enjoy,
Ananth S Gouri

Configuring Perl in Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:34:00 +0000

Configuring apache2 in Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:29:00 +0000

Hi All,

This post explains how to configure apache2 in Debian based distros.

Open synaptic from Administration menu and type apache2.

Install it.

Once installed, do check if its configured or not by typing http://localhost in your browser.
It works!

This is the default web page for this server.
The web server software is running but no content has been added, yet.

If everything is fine - you have to see an output like above.

Cheers,
Ananth S Gouri

Oracle JDK 1.6

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:22:00 +0000

Hey All,

This post explains how to install Oracle's JDK 1.6 to your Ubuntu 10.04. By default Ubuntu comes with openjdk.

So to install Oracle JDK 1.6, do add this below line to /etc/apt/sources.list file as root.

Issue this command first:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Next paste this below line into it

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner

Next issue this command:

sudo apt-get update

Next open synaptic package manager and search for sun-java6-jdk

Select the check box and mark it for installation.

Hope you liked this...

Tc,
Ananth S Gouri

VirtualBox 4.0

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:16:00 +0000

Hey All,

Oracle VirtualBox 4.0 is released.

Check out virtualbox.org and download the required file according to your machine's architecture.

But make sure that any previous instances of virtualbox is uninstalled.

Thats it,
Ananth S Gouri

Knowing the DNS server

noreply@blogger.com (Ananth Gouri) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:28:00 +0000

Hi All,

This post explains how to find out the dns server to which the system is connected to.

DNS as in - Domain Name Server.

Issue this command:

cat /etc/resolv.conf
namesever 192.168.x.y

This above line tells us that the system is connected to 192.168.x.y dns.

Thats it,
Ananth S Gouri