The Big Byte

Taskbar across dual monitors in Ubuntu linux

2009-11-10T15:01:00.000+10:00

Right click panel, click "New Panel"
Right click the new panel, choose "Properties", and uncheck "Expand"
You should be able to drag it to the other monitor.
Open the panel's properties, and check "Expand" again. You may also have to choose to place it on the bottom edge of the screen.
Right click the new blank panel, and click "Add to Panel"
Choose "Window List" and click "Add". Your programs will show up in a list on the screen they are visible on.

Source: http://www.lloydleung.com/2006/10/14/gnome-multiple-monitor-taskbar-window-listing/

Using Grep -r to find strings in files - like find or locate

2009-11-10T11:46:00.000+10:00

Searching for a String in Multiple Files

Ever need to search through all your files for a certain word or phrase? I did, and to make matters more complicated, the files were all in different sub-directories. A quick Google search turned up a few scripts involving multiple commands and temporary files. Then I found a simpler solution.

If you're a Unix/Linux/BSD user, you probably know about the grep command, but did you know it's recursive? That's right, grep can search through your entire directory tree, scanning every file along the way. It will even return the results in multiple formats!

Here's an example. In this case we're searching for the word "modules":

grep -r "modules" .

By using the "-r" switch, we're telling grep to scan files in the current directory and all sub-directories. It will return a list of files the string was found in, and a copy of the line it was found on.

If you'd rather just get the file names and skip the rest of the output, use the "-l" switch, like so:

grep -lr "modules" .

Here's another tip: grep also supports regular expressions, so matching against a wildcard pattern is easy:

grep -lr "mod.*" .

That command will print a list of files containing any word starting with "mod".

You can also use grep to search for multiple words:

grep -r "drupal\|joomla\|wordpress" .

And, of course, grep supports file name wildcards in the standard unix fashion. In this example, grep will search only file names starting with "log":

grep -lr "mod.*" ./log*

Unfortunately, not all versions of grep support recursive searching, and some use different switches, so if you're running into problems, check your man pages:

man grep

Source: ~~http://blamcast.net/articles/recursive-grep-find-strings-files~~

Add a directory to PATH in Ubuntu / Unix

2009-11-06T13:11:00.000+10:00

To add a directory (in this case /app1) to your path run the following command:

export PATH=$PATH:/app1

To view the new PATH variable:

echo $PATH

System PATH environment variables are stored in /etc/profile.

You Gotta See This!

2009-10-29T15:45:00.000+10:00

Abbott Medical Optics Inc. is running a competition titled "You Gotta See This!". Entrants should make a video about how better vision has (or will) improve their lives. For most of us IT people, better eyesight would be a huge benefit. After all, who wants to wear one set of glasses for programming, a different set for mid-range viewing, and then take them off for looking at distant objects?

This could be a fun competition to enter. One of the themes in particular - "My favorite sport or activity would be so much cooler with better vision" is very relevant for most people. So it would be easy to have some fun making a creative video out of this.

The winning videos in the competition are determined by a community vote, so make sure you tell all your friends about your entry! If you do enter, leave a comment here so I can go and check out your video.

Full details are listed below:

The Details (from the iLASIK Video Contest site)
1.Submit A Video
Users make and submit a video in one of the following categories:
• “My contacts are getting in the way of my good time”
• “My favorite sport or activity would be so much cooler with better vision”
• “You should see life after the iLASIK® Procedure”
2.Tell Friends To Vote
Once users submit a video, their friends can vote on it. And votes are one of the key factors in determining which videos win a prize.
3.Have A Chance To Win
• One Grand Prize winner will win $5,000 — selected from all submitted videos
• Three First Prize winners will win an HDTV package(a $2,500 value) — one per video category
•Three Second Prize winners will win the Flip UltraHD™ camcorder (a $199.99 value) — one per video category

So head down to the site today. There are lots of cool prizes to be won, and making the video itself should be heaps of fun. In fact, you could even re-make an existing video if you wanted to - the choice is yours. Now I'll just see if I can get an entry in myself..... =)

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Ctrl+Alt+F1 Show Blank Screen

2009-10-27T16:59:00.000+10:00

I was trying to change to a virtual terminal, but all I got was a black screen. I am using the latest Nvidia graphics drivers (proprietary).

To fix, I had to run the following command:

sudo modprobe vga16fb
 sudo modprobe fbcon

Then I was able to change to different tty virtual terminals using the keyboard shortcut. Ctrl+Alt+F7 to get back to graphical interface.
Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=679861

Spoof MAC Address on Linux

2009-10-23T10:37:00.002+10:00

Spoofing a MAC address on Linux is quite easy. It does require that you shut the interface down however. Shut the interface you want to spoof down, and then run ifconfig.

Code:

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55
ifconfig eth0 up

How to Mount Samba Share at Boot / Startup Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty

2009-10-21T15:38:00.000+10:00

To mount a Samba share to be mounted when a Linux system comes up after reboot edit the /etc/fstab file and put entry as follows for your Windows/Samba share:
//ntserver/share /mnt/samba smbfs username=username,password=password 0 0
For example, if you want to mount a share called //ntserver/docs then you need to write the following entry in your /etc/fstab file:
//ntserver/docs /mnt/samba smbfs username=docsadm,password=D1Y4x9sw 0 0
Where,

//ntserver/docs: Windows 2003/NT/Samba share name
/mnt/samba: Local mount point (you may need to create this directory first)
smbfs: File system type (samba file system)
username=docsadm,password=D1Y4x9sw: Share username and password

Note: This will work for all Linux systems, not just Ubuntu Jaunty. You may encounter an error like the following:

$sudo mount /shared
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //beta/shared,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       (for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might
       need a /sbin/mount. helper program)
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so

In this case, smbfs might not be installed. For ubuntu, run:
sudo apt-get install smbfs
and then try mounting again.

Source: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/configure-a-system-to-automount-a-samba-share-with-etcfstab/

404 - Component not found in Joomla when viewing Virtuemart

2009-10-13T16:44:00.001+10:00

404 - Component not found

You may not be able to visit this page because of:

an out-of-date bookmark/favourite
a search engine that has an out-of-date listing for this site
a mistyped address
you have no access to this page
The requested resource was not found.
An error has occurred while processing your request.

Please try one of the following pages:

Home Page

If difficulties persist, please contact the System Administrator of this site.

Component not found

I found this error message when working from a clean install of virtuemart. Actually, the solution was quite simple - just add a menu item linking to the Virtuemart Component. Without a menu item, Joomla doesn't recognise the component correctly.

How to Fix Screen Blank when Installing openSuSE 10.3 on Eee Box

2009-10-13T11:15:00.002+10:00

openSuSE installed from the DVD successfully, but the screen would go blank and enter standby mode after booting. A DVI-VGA adapter was used to connect a VGA LCD screen.

The problem lies in the Xorg configuration. Apparently the default Intel driver does not work. The driver needs to be changed to VESA.

To fix the screen and get Xorg to work correctly:

1. Turn on the computer. It will display the boot progress, but then the screen will go blank. Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to change to command line mode.

2. Login as root.

3. To edit the configuration file, you will require a text editor. By default, only vi is installed. These instructions use pico. To install pico, place the openSuSE Install DVD in the drive, and type “yast2 –i pico” on the command line.

4. Open the configuration file: pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf

5. Scroll down using the arrow keys to find the line which says:
Section “Device”

A few lines futher down, replace this line:

Driver “intel”

With this line:

Driver “vesa”

6. Press Ctrl+O and then Enter to save the file. Press Ctrl+X to exit.

7. Type “reboot” to restart the computer. This time you should be able to login to the desktop environment as normal.

Full contents of working xorg.conf file (with modified line highlighted):

# /.../

# SaX generated X11 config file

# Created on: 2009-09-09T11:23:59+1000.

# Version: 8.1

# Contact: Marcus Schaefer , 2005

# Contact: SaX-User list

# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (8.1)

# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!

Section "Files"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/URW"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Speedo"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/PEX"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/misc:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/75dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/100dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/Type1"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin7/75dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/baekmuk:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/japanese:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/kwintv"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/uni:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/CID"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/misc:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/75dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/100dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/misc:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/75dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/100dpi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/Type1"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc/sgi:unscaled"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/xtest"

FontPath "/opt/kde3/share/fonts"

InputDevices "/dev/gpmdata"

InputDevices "/dev/input/mice"

EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"

Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on"

EndSection

Section "Module"

Load "dbe"

Load "type1"

Load "freetype"

Load "extmod"

Load "glx"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Driver "kbd"

Identifier "Keyboard[0]"

Option "Protocol" "Standard"

Option "XkbLayout" "us"

Option "XkbModel" "microsoftpro"

Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Driver "mouse"

Identifier "Mouse[1]"

Option "Buttons" "5"

Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

Option "Name" "KYE Optical Mouse"

Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"

Option "Vendor" "Sysp"

Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

DisplaySize 306 230

HorizSync 30-70

Identifier "Monitor[0]"

ModelName "107S (107S1)"

Option "DPMS"

VendorName "PHILIPS"

VertRefresh 50-160

UseModes "Modes[0]"

EndSection

Section "Modes"

Identifier "Modes[0]"

Modeline "1280x1024" 119.40 1280 1368 1504 1728 1024 1025 1028 1063

Modeline "1024x768" 95.50 1024 1088 1200 1376 768 769 772 807

Modeline "1024x768" 85.45 1024 1088 1200 1376 768 769 772 803

Modeline "1024x768" 74.62 1024 1080 1192 1360 768 769 772 799

Modeline "800x600" 60.07 800 840 928 1056 600 601 604 632

Modeline "800x600" 53.14 800 840 928 1056 600 601 604 629

Modeline "800x600" 45.50 800 840 920 1040 600 601 604 625

Modeline "800x600" 38.22 800 832 912 1024 600 601 604 622

EndSection

Section "Screen"

DefaultDepth 24

SubSection "Display"

Depth 15

Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 16

Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 24

Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 8

Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"

EndSubSection

Device "Device[0]"

Identifier "Screen[0]"

Monitor "Monitor[0]"

EndSection

Section "Device"

BoardName "945 GME"

BusID "0:2:0"

Driver "vesa"

Identifier "Device[0]"

Option "monitor-VGA" "Monitor[0]"

VendorName "Intel"

EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"

Identifier "Layout[all]"

InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"

InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"

Option "Clone" "off"

Option "Xinerama" "off"

Screen "Screen[0]"

EndSection

Section "DRI"

Group "video"

Mode 0660

EndSection

Section "Extensions"

EndSection

More Information: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=39698

Telstra APN Settings for HTC Magic (Sapphire)

2009-08-28T14:05:00.000+10:00

How to configure mobile wireless GSM GPRS EDGE internet packet data access with Telstra APN settings for HTC Magic / G2 / Sapphire:

Go to Settings > Wireless controls > Mobile networks > Access Point Names.
Press Menu and select "New APN".
Enter the following settings:

Name: Telstra Internet
APN: telstra.internet
Proxy:
Port:
Username:
Password:
Server:
MMSC:
MMS proxy:
MMS port:
MCC: 505
MNC: 01
APN type:

ADB Drivers (HTC Magic USB) for Linux

2009-08-28T13:31:00.000+10:00

Using Ubuntu Linux, I was trying to root my HTC Magic (Sapphire). Unfortunately, running ./adb devices returned no devices.
Solution was to run ./adb kill-server and then ./adb devices as root (sudo -s).

Squid: connect (111 Connection refused)

2009-08-27T12:50:00.000+10:00

This morning when I turned on my computer, Firefox greeted me by saying "Firefox is configured to use a proxy that is refusing connections." However, my proxy server was turned on and seemed to be functioning correctly - I could ssh into it quite fine, so no network issues. I rebooted, but still no help. My server was running Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) Server Edition with a squid proxy server.

Turns out, by examing the /var/log/squid/cache.log file, I discovered the problem was no free disk space. After freeing up some space on / and restarting squid (/etc/init.d/squid restart), proxy was up and running again.

iPerf network throughput tester

2009-08-25T14:52:00.000+10:00

Use iPerf for testing network throughput / testing network traffic. Also, jPerf provides a GUI interface and windows iperf version.
iPerf and jPerf are both available at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/iperf/

Change directory in windows cmd

2009-08-25T14:49:00.000+10:00

Windows cmd.exe command line won't change directory won't cd

cd /d

I am in my c: drive (c:\tools) and do a:

C:\tools>cd d:\music

Strangly, I am still in the c: drive. Only if I do a d:, I see that I changed to the music directory under d:

C:\tools>d:

D:\music>

In order to change both, the drive and the path, the /d flag must be used:

D:\music>cd /d c:\bin

C:\bin>

Source: http://www.adp-gmbh.ch/win/cmd/cd.html

How To Enable Curl in PHP on Linux

2009-08-03T11:35:00.001+10:00

To enable PHP Curl support on Linux with apache 2:

$ sudo apt-get install php5-curl

Or do it manually (compiling sources):
http://au2.php.net/manual/en/curl.installation.php
http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/php/install.html
http://www.wallpaperama.com/forums/how-to-find-out-if-php-is-compiled-with-curl-extension-installed-enabled-t1576.html

"All Squash" in Samba FIle Server

2009-08-02T14:37:00.000+10:00

NFS has the ability to "root squash" or "all squash" - map authenticated users to alternate user ids, for purposes of security. This makes it easy to setup an NFS public folder where all users share the same permissions.

Samba on the other hand, does not have such capabilities. However, you can achieve similar functionality by configuring a "guest" user, which maps to a specific local user id on the server.

Simply open /etc/samba/smb.conf and enable the following line:
guest account = [mapped user id]
That's all there is to it! Now any anonymous client can access the shared folders, and they will automatically have the same access rights as if they were logged into the server locally, with the username specified in the smb.conf file.

The Google OS is finally here!

2009-07-08T15:02:00.000+10:00

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Google has actually announced a desktop operating system! This has been a wild prediction for years, but now comes the official announcement of the "Google Chrome OS". Initially designed for netbooks, it is aimed at people who spend most of their time online.

Read more....

What is Australia Day?

2009-01-26T15:22:00.000+10:00

Think you know Australia? Think again. This quiz checks your knowledge of Australia Day, our most patriotic national celebration.

Amarok 2.0 Released!

2008-12-11T11:32:00.001+10:00

Amarok 2.0 has finally been released! Amarok is an excellent music player and manager for Linux (primarily). Version 2.0 features a complete interface redesign and beta support for Windows and Macintosh.

Removing Plasmoids when Plasma crashes

2008-11-19T14:39:00.003+10:00

I had some trouble with Plasma the other day. For some reason, it suddenly crashed and wouldn't start up again. I tried pressing Alt+F2 to bring up the run dialog, and typing "plasma", but it still wouldn't start. I then tried the command line.

david@suse:~/.kde4/share/config> plasma
plasma(5728) KWallet::Wallet::openWallet: Pass a valid window to KWallet::Wallet::openWallet().
plasma: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/kde4/plasma_applet_showdesktop.so: undefined symbol: _ZN6Plasma14ToolTipManager4selfEv
plasma(5727): Communication problem with "plasma" , it probably crashed.
Error message was: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply" : " "Message did not receive a reply (timeout by message bus)" "

Something seemed to be wrong with the plasmoid "Show Desktop". Only problem is - it's pretty hard to remove a plasmoid when plasma won't even start. With a bit of help from Google though, and a few bash commands, I found the configuration file that plasma uses to configure the applets:

david@suse:> kwrite ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-appletsrc

In this file, I simply had to search for the text "plugin=showdesktop", remove the configuration section associated with this, and start plasma again.
This is a simple way to remove a plasmoid (plasma applet/widget) without starting plasma.

Typing speed

2008-09-17T16:45:00.001+10:00

According to Facebook typing speed app, I'm "blazing fast" at 92wpm. Now you might ask - "what accurary?" The answer to that particular question might also surprise you. But then again - maybe it won't. 100% accuracy at 92wpm is not particularly impressive for an every-day internet user. But according to this same app, I'm faster than 96% of Facebook. That's quite a large segment of the population, even if you remember that the user had to install the app to be rated in the listings, and therefore the percentage rank.

Catholic Matching

2008-09-17T16:42:00.002+10:00

Now this is a site for all the Catholics out there. If you're tired of trying to meet people on other sites and encountering countless problems, maybe you should try out catholic Dating for a change. The main advantage of it as opposed to other similar sites is the demographic range - it's much more likely to be suited to your needs, if you are looking for a site like this.

Old Computers

2008-09-17T16:37:00.001+10:00

Like many others, I am faced with the problem of having far too many old computers resting in my shed. I have at least 5 of them, many missing parts or containing faulty parts. And yet I can't bring myself to throw them away. One of these days I'll take them out, look at them and see they're worthless, and probably sell them as antiques by that time! The oldest system is a pre-pentium model, so they're already pretty rare. Most people have just thrown out any computers as old as that - which is what I should have done long ago!

More Public Records!

2008-09-17T14:22:00.002+10:00

Divorce Records are become more and more prevalent today in searching public records. Unfortunately there has been an increasing number of divorces, especially in America. You can search the public records and along with births, deaths and marriages, divorces may come up. Use this site to search the divorce records by name, address, post code, state and more.

Seamless Remote Desktop for Linux

2008-09-17T14:20:00.000+10:00

Does anyone know how to connect to a Windows RDP server from Linux, and create a seamless integration between the two (window managers)? I have had a look at VirtualDesktop, rdesktop, SeamlessRDP but can't figure out how to work them. I know it sounds silly, but I can't work out which goes on Windows, which on Linux, where you should stick the IP address - the documentation seems to be made for people that already know what they're doing!

The Big Byte

Taskbar across dual monitors in Ubuntu linux

Using Grep -r to find strings in files - like find or locate

Add a directory to PATH in Ubuntu / Unix

You Gotta See This!

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Ctrl+Alt+F1 Show Blank Screen

Spoof MAC Address on Linux

How to Mount Samba Share at Boot / Startup Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty

404 - Component not found in Joomla when viewing Virtuemart

How to Fix Screen Blank when Installing openSuSE 10.3 on Eee Box

Telstra APN Settings for HTC Magic (Sapphire)

ADB Drivers (HTC Magic USB) for Linux

Squid: connect (111 Connection refused)

iPerf network throughput tester

Change directory in windows cmd

Windows cmd.exe command line won't change directory won't cd

cd /d

How To Enable Curl in PHP on Linux

"All Squash" in Samba FIle Server

The Google OS is finally here!

What is Australia Day?

1. What do we remember on Australia day?

2. Where did this happen?

3. In what year?

4. Who was in command?

5. How many ships were in the First Fleet?

6. Which one of the following ships was NOT in the First Fleet?

Amarok 2.0 Released!

Removing Plasmoids when Plasma crashes

Typing speed

Catholic Matching

Old Computers

More Public Records!

Seamless Remote Desktop for Linux