What version of the GNOME Shell am I running?

You can quickly find out your GNOME Shell version be running “gnome-shell –version”

danesh@r2d2:~$ gnome-shell --version
GNOME Shell 3.8.2

This is also an indicator to which version of GNOME you are running.

I lost my hard drive and was trying to install Windows 8 from a Windows USB boot disk. When came time to activate I was greeted with “Code: 0xC004F061 your key can only be used for an upgrade”.  I bought the upgrade license during the launch sale but din’t know about this restriction.

Microsoft’s solution was to first install Windows 7 and then run the Upgrade assistant again to upgrade to Windows 8.  That would take too long!

Some Googling later and a solution was found. A simple registry hack. Here’s how,

1. “Windows + r ” and type “regedit” to bring up the registry.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
3. Double click on “MediabootInstall”
4. Change the value from “1″ to “0″. Exit the registry.
5. Hit the “Windows” key and search for “cmd” . Right click and select “Run as Administrator”.
6. Type slmgr /rearm and hit press enter. Wait for confirmation.
7. Reboot.
8. Try to active again. Should work now.

Picture Guide below.

Archlinux dropped support for ifconfig “net-tools” sometime back. [announcement]

To get the ip address use “ip” tool instead.

ip addr show dev [device name]

ip addr show dev enp2s0

If you really want ifconfig back then grab the “net-tools from the AUR.

Malaysia’s independent news provider Malaysia accessible through http://www.malaysiakini.com and http://m.malaysiakini.com/en might be down (.i.e blocked by our ISP) for many of you.

Try these alternatives.

Alternatives;

1. http://www.mkini.co/ - Mirror
2. https://twitter.com/malaysiakini - Twitter @malaysiakini
3. https://www.facebook.com/MalaysiaKini - Facebook

You can’t block the internet!! Get that through your thick skulls …

This list will be updated as more mirrors show up so check back often.

Update:

http://www.malaysiakini.com/
https://www.malaysiakini.com/
http://m.malaysiakini.com/
http://www.mkini.co/

https://www.facebook.com/MalaysiaKini
https://twitter.com/malaysiakini
https://twitter.com/Yahoo_MY
https://twitter.com/premesh

http://www.KiniTV.com/
http://www.youtube.com/kinitv
https://www.facebook.com/kinitv
http://www.youtube.com/malaysiakini

http://live.undi.info/
https://ge13.s3.amazonaws.com/
http://bit.ly/mkinige13

Create a new source file for the Spotify repository.

# sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list

Add the following line into the source file.

Add Spotify’s public key so that you can verify Spotify’s packages.
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 94558F59

deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free

Update your sources

#sudo apt-get update

Install Spotify

#sudo apt-get install spotify-client

Source: Spotify

Session logging is not enabled by default but if you want logging enabled by default for all your sessions then here’s how.

Fire up Putty and go to the “Logging” tab. Check “Printable output” option and insert your desired log file name and location into the location field.

For the log file name, Putty supports the following substitutes.

&H – Hostname
&Y – Year (yyyy)
&M – Month (mm)
&D – Day (dd)
&T – Time (hhmmss)

D:\Users\username\Dropbox\backup\putty-log\&H-&Y&M&D-&T.log

This will log all your sessions into a dropbox backup folder with the desired naming format. .i.e “hostname-20130305-132319.log”

Go to “Session” , select the “Default Settings” saved session and hit “save” to make this default for all your new sessions.

NOTE: All your previous saved sessions will need to manually updated.

For some stupid reason my Google hangout and voice calls stopped working on my Windows machine. Removed the Google voice plugin and tried reinstalling it and got hit with a new error “Installer error 1603″.

After some digging around the issue was narrowed down to either permissions or the windows installer service having some hangover files or registry entries from previous installs.

The fix was to run Window’s FixIt to clean up the installer. This is what it does;

• Removes bad registry key on 64 bit operating systems.
• Windows registry keys that control the upgrade (patching) data that become corrupted.
• Resolves problems that prevent new programs from being installed.
• Resolves problems that prevent programs from being completely uninstalled and blocking new installations and updates.
• Use this troubleshooter for an uninstall only if the program fails to uninstall using the windows add/remove programs feature.

Download Here

Let me know if it work for you.

Malaysia finally gets it first GPS based taxi booking service, Unicablink. Its part of the Sunlight  Taxi group of companies.

You have 3 ways to book a cab. Call the call center at 1300-800-222, book online or through the mobile app. The mobile app is the best way and is available for both the Android and iPhone.

When a booking is made,  the nearest taxis will be notified and they can then bid on the job. Just like the cabs in SG. The company claims booking time has dropped from 20 minutes to only 5 minutes.

The next phase will be to introduce alternative payment methods. Credit / Debit cards and Touch n Go. This is something many of us are waiting for! Especially travelers.

Go grab the app on Google Play or the AppStore and take it for a spin.

What about Taxi Monger you ask? If I’m not wrong, that’s sms based and the response time is slightly longer.

I’ve yet to book a cab through Unicablink, hopefully soon. Have you tried Unicablink yet?

Some screens from the Android App

1. Check the current time.
[root@atom ~]# timedatectl status
Local time: Mon 2013-01-21 08:57:21 MYT
Universal time: Mon 2013-01-21 00:57:21 UTC
RTC time: Mon 2013-01-21 00:57:21
Timezone: Asia/Kuala_Lumpur (MYT, +0800)
NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: no
RTC in local TZ: no
DST active: n/a

2. Set the correct date and time.
[root@atom ~]# timedatectl set-time "2013-01-21 00:59:00"

3. Check again, make sure the date and time looks right now.
[root@atom ~]# timedatectl status
Local time: Mon 2013-01-21 00:59:14 MYT
Universal time: Sun 2013-01-20 16:59:14 UTC
RTC time: Sun 2013-01-20 16:59:14
Timezone: Asia/Kuala_Lumpur (MYT, +0800)
NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: no
RTC in local TZ: no
DST active: n/a


Here’s how to easily change the UID and GID for a user in Linux.

Check my current UID/GID
[root@atom ~]# id danesh
uid=500(danesh) gid=500(danesh) groups=500(danesh)

Change my UID to 1000
[root@atom ~]# usermod -u 1000 danesh

Check my UID/GID again. GID is still 500.
[root@atom ~]# id danesh
uid=1000(danesh) gid=500(danesh) groups=500(danesh)

Change the GID for my group.
[root@atom ~]# groupmod -g 1000 danesh

UID and GID now updated.
[root@atom ~]# id danesh
uid=1000(danesh) gid=1000(danesh) groups=1000(danesh)

This will update the files in your home directory with the correct UID/GID but anything outside you will have to do it yourself.