Tricks 4 Techs: 2011

I am a big fan of Xubuntu. It is the only OS that I run. I use TweetDeck to keep up with people on Facebook and Twitter.
I started using Chromium Browser some time ago.
Once I decided that I wanted Chromium Browser to be my only browser, I removed FireFox. (Sorry Mozilla, I prefer Chrome.)
This created a problem
Now when I click any links in TweetDeck, nothing happens. Previously the links would open up in Firefox. hmmm.... That kinda sucks.
So I searched all of the internets and was not able to find an answer that worked.
But I did finally fix the issue, and here is how I did it.
First, I searched my laptop to make sure that there were no Firefox files left over.
Happy with the results, I ran the following commands.

cd /usr/bin
ln -s chromium-browser firefox

This basically creates a shortcut to chromium-browser called firefox.

I then clicked a link in TweetDeck and voila... a new tab opened up in Chrome displaying the link I clicked on and I am now a happy camper.

Given the simplicity of the resolution, this should also work with Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

Hope this helps you as well.

Android SDK, NDK, Eclipse, and ADB Auto-Installer (Ubuntu / Linux Mint)

Setup your Ubuntu workstation for Android Development.

Quick and easy steps. Works quite well.

THE BOOTH BROTHERS BLOG

THE BOOTH BROTHERS BLOG: "Trailer)"

Wow, is all I can say, some of this was filmed here in Oklahoma, at an abandoned boarding school in El Reno.

RootzWiki - The Front Page

Great source of info for both newbs and seasoned android peeps.

VEGAn-TAB BETA 4 FINAL « VEGAn-TAB

This is an awesome place to start if you are interested in putting a different ROM on your ViewSonic G Tablet.

My Neighborhood

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Yoono - Twitter Facebook MySpace LinkedIn Flickr - Share and Download Youtube videos

All in one messaging Client for Linux, Windows and MAC.

Easy to setup and easy to use.

Be sure to check it out.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Pithos — A Native Pandora.com Client for Linux

As a Linux user and a fan of Pandora, this is pretty cool. Small, Simple and it just works. Couldn't ask for much more than that.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

What is wrong with insurance these days???

Is it just me, or is there a major issue with the way that health insurance companies treat those of us who pay our monthly dues on a regular basis?

I was recently diagnosed with something that requires a daily regiment of various medicines to keep my symptoms at bay so that I can continue to be a contributing member of society.

My doctor prescribes medicine. The insurance company says "no, we aren't going to pay for that unless you prove that your patient needs it". The insurance company then insists that there has to be something cheaper that will benefit me. My doctor then has to file paperwork to prove that this medicine benefits me more than any of the things that they suggest. The insurance company will then approve the meds and pay for their part of it. So now all is good, or so I think.
I continue to work with the doctor to alleviate as many of the symptoms as possible.
The doctor then decides that we need to add another prescription to what I already have.
Well, the insurance company doesn't like this and again they say no, and that the doctor needs to prove her case. The doctor, once again send in all the required forms. The insurance company still says no. So the doctor changes the prescription and sends it in. This time the insurance company says (I will give you three gueses), NO.
What the HELL....
When did this happen?
Why does the insurance company have the authority to override what the doctor says?
Why are they overriding trained medical professionals?
Is it because of cost? I pay me fees just like everyone else!!!
Why does my insurance company have the right to override my doctor who has been treating me for years?
What is it that makes them think they know so much more then the doctor who has been treating me?
What is the point of paying for insurance if your insurance doesn't help when you need it to?
I have a theory.....
You pay your monthly insurance dues. The insurance company is pleased to have you as a customer.
Until you need them... So they try to get you to take the absolute cheapest med there is, so that their profits aren't affected. The cheapest doesn't work for you, oh well, that's just too damn bad. Their pocket books say otherwise. And who the hell are these people making decisions that trump those of your doctor....
If they really are that good and "all" knowing... then why the hell aren't they practicing medicine somewhere doing someone some good... instead of contributing to the migraines that my doctor is trying to get rid of.....
I have a solution to all of this madness.... all of these supposed experts/consultants who know better than our doctors do, should have to deal with the migraines and other inflictions that we deal with.... then, they should be forced to deal with the exact same insurance issues that we all live with and deal with. Maybe then they would truly be able to comprehend exactly what it is that they are doing to us and why Insurance companies have such a bad rap.

Coventry Insurance... I am calling you out on this. http://coventryhealthcare.com/
My opinion of you is very low.... I think that everyone at Coventry Insurance who makes a profit off of all the souls that pay you for your so called "quality" care, should have their skulls crushed... if not worse!!!!
I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to be able to feel better....
My doctor shouldn't have to jump through hoops to find meds that will keep my symptoms at bay....

When I have to turn in an insurance claim on my vehicle, my auto insurance company doesn't tell the mechanic that he cant use certain parts to fix my vehicle... or that he can only fix certain parts of the vehicle... they let him do his job.
When I turn in claims to my home owners insurance, the repair men aren't told they can only work on certain parts of the house, or have to use materials from certain companies... They are allowed to do what they need to.
Why is medical insurance so different?
Are my vehicle and my home really that much more important than my health and well being?
If I ever got hurt on the job, I am very confident that any employer I have ever had, would have made sure that I was taken care of....
If something happens outside of the job... I don't have the confidence that you would make sure that my health and well being would be your top priority...
Your only concerns are your profits.... and millions of Americans fell this sting everyday as they are denied the "quality" care that you so boldly advertise.

Friday, May 27, 2011

UNIX man pages : tar ()

Great resource Linux tar command!!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Review: Jabra STONE (Bluetooth Headset)

Review: Jabra STONE (Bluetooth Headset): Owning one of these headsets, I have to agree completely with the author.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Hey Huawei Support, You need to read this!!

Last weekend I purchased a Huawei Ideos S7 Slim Android Tablet. This device is amazing. Fresh out of the box all of the hardware works like it should. GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, all of it. I am very pleased with my device.

Although within a couple of hours I had discovered what I consider to be a bug, along with a couple of smaller issues.

The tablet simply won't let you run a launcher other than the stock launcher that came with the tablet. While this launcher is functional and works, I like many others like to install our preference of launchers on an Android device. The 3rd party launchers work great until the tablet is rebooted. Upon a reboot, the tablet interface completely locks up. You have to use adb to remove the 3rd party launcher and reboot the tablet so that it will become functional again.

I contacted Huawei support regarding this. Their response was " we don't support 3rd party software".
Well, I'm not asking you to support the other party's launcher, I am asking you to fix your software so that I can run the launcher of my choice.

In fact, the other party's launcher runs great on many devices there are currently being used and also just happens to be one of the most popular launchers in the market. And it is not just this one launcher that didn't work, I got the exact same results with multiple launchers.

What happens if a non-technical person purchases one of these tablets and installs a 3rd party launcher. They most likely will not be able to resolve this issue on their own. How are you going to fix this for the end user?

Will you make them ship it back to you so that can flash the tablet back to stock?

Will you issue an RMA number and then replace the tablet for them?

Support like this is going to cost. Once people find out that your software prevents the usage of a 3rd party launcher, your reputation will suffer. People will simply not purchase your tablet.

So tell your support people to get off of their high horse and take at look at the issue I presented them with and then fix it.

This brings me to my next topic, when I found out that Swype was installed on the tablet, I was very happy.

When I tried to use it, I found out that the version on the tablet had already expired.

Again I contacted support to find out why.... Their response was, " the software has nothing to do with actual device, re-download it from the market."

Wow, why didn't I think of that? Oh wait, I did. Due to the limitations of tablets trying to access the market, Swype is not available in the market. Go ahead, fire up your S7 Slim tablet and search for Swype in the market. You won't find it. Does your support team even check on these things before they reply to a customer. Was your software properly QA'd?

Seriously Huawei, support like this won't get you very far.

You may need to just step back and re-evaluate what is important? Your reputation, your customer base, or your profits. If you don't make the 1st 2 answers your top priority, then your profits will dwindle....

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

It's always the little things.

I know, it seems like I am picking on Huawei lately, but I think they are having some quality control issues. Don't get me wrong, this new tablet is amazing. I love this thing. It has easily become my new favorite toy.

I ran across something else that bugs earlier on the tablet. I was using the pre-installed version of Doc-To-Go to read a PDF. I decided to check for updates. Sure enough there was an update. So I installed it. (Updates never break anything right)

Not his time. He update installed just fine. But when I tried to run the app again, I got a nifty pop-up telling me that the app was not designed to run on my device.

So once again I say, Really Huawei!!!!!

Come on, we are talking simple software updates.

I doubt I will get a response if I email support about it. Support will probably just tell me they don't support 3rd party software anyway. Even if it is a modified version made to work for this tablet.

Oh well, it's not like I need the software anyway. There are several PDF readers in the market that do just fine.

I would like to take a minute though and let everyone know about ezPDF Reader.

It works great. And unlike several in the market, it will save your place when you exit. It works very well and is easy to learn.
I highly really recommend it.

Another #fail for Huawei

While putting my new tablet through all sorts of tests, I have discovered another issue. Swype. Out of the box the tablet has Swype installed.
Awesome I thought, I use Swype on my Vibrant and think it is great. So I changed the default keyboard to Swype.
Hmmmmm......
But when I tried to use Swype, I got this amazing pop-up telling me that Swype had expired. Really Huawei.
Seriously, what are you thinking?
This is an awesome pieces of hardware and perfect for those of us that aren't big fans of the 10 inch tablets.
So I emailed support again asking why Swype is expired on my brand new tablet.
I am still waiting for a response.

Update - So Huawei finally reponded to my question regarding Swype having been expired by the time I opened the box. I expected this response.
Frankly it looks like a canned email. Even with the Swype issue, (which is really a non-issue)the device is an awesome gadget.

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Huawei Technical Support.

The application expiring has nothing to do with the actual device. I would try re-downloading the application and if that does not fix the issue, I would contact either Google for support with the Market or Swype.

If you need to reply to this message, please click 'reply' to include all previous correspondence. This allows us to track your issue more efficiently and to resolve your issue more quickly. We hope your experience with us has provided you with an acceptable resolution to your issue.

Regards,
Huawei Technical Support

Huawei Tech Support

I recently bought a Huawei Ideos S7 Slim Tablet. The tablet works great right out of the box. But as expected, I began installing tons of apps both from the market and side-loading them. Everything worked great. Launcher Pro worked great, VTL Launcher worked great, all was good. Until I rebooted the tablet.

When it came back on the tablet would not respond to any input. The touchscreen was completely dead. The widgets on the desktop continued to update as expected, I just couldn't interact with the tablet.

I began some basic troubleshooting. I used adb to remove apps that I had installed. Starting with the extra Launchers.

After each Launcher was removed, I then used adb to reboot the tablet. Removing Launcher Pro gave me the same results. An unresponsive tablet. So I removed VTL Launcher and rebooted the tablet.

This time when the tablet came up, it worked just fine.
So I reinstalled Launcher Pro and rebooted.
Again, not able to interact with the tablet.
So I used adb to remove the launcher and reboot.
All was good. I emailed support about the issue.
I even gave them the steps needed to duplicate the issue.

"I just purchased an Ideos S7 Slim last night and I think I have found a bug.

I installed a couple of additional launchers on the tablet. ADW and Launcher Pro and VTL Launcher.

They ran fine until I rebooted the tablet.

When the tablet came back up, it was hung and would not respond to any type of input.

I could see the widgets on the screen updating and the time was changing as it should, but the tablet would not respond to any input.

I used adb to remove the additional launchers and reboot the tablet.

With the additional launchers removed, the tablet went back to functioning as expected after a reboot.

Is there a way to fix this?

I like the default launcher, but would also like the ability to use other launchers as well.

Please advise."

I got this as a response.

"Dear Aaron,

Thank you for contacting Huawei Technical Support.

We cannot provide support for any third party applications.

Ok, this doesn't make me very happy. So I sent them this:

"I'm not asking you to support a 3rd party application, I am telling you that if I install any other launcher, the tablet locks up. This issue isn't launcher specific, meaning that there is a bug with your version of Android, or the launcher that is installed by default. The launchers I have tested work great on many types of devices and are proven to have an excellent track record. They also have worked on all the other tablets that I have tested them on. Again, this proves that the issue is not with the 3rd party app, but appears to be a bug with the software on your tablet. I was able to duplicate the issue after I resolved it the first time. I am not asking you to support a 3rd party6 app, but to fix the software on your tablet."

Really Huawei, If you want to gain share in the US market, you are going to need to try harder than this and offer better support for your products.
It would be one thing if I were asking you to fix Launcher Pro to work on your tablet, but Launcher Pro has an awesome track record and works on many many devices out in the real world. The issue here is clearly with your tablet. Or am I wrong?

I am patiently waiting to see what their reply is.......

Monday, May 9, 2011

Jabra Stone Bluetooth Headset

The headset works quite well, the only major drawback is the battery life. Sound quality is very good, but the headset only lasts for about 2 hours on a single charge. The good thing is that the cradle also doubles as a charger and is relatively quick to recharge the headset while on the go.

Posted from my Huawei S7 Slim tablet.

Posted as a test. This is a pretty cool little tablet GPS,Bluetooth, wifi, in a 7 inch tablet. This thing works surprisingly well and is fairly easy to type on. The device feels nice and study without being too heavy. It is definitely a tablet worth checking out.
I will post more after having used it for a couple of days.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Blogger for Android

Published by Google. Works quite well. Is fast simple and just easy to use. Nicely put together.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Subnet Mask Cheat Sheet

Not good with subnetting, this might help clear things up a bit.

Retro gamer adjustable mobile stand

I may have to build me one of these. This is pretty awesome. Not sure why I hadn't thought of it yet.

Daily Updated Vibrant Bible(Last Update 4/21 Afternoon) - xda-developers

*****Daily Updated Vibrant Bible*****(Last Update 4/21 Afternoon) - xda-developers

I like to flash new ROM's to my Samsung Vibrant Android phone. Sometimes it can be overwhelming trying to keep up with all of the ROM's/MOD's and hacks that are available.

The link above I find to be very useful. The author of the post does an excellent job of making sure that it is kept up to date.

With this post, there is now a single place to check to see what updates/new additions have been added to the MOD/ROM family for the Vibrant.

Head over and be sure to click on thanks if you find the thread to be useful.

[PROGRAM] AIO Vibrant Toolbox 2.5 Beginners Start Here Also for advanced users - xda-developers

[PROGRAM] AIO Vibrant Toolbox 2.5 *Beginners Start Here* Also for advanced users - xda-developers

I have been rooting and flashing my Vibrant since the day I got it my nerdy hands. I ran across this a while back and have found that it simplifies many things that need to be done.

You can use it to flash back to stock, apply custom ROMS and even sideload apps.

This is a great tool for both beginners and advanced individuals as well.

It is just an all around useful app. So drop in over at XDA and give it a whirl, if you find it useful go ahead and give the dev some gratitude and maybe even a donation.

Crontab Cheat Sheet

Crontab cheat sheet in PDF format. This comes in very handy for those that find themselves needing to edit a cron job.

I find this very useful as editing cron isn't something that I do very often. This is a must have, even if you don't need it, it is very handy to have on hand just share with fellow techs.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Learn the DD command

This post is full of some incredibly useful information. I ran across this looking up a simple dd command to image a hard drive. This shows that dd has a multitude of uses, not only on Linux, but for Windows too.

PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB, portable and cloud drives

Awesome idea. Lots of good apps in here that you can use on pretty much any Windows computer. All you need a USB key with some free space. Most of your favorite apps are on the list. I use this when ever I use a PC that isn't mine so I dont have to worry about installing software on other people's computers.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

YUMI - Multiboot USB Creator (Windows) | USB Pen Drive Linux

This is a cool app that runs on Windows to allow you to build a bootable USB key that will boot to several ISO's. It has some built in options, and also has a great feature to let you add your own ISO.

This is very functional and extremely useful if you find yourself working on famiy PC's to do things like remove viruses.

DesktopNova - Homepage of Stefan Haller

Awesome app I found to automagically change the wallpaper on your Gnome/XFCE based Desktop.

It works quite nicely. I am impressed by the simple functionality and overall results.

Just like most other things linux, it just works.

If you are running Ubuntu/Xubuntu it can be found via the Software Center or by using Synaptic.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

SPB Shell 3D

It's like having Compiz running on your phone!
This is an amazing launcher. I highly recommend you have one of the more powerful phones, but I haven't tested it to be sure. It runs great, looks amazing, and very functional. If you like eye candy, this is definitely the Home Launcher for you.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Samsung Vibrant

Android app Blogger_droid will allow you to post from your phone while on the go.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

sosreports and Notepad++ in Windows

I learned a new trick yesterday. It all started when a rogue service on some of my RHEL servers would start even though it was configured not to start. The rogue service was iptables. I don't need iptables running on my servers since they don't talk to the web, so after initial installation I turn it off using the command: chkconfig iptables off & chkconfig ip6tables off.
This works pretty good most of the time. Except for where I work, we are very prone to finding bugs if they exist.
So I begin my investigation.
First things first, can I duplicate the issue? Yes. Every reboot.
Ok, now to find out why. I pull an sosreport from the server. Copy it to my Windows 7 laptop.
My goal is to review pretty much every config file in the report looking for references to iptables.
This is starting to look nasty... This means I need to open each file in an editor of some sort.
Well this is where I learned a new trick. I opened up notepad++. Not paying attention to what I was doing, instead of dragging a single file or a group of files to the editor, I grabbed a folder, /etc/ in this case and dragged it to notepad++.
Oops, well, let's see what happens.
Notepad++ did something unexpected, but very much to my liking, it opened each of the files in the folder. It was great, hit cntl+f to search and search each file for iptables.
A few instances found, not what I was looking for. So I continued to do so with each folder... I was pleased with Notepad++'s ability to open each file in the folder.
It was great and sped up my work considerably. I still don't know why iptables continues to start at each boot, but oh well, I opened a case with Red Hat to get that issue solved, still working with them to get an answer.
I will post an update once the issue is resolved. I am sure that Red Hat if anyone can solve this weird issue for me.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Linux and grep

At work the other day, I was given a new task. I was to identify the brand and serial number of each of the servers I manage. Most of the servers are blades.

I had a couple of options, I could run over to the datacenter and physically look at each server, I could use the blade chassis web management gui, or I could use the OS to pull the needed info.

As it turned out, it took a little of all 3 options to gather all of the info. But this post will be about the last option. How do you pull server specific information from the OS? In this case, the OS is Red Hat.

Well, this is a simple process. First, we will use lshal. This command will tell us about everything that Red Hat sees hardwise during bootup. If you have ever used or viewed the output of lshal, you know that it can be a daunting task to find specific information. This is where grep comes in handy. Grep is used to parse the output of a command. We just pipe the output of the lshal to grep and give it a search string. A good example would be something like this:

cat /etc/fstab | grep sda
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation

That was cool, now try running lshal and grep for serial:

The command will look like this

lshal | grep serial

Our output will look something like this:

lshal | grep serial

system.board.serial = '123490EN4XXX15' (string)

system.hardware.serial = 'XXXX93DQCX1628' (string)

battery.serial = '' (string)

Great, I now have the serial number of my system, But what brand is my computer?

Try this:

lshal | grep vendor

And we get this:

system.board.vendor = 'SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.' (string)

system.firmware.vendor = 'Phoenix Technologies Ltd.' (string)

system.hardware.primary_video.vendor = 32902 (0x8086) (int)

system.hardware.vendor = 'SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.' (string)

battery.vendor = 'SAMSUNG Electronics' (string)

info.vendor = 'Intel Corporation' (string)

pci.subsys_vendor = 'Samsung Electronics Co Ltd' (string)

pci.subsys_vendor_id = 5197 (0x144d) (int)

pci.vendor = 'Intel Corporation' (string)

I now know that the vendor of, in this case my netbook is Samsung.

Hope this was helpful.

What are some examples of how you have used grep in the past?

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to leave me a comment.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Adventures in linux

I am an Ubuntu fan. More specifically, Xubuntu, which uses XFCE instead of the more popular Gnome or KDE. I'm not a Gnome or a KDE hater, XFCE looks a lot like Gnome in my opinion. It just doesnt't have all the bells and whistles that Gnome or KDE has. I think I liked KDE so much, because since DOS 6.22 had gone away, I had become used to the look and feel of the Windows Environment and KDE was very much like Windows. KDE was great, it had many bells and whistles, and was just fun to use.

When I first started in Linux, I had become bored with Windows. It no longer held any attraction for me. So I was taught on Gentoo. A very powerful distro. Highly customizable, and if you knew what you were doing, optimized specifically for you hardware. This same thing can also be said for pretty much most of the distro's out there. I learned a lot diving head first into Gentoo, with the assistance of a very patient friend.

After several months, I was very efficient with the install process. My problem (which was myself) was I like to tweak and change things. This caused me many, many, many late nights reinstalling. But, I learned a lot about Linux in the process, and had a lot of fun doing it.

After about a year, I decided to start playing around with other distros. I liked the way a lot of them looked, SUSE was nice, but not for me, Mandriva, I wasn't crazy about. Slackware, scared the devil out of me. CentOS and Fedora where cool, but still not for me.

After downloading and burning and testing 30+ different live cd's, I ran across Ubuntu 5.04. It was awesome. This is the distro I used to completely rid my home of Windows. I could do everything I needed to and all of it was done in linux, and if I couldn't, well, I just got over it. It was usually something trivial anyway.

It became even more awesome when I learned about Kubuntu.
Being that I was a big fan of KDE, Kubuntu rocked. And that is what I used until I bought my first netbook. The ASUS EeePC 701. This little experiment shipped with a 4 Gig SSD as the internal drive. Kubuntu just wouldn't fit. After several google searches, I ran across XFCE. Lightweight, efficient and minimal. This led me to Xubuntu, which I believe is perfect for a netbook.
All the power of Linux, without the overhead of some of the more popular desktop environments. It was a good match for a netbook.

I still use Xubuntu to this day, why, it just works. I don't need all of the eye candy, and eye candy may look good, but I think it overpowers a lot of the netbooks. I like to be able to use my resources, not wait for the computer to catch up to me.

While I am pretty sure that my current netbook, the Samsung NC10, can handle the eye candy, I just don't want to give up the resources for it.

Do I hate Windows, not really, I still use it on my laptop issued to me from work. I don't complain about it (not very much anyway) , I just want everything to work when I turn on my computer. While no OS is perfect, you just may be missing out by not giving linux a spin. Most of the distro's are free, support can be found in many forums, and there are tons of people willing to lend a helping hand.
I think that Linux is considerably more user friendly now than it ever was. Go ahead, give it a try.

A good place to start is here:
http://distrowatch.com/
You can find the most popular versions with links to download.
Or if you need a distro to perform a specific task, whether it be audio editing, video editing, or security, there is a distro for that too.
So what are you waiting for, dive in and give it a go.

Enjoy.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Linux and SSH

Sometime ago I built myself a media server. This is a Linux box running Xubuntu and setup to stream media to the XBox 360, the Western Digital Media Player and connected to the audio in on the stereo. I searched and searched for a good howto so I could setup VNC on my server so I could control the media player. In this instance, GMusicBrowser, just because it is light weight and quick.

Then it dawned on me.... What am I doing??? I could use ssh and X11 forwarding.

So that is what I did.

I already had opensshserver installed on my server. X forwarding is enabled by default. So no config to mess with.

Just simply log into the server using a command such as this:
ssh -X username@192.168.1.12 (Note that is a capital "X")

Then while connected just type in the name of the app you want to run. In this example it was gmusicbrowser. The app opened up on my local laptop and the output went to the stereo.

That was all it took.

Here is how you can accomplish the same thing.

Once you have Ubuntu installed and patched, run this command:

sudo apt-get install tasksel

Followed by

sudo tasksel

When you run tasksel you will get a box opened up in your shell.

Using the arrow keys scroll down to openssh server.

Select this by pressing the space bar.

Then tab to OK and press enter.

This will install the needed packages to make your Ubuntu computer accept ssh connections.

This is all you need to do. Then you can go to your other computer and connect using a command just like the once I used above.

ssh -X username@192.168.1.12

If you have a firewall enabled you will need to make sure that port 22 is open to allow your ssh traffic to your server.

That's it, you're all done and ready to run some apps.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Linux SSH and the Screen command

The screen command, what is that you ask?
That is a good question. The screen command comes standard with most linux distributions. Ok, So what does it do you ask? Well it is quite simple and extremely handy to know.

Given scenario: You are tasked with copying a large amount of files from an external USB drive to one of your linux file servers. The server has no GUI installed, so you have to use the CLI. So you fire up putty and mount the drive and then you start the file copy. It is close to time for you to leave the office for the day. You know that if you close the putty session, your file copy will stop. This sucks, you figure you still have a couple of hours to wait before the copy finishes. You need to leave, and the files need to be in place by the time you get to the office in the morning. This is where screen come to the rescue.

man screen
Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes (typically interactive shells). Each virtual terminal provides the functions of a DEC VT100 terminal and, in addition, several control functions from the ISO 6429 (ECMA 48, ANSIX3.64) and ISO 2022 standards (e.g. insert/delete line and support for multiple character sets). There is a scrollback history buffer for each virtual terminal and a copy-and-paste mechanism that allows moving text regions between windows.

Instead of immediately starting yout copy session once you have your putty session established, try this.
Start your putty session, then just type in the command "screen". You will be shown an intro window, just press space to make that go away. You now see your command prompt. Start typing, start your file copy.

Oh, you just found out you need to modify your firewall and the file copy hasn't finished yet, no worries, screen can assist you here too. Instead of opening a new putty session, just press ctrl+a and the c. This will create a new session. You will see a new prompt appear, start typing away.
While watching the logs to make sure you opened up the correct ports, you need to check on your file copy, simple. Press ctrl+a and the p to return to your previous session. To go back, press ctrl+a then n to hop in to the next session you created. Seems simple enough.

Now it is time for you to shut down for the day. Press ctrl+a then d to disconect from screen. You will return to your original session where you can then safely exit putty.

You make the commute home. Once home all safe and sound, you decide to connect to the office and check your file copy. Once again we fre up putty. Now we just need to reconnect to your screen session. Just type in screen -r. You will connected back to your screen session.
Well that was easy. There is much more functionality in screen. This is enough to get you going, and I highly recommend you spend some time looking around in the man pages to see what else you can with screen.

So leave a comment and let me know what you think. How has the screen command helped you?

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Linux file copies

I frequently use external USB drives to transfer large amounts of data from my laptop to my server. I find it is faster than using my wireless network. While doing all of these transfers, I soon learned that file copies finish faster when through the CLI. Why you ask, I don't really know, I assume it has something to do with the overhead of the desktop environment, but that is just a guess.
So I start my copy session, it may be music, movies or ISO's, just whatever data I feel like messing around with that particular day. I used this command:
cp /path/to/data/* /path/to/destination
This works great, for all the files in a folder, it does not however copy subdirectories or the contents of the subdirectories. To copy this, we need to add the -R switch to our copy command. It now looks like this:
cp -R /path/* /destination/
This looks and works better, until you move your laptop to the other side of the room and forget to move the USB drive along with the laptop, oops, I just disconnected my drive during a copy...
Now what, delete the folders from the destination and start over, that is what I used to do, then I learned some helpful switches, now my copy commands look like this:
cp -uRav /path/* /destination/
All of the switches are important here, the "u" tells the copy command that it should only copy over the destination file if the source is newer or the destination file is missing, the "v" is verbose, so you can watch the file list scroll up the screen while the copy process is working. The "a" is for archive, this makes sure that the destination has the same attributes/permissions/ownership as the source file.
Just another lesson learned.

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Ubuntu and Updates

I was talking to another Ubuntu user today and realized that I sometimes do things that others may find useful. In this particular instance, Ubuntu updates. There are a couple of ways to apply updates to your system. You can go the GUI route and use the update manager, or Synaptic Package Manager, or you can use the CLI commands. I have been using Linux as my primary OS at home for several years now. I am by no means an expert, but I do know my way around the CLI. The sequence I used to go through to apply updates to my system was to open a console and start typing away. At first I would run each command individually. So I would run the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get autoremove -y
sudo apt-get clean
The 1st command will update the package list with new versions of the packages available.
The 2nd command will actually apply the updates to the system.
The 3rd command will remove any packages that were left behind after removing a package.
The 4th command will remove all of the downloaded files that were needed to apply the updates.
You can look in /var/cache/apt to see how many different packages have been downloaded. This is a wise thing to do if you consistently run low on disk space.
After a while, I learned I could type in a long string of commands to accomplish the same thing, it looked like this:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y && sudo apt-get autoremove -y && sudo apt-get clean
While this will provide the same results as running the commands individually, I then made the process a bit easier. This is how:
I created a file called updateme in my home folder, if using the CLI you can do this:
touch updateme
This will simply create the file. Once the file is created, you then edit the file with your favorite editor, in my case, nano.
nano updateme
You then take the 4 commands shown above and copy them into the file.
Now we need to make the file executable. To do this we run this command:
sudo chmod 755 updateme
You can now execute the file by running this command:
./updateme
If you regularly forget to type in ./ in before the command you can do this:
cd into /bin
Then run this command:
ln -s ~/updateme
This will create a shortcut to updateme in the /bin folder. Now that the shortcut is in /bin, all you have to do to run the file is type in the name like so:
updateme
I decided I like this method and use it an all of my Ubuntu systems, it saves time and keystrokes, and prevents you from forgetting any steps, like removing the cached files after each round of updates.
I understand that this may not be the absolute correct way to do this, but this demonstrates one of the greatest aspects of linux in my opinion, multiple ways to pretty much accomplish everything.
I hope you find this information helpful, if you see something that can ease the process a bit more, drop a comment and let me know.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.

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A little about me

Hello,
I am new to this whole blogging thing, well not really but sorta kinda. I have been reading other people's blogs for a while now. I am just new to writing my own. So let's see how well this works out. I am hoping to be able to use this to share software and hardware experiences with the interwebs.
I currently own and use a Dell Latitude D610 and a Samsung NC10 Netbook. While both are great pieces of machinery, they are a bit outdated. They do however work very well. I run Xubuntu 10.10 on the netbook and dual boot the Dell with Windows XP and Xubuntu 10.10. Although I am not a huge fan of Windows, there are some apps I just don't care to run in wine and have not yet found a suitable linux equivalent.
Most of what I do, is done with the Netbook, just because of the size and the battery life. The Dell I use to run Eclipse to "try" and learn something about Android development. I will post more about this later.
I use Xubuntu becuase I prefer XFCE over Gnome or KDE, especially on lower powered or outdated equipment. XFCE has less overhead than the 2 other desktop packages. It is fairly straightforward to configure, and as for the hardware, everything but the special function keys work right from the start. I don't use them anyway, so it hasn't been a big deal. This goes for both the Dell and the netbook, I have read about ways to fix each, but why bother if I don't use them anyway.
Anyway, that is my environment, and where most of my content will come from. As I discover new ways to accomplish tasks, or great ways to simplify large tasks, that information will be shared here.
So check back often, there just may be something useful to you on here.

My first Blog

Hello world,
Welcome, sit, read, enjoy your stay.
Throughout the life of this blog I will be posting my Linux, Windows and Android exploits. This will not only be a place for me to store information that I find useful, but a place for me to share said information.

That's all for now, so check back tomorrow for more content.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Friday, November 4, 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Friday, July 8, 2011

Thursday, June 30, 2011