Here is something useful I learned a couple of weeks ago. To cut a hanging SSH connection loose and to free the terminal only requires the following characters/keystrokes:
[Enter]~.
However on some keyboard layouts e.g. sv/fi, the tilde needs an space so the keystrokes are:
[Enter][AltGr]~[Space].
Showing posts with label IT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IT. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Lost without DNS
Every now and then I encounter a misconfigured lan or wlan network with nonworking DNS. This usually happens when I'm in a hurry to get a connection and have no time to figure out the correct DNS server.
There is a solution!
Two simple, free, public, and foremost, easy to remember DNS servers are hosted by Google:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
It may not be wise to use these all the time e.g. for privacy reasons, but for quickly getting things to work these are great.
There is a solution!
Two simple, free, public, and foremost, easy to remember DNS servers are hosted by Google:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
It may not be wise to use these all the time e.g. for privacy reasons, but for quickly getting things to work these are great.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Ubuntu 10.04, Thunderbird and a 24-hour clock
I'll cut straight to the point and spare the philosophical pondering to the end.
To make Thunderbird in Ubuntu display dates (and time) in ISO 8601 you need to do is:
sudo nano /etc/default/locale
on the command line and add the following line to the file:
LC_TIME="en_DK.utf8"
That's it.
Now to my rant.
Why is this so difficult, it shouldn't be needed to touch the command line to make this change?
Why can't the locale en_DK.utf8 (English as they speak in Denmark) be named something better?
Why can't you Americans use a 24 hour day(and night)? You don't even have a word for it like e.g. Swedish dygn or Finnish vuorokausi which both mean a 24-hour period.
Don't even get me started on the dates, 4/5/2010 and 4/5/2010 is it April 5:th or May 4:th, how about trying to update the date Blogger displayed, 5/5/10, from the fifth to the seventh!?
And don't forget Letter vs. A4, but I'll save that for another time.
To make Thunderbird in Ubuntu display dates (and time) in ISO 8601 you need to do is:
sudo nano /etc/default/locale
on the command line and add the following line to the file:
LC_TIME="en_DK.utf8"
That's it.
Now to my rant.
Why is this so difficult, it shouldn't be needed to touch the command line to make this change?
Why can't the locale en_DK.utf8 (English as they speak in Denmark) be named something better?
Why can't you Americans use a 24 hour day(and night)? You don't even have a word for it like e.g. Swedish dygn or Finnish vuorokausi which both mean a 24-hour period.
Don't even get me started on the dates, 4/5/2010 and 4/5/2010 is it April 5:th or May 4:th, how about trying to update the date Blogger displayed, 5/5/10, from the fifth to the seventh!?
And don't forget Letter vs. A4, but I'll save that for another time.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Voddler - Ambitious but disappointing
I was pleasantly surprised when a Voddler invitation arrived to my inbox. After trying it out I had some mixed feelings about the service and decided to write this review. Voddler is a commercial VOD (video-on-demand) service (still in beta) with a similar concept as Spotify, but with the difference that Spotify does music while Voddler does movies/video.
After a short registration process I was given the opportunity to download the client. Sadly there were only versions for Windows and OSX. The installation went smoothly with the 15.5MB windows installer, but I found it bit annoying that during the installation process the installer started to download an additional 15MB package, apparently it was the Adobe AIR installer. The only way to start the player is by choosing a movie from the Voddler webpage, this even if the player is installed locally and the movies are cached on disk.
Sadly this is the point where things start to go downhill.
At the time of writing there were only 45 movies available, 20 free and the rest 25 costing between 2 to 4 euros. I understand that Voddler is still in beta, but this is a huge problem. People have more then 45 DVD:s at home and this is supposed to be a VOD service. It will also be interesting to know if the users are actually willing to pay for the movies or just watch the free ones. I doubt that the current model will work. To succeed Voddler needs to make all the content free, sponsored with commercials, and to have a premium service with a (monthly) subscription fee, just like Spotify.
It's interesting that the Voddler front page has an ad that state they have both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 available, well I didn't find them. I chose to watch, a for me totally unknown movie as most of them were, Wolfhound.
Besides the company related information the Voddler web pages only contain the content list and the possibility to edit your user account. This is good because it is all that is really needed. Please keep it that way. The user account page includes the payment settings to pay for content with credit cards. The web pages work fine except for some strange lag/glitch in the movie list filtering (Premium/Free checkboxes).
The player itself seemed to work surprisingly well. The UI was clean and simplistic. Jumping to an arbitrary location was slow by this was not Voddlers fault (see below). Stopping the player and then restarting it, made the player ask me if I wish to resume from the previous location, how nice of it. The player defaults to full-screen, but works in windowed mode too. Subtitles work and the language can be changed during playback. The player includes the ability to play video at a lower resolution, this is useful on slower hardware.
Sadly my slow Intel Atom N280 based laptop and slow internet connection made the movie unwatchable. This because of lots of lagging and buffering, but that is definitely not Voddlers fault. Also to be honest, the movie seemed quite boring.
Voddler doesn't seem technically too bad (except for the missing Linux client), but they need content, content and more content.
So, just to summarize, Voddler - Ambitious but disappointing.
After a short registration process I was given the opportunity to download the client. Sadly there were only versions for Windows and OSX. The installation went smoothly with the 15.5MB windows installer, but I found it bit annoying that during the installation process the installer started to download an additional 15MB package, apparently it was the Adobe AIR installer. The only way to start the player is by choosing a movie from the Voddler webpage, this even if the player is installed locally and the movies are cached on disk.
Sadly this is the point where things start to go downhill.
At the time of writing there were only 45 movies available, 20 free and the rest 25 costing between 2 to 4 euros. I understand that Voddler is still in beta, but this is a huge problem. People have more then 45 DVD:s at home and this is supposed to be a VOD service. It will also be interesting to know if the users are actually willing to pay for the movies or just watch the free ones. I doubt that the current model will work. To succeed Voddler needs to make all the content free, sponsored with commercials, and to have a premium service with a (monthly) subscription fee, just like Spotify.
It's interesting that the Voddler front page has an ad that state they have both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 available, well I didn't find them. I chose to watch, a for me totally unknown movie as most of them were, Wolfhound.
Besides the company related information the Voddler web pages only contain the content list and the possibility to edit your user account. This is good because it is all that is really needed. Please keep it that way. The user account page includes the payment settings to pay for content with credit cards. The web pages work fine except for some strange lag/glitch in the movie list filtering (Premium/Free checkboxes).
The player itself seemed to work surprisingly well. The UI was clean and simplistic. Jumping to an arbitrary location was slow by this was not Voddlers fault (see below). Stopping the player and then restarting it, made the player ask me if I wish to resume from the previous location, how nice of it. The player defaults to full-screen, but works in windowed mode too. Subtitles work and the language can be changed during playback. The player includes the ability to play video at a lower resolution, this is useful on slower hardware.
Sadly my slow Intel Atom N280 based laptop and slow internet connection made the movie unwatchable. This because of lots of lagging and buffering, but that is definitely not Voddlers fault. Also to be honest, the movie seemed quite boring.
Voddler doesn't seem technically too bad (except for the missing Linux client), but they need content, content and more content.
So, just to summarize, Voddler - Ambitious but disappointing.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Uusi Myllysilta avoimella lähdekoodilla
Turun Myllysillan notkahtaminen on tuonut Turussa ja muualla Suomessa esille ennennäkemättömän määrän silta-asiantuntijoita. Valtaosa näistä asiantuntijoista voidaan jakaa kahteen ryhmään, uuden sillan kannattajiin ja vastustajiin. Vastustajat käsittääkseni haluavat korjata vanhan sillan. Puhe on halpaa ja teot ratkaisevat joten nyt olisi hyvä hetki jokaisen asiantuntijan tehdä omat konkreettiset suunnitelmat. Itse kuulen uuden sillan kannattajiin joten oli luonnollista tarttua tuumasta toimeen ja yrittää saada uudesta sillasta jokin hahmotelma.
Maantiesillan suunnittelu onnistuu helposti esim. PGSuper ohjelmalla. Ohjelma perustuu tietysti avoimen lähdekoodin ja on ilmainen. Neuvoja ohjelman käytöstä löytyy tältä sivulta, ja ohjelman saa haettua taas tältä sivulta. Ikävä kyllä ohjelmasta löytyy vain Windows versio.
Kyseisellä ohjelmalla ei kylläkään suunnitella mitään arkkitektonista taideteosta, mutta yksinkertaisen betonisen palkkisillan maanpäällisten osuuksien suunnittelu ja lujuuslaskenta onnistuu ohjelmalla erinomaisesti. Kaikkeen se oss pystyykin :)
Myllysillan esim. Wikipediasta löytyvät nykyiset mitat ja liikennemäärät kannattaa käyttää lähtökohtana.
P.S. Kuvassa Myllysilta 3.4.2010. Lisää kuvia löytyy seuraavista gallerioista: uudemmat ja vanhemmat kuvat.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
You can fly or sail, but you can't hide
Have you seen a plane high up in the sky or a ship far away at the horizon and wondered where it might be heading? I recently stumbled on two websites that make it possible to find out.
Real-time tracking of airplanes is provided by http://www.flightradar24.com/ and a similar service for ships is provided by http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/.
Both services project tracking data on Google maps. The flight tracker utilizes ADS-B data while the ship tracker uses AIS data.
Real-time tracking of airplanes is provided by http://www.flightradar24.com/ and a similar service for ships is provided by http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/.
Both services project tracking data on Google maps. The flight tracker utilizes ADS-B data while the ship tracker uses AIS data.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Backup, Wipe, Reinstall...
and bang your head against the wall when you notice what you forgot to backup important data.
Backup, Wipe, Reinstall is a procedure that I have come accustomed to at every new project I start with. Also I'm slowly learning what to backup and what not. But however careful I am, I usually forget to back up something.
Normally a full backup is the best solution, but in a work environment the point of the reinstall is to destroy sensitive customer data. The important thing is to separate the customer data from your personal/company data. The checklist below should be helpful, or at least it should give some kind of direction to what kind of data is worth to save. The size of the data listed below is very small and can easily be stored on e.g. a USB memory. But please remember to store the backup safely and preferably encrypt it. For easy and safe encryption I personally use TrueCrypt.
Backup checklist:
Backup, Wipe, Reinstall is a procedure that I have come accustomed to at every new project I start with. Also I'm slowly learning what to backup and what not. But however careful I am, I usually forget to back up something.
Normally a full backup is the best solution, but in a work environment the point of the reinstall is to destroy sensitive customer data. The important thing is to separate the customer data from your personal/company data. The checklist below should be helpful, or at least it should give some kind of direction to what kind of data is worth to save. The size of the data listed below is very small and can easily be stored on e.g. a USB memory. But please remember to store the backup safely and preferably encrypt it. For easy and safe encryption I personally use TrueCrypt.
Backup checklist:
- Web browser bookmarks. Remember, you might using more then one browser.
- Mail address book.
- Mailbox settings.
- PGP keys, both your private and the keys you have collected.
- VPN keys.
- All non project related documents.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Making MPlayer really-quiet
MPlayer must be one of the best media players to support both obscure, nonstandard and broken video formats on any platform. I use it regularly on Linux.
However, by default, MPlayer has the annoying habit of displaying (and hiding) error dialog boxes, sometimes even in very rapid succession. Usually there is not even anything visually wrong with the video, there are just some errors (nonstandard things) in the stream. Luckily, there is a solution for this:
Tell it to be really-quiet.
From the command line:
mplayer -really-quiet myFile.mpg
or, to make it more permanent, add the line
really-quiet=yes
to
~/.mplayer/config
Thats it.
However, by default, MPlayer has the annoying habit of displaying (and hiding) error dialog boxes, sometimes even in very rapid succession. Usually there is not even anything visually wrong with the video, there are just some errors (nonstandard things) in the stream. Luckily, there is a solution for this:
Tell it to be really-quiet.
From the command line:
mplayer -really-quiet myFile.mpg
or, to make it more permanent, add the line
really-quiet=yes
to
~/.mplayer/config
Thats it.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
distcc made easy
The easiest way to set up a simple two machine distcc environment in Ubuntu 9.04.
Quick and dirty
install distcc on both client and server:
sudo apt-get install distcc
On server:
distccd --daemon --allow your_client_ip_address
On client:
export DISTCC_HOSTS='localhost your_server_ip_address'
make -j4 CC=distcc CXX=distcc
Please note the CXX=distc for projects using C++ e.g. Qt ;)
That's all it takes.
Permanent in project
To make distcc more permanent in your Qt project add the following two lines to yous .pro file:
QMAKE_CC = distcc
QMAKE_CXX = distcc
Which qmake will then generate to:
CC = distcc
CXX = distcc
in the make file.
export DISTCC_HOSTS='localhost your_server_ip_address'
make -j4
Visualize progress
To get visual response of what is happening use distccmon-gnome
(sudo apt-get install distccmon-gnome)
Quick and dirty
install distcc on both client and server:
sudo apt-get install distcc
On server:
distccd --daemon --allow your_client_ip_address
On client:
export DISTCC_HOSTS='localhost your_server_ip_address'
make -j4 CC=distcc CXX=distcc
Please note the CXX=distc for projects using C++ e.g. Qt ;)
That's all it takes.
Permanent in project
To make distcc more permanent in your Qt project add the following two lines to yous .pro file:
QMAKE_CC = distcc
QMAKE_CXX = distcc
Which qmake will then generate to:
CC = distcc
CXX = distcc
in the make file.
export DISTCC_HOSTS='localhost your_server_ip_address'
make -j4
Visualize progress
To get visual response of what is happening use distccmon-gnome
(sudo apt-get install distccmon-gnome)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Don't save on your {}
Why are there still people who insist on not using curly braces when writing if-statements? Braces should always be used, even if the code block only contains one line of code, because sooner or later someone will add another line without noticing the absence of braces.
This is something I would expect to find in an returned Programming 101 assignment, but not in production level code, but hey life is full of surprises.
This is something I would expect to find in an returned Programming 101 assignment, but not in production level code, but hey life is full of surprises.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Save money and fall in love with open source
It amazes me how many people and businesses are either unaware or actually fear open source or free software.
I don't understand why people still during this economic downturn keep giving their money to foreign companies. This money could either be saved by directly using open source or buying support & consulting services from local companies keeping the money in the country.
It seems to be a common misconception that the quality of open source software is lower than the quality of commercial software. It's true that the quality of open source varies a lot, but so does the quality of close sourced commercial software. It's all about marketing.
It's also widely believed that there is no support for open source software while commercial software is fully supported. This is not true, just try asking Microsoft to fix some highly critical bug in their software (like this one), and I'll bet that they will not even bother to answer.
Usually open source developers are very quick on fixing bugs in their own pet projects, but this is something that can naturally not be guaranteed. On the other hand since the user/company/government has access to the source code they can either fix the problem themselves or hire someone (trusted) to fix the problem for them. This might cost a significant amount of money depending on the problem, but at least the possibility exists.
The access to the source code also gives the user a chance for a code audit and to compile the the source code to binaries themselves, something which might be very difficult if not impossible with commercial closed source software. In some environments e.g. government or military, this might be the only way to be absolutely sure what binary code is running on the hardware. Because if you don't know what you are running something bad might happen.
One area that has historically been the Achilles' heel of open source is training courses and educational material of good quality. However, today there is an increasing amount of education material and courses arranged dealing with the usage of open source software. This is especially an area where public tax funded schools should help. They should not only teach the children to use commercial software but also present them with alternatives. A good start would include Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Gimp, but the journey should definitely at some point visit Ubuntu (Linux).
Finally perhaps the biggest advantage of open source is the absence of vendor lock-in. Open source software usually uses standard, documented, open, patent free file formats which means that the user will always have access to his files, the ones that he after all created and owns. This is not always the case with commercial software that often uses undocumented binary blobs of data (I'm looking at you with your memory dumps Word), that are unreadable by the user if the manufacturer decides to stop supporting its application, or go out of business.
I must add that even if the software is free and open source, the user might still not be allowed to do anything he likes with the software. The terms what may or may not be done depend on a number of things e.g. if the software is in commercial or noncommercial use. These terms are explained in the license accompanied with the software itself. The most common and known license is GPL, but a number of other licenses also exist.
In conclusion I would like to point out that the most important thing after all is to find software that suits the users need, let that be either open or closed sourced software.
All I ask is keep your mind open and don't be afraid to try something new and different. You might be pleasantly surprised :)
Written by yours truly, who makes his living writing (open source) software.
I don't understand why people still during this economic downturn keep giving their money to foreign companies. This money could either be saved by directly using open source or buying support & consulting services from local companies keeping the money in the country.
It seems to be a common misconception that the quality of open source software is lower than the quality of commercial software. It's true that the quality of open source varies a lot, but so does the quality of close sourced commercial software. It's all about marketing.
It's also widely believed that there is no support for open source software while commercial software is fully supported. This is not true, just try asking Microsoft to fix some highly critical bug in their software (like this one), and I'll bet that they will not even bother to answer.
Usually open source developers are very quick on fixing bugs in their own pet projects, but this is something that can naturally not be guaranteed. On the other hand since the user/company/government has access to the source code they can either fix the problem themselves or hire someone (trusted) to fix the problem for them. This might cost a significant amount of money depending on the problem, but at least the possibility exists.
The access to the source code also gives the user a chance for a code audit and to compile the the source code to binaries themselves, something which might be very difficult if not impossible with commercial closed source software. In some environments e.g. government or military, this might be the only way to be absolutely sure what binary code is running on the hardware. Because if you don't know what you are running something bad might happen.
One area that has historically been the Achilles' heel of open source is training courses and educational material of good quality. However, today there is an increasing amount of education material and courses arranged dealing with the usage of open source software. This is especially an area where public tax funded schools should help. They should not only teach the children to use commercial software but also present them with alternatives. A good start would include Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Gimp, but the journey should definitely at some point visit Ubuntu (Linux).
Finally perhaps the biggest advantage of open source is the absence of vendor lock-in. Open source software usually uses standard, documented, open, patent free file formats which means that the user will always have access to his files, the ones that he after all created and owns. This is not always the case with commercial software that often uses undocumented binary blobs of data (I'm looking at you with your memory dumps Word), that are unreadable by the user if the manufacturer decides to stop supporting its application, or go out of business.
I must add that even if the software is free and open source, the user might still not be allowed to do anything he likes with the software. The terms what may or may not be done depend on a number of things e.g. if the software is in commercial or noncommercial use. These terms are explained in the license accompanied with the software itself. The most common and known license is GPL, but a number of other licenses also exist.
In conclusion I would like to point out that the most important thing after all is to find software that suits the users need, let that be either open or closed sourced software.
All I ask is keep your mind open and don't be afraid to try something new and different. You might be pleasantly surprised :)
Written by yours truly, who makes his living writing (open source) software.
Qt Creator - A fun way to code Qt
Last November I came across a new lightweight C++ IDE named Qt Creator which is being developed at Qt Software (former Trolltech). Qt Creator is supposed to provide everything a Qt programmer needs, and it actually quite good at keeping its promise. At first I used it in parallel with Eclipse, but since Christmas it has been my primary IDE. In March I upgraded to the newly relesed version 1.00, which is the version I currently use.
All basic features expected to be found in an advanced text editor / IDE are supported, e.g. syntax highlighting, auto-indentation, (un-)commenting code, code folding, bookmarks etc. But also more advanced features are supported like code completion and error highlighting.
I like the easy code navigation and powerful search features, but I really miss code refactoring support which I hope the trolls will soon add. The integrated help is useful after you learn to remember that it's not located in the same window as the editor, this is frustrating when you out of old habit try to Alt-Tab yourself away from the Qt Assistant window.
I have very mixed feelings about the project view, but maybe I'm not using it correctly. I would like it to also show other files than the ones present in .pro files e.g. configuration files.
Since I work with Scratchbox I haven't familiarized myself that much with the building and debugging facilities provided. I did however get Qt Creator to compile inside Scratchbox but it generated the Makefiles wrong and I didn't have time to look into the problem. The form editor seems to be an integrated version of the normal Qt Designer, which is ok to use.
Support for two popular version control systems, Subversion and Git, is also available.
Qt Creator even contains vi key-bindings so vi users can feel at home. Sadly Emacs users are still left out in the cold.
Oh, I almost forgot, it's cross platform.
All basic features expected to be found in an advanced text editor / IDE are supported, e.g. syntax highlighting, auto-indentation, (un-)commenting code, code folding, bookmarks etc. But also more advanced features are supported like code completion and error highlighting.
I like the easy code navigation and powerful search features, but I really miss code refactoring support which I hope the trolls will soon add. The integrated help is useful after you learn to remember that it's not located in the same window as the editor, this is frustrating when you out of old habit try to Alt-Tab yourself away from the Qt Assistant window.
I have very mixed feelings about the project view, but maybe I'm not using it correctly. I would like it to also show other files than the ones present in .pro files e.g. configuration files.
Since I work with Scratchbox I haven't familiarized myself that much with the building and debugging facilities provided. I did however get Qt Creator to compile inside Scratchbox but it generated the Makefiles wrong and I didn't have time to look into the problem. The form editor seems to be an integrated version of the normal Qt Designer, which is ok to use.
Support for two popular version control systems, Subversion and Git, is also available.
Qt Creator even contains vi key-bindings so vi users can feel at home. Sadly Emacs users are still left out in the cold.
Oh, I almost forgot, it's cross platform.
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