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Showing posts from September, 2015

Zenity Progress Dialogue

Zenity is a nice and simple way to prettify Bash scripts, similar to kdialog, xdialog and a few others, but on the whole I think the best of the lot.  Though there is nothing preventing you from mixing them up if one has a feature that would be more useful for something. I started using Zenity years ago, when there wasn't much documentation and consequently didn't use the progress dialogue the right way.  The result being that some scripts eventually broke.  For example, there was no information on how to make the progress bar progress - so I only used the whirr-whirr pulsate effect. No Progress In the past, I simply started a pulsater, pushed it into the background, saved the PID and later killed it when necessary, like this: zenity --progress & PID=$! echo "Do something" kill $PID That used to worked fine, but recently on Fedora 22, it just sits there and does nothing.  It won't even blink.  Dead as a doornail.  Bah, humbug... When All Else

Version Control For Scripts

Running a full blown version control system such as subversion or CVS for Bash scripts is a bit of overkill.  Most people don't use any version control at all on scripts and revert back to the ancient way of saving multiple copies of the files. The inevitable result is a mess of files called script1, script2, script.ok, script.bad ... and then after a few days, you cannot remember which is which. Fortunately, there is an ancient, light weight versioning system that is very easy to set up and which is perfect for the single user case: RCS . Setup RCS It is probably already installed (try whereis rcs ), otherwise do: # yum install rcs In your script directory, make a directory to keep the archives: $ mkdir RCS Edit each script and add the $Id$ keyword to the top, right underneath the familiar #! /bin/bash command: #! /bin/bash #$Id$ That will substitute your name, date, time and version number of the file upon checkout, so you always know which version of the scr

If It Is Free, Take Two... Aspirin

Updates - Untracking Tools I was wondering when privacy enhancing utilities would be come available. Here is the first one: http://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 the second one: http://techne.alaya.net/?p=12499 and the third one: https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking I still think that the only secure way to use Windows 7, 8 and 10 is in a virtual machine with networking disabled.  The trouble is that you cannot stop encrypted tunnels with deep packet inspection in a router, so you have to unplug the network cable so to speak. The only real solution is UNIX - buy a Mac, install Linux Fedora or PC-BSD.  Anything else is futile. Free Candy There are many an old proverb about free stuff, but the latest action by Microsoft takes the cake. Even people who declined the free Windows 10 upgrade, will now also have this bloated piggy forced down their throats: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/10/windows_10_forced_download/ It is one thing sending out free

UAE Visa Renewal and Car Selling Red Tape

Latest Visa Renewal Process in Al Ain - 2020 Go to SEHA Immigrant Screening Centre opposite Al Ain Hospital. Hours: 7 am till 3 pm, Sun - Thu You have three choices: Go with the enormous crowd gathered under the palm trees... Take the Fast Track - limited numbers - be there early VIP service Hmm... VIP Medical Service Go in the main front entrance and go upstairs.  Walk through the Fast Track men's waiting room to the VIP waiting section.   There is a tiny little VIP sign above the door. There will be almost nobody, so the service is immediate. You'll be done in about 20 minutes. You need: Passport and passport copies (first 4 pages plus visa) Cost: Dh500 (that is why there is almost nobody, but it is worth it) In before 10h00, get results by 2 pm the same day (someone else may pick up with the receipt) You need to get a blood test (no fasting) and a chest X-ray They will send you a SMS when they are done around 1 pm - be there at 2 pm. More info h

Audio Networking with Sox and Netcat

Sox + Netcat = VoIP The idea is to hook the sound devices on two machines together so that there is a bidirectional intercom between them.  This way, you can have an amateur SSB radio hooked to a distant computer in your radio shack and a headset on a local computer in your living room and do VoIP with the remote radio transceiver over your LAN. I noticed that there is a steady stream of people reading this post.  Please note that Sox with CVSD and netcat will work fine and consume very little processing time on a tiny ARM embedded system, but gstreamer with raw audio over UDP may be a better choice if you have a half decent system on both ends of the link and want the best quality audio.  Therefore, do look into gstreamer also. For a remote ham radio, the main thing missing, is the PTT switch, which one can do with another netcat proxy to the serial control port of the transceiver and radio control software running locally to set the channel and key the radio. For streaming,