https://sathyasays.com/ Recent content on Sathyajith Bhat on AWS & DevOps Hugo -- gohugo.io en © 2026 Sathyajith Bhat Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/its-always-dns-part-n/ Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/its-always-dns-part-n/ Here’s how a LAN cable swap broke my Internet connection. https://sathyasays.com/clean-up-pacman-cache-automatically-on-arch-linux/ Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/clean-up-pacman-cache-automatically-on-arch-linux/ Tired of running out of space on your Arch install? Here’s a simple way to clean up pacman cache automatically on Arch Linux. https://sathyasays.com/amazon-q-developer-chat-adhoc-querying/ Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/amazon-q-developer-chat-adhoc-querying/ Tired of wrangling JSON blobs representing AWS resources? Amazon Q Developer Chat can help! https://sathyasays.com/2024/07/13/self-hosting-owntracks-google-maps-timeline-alternative/ Sat, 13 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2024/07/13/self-hosting-owntracks-google-maps-timeline-alternative/ Looking to find an alternative to Google Maps Timeline? OwnTracks is a self-hosted location history tracker and might be a decent alternative to Google Maps Timeline. https://sathyasays.com/talks/improve-web-application-performance-aws-global-accelerator-net327/ Tue, 28 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/improve-web-application-performance-aws-global-accelerator-net327/ I talk about how we at The Trade Desk serve our users with the AWS Global Accelerator. https://sathyasays.com/talks/running-containers-on-aws/ Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/running-containers-on-aws/ This talk looks at the options available and a general guide on what service to pick when running containers on AWS. https://sathyasays.com/2023/09/04/bulk-tag-instances-in-asg-aws-cli/ Mon, 04 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2023/09/04/bulk-tag-instances-in-asg-aws-cli/ I dig into AWS CLI a little bit to explain how we can use JMESPath expressions to apply client-side and server-side filtering and bulk tag instances of an Auto Scaling Group. https://sathyasays.com/2023/07/18/curl-tls-sni-hostname-spoof/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2023/07/18/curl-tls-sni-hostname-spoof/ I’ve been using hostname spoofing with curl for a while and I find out why hostname spoofing doesn’t work with TLS. https://sathyasays.com/talks/aws-networking-for-beginners/ Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/aws-networking-for-beginners/ A brief summary about Networking in the cloud on AWS/GCP that covers VPC, subnets, routing, ingress and engress packet flows. https://sathyasays.com/2023/04/11/powershell-fzf-psfzf/ Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2023/04/11/powershell-fzf-psfzf/ Here’s how you can get the goodness of fuzzy search in your PowerShell terminal with fzf. https://sathyasays.com/talks/automated-failover-route53/ Fri, 11 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/automated-failover-route53/ Presented at AWS Community Day 2022 - I talk about using Route 53 and enabling automated multi-region failover and failback using Route 53. https://sathyasays.com/2022/09/05/self-hosting-freshrss-fly-io-free/ Mon, 05 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2022/09/05/self-hosting-freshrss-fly-io-free/ Here’s how you can self-host FreshRSS on Fly.io in under 10 minutes https://sathyasays.com/2022/05/28/route53-latency-geolocation-migration/ Sat, 28 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2022/05/28/route53-latency-geolocation-migration/ I had some fun playing with Route 53’s routing policies. https://sathyasays.com/2022/05/23/amazon-linux-to-amazon-linux-2/ Mon, 23 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2022/05/23/amazon-linux-to-amazon-linux-2/ I picked up a task to migrate our base image from Amazon Linux to Amazon Linux 2. Here’s what I needed to get it to work. https://sathyasays.com/talks/infra-as-code-aws-cdk-awsug-nairobi/ Sat, 26 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/infra-as-code-aws-cdk-awsug-nairobi/ I brief on what infrastructure as code (IaC) is, the options available for IaC and then do a deep dive into the AWS CDK. https://sathyasays.com/2021/12/30/digitalocean-kubernetes-challenge-gitops-argo-tekton/ Thu, 30 Dec 2021 10:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2021/12/30/digitalocean-kubernetes-challenge-gitops-argo-tekton/ I attempt to complete the DigitalOcean Kubernetes Challenge and deploy a GitOps CI/CD solution using Tekton and Argo CD https://sathyasays.com/2021/12/20/practical-docker-with-python-second-edition/ Mon, 20 Dec 2021 10:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2021/12/20/practical-docker-with-python-second-edition/ The second edition of my book - Practical Docker with Python is now available. https://sathyasays.com/talks/jaws-pankration-2021-fargate/ Sat, 20 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/jaws-pankration-2021-fargate/ This talk looks at why you should be using AWS Fargate for one-off tasks. https://sathyasays.com/2021/09/13/vpc-reachability-analyzer-redis/ Mon, 13 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2021/09/13/vpc-reachability-analyzer-redis/ The VPC Reachability Analyzer tool is a network diagnostic tool from AWS. In this post I look at how effective the VPC Reachability Analyzer tool to diagnose a network connectivity issue from a VPC peering connection to a private subnet. https://sathyasays.com/2021/06/05/delete-azure-vnet-subnet-delegation/ Sat, 05 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2021/06/05/delete-azure-vnet-subnet-delegation/ Removing Subnet delegations for an Azure VNET that might block deployments. https://sathyasays.com/2021/04/30/cdk-day/ Fri, 30 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2021/04/30/cdk-day/ The CDK Day is here! https://sathyasays.com/2020/12/31/terraform-apply-only-on-change/ Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2020/12/31/terraform-apply-only-on-change/ This post explains Terraform’s exit codes in detail and how you can use them to skip a terraform apply when no changes are needed. https://sathyasays.com/2020/11/30/reinvent-2020/ Mon, 30 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2020/11/30/reinvent-2020/ November end/December is a fairly exciting time for a lot of AWS enthusiasts - it’s time for re:Invent, AWSs’ annual event which brings in tens of thousands of AWS users, enthusiasts, power users, customers and more. For the AWS Heroes, it’s also the time to get together, talk, mingle, discuss and debate on all things AWS and more. It’s the time where we pack our bags and head off to Las Vegas. https://sathyasays.com/2020/08/28/migrating-moving-your-wordpress-blog-to-hugo/ Fri, 28 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2020/08/28/migrating-moving-your-wordpress-blog-to-hugo/ I started blogging with WordPress about 13 years ago. I had some free time since the joining date for my first job was about a month or so away. Armed with boredom, an Internet connection and an ample amount of free time, I started Sathya Says on WordPress.com hosting. Soon after, I came to know about domains, shared hosting and self-hosted WordPress and with my first ever salary, purchased sathyasays.com, shared hosting and started writing about Linux experiences. https://sathyasays.com/2020/06/28/securing-your-workloads-on-azure/ Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2020/06/28/securing-your-workloads-on-azure/ I had the privilege of being able to talk about what you can do to improve your Azure account security and improve the security posture of your workloads running on Azure as part of Microsoft For Startups’ Highway to a 100 Unicorns - Scale Up Thursdays webinar series. You can catch the video on demand by registering over at https://aka.ms/secgen. The slides are available on SpeakerDeck as well on my Talks section. https://sathyasays.com/talks/securing-workloads-on-azure/ Thu, 28 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/securing-workloads-on-azure/ This talk looks at some of the guidelines to be followed when improving the security of your workloads. https://sathyasays.com/2020/04/26/folding-at-home-aws-cdk/ Sun, 26 Apr 2020 06:16:24 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2020/04/26/folding-at-home-aws-cdk/ Folding@Home(aka FAH) is a distributed computing project. To quote from their website, FAH is a distributed computing project for simulating protein dynamics, including the process of protein folding and the movements of proteins implicated in a variety of diseases. Folding@Home involves you donating your spare computing power by running a small client on your computer. The client then contacts the Folding@Home Work Assignment server, gets some workunits and runs them, You can choose to have it run when only when your system is idle, or have it run all the time. https://sathyasays.com/talks/dvc15-fargate-instead-of-ec2/ Thu, 05 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/dvc15-fargate-instead-of-ec2/ This talk looks at why you should be using AWS Fargate for one-off tasks. https://sathyasays.com/2019/11/30/at-reinvent/ Sat, 30 Nov 2019 06:16:24 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2019/11/30/at-reinvent/ I’ve always dreamed of being at reInvent and this year, not only do I get to be at re:Invent, I also get a chance to lead a Dev Chat. I’m really excited to be there, to present and more importantly, to meet and interact with other AWS Heroes and re:Invent participants. Last year, I was honoured to being named as one of the Community Heroes and almost made it to re:Invent 2018. https://sathyasays.com/2018/10/02/so-i-wrote-a-book-presenting-practical-docker-with-python/ Tue, 02 Oct 2018 07:16:52 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2018/10/02/so-i-wrote-a-book-presenting-practical-docker-with-python/ So yeah that actually happened! I’ve always wanted to publish a book and thanks to Apress publishing - that is a reality now. The book is titled “Practical Docker With Python: Build, Release and Distribute your Python App with Docker” and is targeted at people who are new to Docker and want to containerize their application (with an example Python chat bot). The book starts with a brief introduction to containers and Docker, guides you on how to get started with Docker before diving into deeper topics such as Docker Networks, Volumes and Compose. https://sathyasays.com/talks/securing-containers/ Mon, 10 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/securing-containers/ The talk looks at threat vectors to containers and how they can be mitigated. https://sathyasays.com/2018/09/02/on-securing-containers-and-open-source-tools-for-scanning-vulnerabilities-in-docker-images/ Sun, 02 Sep 2018 14:07:23 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2018/09/02/on-securing-containers-and-open-source-tools-for-scanning-vulnerabilities-in-docker-images/ I recently published couple of articles elsewhere: How to Increase Container Security and Ward Off Threats - Adobe Tech Blog 5 OpenSource tools for container security - OpenSource.com Scanning Docker Images for Vulnerabilities with Aqua Microscanner - previously, on my blog Do give them a read. https://sathyasays.com/2018/06/15/e3-2018-round-up-of-trailers-games-that-i-liked/ Fri, 15 Jun 2018 15:32:33 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2018/06/15/e3-2018-round-up-of-trailers-games-that-i-liked/ E3 has come and gone by and most of the year’s press conferences were boring (what was EA even smoking?). Having said that, some of these did grab my attention. Below are a list (in no specific order) of gameplay/trailers/things I’m looking for and thought were good. Enjoy Skyrim Very Special Edition - Hilarious and very well done The Elder Scrolls Blades - FPS RPG for mobile, play on portrait, landscape, sounds great, PvP, PvE,town building, and coming to phones, PC and VR - and all this for free. https://sathyasays.com/2018/05/28/scanning-docker-image-for-vulnerabilities-with-aqua-microscanner/ Mon, 28 May 2018 18:10:16 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2018/05/28/scanning-docker-image-for-vulnerabilities-with-aqua-microscanner/ Containers are slowly becoming the standardized units of deployment. As containers become more popular, they also become the focus targets for attacking the system via vulnerabilities present in the packages within the image. There are quite a few container vulnerability scanning solutions (example: Clair, Twistlock, now Prisma Cloud, Aqua – however most of them are either commercial or require an elaborate setup, which makes it difficult for individual developers to involve them as part of the container build process. https://sathyasays.com/2018/05/22/convert-newsletters-to-rss-feeds-with-kill-the-newsletter/ Tue, 22 May 2018 04:32:22 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2018/05/22/convert-newsletters-to-rss-feeds-with-kill-the-newsletter/ Long time, no write! Newsletters have become all the rage these days and I guess for good reason - they’re curated, come in (usually) once a week and typically offer a respite from the deluge of news that comes in why typical RSS Feeds or via Twitter. Naturally I subscribed to few initially and then the list of newsletters increased - and now I am stuck with a newsletter bomb in my Inbox https://sathyasays.com/2017/11/05/a-brief-look-at-the-oculus-rift/ Sun, 05 Nov 2017 15:46:02 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2017/11/05/a-brief-look-at-the-oculus-rift/ VR and me go like chalk and cheese - ever since a kid, I’ve had motion sickness which limited me from playing most FPS games and my last attempt at VR(at IGX 2016) was a disaster - I barely could withstand 30 seconds of VR. Granted the game selection was bad - for me anyway (Driveclub on PSVR) - still I didn’t expect that bad of a reaction. With that bit of context, the reactions that flew in when I told the folks that I(well Jo, my wife, to be more precise) bought the Rift was expected. https://sathyasays.com/talks/kubernetes-kops-aws/ Sat, 23 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/talks/kubernetes-kops-aws/ A 5-minute speedrun on how to create a Kubernetes cluster using KOPS. https://sathyasays.com/2017/04/28/accessing-chef-databag-items-from-within-attributes/ Fri, 28 Apr 2017 10:08:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2017/04/28/accessing-chef-databag-items-from-within-attributes/ In Chef parlance, databags are global variables saved in JSON format and are stored and accessible on the Chef server. Given that these are indexed and can be searched up along with the fact that they can be encrypted make them ideal candidates to store secrets such as credentials/ssh keys. Chef provides an easy way to search and fetch databag and databag items from within a recipe: For ex to fetch a databag called admins, it’s as easy as: https://sathyasays.com/2017/03/13/of-nginxs-mid-cut-off-responses-and-proxy-buffers/ Mon, 13 Mar 2017 11:50:03 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2017/03/13/of-nginxs-mid-cut-off-responses-and-proxy-buffers/ Among the services I look after, the biggest and high-profile - is the user facing website. The website is your bog-standard typical frontend(powered by Express/Angular) which fetches data via an API which is powered by the backend(built on Rails). Typical flow is that Express receives the request from the browser, makes a request to the backend which is then served using Rails API via nginx which acts as the reverse proxy. https://sathyasays.com/2017/02/02/xenserver-and-addingattaching-a-new-storage-to-a-vm/ Thu, 02 Feb 2017 05:59:25 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2017/02/02/xenserver-and-addingattaching-a-new-storage-to-a-vm/ I had an instance today where a local VM(which is provisioned by Xenserver) was running low on disk space and wanted to increase the disk space allocated to it. Last time when I did it by increasing the space from within Xen Manager, I failed miserably(the VM was configured with LVM and neither pvscan or lvscan was able to see the increased space). This time I tried a different approach: https://sathyasays.com/2016/12/28/gaming-report-for-2016/ Wed, 28 Dec 2016 10:59:49 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/12/28/gaming-report-for-2016/ End of the year is here and while other services are busy sending Year in 2016 report, there sparked a mini gaming report in our telegram group and I decided to compile my gaming in 2016 report. At the start of the year I had decided to finish more games this year and I guess I did a pretty decent in accomplishing this. So here’s my summary Games finished this year: # PC: https://sathyasays.com/2016/12/12/statutory-warning-decimals-in-your-logrotate-config-can-be-bad-for-your-servers-disk-space/ Mon, 12 Dec 2016 10:15:58 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/12/12/statutory-warning-decimals-in-your-logrotate-config-can-be-bad-for-your-servers-disk-space/ Last night as I was about to head to sleep, Sensu started emailing me about disk space warnings on one of the backend servers. That’s strange, I thought. I had set up logrotate with appropriate limits to ensure the log file size is reasonable and rotation happens on a daily basis. Curious, I ssh’d into the server to investigate. Running a df -h indicated as expected the disk space in use was over 70% (which is the trigger for sensu to send a notification) and the log files had grown way over expected size. https://sathyasays.com/2016/11/20/broken-kde-plasma-5-6-on-linux-mint-18/ Sun, 20 Nov 2016 13:33:09 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/11/20/broken-kde-plasma-5-6-on-linux-mint-18/ I’ve been a long time KDE user, loved the KDE 4.0 SC when it first arrived and probably one of the most vocal supporters for it when people were hating it. Since my recent job move, I’ve been using Linux desktop full-time. Since Linux Mint 18 was the only distro which supported WiFi/Display/Multi-monitor/HDMI out on my Lenovo E41-80(which comes with Skylake chipset), I stuck to it with the Cinnamon desktop. https://sathyasays.com/2016/10/31/chef-zero-cookbooks-and-databag-locations/ Mon, 31 Oct 2016 13:55:00 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/10/31/chef-zero-cookbooks-and-databag-locations/ I like chef-zero a lot. There’s so much overlap between chef’s products: chef-zero, chef-solo, chef-apply - yes, each have their own uses, but I digress. Chef-zero has been relatively pain-free for me - except when I tried to get it running - trying to figure out why it wasn’t fetching the cookbooks was so annoying! I went and RTFM couple of times, no dice. Then I decided to not skim read and read the entire thing. https://sathyasays.com/2016/10/22/when-terminator-terminates-your-mysql-imports-onto-an-aws-instance/ Sat, 22 Oct 2016 17:11:16 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/10/22/when-terminator-terminates-your-mysql-imports-onto-an-aws-instance/ I have begun to use Terminator quite a lot. Terminator’s quite handy when you want to connect to multiple servers on a single terminal thanks to its split pane feature. (And yes I know about tmux & screen - I have screen on my servers, don’t want to get into the headache that is nested screen panes). Few days back we were preparing for a big migration & deploy and I was tasked upon to prepare a failover just in case the migration goes wrong. https://sathyasays.com/2016/08/09/bash-bashings/ Tue, 09 Aug 2016 18:37:28 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/08/09/bash-bashings/ Since my new job involves lot more of Linux, shell scripting bash and automation, I’ve been trying to brush up my Linux skills. Ran into this “problem” today where there’s an init script which handles unicorn start/stop/reload and we were debugging some kinks around this. The init script had a chain of cd to the directory and the unicorn invoke script. Was trying to figure out why unicorn wasn’t starting up, till I read a bit more and dropped to using echo to understand what’s happening https://sathyasays.com/2016/07/12/review-of-supergiant-games-transistor/ Tue, 12 Jul 2016 08:30:11 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/07/12/review-of-supergiant-games-transistor/ Transistor is the second game made by Supergiant Games following up on their previous game, Bastion. Bastion didn’t hold my attention long enough so I really can’t say much about it, except at first glance, Bastion seemed to have great artwork and music. Story # Transistor follows the story of Red, a singer in a city called Cloudbank who gets nearly killed. She manages to escape and acquires the Transistor - a sword-like weapon. https://sathyasays.com/2016/06/02/gog-connect-import-few-of-your-steam-games-into-gog-com-library/ Thu, 02 Jun 2016 17:36:59 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/06/02/gog-connect-import-few-of-your-steam-games-into-gog-com-library/ Gog.com(formerly Good Old Games) is part of CD Projekt Group - the publishers of the fantastic Witcher series of games. GOG started off as a firm which (re)distributed classic games without DRM and ensuring they run on modern systems. Off late, they have evolved into digital distribution - and they’re going against the likes of Steam (and to much lesser extent, Origin). Most digital distribution platforms tend to push their own brand, force you to use their clients and lock you down to their own platform - so not having all your eggs in the same basket is a good thing. https://sathyasays.com/2016/05/23/some-thoughts-on-the-playstation-4/ Mon, 23 May 2016 17:38:55 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/05/23/some-thoughts-on-the-playstation-4/ Few months ago for our second wedding Anniversary, after much discussions on what to get for each other - we decided to get a PlayStation 4. This was a rather surprising decision considering I’ve never been a console gamer(barring the SNES clones that Dad got for my Brahmopadesham) I’ve had a fairly decent gaming computer and spend a lot of time in front of the computer than a TV I really don’t like playing with controllers and pretty bad with it Few months back Subbu lent me his PS Vita loaded with. https://sathyasays.com/2016/05/03/implementing-and-triggering-google-now-cards-gmail-actions-from-email/ Tue, 03 May 2016 10:43:47 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/05/03/implementing-and-triggering-google-now-cards-gmail-actions-from-email/ For every Barcamp event that comes and goes by, I try to think of what new thing I can do to make it a bit better. Off late, I’ve been using Inbox by Gmail almost exclusively. I love the product, particularly for the cards that show up that gives you a brief info about the mail(ex: Event reservation details/Flight details etc) without even opening the email. I noticed that Meetup does the same. https://sathyasays.com/2016/02/04/some-thoughts-on-grand-theft-auto/ Wed, 03 Feb 2016 19:21:32 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/02/04/some-thoughts-on-grand-theft-auto/ I’ve always loved the Grand Theft Auto series, but more so as a sandbox/stress-buster than as a story line game. The first GTA game that I played was GTA II, but that was quite some time back. I don’t remember much about it - all that I recall was it it was a top down game taking a car rushing through the streets and that’s about it. I got annoyed with it and didn’t touch it. https://sathyasays.com/2016/01/22/on-undertale/ Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:19:52 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/01/22/on-undertale/ Undertale is a game that’s been getting rave reviews from quite a few people - critics or otherwise. Some choice comments IGN: It’s hard to express just how much I adore Undertale without spoiling anything significant, but that’s what I love about it. It tells its story in such a dynamic way, and with such a great understanding of the RPG player’s mindset, that it couldn’t have been told in any other way. https://sathyasays.com/2016/01/05/when-you-get-bit-by-precision-scale-in-plsql/ Tue, 05 Jan 2016 06:37:59 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2016/01/05/when-you-get-bit-by-precision-scale-in-plsql/ I got a bug assigned to me where my application was returning an incorrect value. Some background: The function was an age check function which takes in date of birth & start date and returns the age. In this specific case, the date of birth was 05.01.1951 and start date was 01.01.2016 - the expected age that was to be returned(after round off to 4) was 64.9892. The application, however was returning 65. https://sathyasays.com/2015/12/29/spotify-dl-download-your-spotify-my-music-songs-as-mp3/ Tue, 29 Dec 2015 17:22:56 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2015/12/29/spotify-dl-download-your-spotify-my-music-songs-as-mp3/ I wanted a way to download my Spotify songs for offline listening. Ideally I’d subscribe to Spotify to make use of Offline feature, but they haven’t officially launched here so that’s out of the question. A while back, I’d used spotify_to_mp3 which made use of Grooveshark to download, but Grooveshark shut down, leaving the script defunct. This gave me an idea to build something similar. With this as the motivation, I built Spotify-dl to scratch an itch as well as to improve my Python skills. https://sathyasays.com/2014/08/12/an-indian-developers-way-of-handling-merge-conflict/ Tue, 12 Aug 2014 06:15:25 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2014/08/12/an-indian-developers-way-of-handling-merge-conflict/ So this happened just now with a colleague. He’s been working for few months now. My way of handling merge conflict: Open WinMerge to diff See the conflicting part Correct the conflicting part by copying the changes to the destination file in WinMerge His way Open WinMerge to diff See the conflicting part Opens the source file in Windows notepad Copies the entire contents to clipboard Opens a new tab in Notepad++ Pastes the contents Goes to the line to be corrected. https://sathyasays.com/2014/02/23/getting-php-mail-function-running-on-windows-8-1-with-wamp-server-and-configuring-it-to-use-gmails-smtp-servers/ Sun, 23 Feb 2014 14:52:29 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2014/02/23/getting-php-mail-function-running-on-windows-8-1-with-wamp-server-and-configuring-it-to-use-gmails-smtp-servers/ With the next Barcamp Bangalore looming round the corner, I’d pitched in to help with some of the website tasks. I installed the traditional WAMP stack with WAMP Server for Windows and started working with WordPress. Needed to get the email notifications working, saw that it wasn’t. Bit of research & found that I’d need a SMTP server or an equivalent of sendmail. All the cool kids seem to be using Fake sendmail - I tried it to use with Gmail’s SMTP servers which uses authentication & TLS. https://sathyasays.com/2013/12/27/game-dev-tycoon-reviewrecommendation/ Fri, 27 Dec 2013 07:19:02 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2013/12/27/game-dev-tycoon-reviewrecommendation/ Mini review/recommendation I’d written about Game Dev Tycoon on Steam: You start off as a single game dev operating out of your garage, and then slowly expand as you move to bigger office, hire more people and just grow. The game starts off in the distant past, and contains homages to major consoles & other gaming device, albeit with similar names, no doubt to avoid legal wrangles. Gameplay wise, this game will have you hooked. https://sathyasays.com/2013/05/18/on-backupify-killing-their-free-backup-service-startups-bait-and-and-switch-tactics/ Sat, 18 May 2013 06:03:18 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2013/05/18/on-backupify-killing-their-free-backup-service-startups-bait-and-and-switch-tactics/ Long ago when Backupify said they were going to offer their service for free, I knew it was too good to be true and weren’t going to last long. Fast forward today, they mention they’re going to not only kill their free twitter backup service, but also wipe out data of their existing free users. Dear Customer, We are writing to let you know that we are discontinuing the current TweetBackup service. https://sathyasays.com/2013/04/29/pirates-play-a-gamedev-simulator-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/ Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:23:17 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2013/04/29/pirates-play-a-gamedev-simulator-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/ What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy? → Summary of "What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?" When Game Dev Tycoon (a Game Development Simulation Game) was released, its developer released a cracked version on BitTorrent simultaneously. After a certain point in the game, the cracked version would prevent the player from generating simulated revenue due to simulated piracy. https://sathyasays.com/2013/04/06/alienware-x51-with-ubuntu-makes-no-sense/ Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:01:16 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2013/04/06/alienware-x51-with-ubuntu-makes-no-sense/ This morning in my half-woken state, as I was checking Hacker News, I spotted this piece about Alienware launching the X51 with Ubuntu. I initially thought I was dreaming, and woke up immediately and read the piece, and I was left dumbfounded when I read it again to be sure. Kind of dumbfounded at Dell launching an Alienware X51 with Ubuntu https://alienware.com/ubuntu/ Not sure what’s Dell thinking - there aren’t any great native AAA games available, can’t imagine this would make studios to make Linux ports either https://sathyasays.com/2013/02/25/reviving-my-dead-windows-8-install-with-no-bootable-usbdvd-and-linux-mint-cr48/ Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:52:13 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2013/02/25/reviving-my-dead-windows-8-install-with-no-bootable-usbdvd-and-linux-mint-cr48/ Couple of months ago, just about a month before #cpgweds - the engagement my Envy 14 laptop started showing signs of dying - weird noises coming from the vents, system freezing arbitrarily, system getting incredibly hot - and that’s really unusual because the Envy’s cooling system is probably one of the best that I’ve seen in a laptop. Soon enough, it became clear that a fan was not working - my idle temperatures hit 85 degrees C, and start any game or even xbmc, and the temperatures would hit 95-100 and shutdown sooner or later. https://sathyasays.com/2013/02/08/salute-to-fabrice-bellard/ Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:25:14 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2013/02/08/salute-to-fabrice-bellard/ I probably top the ranks of lazy arses who procrastinate like there’s no tomorrow - and then there’s Fabrice Bellard Amongst others, he’s created/led A 4G LTE base station running entirely in software on a standard PC. A new ASN1 compiler generating small and efficient C code. A PC emulator in Javascript: how much time takes your browser to boot Linux ? 2700 billion decimal digits of Pi computed with a desktop computer. https://sathyasays.com/2012/11/09/my-experience-on-upgrading-from-windows-7-to-windows-8/ Fri, 09 Nov 2012 10:24:19 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2012/11/09/my-experience-on-upgrading-from-windows-7-to-windows-8/ So after much thought, I upgraded my Windows 7 Ultimate install to Windows 8. I didn’t plan to upgrade so soon, I wanted to wait for few more months before doing the upgrade - the main reason for holding back the upgrade was lack of drivers. However with Super User‘s Windows 8 Challenge around, I could no longer use the RP for posting answers. And since the RP was working fine, including the GPU drivers which I had to install in Windows 7 compatibility mode, I decided to complete the upgrade. https://sathyasays.com/2012/08/13/chrome-says-bye-to-its-wrench-icon/ Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:17:18 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2012/08/13/chrome-says-bye-to-its-wrench-icon/ I noticed this few days ago on the dev build: case ya'll haven't noticed, the Chrome's wrench icon is no longer there :( i.imgur.com/rkbMh.png — Sathya (@SathyaBhat) August 8, 2012 It’s been replaced with what I can only call.. “Three horizontal lines” which is really weird way of calling it :\ Having the wrench icon was so much better - have referred bringing up the menu quite a few times as “Click on the wrench” on Super User. https://sathyasays.com/2012/07/30/fixing-frm-41336-populate_list-invalid-column-type-for-column-2-error-in-oracle-forms/ Mon, 30 Jul 2012 12:25:26 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2012/07/30/fixing-frm-41336-populate_list-invalid-column-type-for-column-2-error-in-oracle-forms/ I spent the past hour and a half trying to fix this stupid error. Here’s the situation: I have a Poplist(aka dropdown list/ list item). The poplist is populated by a query defined in a Record Group. The query is on the lines of select id, name from employees The column types are correctly defined. And yet I kept running into FRM-41336: Populate_List: invalid column type for column error message. Looking at the description for the message: https://sathyasays.com/2012/06/04/chromes-active-extension-icons-in-omnibox-annoyance/ Mon, 04 Jun 2012 15:05:45 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2012/06/04/chromes-active-extension-icons-in-omnibox-annoyance/ I’m a huge fan of Chrome & pretty much loved whatever changes Chrome team have done to the browser since it’s inception. This change, however, is probably the first annoying thing that I’ve run into. Few days ago, after the latest dev channel update, all the extension icons on went missing. I initially thought all my extensions got wiped out. However, after heading over to chrome://extensions I realized that the update had a new “Show button” feature next to the extensions list and they had been set to hide all :| https://sathyasays.com/2012/02/13/oracle-ora-01017-error/ Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:44:31 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2012/02/13/oracle-ora-01017-error/ Was writing this for Stack Overflow‘s tag wiki on ORA-01017, thought I’ll post it here as well. ORA-01017 is the error code shown my Oracle when a login attempt to the database was not successful. The full text of the error code is: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied Cause: An invalid username or password was entered in an attempt to log on to Oracle. The username and password must be the same as was https://sathyasays.com/2012/02/04/10-minutes-wonly-ya/ Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:28:55 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2012/02/04/10-minutes-wonly-ya/ Came across this article via HN and I’m pretty sure most who work for Enterprise companies would’ve come across this at least once. Incredibly detailed post. Boss: Hey Ed, Sue in Detroit says that sometimes, the wrong Invoice Part Number is showing up on the Product History Screen. Can you help us figure this out. Ed: I’m busy with something else at the moment. Put the ticket in my queue. https://sathyasays.com/2012/02/01/ssh-into-your-servers-from-unity-using-unity-sshsearch-lens/ Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:30:13 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2012/02/01/ssh-into-your-servers-from-unity-using-unity-sshsearch-lens/ I love Unity, especially the lens feature. While going through the Ubuntu store, found this neat little lens for initiating an SSH connection. The lens parses your ~/.ssh/known_hosts & ~/.ssh/config files and provides you with a list of servers that you can connect to. Just install the lens, logout & login back to your desktop and you're good to go. To search, just bring up Unity dash by hitting the Super (aka Windows) key, type either the username or host and just hit enter to initiate the connection. https://sathyasays.com/2011/09/03/ubuntu-unity-development-does-a-iama-on-reddit/ Sat, 03 Sep 2011 07:32:03 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2011/09/03/ubuntu-unity-development-does-a-iama-on-reddit/ Q: What does Linux need to be if its going to be a real contender to Windows? What are you guys doing about that? A: It needs support from the major players. Personally I think we need to lure: Steam Adobe (all their stuff) Autodesk (all their stuff we don’t have) We also are going to need to increase the buy in from hardware vendors. Nvidia/AMD/Intel all need to care about 2x what they do right now about. https://sathyasays.com/2011/04/24/saving-gmail-attachments-in-android/ Sun, 24 Apr 2011 17:34:11 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2011/04/24/saving-gmail-attachments-in-android/ I have no idea why, but for some reason the Gmail app on Android doesn’t allow you to save files. How stupid is that? Recently, I needed to send a document from my Google Apps account to my work account. The e-mail filter at my work place mail servers can be a little overzealous and would silently discard incoming mail with attachments coming from outside sources. So I had to https://sathyasays.com/2011/01/02/remove-all-files-but-one-with-rm/ Sun, 02 Jan 2011 05:00:10 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2011/01/02/remove-all-files-but-one-with-rm/ Is there any way to remove all of the files in a directory except for one with a certain filename? For instance, if I had a directory containing the files file1, file2, and dontdelete. Would there be any way to quickly delete file1, and file2 and not dontdelete? I know that I could just do rm file1 file2 but that wouldn’t work for a bunch of files. Also, I’m on Mac OS X if that makes a difference https://sathyasays.com/2010/12/09/am-i-the-only-person-who-gets-ln-s-the-wrong-way-round-every-time/ Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:25:06 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/12/09/am-i-the-only-person-who-gets-ln-s-the-wrong-way-round-every-time/ ln -s d1 d2 # Am I the only person who gets this the wrong way round every fucking time? Similar to most people who have posted there - I used to still get it wrong every time. It’s become a habit for me to do a man ln or ln -help before I execute this command :\ Great tip here though: but then I finally found out about the relationship between ln and cp https://sathyasays.com/2010/11/14/find-command-examples/ Sun, 14 Nov 2010 03:37:52 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/11/14/find-command-examples/ I’ve used find extensively and always wanted to writeup a nice post on this, but the linked post trumps my effort! Copy pasted from his blog, as the person’s allowed to do so. Also, as a general note - before using exec with the actual command, do preview it! remove empty directories # # find . -depth -type d -empty -exec rmdir {} \; change various file attributes # find . https://sathyasays.com/2010/10/06/removing-file-named-rf-in-unix/ Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:13:28 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/10/06/removing-file-named-rf-in-unix/ I did something crazy at some point that created a file called “-rf” on my filesystem. Now I can’t figure out how to delete it. I’ve tried rm "-rf" rm \-rf But these just exit immediately. Arrgh! Anyone know how to remove this file? Preferably without accidentally cleaning out my whole folder. heh. What’re the odds, eh? via Removing “-rf” file in Unix - Super User. https://sathyasays.com/2010/09/07/how-to-search-through-bash-history/ Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:16:14 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/09/07/how-to-search-through-bash-history/ Quick tip - if you use the Terminal as much as I do, ever been in a situation where you’ve written a particularly long command, and then want to issue that command again but can’t recall it ? Use the history command, and pipe it to grep to search it! history | grep -i <search-term> This will give you all commands with the search term and the corresponding line number. https://sathyasays.com/2010/09/02/howto-starcraft-2-on-linux-with-wine/ Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:15:07 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/09/02/howto-starcraft-2-on-linux-with-wine/ Starcraft 2 [runs] under my Linux install with no issues. Since the game’s official release a few days ago I have been getting a good bit of traffic on those two pages - so I figured I would put together a quick HOWTO for getting Starcraft 2 working on your Linux distro of choice. The game runs under Wine 1.2 and/or CrossoverGames 9.1. Crossover 9.1 Starcraft 2 is listed as “officially support” and as such you will find that it has an entry in the automated games installer. https://sathyasays.com/2010/08/30/always-display-the-location-bar-in-nautilus/ Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:06:10 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/08/30/always-display-the-location-bar-in-nautilus/ This is a pretty good tip. The default style irritates me to no end. Check out the full post, there are some great tips, especially if you’re new to Nautilus like me. Ever since some distros started their attempt to become more “user-friendly” and gaining the nice looks, some default features got changed. In this case, it’s the location bar. Instead of it they got some buttons that shows the location and let you navigate through the directories! https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/30/a-look-at-gnome-census/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:21:38 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/30/a-look-at-gnome-census/ Here are our key findings: GNOME has a rhythm – there is a measurable increase in activity before release time, and after the annual GNOME conference GUADEC While over 70% of GNOME developers identify themselves as volunteers, over 70% of the commits to the GNOME releases are made by paid contributors Red Hat are the biggest contributor to the GNOME project and its core dependencies. Red Hat employees have made almost 17% of all commits we measured, and 11 of the top 20 GNOME committers of all time are current or past Red Hat employees. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/29/is-oracle-trying-to-kill-virtualbox-no/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:53:08 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/29/is-oracle-trying-to-kill-virtualbox-no/ It seems Oracle is hellbent on destroying whatever good Sun had done to the Open Source Ecosystem. The latest product to get the axe seems to be none other than the Flagship Virtualization program xVM VirtualBox. [….] All tests show that VirtualBox 3.2 lacks any semblance of stability, crashing any operating system running on it randomly. VirtualBox 3.1.8, using the binary-only release for Linux, works like a charm. It is also apparent that VirtualBox 3. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/21/ironruby-and-ironpython-now-on-apache-2-license/ Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:34:33 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/21/ironruby-and-ironpython-now-on-apache-2-license/ If you check the latest versions of IronRuby, IronPython or the Dynamic Language Runtime you will see that Microsoft has now relicensed the code from the Microsoft Permissive License to the Apache 2 License via Microsoft Licensing Changes for IronRuby and IronPython - Miguel de Icaza. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/14/4096-byte-sector-hard-drives-linux/ Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:02:21 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/14/4096-byte-sector-hard-drives-linux/ Recently, I bought a pair of those new Western Digital Caviar Green drives. These new drives represent a transitional point from 512-byte sectors to 4096-byte sectors. A number of articles have been published recently about this, explaining the benefits and some of the challenges that we’ll be facing during this transition. Reportedly, Linux should unaffected by some of the pitfalls of this transition, but my own experimentation has shown that Linux is just as vulnerable to the potential performance impact as Windows XP. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/13/spotify-for-linux/ Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:11:17 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/13/spotify-for-linux/ A lot of our developers are using Linux, obviously they want to listen to music while they’re coding away and looking at the feedback we get it appears that they’re not the only ones. So today we’re pretty happy to present a preview version of Spotify for Linux. Built by our brilliant developers during hack days and late nights, it shares most of the same features as our Windows and Mac OS X desktop applications. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/12/damn-vulnerable-linux/ Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:47:35 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/12/damn-vulnerable-linux/ A whole linux distro, Slackware based I believe, to train you in the dark arts. This distro is deliberately insecure, containing out of date packages, mis-configured apps, and loads of training material. It comes as a live dvd download, so you can run it up as and when you want to practice your skills. via Damn Vulnerable Linux. Will be interesting to check it out. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/10/watermark-photos-with-digikam/ Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:12:41 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/10/watermark-photos-with-digikam/ digiKam supports watermarking, this feature is hidden so well that you might not even realize that it’s there. This is because the watermarking function in digiKam is tucked under the Batch Queue Manager tool which you can use to watermark multiple photos in one go. Here is how this works in practice. Choose Tools | Batch Queue Manager (or press the B key) to open the Batch Queue Manager tool. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/10/virtual-dj-software-for-linux-mixxx/ Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:52:55 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/10/virtual-dj-software-for-linux-mixxx/ Mixxx is described as a complete package for amateur and professional DJs alike, providing everything you need to create and perform live mixes. It can run without connecting turntables and mixers, which makes it a replacement for traditional DJ setup. For professionals, it supports advanced features like comprehensive MIDI controller support, vinyl control, and multi-core CPU support. via Virtual DJ Software for Linux: Mixxx | TechSource. Seems nice. Packages are available only for Ubuntu, though. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/05/five-tips-for-a-more-efficient-linux-desktop-five-tips-techrepublic-com/ Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:00:08 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/05/five-tips-for-a-more-efficient-linux-desktop-five-tips-techrepublic-com/ 1: The pager I am always shocked at how few people actually use the Linux pager. It’s been around forever and has always served the same functionality — it offers the user multiple desktops to keep the desktop better organized. I employ the pager like this: With four workspaces, I dedicate each workspace to a different use. My layout looks like this: Desktop 1 is for networking tools. Desktop 2 is for writing/office tools. https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/05/opensuse-india-irc-channel-now-available/ Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:29:52 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/05/opensuse-india-irc-channel-now-available/ openSUSE India IRC Channel LIVE ! This is to notify all Lizards ;-) (openSUSE Lovers) that the openSUSE India Channel on IRC Freenode–> #opensuse-in , is now Live and registered . So if you have something to ask, share or want to spend some time with openSUSE Indian users , do visit :-)</blockquote https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/03/changing-file-associations-and-default-applications-in-opensuse-gnome/ Sat, 03 Jul 2010 17:27:26 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/07/03/changing-file-associations-and-default-applications-in-opensuse-gnome/ A quickie: I wanted to change the default application from Banshee/Totem for my media files to VLC ( since I didn’t have proprietary codecs installed, and VLC does). Searched all of YaST/Settings and couldn’t find where to change the default application. The solution was pretty simple, just right click the file(type), click on Properties, and Open-With tab Just choose the default application, or click on Add and select VLC, and you’re done! https://sathyasays.com/2010/02/04/use-musicbrainz-picard-dont-update-to-kde-4-4-rc-yet/ Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:43:33 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/02/04/use-musicbrainz-picard-dont-update-to-kde-4-4-rc-yet/ I love MusicBrainz Picard. It keeps my music collection organized, tags and renames them, and heck even fetches the cover art for (almost) all songs. Picard is just brilliant. And the icing on the cake - its FOSS & cross platform. And it was working fine - till couple of days ago. Eager to try out the RC of the upcoming 4.4 release of KDE, I upgraded it. Later on I got a bunch of music files from Ankit, and I set to tag ’em correctly. https://sathyasays.com/2010/01/16/mission-get-bluetooth-stereo-headset-working-in-linux-current-status-epic-fail/ Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:41:42 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/01/16/mission-get-bluetooth-stereo-headset-working-in-linux-current-status-epic-fail/ I’ve owned a Sony Ericsson HBH-DS970 for nearly 2 years now ), and my current iPhone 3G. I also use it occasionally on my laptop. It has worked fine in Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7. Getting it to work with Linux, however has been an EPIC FAIL. The last time I tried it was probably a year ago, and I just gave up in frustration and continued to use my EP-630 as the earphone. https://sathyasays.com/2010/01/10/changing-the-gnome-menu-panel-in-opensuse-gnome-back-to-gnome-defaults/ Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:39:34 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2010/01/10/changing-the-gnome-menu-panel-in-opensuse-gnome-back-to-gnome-defaults/ Seems like lot of openSUSE Gnome users don’t like the new Gnome panel, which is radically different interface from the traditional Menu bar with Applications/Places/System entries. Personally I prefer the new style, perhaps because I’m used to the openSUSE Kickoff panel, and I really dig the search feature You can go back to the default Applications / Places / System panel pretty easily. To do this: Right click the bottom panel and choose add a panel Now right click the top panel and choose Add to Panel In the search input box type “menu”, and you will see about six entries, one of which is “Traditional main Menu” Add the menu to the panel, move it to where you like, and delete the “original” menu. https://sathyasays.com/2009/11/29/mounting-file-system-created-by-wubi-in-other-linux-distros/ Sun, 29 Nov 2009 09:21:38 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2009/11/29/mounting-file-system-created-by-wubi-in-other-linux-distros/ I wasn’t aware of this tiny little thing - the filesystem in the file created by a Wubi install can be easily mounted as a loop device. To do so, just open the Terminal and type the below: mount -o loop This will make the kernel auto detect the filesystem type and try to mount it. Alternatively, if you’re sure of the filesystem type, mention it explicitly mount -t -o loop https://sathyasays.com/2009/11/15/updating-to-opensuse-11-2/ Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:34:36 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2009/11/15/updating-to-opensuse-11-2/ As mentioned openSUSE 11.2 is now available. If you’re on previous versions of openSUSE you can do an inplace upgrade to 11.2 by using zypper. openSUSE 11.0/openSUSE 11.1 Just change the repos to mention 11.2 instead of 11.0/11.1, as shown in the pic: Once that’s done, open the terminal, and switch to root su root Then refresh the repos zypper ref Finally, do the distribution upgrade zypper dup openSUSE 11.2 Milestone/RC versions: https://sathyasays.com/2009/10/23/opensuse-11-2-milestone-8-and-release-candidatesrc-add-boot-from-usb-flash-disk-option-heres-how-to-use-it/ Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:24:28 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2009/10/23/opensuse-11-2-milestone-8-and-release-candidatesrc-add-boot-from-usb-flash-disk-option-heres-how-to-use-it/ Howdy folks! Been a loong time since I last posted isn’t it? Just been busy with work & travel (won’t bore you with the details, just check my personal blog). I’ve been looking forward to the upcoming openSUSE 11.2 version ( it’s no secret that I’m a fan of openSUSE), but the main problem for me was that I don’t like holding onto optical media, and have a 8gig USB flash disk, especially for these things. https://sathyasays.com/2009/05/28/start-torrent-downloads-from-anywhere-using-dropbox-and-transmission/ Thu, 28 May 2009 01:20:08 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2009/05/28/start-torrent-downloads-from-anywhere-using-dropbox-and-transmission/ I’ve been using Dropbox pretty extensively ever since its private beta days and just love its simplicity and ease with which I can keep all my files in sync across multiple computers. Even more awesome is its simple web interface - just upload a file and boom, the file you uploaded gets sync’d across all your computers. This coupled with Transmission‘s ability to start downloading torrents automatically when a torrent file is available in a folder means you can start torrent downloads from anywhere, even if your computer is not accessible. https://sathyasays.com/2009/03/30/writing-an-iso-file-to-a-cd-rdvd-r-from-linux-terminal/ Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:00:37 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2009/03/30/writing-an-iso-file-to-a-cd-rdvd-r-from-linux-terminal/ Ever wondered if there’s a quick and easy way to write an iso file to a CD-R/DVD-R ? Don’t want to open K3B or Brasero ? Here’s a handy way of writing the iso file. First, switch to root using su su Next, type cdrecord -scanbus You’ll get something like this: scsibus0:<br /> 0,0,0 0) 'TSSTcorp' 'DVD+-RW TS-L632H' 'D200' Removable CD-ROM<br /> 0,1,0 1) * Note the first 3 numbers corresponding to your CD/DVD writer. https://sathyasays.com/2009/03/06/using-kwin-as-a-desktop-video-recording-and-screencast-tool/ Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:46:06 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2009/03/06/using-kwin-as-a-desktop-video-recording-and-screencast-tool/ Not many know of this, but as of KDE 4.2, Kwin, the window manager has a nifty little feature - it can grab videos of desktop much like a screencasting tool such as Camtasia. This functionality requires Kwin’s composition mode to be enabled (ie, you must be using Kwin’s desktop effects). Below video shows where and how you can enable the video recording feature. Note this video was recorded using KWin. https://sathyasays.com/2009/02/11/get-kannada-language-displayed-properly-in-gentoo-and-sabayon/ Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:41:17 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2009/02/11/get-kannada-language-displayed-properly-in-gentoo-and-sabayon/ Well I was browsing through some Kannada sites the other day and all I got was big blocks. Turned out that Gentoo and Sabayon didn’t have support for displaying Kannada characters, though, I had no such problems with Hindi & Bengali characters [amongst others]. Changing the Character encoding in Firefox to Auto-detect or Unicode didn’t work either. After doing a bit of searching, found the solution. So open the terminal, switch to root user and type https://sathyasays.com/2009/01/07/if-amarok-20-doesnt-add-any-songs-to-your-playlist-or-collection/ Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:30:01 +0000 https://sathyasays.com/2009/01/07/if-amarok-20-doesnt-add-any-songs-to-your-playlist-or-collection/ Here’s a short tip: If Amarok 2.0 doesn’t add any songs to your playlist or collection, or the collection scan is getting hung at up 47% or 79% try installing mysql. Since Amarok 2 now makes use of mysql as its backend, it expects mysql to be installed(nope, mysql-client won’t do either). As a result, after scanning, it cannot add the songs to the collection database and the process just stops.