Microsoft Windows Linux

Linux on Windows

It's 2021 and we've seen the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic.. and now I discovered Windows Sub-system for Linux, yes, Windows support for Linux. Guess it took a global pandemic for Microsoft to get Linux run on Windows!

Well, it's not really Linux, and for purists, this is more of an emulation, kind of like docker, but for Windows. However it feels fast and almost native. Good enough to support most user-mode programming languages out there. The support started from Windows 10 version 20262, so to get started, install Windows 10 and keep upgrading until this version is reached.

The Techgig C Skill Test

I used to consider myself to be pretty good in C, so I decided to try out the world's biggest programming contest platform, TechGiG (Look here: https://www.techgig.com), or so they claim to be. I wonder why I hadn't dabbled in this platform all this years since the platform seems to be existing for quite some time now. I do remember some 5-6 years ago I had dabbled a bit in the website and then stopped, I wonder why, can't really recall.

So I decided to give it a spin. I decided to try out the TechGig Skill test. Here's what I found while attempting the test.

There were 25 questions and I got 6 wrong and 19 correct. I wonder which ones I got wrong. Also considering some multiple choice answers didn't really answer the question. Also, I really wonder what a Java Question was doing in a C Skill test! Take a look:

Being the Java n00b, I might have messed that up. Moving on to one of the brilliant CHTML Questions in recent times.

That's an amazing blend of HTML and C. Amazing HTML coding skills are the feature of the tests in TechGig, since this sort of goof-up is pretty common.

Let's move on to the wrong answers now. I got this wrong apparently:

Well, I do pride myself in such questions, but seems like I have forgotten how printf handles the parse string! Well, what does ideone think?

Dear! O Dear! Ideone might have got it wrong too! Wait, maybe TechGig was wrong? Dare I say that!

Let's move to the next incorrect answer by me. Here we go:

Well, well, well. Seems like I've forgotten the basics of pointers! :( What does ideone think then ?

I think I've caught on by this point. I'm quite a C n00b also. Shall we see the next incorrect answer by me ?

This was quite tricky, so it's possible I might have messed up here. But really ?

By this point I'm convinced that the compiler used by ideone is perhaps broken. Or maybe it's TechGig that sucks?

I'll leave it to you, the reader to figure that out.

Open numbers in whatsapp without saving as contact

Whatsapp Number Opener

Say you want to make a whatsapp conversation with someone for temporary purposes but in order to do that you need to add that person as a contact first. Now adding someone as a contact is by itself a security risk as you can potentially expose your display picture and status to that person. If this is someone with whom you are involved in a transaction, then you'd not want to save this contact just for one time communication. Well, then what is the solution? How do you text this person without saving their number first?

Multi-protocol Google Talk, Facebook Messenger on Pidgin with App passwords

With the new control in privacy across the social media websites, multi-protocol chat clients like Pidgin have had some tough times. This post aims to solve the problem with tools from this new era of the privacy conscious Web. For those who are unaware, Pidgin, is a chat client which aggregates most social media protocols like XMPP (Gtalk), Jabber, Facebook, ICQ, IRC, into one compact interface.

 

We'll go through this blog, the process to add app-passwords in Google and Facebook so that it works with Pidgin.

Google Talk App Password Generation:

Sign in here: https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords

Step 1, select the app

 

Step 2: Use Other (custom name)

 

Step 3: Give a name,  I already have pidgin, so used this, for you, use "Pidgin" and click on generate.

 

Step 4: After generating you will get this window, copy the app password

Step 5: Use the generated password in Pidgin with your Gmail username as usual.

Now for Facebook App password generation.

Step 1: Open facebook settings

 

Step 2: Go to security and Login

Step 3: Scroll down to App Passwords under Two-factor Authentication and click on generate an App Password

Step 4: Apply similar steps and use a name for this after entering your password for additional authentication, if any.

 

Step 5: Use the generated password in Facebook app in pidgin.

Enjoy!

Clipboard Manager for Windows - Ditto

After my post on Clipboard Management here, which was basically clipboard managers on Linux and Unix-ly operating systems, here's one on Windows.

This cheeky sounding software is named Ditto and is a blessing for all Windows Users.

 Here's a screenshot:

So what this does, is keep track of your last copied items! Works with images as well.

Download ditto from here or from the Ditto Project page: https://ditto-cp.sourceforge.io/

Enjoy!

OpenAM database connectivity with MySql

This post comes after a long time. I had been really stuck with my project in creating a Single Sign On implementation. I was working with an amazing piece of software, OpenAM, formerly OpenSSO, currently maintained by the Forgerock community. 

My setup: I used Tomcat with Mysql and OpenAM 11.0.0 running on Centos

So first things first, install mysql-connector-java for your operating system and you should get a jar file. Here is what I got on my box:

# rpm -ql mysql-connector-java | grep jar
/usr/share/java/mysql-connector-java-5.1.17.jar
/usr/share/java/mysql-connector-java.jar

Now copy this to your tomcat installation directory. At "$CATALINA_HOME/lib" and restart tomcat.

Setup gitlab with OpenAM (OpenID Connect)

OpenAM, formerly OpenSSO, is an amazing piece of offering for providing Identity Management capabilities in an organisation. So this is what I wanted to do, integrate OpenAM with Gitlab.

Like in my previous post on integrating with an OpenID provider (which is different from OpenID Connect) we follow similar steps. We are going to use OpenAM as an Openid Connect provider.

OpenID Connect protocol, finalized on 26th February, 2014 is a not a very new protocol and has existed for a long time.[1] It is OpenID protocol encapsulated in OAuth2 protocol.

Gitlab configuration:

Tor browser bundle released

Gone are the days that the internal was the ultimate symbolism of freedom in the planet and lo and behold! The Internet that knows more about you than your mom does, is here. Thanks to Edward Snowden, the world has learned about  spying and snooping all over the world. Someone who the entire world had almost shunned is now being relooked upon, as he is being nominated for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. [1]

Ironically, even after Obama was left red faced and  promised (some) spying will end, [2] the Indian Government is getting started with NETRA – NEtwork and TRaffic Analysis System. [3]

Thankfully however, there are places in the Internet that are virtually untraceable. The "tor" network happens to be one of those amazing inventions man has made. For those who used tor earlier, they would know it was such a pain to connect to the network, Vidalia came and made it oh so simple! Here's a image poached off the internet to show Tor really works:

Timeout while testing with centos httpd (solved)

Hello all,

A tech post after a long time! So, here I was in my desk trying to understand how HTTP headers work. So I did a telnet to my CentOS VM's httpd (apache web server) and just typing

GET / HTTP/1.1

and just when I was in the next line, the connection got terminated. Annoying! Just then my mentor, told me that there were apache flags for that stuff. It looked like this

RequestReadTimeout header=50-80,minrate=1
RequestReadTimeout body=50,minrate=1

So I added that stuff to the "httpd.conf" file and it was supposed to work. Boom! It gives me an error saying the directive was not recognized. 

Complain to TRAI

Hey folks!

Recently, my mobile phone service provider has been giving me a hard time. From automatic money laundering to service activations I had never requested, the mobile corporation provided me with lots of love. Now, being the unromantic person I am, I was left with the following options.

The Helpful Web

In the modern age, probably what we use more than MasterCard is the Internet! For everything else, there is Mastercard, remember?

Jokes apart, the internet is turning into a medium that can be used to virtually we can think of. One such aspect of the internet is e-shopping. I want to today, speak about my experiences of e-shopping, the awesomeness of it and the not-so-obvious bottlenecks.

Consider a website like paytm.com, where we can recharge our mobile phones, book bus tickets, prepay DTH and what not! Flipkart.com is another site which offers facilities to buy stuff online and have them delivered to your home, in most cases, at no extra cost. Florist.com is a website that delivers flowers right down to your crush's house!

Encoding Webcam data in Java

Java is the blue eyed boy of modern society. From Open Source lovers to Oracle, they all love Java. So, apparently, something like capturing data from a webcam and creating a video out if it should be a walk in the walk in the park, right?


Well, in this case, the walk appears to be rather full of potholes! Not only that, the road seems to veer off and disappear at times.


You see, there are various multimedia frameworks available in Java that allow you to capture webcam, but all of them have a JNI interface. This is where things so ugly. On Linux, such specific bits of code rely on Video for Linux (v4l or v4l2) abstractions. On Windows, DirectShow is the way to go.

Genetic Algorithms

I have been busy for the past few months and it reflects on the time it took to bring out another post on my very beloved blog. Since getting admitted to post-graduate studies I have been fascinated by non-deterministic algorithms that are used to solve NP hard problems with reasonable accuracy. The branch of study I am referring to is known as "Soft-Computing".

There are various such algorithms that are based on the natural actions or inspired from nature. Some examples are Genetic Algorithms, Artificial Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, et cetera. What is so fascinating about this branch is that non-determinism and confusion are the concepts that determine the solution! When I say determine the solution I never mean to imply it finds out the exact solution always, it does not. These computations will find out the approximate results that are good enough for humans to understand and apply.

Let me try to elaborate each of these wonderful concepts to the best I can. In this part I shall be elaborating on Genetic algorithms.

Intel Graphics Card Linux Drivers

Looks like the future is perfect for Intel 845, Intel 855 and Intel 910 graphics chip-sets on Linux.

On my Mint 10 (aka Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat)... I was finally able to get all my resolutions and Graphics Acceleration after ages.


Okay, so initially the Framebuffer device (fbdev) was the default graphics device on Ubuntu 10.10 (aka Mint 10) and thus the intel driver is not loaded. In order to force loading the intel driver create the file

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

To create this file you must be root... here's how you could do it:

OSS on Linux Mint 10

 Finally a relief! The Mint 10 based on Ubuntu maveric meerkat proved useful to me as I could install OSSv4.

Firstly, an introduction on OSSv4 is required. OSS or Open Sound System was developed by 2 hackers, who feel the current scene in Linux Audio is pathetic and also feel that they are not bound to be ruled by the GPL only. They have come up with an audio solution for *nix based systems (works on Linux, Solaris, BSD and other nix-es) that, judging from sound quality and mixing capabilities is much better than ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture). True, ALSA is far more advanced in terms of harware support and general integration, but take a look at OSS! It is coming to terms with the real world and now has an experimental USB sound driver included. Bluetooth would not be far behind, and well, it would really close the gap between ALSA and OSS.

Orkut in Firefox Derivatives

People with Debian based distributions would find Firefox rebranded as IceWeasel. Also some other browsers have been based on Firefox and have their own "User Agent" Name. 

The User Agent Name is a name that distinguishes between browsers. This identification is required by Web Servers to handle requests from specific browsers, especially since all browsers do not handle Web Elements the same way.

Surprises Galore!

Okay, So this post is meant for some surprises.

How many of you read Graphiti? The Sunday mag with The telegraph.

I guess many. For the techno freaks out there the article by Tushar Kanwar is a must read. Not so long ago, the author had commented on Linux to be a hobby OS for engineers

Most engineering students want to tinker with the popular open-source operating system, but many stay away for fear of modifying their hard drives ^[1]

And now he writes: