Gnuton's Blog

Setting up a personal remote git repository

gnuton — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 11:31:38 +0000

Even if Forum Nokia gives public git repositories for free, in some cases coders want to keep their work in a “more secret” place. So I set up a git remote repository on my home server.

Here are the steps I followed to have it in place:

On the server side:

1. apt-get install apache2 git-core gitweb

2. mkdir /var/cache/git

Now we can create our first remote repository:

1. cd /var/cache/git/repository-name.git

2. git –bare init

3. chown your _ssh_username /var/cache/git/repository-name.git -R

4. chgrp your _ssh_username /var/cache/git/repository-name.git -R

So we have initialized an empty git repository and we are now ready to use it!

On your local machine:

1. git clone ssh://your_ssh_username@remote_server/var/cache/git/repository-name.git

2. cd repository-name

Let’s now try to do a simple basic operation, like adding a file to the repository

1. touch HELLO

2. git add HELLO

3. git commit -a -m “Add HELLO”

4. git push origin master

Moreover, since we installed gitweb, it shows our commits. Gitweb is available at http://remote_server/gitweb

How to translate PDFs using Google Translator

gnuton — Fri, 28 May 2010 20:09:45 +0000

So far this is the best way I know to translate PDFs using google translator without losing images and text formatting.
What you have to do is:
1) Upload the PDF to http://viewer.zoho.com/
2) Get the URL of the uploaded document
3) paste the URL in http://translate.google.com
Enjoy!

MacBook PRO 4.1 and poor wireless antenna

gnuton — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:39:11 +0000

I’m back to Italy and I’m using an Alice Pirelli router as internet gateway. This kind of router is unfortunately pretty standard here although it’s very crappy.
The Pirelli wireless router is a very basic device and looks that its signal strength is not enough for my macbook pro.
The Pirelli device is placed in the living room and between me and the router there is just a wall. Despite all my devices (Phones/PCs) in this room are able to get a good signal strength, my macbook pro doesn’t.
One time more, I would like to know what makes this laptop cool.. except the brand..

Installing KUbuntu Linux from USB drive

gnuton — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:08:07 +0000

Since my new barebone doesn’t have any CD/DVD reader, I had to install linux via USB HDD.
I hadn’t find a good documentation about this topic, then I’ve decided to write this little post.
Well… things are pretty simple:
1) Install “unetbootin” with “apt-get” or from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
2) Download latest version of KUbuntu from KUbuntu.org
3) plug your usb mass storage device (usb dongle or HDD)
4) format it with mkfs.ex3 /dev/sdX where X is the letter of your device
(to know that letter you could read last dmesg lines)
5) run unetbootin
6) select the image
7) click “Create” unplug the usb device from the first linux box and plug it in to the barebone.
9) Switch the barebone on.
10) Press F8 (If you have an ASUS motherboard) to boot from USB
11) grub will say that it can’t load “linux” kernel
12) to run your image write this: “ubnkern ubninit boot=casper BOOT=casper nopersistent rw

That’s all. Good installation! ;D

Compiling a custom Ubuntu Kernel step by step

gnuton — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 11:30:59 +0000

I want to list here brefly all steps to compile a custom Ubuntu kernel

sudo -s
apt-get install kernel-source kernel-package libncurses5-dev fakeroot
cd /usr/src
tar xvjf tar xjvf linux-source-`uname -r`.tar.bz2
ln -s /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.31 linux
cd /usr/src/linux
cp /boot/config-`uname -r` /usr/src/linux/.config
make menuconfig
Now you can modify the kernel configuration…
make-kpkg clean
fakeroot make-kpkg –initrd –append-to-version=-custom kernel_image kernel_headers

After some time you will have debian packages like: linux-image-xxx.deb linux-headers-xxx.deb in /usr/src

Use dpkg -i *.deb to install it, reboot your machine and select them in grub/lilo.

Translate

Text Adventures or Interactive Fiction

gnuton — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:22:06 +0000

Today I found an Interactive fiction interpreter running in several platforms… and of course Linux is one of them…
After trying it in my linux box I tried to compile it for my N900. Still there are some issues compiling JAM (a replacement for make) for X86 target…

The interpreter is called Gargoyle and it claims to be able read all kind of IF file types.

Ubuntu packages are available here: https://launchpad.net/~radix/+archive/ppa
A lot of Quests are available… use google to find them…

Acquistare un account megavideo premium a 30% in meno dall Europa

gnuton — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:53:08 +0000

Grazie a questo video apparso su youtube, son venuto a conoscenza di un trucchetto carino per salvare qualche euro durante l’acquisto di un account megavideo premium.
In pratica tale “procedura” ti consente di acquistare un account megavideo/megaupload premium pagando in dollari l’importo che avresti pagato in euro.
Per esempio invece di pagare 79,99 Euro un account di 2 anni, lo paghi 79,99 dollari (=53 euro circa).

Sfortunatamente i proxy americani sono difficili da reperire. Ce ne sono di gratuiti, ma non permettono la connessione a Paypal o son lentissimi.

Io ho usato questo: planetlab03.cs.washington.edu:3128 e questa e’ la procedura da seguire.
1. mi registro a megavideo.com
2. attivo il proxy americano
3. essendo ancora loggato nel sito, vado sul tab “premium” e clicco sull icona di paypal per acuistare l opzione premium desiderata
4. la connessione si interrompe e’ viene mostrata un pagina di errore, questo accade perche il proxy non mi permette l acquisto. (NO PROBLEM!)
5. disattivo il proxy
6. aggiorno la pagina che mostra l errore di connessione, cliccando su SI quando la finestra di dialogo chiede se si vuole
inviare i dati nuovamente.
7. Posso ora accedere a paypal. L importo da pagare viene mostrato nella schermata subito o dopo il login.

8. Pochi minuti dopo il pagamento una mail di notifica ci conferma l’attivazione del nostro account premium.

Sharing di un Account Megavideo tra utenti:

L account megavideo dovrebbe permettere la connessione contemporanea di max 5 utenti. L’account viene disattivato per 6 ore nel caso in cui + di 5 IP diversi sono connessi con lo stesso account premium.
Dopo le 6 ore, la password dell account viene resettata ed inviata alla mail usata al momento della registrazione dell account.

My first post written with ScribeFire

gnuton — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:53:34 +0000

This is a test post written with a Firefox add-on..

DD-WRT: Remove SSH login banner

gnuton — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:15:49 +0000

Despite DD-WRT is a cool firmware there are some default things that looks very crap from a security point of view. One of these is the ssh login banner used by sshd.

To remove it use Web interface > Administration > Commands > paste

echo "Unauthorized access is prohibited." > /tmp/loginprompt killall dropbear dropbear -b /tmp/loginprompt -r /tmp/root/.ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key -d /tmp

and press "Save Startup" button.
Power light will blink for 30 seconds. After that sshd will show new banner.

gnuton@iron:~$ ssh root@192.168.1.1
Unauthorized access is prohibited.
root@192.168.1.1's password:

Edit webpages with in your web browser

gnuton — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:08:57 +0000

There are some javascript tricks able to enable the hidden design mode.
To do that you just need to put this: “javascript:document.body.contentEditable%20=%20′true’;%20document.designMode=’on’;%20void%200″ in your address bar and you can switch it off with “javascript:document.body.contentEditable%20=%20′false’;%20document.designMode=’off’;%20void%200″

The latest command doesn’t work in Firefox3.
These commands should instead should work in Firefox3 too:
“javascript:document.body.contentEditable=”true”;void0″ and “javascript:document.body.contentEditable=”false”;void0″