The RoarinPenguin Techiezone » Various

How to make an Apple?

RoarinPenguin — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:07:27 +0000

…on the keyboard of a MacBook Pro?

Simply press Alt + Shift + 8 and you’ll get a… 

Happy New Year!

Screenshotting in Mac

RoarinPenguin — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:29:32 +0000

Found out very nice shortcut thanks to friend of mine who knows Mac since longer time than me (at least the modern ones).
Press Shift+Command+4 to get a selection of the screen to be saved on desktop in PNG format instead of Screen Capture utility saving in TIFF.
Add Space Bar to select the whole window the mouse is on and save as PNG on desktop.
Very handy, hence not to self.

Odd characters while copying from SMB mounted drive to local Linux folder

RoarinPenguin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:27:59 +0000

Since this happened with filenames with euro sign or accented characters or dollar signs, the solution is to specify the mount options as follows:
smbmount -o iocharset=utf8 //servername/folder /mnt/localmountpoint

Bluetooth and headless Linux

RoarinPenguin — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:27:45 +0000

Ever wondered how to connect your linux box via bluetooth, for instance to allow file transfer with your phone?

I found some cool and working hints on the Net, reporting here below what worked for me.

Connect your USB dongle
Install what you need:
apt-get install obexftp bluetooth
Then you need to set the system to use a predefined PIN, since you have no console and very probably you would like to digit only from phone side to connect with this box.
To do this, you need to edit file /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf to change the following defaults:
# Security Manager mode
#   none – Security manager disabled
#   auto – Use local PIN for incoming connections
#   user – Always ask user for a PIN
#
security auto; <== this is set by default to user

and
        # Default PIN code for incoming connections
        passkey "58336342"; <== this is set by default to 1234, not enough secure IMHO…

Now, back to cellular connections:

Scan for cellular address:
hcitool scan
this will return the address of your device, like:
magicbox:~# hcitool scan
Scanning …
00:17:E4:82:F4:64 RoarinPenguin
Now we need to search the channel for file tranfers
magicbox:~# sdptool browse 00:17:E4:82:F4:64
This will return all details about services provided by the phone:
magicbox:~# sdptool browse 00:17:E4:82:F4:64
Browsing 00:17:E4:82:F4:64 …
Service Name: AVRCP Target
Service Description: Audio Video Remote Control
Service Provider: Symbian Software Ltd.
Service RecHandle: 0×10000
Service Class ID List:
"AV Remote Target" (0x110c)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
    PSM: 23
"AVCTP" (0×0017)
    uint16: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"AV Remote" (0x110e)
    Version: 0×0100

Service RecHandle: 0×10001
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
Channel: 1

Service Name: Dial-Up Networking
Service RecHandle: 0×10002
Service Class ID List:
"Dialup Networking" (0×1103)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 2
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"Dialup Networking" (0×1103)
    Version: 0×0100

Service Name: OBEX Object Push
Service RecHandle: 0×10003
Service Class ID List:
"OBEX Object Push" (0×1105)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 9
"OBEX" (0×0008)
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"OBEX Object Push" (0×1105)
    Version: 0×0100

Service Name: Hands-Free Audio Gateway
Service RecHandle: 0×10004
Service Class ID List:
"Handfree Audio Gateway" (0x111f)
"Generic Audio" (0×1203)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 28
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"Handfree Audio Gateway" (0x111f)
    Version: 0×0101

Service Name: Headset Audio Gateway
Service RecHandle: 0×10005
Service Class ID List:
"Headset Audio Gateway" (0×1112)
"Generic Audio" (0×1203)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 29
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"Headset" (0×1108)
    Version: 0×0100

Service Name: Imaging
Service RecHandle: 0×10006
Service Class ID List:
"Imaging Responder" (0x111b)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 15
"OBEX" (0×0008)
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"Imaging" (0x111a)
    Version: 0×0100

Service Name: SyncMLClient
Service RecHandle: 0×10007
Service Class ID List:
UUID 128: 00000002-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000002
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 10
"OBEX" (0×0008)
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"" (0×00000002-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000002)
    Version: 0×0100

Service Name: OBEX File Transfer
Service RecHandle: 0×10008
Service Class ID List:
"OBEX File Transfer" (0×1106)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 11
"OBEX" (0×0008)
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"OBEX File Transfer" (0×1106)
    Version: 0×0100

Service Name: Nokia OBEX PC Suite Services
Service RecHandle: 0×10009
Service Class ID List:
UUID 128: 00005005-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000001
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 12
"OBEX" (0×0008)
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"" (0×00005005-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000001)
    Version: 0×0100

Service Name: SyncML DM Client
Service RecHandle: 0x1000a
Service Class ID List:
UUID 128: 00000004-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000002
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 13
"OBEX" (0×0008)
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"" (0×00000004-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000002)
    Version: 0×0100

Service Name: Nokia SyncML Server
Service RecHandle: 0x1000b
Service Class ID List:
UUID 128: 00005601-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000001
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0×0100)
"RFCOMM" (0×0003)
    Channel: 14
"OBEX" (0×0008)
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding:    0x6a
base_offset: 0×100
Profile Descriptor List:
"" (0×00005601-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000001)
    Version: 0×0100

The interesting channel for us is Obex File Transfer, thus 11. Let’s browse what telefone has to offer:

obexftp -b 00:17:E4:82:F4:64 -c / -l

This command will access the cellular of the given address the "/" (root) directory and will list its contents

Now, once could ask how to send files to the mentioned box. Well, so far I have discovered how to “pull” them from the box from the phone using obexftp command as follows:

obexftp -b 00:17:E4:82:F4:64 -c / -g picture1.jpg

There should be another way to put the box in listening mode through rfcomm command, but that’s food for another article since I have first to read and “digest” articles like this one…

Portable Cygwin Apps

RoarinPenguin — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:34:57 +0000

Very cool idea to make Cygwin environment portable!

Link is at http://symbiosoft.net/?q=cygwinportable

The power of Linux in Windows…. available in your USB stick!

Channels on WiFi

RoarinPenguin — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:31:44 +0000

I just learnt something cool to finetune a WiFi net and before I forget, it’s better to take note as usual.

It has to do with channels and frequencies and issue at home was that my WiFi was not performing as I was expecting.

It was configured to run on channel 8, since I’ve noticed that many of the others in range were running on channel 11.

Problem is that over the 11 (sometimes 13) channels available for a WiFi, only three are ortogonal, that means only three are not overlapping at all: 1, 6 and 11.

All others involve the risk of a minimum overlapping thus performance drop could happen.

I reconfigured the channel to be 1 and b-b-b-b-booom!

WiFi is going perfectly at full speed even from low power devices like iPod or Nokia WiFi phone.

Cool!

And I used a cool and easy software to detect different WiFi details: it is called WirelessNetView and is freely downloadable from www.nirsoft.net.

How to resize a filesystem to match size of a partition.

RoarinPenguin — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:01:50 +0000

One of the things I like of Linux is that despite I’m working with it since 1994 I never end learning part of it.

Today my need was the following: I dd a 20 Gb backup onto a 40 Gb HDD and it worked smoothly, but problem is that filesystem on first partition was 20 Gb while partition was 40 Gb (more or less).

Therefore my need was to extend my filesystem to match partition size to benefit of the additional disk space offered by new HDD size. Googling a bit, I discovered a command that did the magic very smoothly: resize2fs.
All I needed to do is launching command followed by device where filesystem needs to be resized, no matter is filesystem is mounted or not, as follows: resize2fs /dev/hda1

Output has pleasantly been the following:

resize2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006) Filesystem at /dev/hda1 is mounted on /; on-line resizing required old desc_blocks = 2, new_desc_blocks = 3 Performing an on-line resize of /dev/hda1 to 8835742 (4k) blocks. The filesystem on /dev/hda1 is now 8835742 blocks long.

Useless to say that AFAIK on Windows this is a dream without costly softwares, and even then…

Nice signature!

RoarinPenguin — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 05:27:16 +0000

Surfing the ‘Net I found a cool signature to insert in mail, etc.

echo niugnePniraoR | awk ‘BEGIN { FS = "" }
{ for (i = NF; i >= 1; i– )
printf $i }’; echo

Do you find it odd or non understandable? Try it on a Linux box…

RoarinPenguin

Let’s start

RoarinPenguin — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:50:00 +0000

this is a start!