personal reminder: ratpoison and an empty, gray java GUI

"How to un-break graphical Java apps under Ratpoison" suggests wmname to make the JVM believe it runs on a different window manager:

$ wmname LG3D

implies the JVM ran on lg3d (Project Looking Glass - a desktop utilizing 3D aspects in the UI), a non-re-parenting window manager written by Sun; this one is on java's hard-coded list of known non-reparenting window managers.

note for OpenJDK: according to this post "versions of OpenJDK that ship with some operating system distributions—at least Debian (and Ubuntu) and Arch Linux in March and August of 2009, respectively—have had this problem fixed by the vendors."

Manually add account to Google Authenticator - Enter key in Base32 Encoding

wanted to use OpenID with Multi-factor authentication as a Single Sign-On (SSO) for online services; in particular, i wanted to combine a regular password with a One-Time Password namely, a TOTP token.

Google Authenticator supports TOTP, and not only for their own 2-step verification but one can "Manually add" other accounts.

The bridging part from TOTP to OpenID, in my case, comes from Clavid (cf. OTP@Clavid).

Now to the tiny bit of information that might save you quite some minutes: when entering your secret key into these two locations to set-up an account

• Google Authenticator expects the string to be RFC4648 Base32 encoded
• Clavid expects the string to be hex encoded

personal reminder: rfkill to toggle bluetooth

toggling bluetooth (on a Lenovo ThinkPad X200s / Ubuntu 10.x) via rfkill:

rfkill list

rfkill block 0

rfkill unblock 0

until https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/linux/+bug/395358 is fixed...

personal reminder: Secure Programming for Linux and Unix HOWTO

not brand-new but not completely outdated:

Secure Programming for Linux and Unix HOWTO

Online Tasks Service for Thunderbird/Lightning

Thunderbird/Lightning has been working with Google Calendar for a while now [cf. link]. however, Tasks are not supported as can be seen in this thread and also here.

now, is there another service for Tasks available?

for some time i have been using Chandler but with recent developments TB/Lightning+Chandler stopped working (and they haven't quite figured out who's to blame...).

ironically, Yahoo comes to the rescue: following this post and going further here Tasks with Yahoo actually work.

Reverse Tethering an Android Phone via USB

until recently i was stuck with a stock android 1.6 - and USB tethering was somewhat adventurous (Tetherbot was an option, connectbot another... both worked best, i.e. without restrictions, when there was a VPN tunneled 'over' either of them.) 

android 2.2 comes with USB tethering: in 'Wireless & network settings' - just need to turn it on... and a network interface will be 'exposed' via USB, network-manager (e.g. in ubuntu) will show the new device, and go.

now, this set-up can also be used the other way around (i.e. use the computer's internet connection the mobile is connected to). however, android's ConnectivityManager does not recognize this connection in such a way that services like Contacts Sync would get going.

startUsingNetworkFeature() in http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/frameworks/base.git;a=blob;f=services/java/com/android/server/ConnectivityService.java will choke on android.net.NeworkInfo.isAvailable():
D/ConnectivityService( 166): getMobileDataEnabled returning true
D/ConnectivityService( 166): special network not available

...let's see.

aptitude or apt-get - only update security updates

two quick possibilities to update security updates only (via apt-get and/or aptitude in debian, ubuntu, ...):

1. uses a dedicated sources file: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/241#comment_20
2. uses a search pattern: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9161314&postcount=3

Dell & Linux - Links to Remember

BIOS updates for Dell computers under linux:

The Dell Linux Wiki Page

Extracting the BIOS image from the Windows .EXE file

Dell's info on RAID & Storage (aka. PERC thingthings...)

Android Market on SDK/Emulator

wanted to use an android emulator to grab a screenshots of google goggles but had to realize - as many before - that the Android SDK comes without 'the Market.' a possible solution is described here: Android Tips for Developers: Android Market on Emulator; at least, for the 1.6 system it worked for me (however, i had to grab the ADP1 image as mentioned in this comment.)

instead of 'head | tail' to delete the first lines of file

from the tail man page:

-n, --lines=N
output the last N lines, instead of the last 10; or use +N to output lines starting with the Nth

...note the +N option!

blind text generation for LaTeX testing

...nice!

How to access Time Machine files from Linux

here a crude helper to restore a 'Time Machine.app' backup on a linux system (well, a non-OSX system...)

starting from How to access Time Machine files from Linux the steps are somewhat automated.

ARG1: directory from where to descend and restore files
ARG2: destination directory
ARG3: directory whith the dir_* files

eg.:

sudo restoretmbackup.py /media/osxbackup/Backups.backupdb/nikki/Latest/nikki foo/ /media/osxbackup/.HFS+\ Private\ Directory\ Data^M

(you might not need to sudo...)

personal reminder: links to SATA hotswapping issues

• http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1041574.html
• http://www.dufault.info/blog/hotswap-a-scsi-sas-or-sata-drive-in-linux/
• http://serverfault.com/questions/5336/how-do-i-make-linux-recognize-a-new-sata-dev-sda-drive-i-hot-swapped-in-without
  

in short:

rescan:
echo "0 0 0" >/sys/class/scsi_host/host/scan
remove:
echo > /sys/bus/scsi/devices/:0:0:0/delete

threading prefs for TB

...just a reminder about threading prefs in TB (might only apply to >=V3.0):

https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Message_Threading
http://www.thunderbird-mail.de/wiki/FAQ:Aw_statt_Re

git via http proxy

it is supposed to work-like-a-charm - git via a http-proxy - but then again, sometimes it just doesn't.
in case, changing git clone git://... into git clone http://... does not help this might:

socat TCP4-LISTEN:9418,reuseaddr,fork \
PROXY:proxy.hostname.dom:gitrepo.host.dom:9418,proxyport=3128 &
git clone git://localhost/GITREPOPATH

references:

• http://limlian.blogspot.com/2008/08/use-http-proxy-for-git-client.html?showComment=1221973140000#c6839850601346705219