Saturday 28 July 2012

Download Windows Binaries For Python Packages

Someone from the University of California has made it easier for windows python users to install python extension packages easily by providing several 32-bit and 64-bit windows binaries for several scientific open source python libraries.

If you can't figure out your way in installing python libraries, you can download the binaries for several libraries from HERE.

Most binaries are built from source code found on PyPI or in the projects public revision control systems. Definitely the page to be bookmarked for the windows python'ers if you want to easily install python libraries :)


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How To Easily Install EasyInstall In 64 bit Windows

Easy Install(easy_install) is a python module (easy_install) bundled with setuptools that lets you automatically download, build, install, and manage Python packages. Easy Install gives you a quick and painless way to install packages remotely by connecting to the cheeseshop or even other websites via HTTP. It is somewhat analogous to the CPAN and PEAR tools for Perl and PHP, respectively. This How To will guide you in installing the easy_install utility easily in windows.

First download the ez_setup.py file.

Run the above script by typing in command prompt the following:

python.exe ez_setup.py


Once the script finishes, new directory "Scripts" will be created in the python installation directory and it will contain the easy_install.exe file in that directory.

Now all you have to do is add the Scripts path to system's Environment Variables to access this tool easily.

Right click on computer, go to properties, Advanced System Settings, Environment Variables, System Variables and edit the "Path" variable by adding correct path to the Scripts directory.

I hope this helps :)


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Friday 27 July 2012

Determine Your SATA Disk Model And Vendor In Ubuntu

Sometimes you need to determine the model and vendor of your hard disk and here is the small tips on how to find those information.

All you have to do is type one of the following commands for the respective outputs:
cat /sys/class/block/sda/device/model

cat /sys/class/block/sda/device/vendor
I hope this becomes useful sometimes. :)


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Wednesday 18 July 2012

Why Alias Command With Itself

Aliasing the command to itself to suppress the original functionality of the command and provide it new added sets of functionality can come quite handy for linux users and administrators.

If you have been using linux shell for a while, I'm pretty sure you are now familiar with the `ls` command, if not I think you have just learnt to use man pages. Probably you've been using `ls -l` command to list files with the files size as well. Too bad, you won't just be able to instantly make the sense of the file size displayed using this command so why not alias `ls` command to always provide human readable file sizes. So here is my alias:

alias ls='ls -lh'


This is what I always want to see as the output with `ls` command. The same kind of alias can be used with `du` and `df` commands. There are number of other cases where aliasing a command with itself is good choice.

Another example is the less command. By default, you need to press q to exit less which can be quite annoying if the entire content can fit in a single screen. However, adding -F flag will gracefully quit after displaying the content if the content fits in a single screen. So I have my alias for less as below:

alias lesss='less -F'


If something shoots in your mind, feel free to share here as a comment :)


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Russian Hacker Bypasses Apple's App Store

A Russian hacker known as ZonD80 has discovered a method to retrieve apps from in-app for iOS apps free of cost. The best thing about this bypassing method is that this method does not require the i-device to be jailbroken. This method works on most of the major iOS versions from 3.0 to 6.0.

The step by step guide on using this method is available at the russian website HERE. The Russian guy has also setup a website called www.in-appstore.com.

Original Link

Watch Video About This Method

HERE is the copy of the instructions to follow.

*Take care while using this trick. I've not tested it and don't know if there are any security implications as the side effect of this bypass method.


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Friday 13 July 2012

Fast Share Your Files Using Python Script

If you were unaware, there is a command line switch for python that lets you the python library module as a script and I'm sharing a small trick on how you can easily share your files with other computers over LAN/Internet by running a python module that lets you run the tiny web server. Isn't it great when you don't have Samba?

Fire up the terminal, change to the desired directory you wish to share and type the following command:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer


Be cautious with the cases of characters of module 'SimpleHTTPServer' else you'll never find your mistake with this command :D

Once you've run the above command, the HTTP server will start to listen on the port 8000 (by default) so the other parties will just have to open up their favorite web browser and type the correct address followed with the colon and port 8000(eg. 192.168.1.21:8000)

I hope this proves useful sometimes. :)


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Stack-based Directory Switching For Easy Reversal

So how many times have you used the `cd` command repeatedly to go back and forth of two or more directories. Probably you are already familiar to the `cd -` command which lets you switch between the current and the previous directory. But, many times this current and previous directory switching restriction will not suffice and hence a better option in such case is to use the `pushd` command instead of `cd`.

For example, just use the `pushd somedirA`, `pushd somedirB`, ... and like that. Now if you need to switch back, you can just use `popd` command and you'll be switching back easily. The `pushd` command saves the current directory path and then cds to the supplied path.

If you dig more, you'll come to know about the -n and -N switches you can combine with these commands so I will let you explore on this. Also, you can use the `dirs` command to view the stack of directories. If you are some computer student or enthusiast, you have already gotten an idea from a famous data structure called stack. Anyway, I hope this comes handy sometimes like it does to me :)


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Friday 6 July 2012

Fix "trying to overwrite '*', which is also in package *"

Today I was updating few stuffs in edubuntu and dpkg was continually throwing me the problem while trying to install kdelibs-data. The error read as "trying to overwrite 'A', which is also in package X" and the fix was pretty straightforward but still I thought it would help someone out there.

Below is the exact error I was getting while trying to install kdelibs5-data from the deb file.

dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/
kdelibs5-data_4%3a4.4.5-0ubuntu1.2_all.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite '/usr/share/polkit-1/actions
/org.kde.kcontrol.kcmremotewidgets.policy', which is also in package kdebase-runtime-data 4:4.6.5-0ubuntu1


The fix was pretty simple. Add the --force-overwrite switch in the dpkg command as below:

dpkg -i --force-overwrite kdelibs5-data_4.4.5-0ubuntu1.2_all.deb


I hope this comes useful sometimes.


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