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Compressing files in Unix – CheatSheet

Here is a quick cheat-sheet to compress and uncompress files in Unix/Linux

Zip

zip archive file1 file2 file3
Compresses file1 file2 file3 into an achive with filename archive.zip

zip archive *
Compresses all files in the current directory into an achive with filename archive.zip

zip -r archive dir
Compresses the directory dir(and its subdirectories) into an achive with filename archive.zip

unzip archive.zip
Uncompresses the archive archive.zip to the current directory

unzip archive.zip -d dir
Uncompresses the archive archive.zip to the directory dir

Tar

The tar command accepts common parameters. These are:

  • c – create a new archive
  • v – verbosely describe each step of the process
  • f – following is the archive file name
  • t – list the contents of the archive
  • x – extract the archive

tar cvf archive.tar file1 file2 file3
Creates an uncompressed archive of the files file1 file2 file3 with filename archive.tar

tar cvf archive.tar dir
Creates an uncompressed archive of the directory dir with filename archive.tar

tar tvf archive.tar
List all files in the archive archive.tar verbosely

tar -xvf archive.tar
Extract all files in the archive archive.tar

tar xvf archive_file.tar /path/to/file1 /path/to/file2 /path/to/file3
Extracts specific files from the archive archive.tar

tar xvf archive.tar --wildcards '*.txt'
Extracts all files ending with ‘.txt’ from the archive archive.tar

Tar – Bzip

tar cvfj archive.tar.bz2 file1 file2 file3
Creates an archive using the bz2 algorithm of the files file1 file2 file3 with filename archive.tar.bz2

tar cvfj archive.tar.bz2 dir
Creates an archive using the bz2 algorithm of the directory dir with filename archive.tar.bz2

tar -xvfj archive.tar.bz2
Extract all files in the archive archive.tar.bz2

tar xvfj archive_file.tar.bz2 /path/to/file1 /path/to/file2 /path/to/file3
Extracts specific files from the archive archive.tar.bz2

tar xvfj archive.tar.bz2 --wildcards '*.txt'
Extracts all files ending with ‘.txt’ from the archive archive.tar.bz2

Tar – Gzip

tar cvfz archive.tar.gz file1 file2 file3
Creates an archive using the gz algorithm of the files file1 file2 file3 with filename archive.tar.gz

tar cvfz archive.tar.gz dir
Creates an archive using the bz2 algorithm of the directory dir with filename archive.tar.gz

tar -xvfz archive.tar.gz
Extract all files in the archive archive.tar.gz

tar xvf archive_file.tar.gz /path/to/file1 /path/to/file2 /path/to/file3
Extracts a specific files from the archive archive.tar.gz

tar xvf archive.tar.gz --wildcards '*.txt'
Extracts all files ending with ‘.txt’ from the archive archive.tar

Note: Bzip archives takes more time to compress and decompress compared to Gzip.
Bzip archival size is less than Bzip.

Posted in Linux, Solutions.

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By Haas – April 6, 2012

Fix Formula One Live Timing Errors

Formula One

Image via Wikipedia

With the start of new season of Formula One, a lot of viewers were left refreshing their pages because the live timing

refused to work for the first day of Practice.  The problem had to do with the old cookies of the website from the previous year’s timing widget.

To fix the problem follow this tutorial to Remove Cookies from your browser.

Posted in Solutions, Web.

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By Haas – March 16, 2012

Deleting specific Cookies in Firefox & Chrome

Sometimes when websites are updated,they tend to change the way they manage cookies.  What happens then is that there is a small possibility of certain parts of the website not functioning as the old cookies remain in the browser.  In those cases the best approach is to remove the errant cookie and let the website recreate the cookies.

Here is a quick tutorial on how to do that:

Firefox:

  • Click on Tools, then Options (or Edit | Preferences on Linux)
  • Select Privacy
  • In the Cookies panel, click on Show Cookies
  • To remove a single cookie click on the entry in the list and click on the Remove Cookie button
  • To remove all cookies click on the Remove All Cookies button
  • Voilà, you are done :)

Chrome:

  • Click the “wrench” icon on the browser toolbar (usually on the right extreme)
  • Click the Under the Hood tab.
  • Goto the Content settings in the “Privacy” section.
  • Click the Cookies tab in the Content Settings dialog that appears.
  • Click All cookies and site data to open the Cookies and Other Data dialog.
  • To delete all cookies, click Remove all at the bottom of the dialog.
  • To delete a specific cookie, select the site that issued the cookie, then the cookie, and click Remove.
  • Voilà, you are done :)

Posted in Chrome, Firefox, Open Source, Solutions, Web.

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By Haas – March 16, 2012

How to find your Facebook AdminID for Facebook Apps

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Your Facebook AdminID is required for administering many developer based apps. You can figure out your AdminID using the following method:

  • Goto https://graph.facebook.com/{username}
  • In the output you will find the AdminID of the user after the “id” part.

Posted in FaceBook, Solutions, Web.

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By Haas – March 12, 2012

How to find your Facebook ID for Facebook Apps

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Your Facebook ID (not your login ID) is required for administering many developer based apps (pages, share buttons and open graph based programs). You can figure out your ID using the following method:

  1. Login to Facebook
  2. Go to your photos and click on any of your photosets
  3. Right Click on any photo and open it in a new window
  4. In the url look for the text “fbid” and copy the number right next to it between the ‘=’ and ‘&’.
  5. This number is your Facebook ID.

Posted in FaceBook, Solutions, Uncategorized, Web.

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By Haas – March 10, 2012

How to disable/customize audio notificaitons for email in Android

Image representing Gmail as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

I receive a lot of emails and while I like to be on top of my inbox most of the time, I occasionally don’t want an audio notification for every mail I receive. So here is a simple step by step process of disabling/customizing audio notification for the Gmail app in Android.

  • Click on your Gmail icon.
  • Go to “Menu” > “More” > “Settings”
  • Select the email address you’d like to change the setting for (eg yourname@gmail.com)
  • Scroll down and Select “Lables to Notify”
  • Hit the dropdown arrow next to “Inbox”
  • Select “Ringtone” and then select “Silent”(for disabling audio notifications) or your desired ringtone

Posted in Android, Apps, Solutions.

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By Haas – March 9, 2012

How to check if a Website is actually down?

There are many reasons why a website might not open in your browser. They include:

  • The website being down
  • Your DNS not being able to lookup the IP address of the website
  • Settings in your browser blocking access to the website
  • Routers/Proxy servers redirecting traffic

The possiblity of error might seem to be larger on your side but its deeply frustrating to check every cause and eventually figure out that the problem was actually on the website’s side.  The simplest way to eliminate this possibility is to check the website through http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Fire up your browser and point it to http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Once there type the website to check, in the space provided and hit enter.

If the website is down you will get something like the following message:

Other wise you will get a message like this one:

In case of the latter, maybe its time to choose a better DNS provider or recheck your browser/router settings

Posted in Solutions, Web.

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By Haas – September 11, 2011

In Line Dictionary for Firefox

Google Dictionary and Google Translate Extension for Firefox provides a simple solution for in-line translation/dictionary look-up of words & translation of whole pages.

Once installed all you need to do is double-click or highlight a word, and a little pop-up will show the definition of it in your language.




Click on the link below to install the plugin:
Google Dictionary and Google Translate 2.5

Posted in Apps, Solutions, Web.

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By Haas – July 6, 2011

Restoring Lost Session in Firefox

Image representing Firefox as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

After a crash Firefox, when restarted gives a page with the option of Restoring the session or Starting a new session. Sometimes in haste we might hit the “New Session” option and feel a bit stupid that all those open tabs are now gone…

Well there is a simple way to undo that. Simply point your browser to “about:sessionrestore” and you will get back to the page with the option of restoring your previous session again!

Posted in Open Source, Solutions.

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By Haas – July 3, 2011

Galaxy Ace – Gingerbread Update – Notes

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Image via CrunchBase

There are many good tutorials on the web about installing Gingerbread on the Ace (like this one).

Once you have Gingerbread installed what can you expect from your new system?
Other than the already present updates to Android, here are a few notes I made:

  • The Default language at the start is not English. To change, go to Settings -> Locale and Text (recognizable by the keyboard key A as the logo) -> Select Language (Option no. 1 in the list) -> English (or any other language)
  • The battery lasts longer and is estimated more accurately. – The battery info is more detailed too.
  • The Wifi bug that caused the “black screen of death” problem is fixed. Expect more stability while using Wifi
  • The UI is faster and more responsive
  • Fonts are crispier and look great
  • The notification bar is smaller and that really helps screen real estate.
  • Internal memory usage has improved leaps and bounds, expect lesser problems in that area

All in all the upgrade to Gingerbread has been perfect so far.

Note: The version I have installed is XXKPH

Posted in Android, Hardware, Solutions.

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By Haas – June 28, 2011