/me on the net! - utilities

USD INR exchange rates

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:48:18 +0530

I keep looking at stuff and try guessing its price in INR. Look around for calculator, check USD exchange rate and punch it in.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'rubygems'

require 'hpricot'

require 'open-uri'



amount = (ARGV.length == 1) ? ARGV[0].to_f : 1

amount = 1 if amount == 0



doc = Hpricot(URI.parse("http://in.finance.yahoo.com/").read)

element = doc.search("/html/body/div/div[2]/div/div/div[3]/div[2]/table/tr[2]/td[4]/a/")

exchange_rate = element[0].to_s.to_f

puts "#{amount} USD = #{amount * exchange_rate} INR"

Now i no longer have to. Just running $ usdinr 197.21 gives the amount in INR. Save this file in /usr/bin/usdinr and give execute permissions.

Tata Indicom wireless data card (Huawei EC321 CDMA card)

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:03:08 +0530

Tata indicom Vdata card

I've been using Tata Indicom's data card based internet services for the past 2 years or so. and my experience about the internet service quality has been above satisfaction so far. After filling up the application form, and paying 4990 INR upfront for the data card, i got the card delivered at home in 2 days. Pretty fast indeed.

Data card connectivity speed: The Huawei EC321 CDMA card is rated for about 156Kbps. Initially at the place where i used to live, i used to get about 140 Kbps speed without fiddling too much with the antenna and direction. At my current residence too, i manage about the same speeds, which is more than enough for my email and IRC applications

Setup and installation: The data card comes as a PCMCIA device which can be plugged onto the PCMCIA slot of your laptop. Its probably straightforward to install it in Windows. There's a desktop manager application included in the installation CD with puts a dialer-cum-sms inbox checking app shortcut on the desktop. Getting the internet working on linux is even easier. Check how to get the data card running with wvdial here.

Tariff plans: The data card costed me around 4990 INR some 2 years back. It should be cheaper now. The USB pen drive shaped Plug2Surf ones are definitely cheaper. I am under 1GB plan which costs me less than 800 INR per month with taxes included, as i never cross my 1GB limit.

Network coverage and roaming: Its based on Tata Indicom's CDMA network, so internet services work wherever there's tata indicom's mobile phone network. So far, it has worked for me in all the cities i've traveled in india. There are no charges on national roaming if you are using the data card only for internet services.

Verdict?: Its a good gadget to keep along if you are traveling. Internet works just out of the box, without having to ask anyone for network access or proxy authentications. I haven't used data card services from Reliance or Airtel, but i dont really have a reason to switch services as yet. Lately there have been days when the internet is pathetically slow but then it comes back again.

Where to buy?: You can visit their website ichoose.in and place an order. If you are in Mumbai then let me know, i can pass over the contact information of their sales representative and he'll take care of the rest. My email address is anurag (@) gnuer.org

flickr toys

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:10:18 +0530

Hockeney picture

Looking for a way to generate a jigsaw puzzle from your photos? or a Polaroid style Hockney picture? a picture cube? or a original looking Flickr badge? Head over to Big Huge Labs and make your own nifty Flickr accessories.

naming your hosts

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:12:27 +0530

Apparently, there's an RFC on Choosing a Name for Your Computer - RFC 1178. Easily, one of the simpler to understand RFCs out there.

migrating mailman

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 03:57:00 +0530

1. Introduction
A couple of weeks back we had to migrate a few mailing lists across to a new server. Migration was successful and we had minimum downtime, since no changes were done to the lists.

This HowTo assumes that the new server uses Postfix as an MTA. Using any other MTA is not a problem as long as it can read the Mailman generated aliases file.

Migrating mailman lists is a 3 step process.

2. Preparing New Server.

2.1 Installing Mailman.

/usr/local/mailman

/var/lib/mailman

2.2 Configure Apache and Postfix.

3. Copying Data to New Server.
Copying data involves copying over three directories, which hold list configuration(lists), held messages/bounce stats(data) and list archives(archives).

3.1 lists

lists

# rsync -avz /usr/local/mailman/lists root@new-server:/var/lib/mailman/

Mailman

3.2 data

data

# rsync -avz /usr/local/mailman/data root@new-server:/var/lib/mailman/

3.3 archives

archives

# rsync -avz /usr/local/mailman/archives root@new-server:/var/lib/mailman/

4. Post Migration checks.
After the data is migrated, check for any permission issues. Its possible that the new server is configured to run mailman with the user list or mailman. Change the ownership of the directories copied accordingly.

4.1 Regenerating Aliases

bin

# cd /var/lib/mailman/bin

# ./genaliases

4.2 Hostnames

web_page_url

host_name

# cd /usr/local/mailman/bin

# ./withlist -l -r fix_url  -u new-domain.example.org

4.3 DNS Updates

5. Finalising
Try to send an email to any of the lists's -request alias, with `help' in the subject line. Mailman should immediately respond with a list of available commands.

6. Refrences
Mailman Homepage - http://www.list.org
Mailman Installation Manual -http://list.org/mailman-install/index.html

HTTP Auth with mod_auth_imap

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:07:00 +0530

HTTP based authentication is the most common and easy-to-setup way of protecting content in apache. But with normal .htaccess/.htpasswd based protection, the problem is, .htpasswd file should be present in the webserver's filesystem, and in most cases those users are not local unix users.

mod_auth_imap attempts to overcome this limitation by allowing apache to authenticate against an IMAP server, local/remote/whatever. Setting up authentication with mod_auth_imap is also straightforward.

Download the mod_auth_imap tarball from http://ben.brillat.net/projects/mod_auth_imap/, and extract the contents.
Make sure apxs is installed (its available in apache2-dev package in debian)
Run # apxs -i -a -c mod_auth_imap.c as root user to build the apache module and install it in apache.
Make sure that mod_auth_imap module is enabled in your apache configuration.

An example .htaccess file will look like this.

#Turn on IMAP Authentication

Auth_IMAP_Enabled on

AuthName "Use IMAP username to login"

AuthType Basic



# Turn off Basic auth. We'll make IMAP as authoritative.

AuthBasicAuthoritative Off



#If you feel like it, restrict the users or allow all valid users:

# Require user foouser

Require valid-user



#Make IMAP Authentication authoritative for this .htaccess file:

Auth_IMAP_Authoritative on

Auth_IMAP_Server imap.example.org

Auth_IMAP_Port 143

Auth_IMAP_Log on

writing cheques made easy

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 00:44:25 +0530

If you issue cheques very often, and wonder how to write that weird amount in words, then lisp may come to your rescue.

CL-USER> (format t "~R" 5374538457834758345)

five quintillion three hundred seventy-four quadrillion five hundred thirty-eight trillion four hundred fifty

-seven billion eight hundred thirty-four million seven hundred fifty-eight thousand three hundred forty-five

NIL

CL-USER>

reverser

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:31:00 +0530

Konqueror

ever wondered how KDE apps look like when they are viewed in reverse?

$ konqueror --reverse

frying your cpu

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:58:40 +0530

i did write a script to heat up my cpu with openssl looping 256 times instead. On the P4 box, i get this message on my terminal within few seconds.



Message from syslogd@web2 at Wed Apr  4 12:56:34 2007 ...

web2 kernel: CPU0: Temperature above threshold



Message from syslogd@web2 at Wed Apr  4 12:56:34 2007 ...

web2 kernel: CPU0: Running in modulated clock mode

allright, no need to invest in room heater this winter.

debian administration article

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:46:53 +0530

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/511
i wrote this howto for setting up antivirus and antispam filtering mail server on debian an year back when i was learning it myself.

creating clips with mencoder

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 00:30:44 +0530

I'd been searching in debian packages for something which could help me to create clips from videos. The lousy linear editor `kino' insists on only working with DV files and starts filling disk space with raw video as soon as you open a file.

Little did i realize that mighty mplayer can do this also.

mencoder -ss 1284 -endpos 102 movie.avi -oac copy -ovc copy -o movie-clip.avi

where 1284 is the number of seconds from where clip starts, and 102 is length of clip in seconds.

dont do this

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:17:29 +0530

a lame DoS attempt

$ xterm -g 10x10-class xterm

playing with kolab

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 19:50:32 +0530

gosh, finally Kolab got installed on my machine, after days of messing up (due to my own clueless-ness ) with apache, postfix, ldap and kolab config files.

so finally i can see the administration page. if this works out nicely then many organisations around me are going to use Kolab big time..

public nameservers

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:06:00 +0530

Many times it happens that we are configuring network on a newly installed machine and forget what the DNS server addresses are.. or when your ISP's dns server just doesnt work.. If you find yourself in such situations frequently then its time you remember these easy to recall public dns servers.

4.2.2.1 - to - 4.2.2.6 (Verizon)
198.6.1.1 - to - 198.6.1.6 (GTI Internet)
128.100.100.128 (University of Toronto)
198.6.1.1 (UUNet)

Though i should add a note of caution, use these dns servers to get to the net, search for your ISP's dns servers and add them instead. Its really not a good idea to trample on someone else's bandwidth.. Also while using a third party DNS server, one must understand that its very easy for them to redirect icicibank.com to any server they wish

Its also a good idea to install bind locally to get out of such situations.. in which case the only IP to be added is 127.0.0.1

heat up your cpu

nospam@example.com (Anurag) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 14:22:52 +0530

With the winter season coming up try this if you are feeling cold and are working on a laptop.

$ openssl speed

Openssl is a nice way of benchmarking your processor's performance. It tries to calculate the number of mathematical calculations (md5, sha, aes, blowfish et. al hashes) your processor can do in given time. the higher number of calculations, the better And yes its terribly heats up your CPU at the same time..

If your CPU hasnt heated up yet then try running several openssl benchmarks at the same time.. write a shell script like this...
#!/bin/bash openssl speed & openssl speed & ... ... [repeat 20 lines]
Right now above script is running on the new proliant server and its fans are making such a loud noise as its benchmarking