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Files
Cisco AnyConnect in Ubuntu & Fedora – Fixing it the Easy way
Jun 3rd
Cisco AnyConnect fails to properly connect under Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora were tested) due to the following reason:
connection attempt has failed due to a server certificate problem
Eventually I found a fix for it, and while it worked it was a slight pain in the ass as it required you to download and extract firefox from Mozilla.com, pull files from the archive, copy them, and create softlinks. I created a simple script (and a folder that contains the needed files) that will resolve this issue in no time flat. Simply:
- Download the archive
- Extract the archive: tar -xvzf cisco_anyconnect_fix.tar.gz
- Go into the newly created folder: cd cisco_anyconnect_fix
- Execute the script as root: sudo anyconnect_fix.sh
- Connect to VPN as normal
I hope this works for you, I did test it in Ubuntu 10.04 & Fedora 13 with success. There is a check that will install via yum or aptitude the needed libraries.
Give it a try and let me know if you run into any issues.
Download (1MB): cisco_anyconnect_fix.tar.gz
Hide the Dock icon for Tweetie – Mac
Mar 10th
Tweetie for Mac is certainly one of the best Twitter applications available, however it is lacking in one area: hiding the dock icon. Tweetie uses a Dock and menubar icon which is abnormal for many applications, usually they just use one or the other. Fear not, hiding the Dock icon and keeping the menubar icon is just a few quick steps away.
- Quit Tweetie if you have it running
- Go to your Applications folder using Finder
- Right click on the Tweetie application and select “Show Package Contents”
- Double click the Contents folder to go into it
- Double click on the Info.plist file to open it in TextEdit
- Under the <dict> tag add the following lines:
<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string> - Save, quit TextEdit, launch Tweetie again, and enjoy!
Here is a sample of what the top of your Info.plist file should look like with the edited lines:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>
<key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
<string>English</string>
Some common issues:
Q: Oh no, I can’t authenticate and my tweets aren’t showing up anymore?!
A: Fear not, open tweetie up, Press “Command + ,” to open preferences, navigate to Accounts, remove your user account and add it again. Problem solved. Strange bug, I know.
Q: Um… the Menubar icon is gone as well as the dock icon!
A: Try replacing LSUIElement with NSUIElement in your info.plist file.
Q: But something else went wrong…
A: Hit me up on twitter then @uberamd and I will help you.
Ubuntu 9.10 is out – Use torrents!
Oct 29th
Ubuntu 9.10 is out, which means its time to download the ISO’s. Avoid overloading the servers by downloading the torrents instead. Be sure to seed when you are done! Here is the URL that contains the torrent files: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors#bt
Recursive Unrar Script for Windows
Aug 5th
This script, as well as similar scripts can be found on the interwebs but I tend to keep losing the pages that have it. So for my own archival reasons, as well as making it a little easier for others to find, here it is.
This script uses winrar to recursively extract rar archives. This is very useful if you download seasons of shows and don’t want to extract each episode one by one.
Step 1: Open up the Windows Command Prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd) or (Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt)
Step 2: Change to the directory containing the folders for the episodes you want to extract. For example:
cd "\Users\Steve\Downloads\My Favorite Show - Seasons 1-6\My Show - Season 1"
Step 3: Now that we are in the folder containing all the sub-folders to each episode for your show, type in the following command to extract all of the episodes:
for /R %i IN (.) do "c:\Program Files\WinRAR\Rar.exe" x "%i/*.rar"
That command is a recursive for loop that looks for .rar files in each folder and extracts them, placing the extracted file in your current folder. If all goes well you will have every episode in your current folder, extracted and ready to watch!
Note: If you installed the 32-bit WinRAR and are running 64-bit windows your command will look like this:
for /R %i IN (.) do "c:\Program Files (x86)\WinRAR\Rar.exe" x "%i/*.rar"
It’s that simple.
PC-BSD really IS popular
Apr 9th
Who knew? PC-BSD, a ‘User Friendly’ version of FreeBSD really is a popular OS. By popular, I mean it gets used by people. What made me come to this conclusion? Well recently I noticed that I had about 5TB monthly bandwidth that wasn’t getting used. To get the most out of my hosting, I decided I would act as a mirror to a open-source project. So, I decided PC-BSD would be a good starting point to see how it all goes. I rsync’d the files, and published my mirror data to the world. I expected PC-BSD to use about 25GB bandwidth/month at the most, because I was just added to a large list of existing mirrors. I was, however, wrong.
Yes, 638.7 gigabytes of data was transfered in PC-BSD image files. Thats roughly 1000 downloads, in half a month. So, clearly I under-estimated the scope of this project.
If you don’t know what PC-BSD is, Ill give you the skinny. Its like I said, a ‘User Friendly’ FreeBSD distro with a few distinctions. It has a graphical installer, vs the Text based one that FreeBSD comes with. It also configures the GUI (with KDE) automatically, so you don’t need to add an X-Windows system separately, it does all the work for you. Finally, it comes with automatic installers for many popular applications. So, if you are interested in checking out PC-BSD, visit their site, and you can download directly from my mirror @ the PHP Site Network’s node5.
Bypass Torrent File Network Filters
Mar 20th
Many Universities, workplaces, etc are starting to take action against the use of torrent files. You can always change ports so port blocking is a worthless use of network time. However, places have started to restrict the ability to download files ending in the .torrent extension. This complicates things immensely.
Take for example a situation I encountered. On the Ubuntu 7.10 release date it was nearly impossible to find a server to download the ISO from as they were all getting hammered with requests. The solution many servers displayed was ‘download via a torrent’. When I tried that on my university network, I encountered the problem, I couldn’t download the .torrent file. This was annoying, as the University states that using the network to download and seed legal torrents is allowed. How did I get passed this? Using a simple php script I coded up, that can be found at http://steve.blogme.us/bypass.php
The script simply takes the URL to the .torrent file, saves it on the local server as a text file, and allows you to then download it, then all you need to do is change the extension to .torrent and load it up in the torrent client. It is that simple, and it works! Enjoy.
And to think Microsoft wonder’s why they always get laughed at
Apr 26th
Office 2007 is out, everyone rush out to go and buy it… right? Well why buy it when you can download it for free? I know you are likely asking, “How will I activate it?” Simple, edit one line in one file, and boom, your Office 2007 is working like a charm. Intrigued? Well here is how to do it:
- Click this link to download Office 2007 Enterprise Edition: Download Here
- Install the program like normal. When asked for a serial leave it blank.
- After install browse to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12\Office Setup Controller\proof.en
- Open the XML file that lies within that folder in notepad
- Near the bottom find:
<Feature Id="SetupXmlFiles" Cost="1248">
<OptionRef Id="AlwaysInstalled"/>
</Feature> - Replace that with:
<Feature Id="SetupXmlFiles" Cost="1248">
<OptionRef Id="NeverInstalled"/>
</Feature> - Save the file
- Run Office like normal.
This is why Microsoft earns no respect with people. From a programming standpoint, having a single word in a XML file dictate whether you can bypass activation or not is bad practice.
Note: I simply provide the information, I am not responsible for how it is used.