Category: MuchTall's Linux Tips

Even though I use all Linux tools to make my ringers, with the exception of pvconv.exe (Wine handles that), this isn't really a Linux tip, but I'll put it here anyhow.

I've noticed when I create looping ringers for my Samsung N400 phone, I get a small gap in the sound between loops. Up until now, I didn't know the length of that gap, so I had to guess and remove some audio from my master audio file to compensate. The sound files still don't sound right, especially with a heavy beat. So tonight I counted out the repetitions of a 2.5 second clip before the loop playing on my phone caught back up with the master playing on my computer. 50. So, if I'm cacluating that correctly, there's a .05 second gap between repeats of the clip pn my phone. So to compensate, I have to remove .05 seconds of audio from the clip to make it loop in beat.

Just thought I should take note of this somewhere, and maybe someone else could make use of that info as well.

I got to thinking this last weekend that I need to build a better techie toolkit compilation CDs and CD sets. Basically get together all the software and updates that a dial-up user would spend days getting if I didn't bring it to them. Here's some ideas:

CD1: Utilities

AVG Anti-Virus Free (w/ updates)

AdAware (w/ updates)

SpyBot S&D (w/ updates)
CD2: Service Packs and Patches for Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2K/XP
CD3: Service Packs and Patches for Windows NT4/2K/XP Server
OS CDs:
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT4
Windows 2K
Windows XP Home
Windows XP Pro
Windows NT4 Server
Windows 2K Server
Windows 2K3 Server
Redhat Linux 9 (set)
Fedora Core 1 (set)
Fedora Core 2 (set)

Today I wiped out my entire AIM buddy list without realizing that there was no easy way for re-importing them. Since Gaim doesn't have an import function, I had to make a script that allows me to re-add them via the gaim-remote uri feature. Here's the script: blistconv.pl

Hopefully this is useful to someone. To make Mozilla or Firefox pass AIM URIs to Gaim, do this:

As root, create the file /usr/bin/gaim-remote-uri with the following contents...

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/gaim-remote uri $1

Then make the file executable by running...

chmod 755 /usr/bin/gaim-remote-uri

Close Mozilla/Firefox.


Open your prefs.js file (~/.firefox/default/XXXXXXXX.slt/prefs.js) and enter the follwing at the end of the file...

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.aim", "/usr/bin/gaim-remote-uri");

Save prefs.js and then open Mozilla/Firefox.

Try out an AIM URI (Try sending me an IM: jholmstadt).

Potentially, this could method be simplified by passing the "uri" argument to gaim-remote directly in prefs.js. However I don't know how to do this, or if it is even possible.

Alternately, I just found this howto on how to do basically the same thing, but in a different way: Gaim Firefox and Aim: Links

I've had an ongoing project for probably more than a year now to build a permanent MythTV box. It's pretty easy to set up if you use Fedora Core 1 (WITHOUT the KDE upgrades). Just follow this MythTV HowTo, which includes the info on how to avoid installing KDE updates.

If you are trying to prevent dhcp from overwriting your DNS entries in /etc/resolv.conf on Redhat/Fedora, just add the following line to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 (or whatever dynamic interface you use):

new_domain_name_servers="192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.3"

Or whatever nameservers you use. Just restart your network interface and the change will be applied.

There's an interesting tool that spam proofs your email address for web usage called the Email Obfuscator.

I gotta see if I can put something like this into PHP-Nuke.

If you're like me and log nearly every violation of the firewall using iptables rules, you've probably seen these violations on the console. This can be annoying if you are trying to actually use the console for something productive :-)

Here's how to turn up the severity level of logging on the console so that only more important messages get logged:

In /etc/sysconfig/syslog, change the following

KLOGD_OPTIONS="-x"

to

KLOGD_OPTIONS="-x -c 4"

This will drop the log level to 4 (from 7 I think) and will only log kernel mesages of this level or lower (higher severity). Presumably, you could turn off console logging entirely by using 0, but I haven't tested this.

So you go into /etc/resolv.conf and set your search domains. You're happy that you no longer have to type in the full domain for your favorite server anymore when ssh'ing to in, and you come back to your computer a day later and find that they've been wiped out. Arg! Apprently DHCP knows what's better for you than you do.

Here's how to fix this annoyance. On Redhat Linux systems, there is a file called /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0. Substitute your interface (eth1, eth2 etc) to reflect the interface that gets
configured dynamically. This contains the configuration information that tells your computer to configure this interface using DHCP. There is an undocumented option that can be used in here to set the search domains upon renewal of a DHCP lease. The option is new_domain_name. Use it in lowercase. I don't think uppercase works. For example, your file could look similar to this:



DEVICE=eth0

ONBOOT=yes

BOOTPROTO=dhcp
new_domain_name="domain1.com domain2.com linuxwhore.com"


Just restart your network service (/etc/init.d/network restart) and,
Tada! Now your search domains will remain there for ever and ever.

HEY THERE! Best as I can tell, this is the only solution out on Google. Do me a favor and let me know if this helped you at all. Send me an email at resolvdomains@john.holmstadt.com
. I'd really like to hear from you! Furthermore, feel free to link to this page to improve its ranking.