LordAmit's Blog

Power Saving Apps vs Power Consuming Apps in Android

2014-11-13T18:55:00.001+06:00

For the last few days, I noticed that my Android device's (Samsung Galaxy S2 - i9100) power was depleting fairly quickly. The culprit apps were obviously Facebook and Messenger. However, I also had the following apps installed:

1. Clean Master

2. Greenify

3. Battery Doctor

Interestingly, even though I was using Greenify to hibernate (force close) the pesky apps automatically, they were still being started automatically and battery was being drained drastically as usual. Therefore, I thought I should dig this a bit for a while.

Here is what I found.

These memory, or battery consuming apps are put to rest properly by Greenify (force close). However, when the other "Cleaner" apps clean things, these wake up the app from hibernation, and asks, "Are you alive? cause I gotta send you to sleep now." These are stopped, then the related services start these apps again, and these start consuming memory and power.

I used Xposed Framework, Rooted Android And Greenify's trace feature to find these out. As you can see, Onovo Count (Data usage monitor), Clean Master (Memory Cleaner) are both culprits. The same is applicable for Battery Doctor, DU Booster, and DU Battery Saver. (Yes, I tested 'em all myself.)

Solution

It is fairly simple.

1. Use Greenify. It works perfectly (work mode: Boost, requires Xposed Framework)

2. Use CCleaner, the only cleaner app in Android that didn't wake up force closed applications. Looks beautiful too!

Looks nice, eh? Works good too!

3. Get rid of other cleaner apps.

Syntax Highlighting in Blogspot / Blogger Dynamic View

2013-11-07T23:27:00.001+06:00

Hi,

Probably you are here after going through a lot of websites which shows the way of highlighting syntax in your blog posts. Problem?

1. You want it to take place in Blogspot / Blogger Dynamic View
2. You are forced to add a script in each post separately to make it work

Now, I have used Syntax Highlighter, Gist, Pastebin and Google Prettify over time in this blog. Dynamic view is the single most impressive thing Google Blogger team has introduced that fails in an epic scale. So, even though everything else worked out of the box, these stopped working once I switched to Dynamic View. So I reverted back, waited to find some solution, got some and now I am using Dynamic View again. In the next sections, I am going to point to tutorials, links that describe how to use syntax highlighting in blogspot effectively. I didn't invent any of them, but I am using them!

Gist

Loading ....

Want to use Gist? Thanks to moski, you can now include gists in Blogger dynamic view. The instructions are clear and short, so no explanation required here.

Google Prettify

This requires some work. First of all, you actually need to host the Google prettify codes, which you can do using Google Drive. Next, you need to go to this tutorial by jpillora to automate some parts of Google prettify. But that will still require you to add a single script in your each post. If you don't want to do that, you need to follow the steps provided by Jeffery To.


#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
 
int main()
{
cout <<"Hello World" << endl;
return 0;
}

Syntax Highlighter

Not using it anymore, sorry.

Pastebin

Pastebin is probably the most stable one of them all since it allows you to share code snippets through iframes. So it works out of the box in dynamic view.

Autocompletion and Separate symbols browser in CodeBlocks - Better development environment

2013-10-17T01:39:00.001+06:00

Lets keep it short and simple this time. I was bothered about the manager which shows projects and symbols in two different tabs in the same place. This is annoying, because you can not view source code files and symbols at the same time. Therefore, these two MUST be separated.

How? Go to:

Settings -> Editor -> Code Completion -> Symbols browser

Check 'Display as free floating / docking window'

Now, you can take a look at symbols and your project files separately at the same time!

Next one is about auto completion. Who does not love auto complete? You do. I do. Everyone loves auto completion!

Unfortunately, the auto complete we know in Eclipse / Intelli-sense in Visual Studio is termed as Complete Code in CodeBlocks. There are two options in code blocks:

Auto-Complete: Shows basic keywords, such as class, for, if, etc.

Complete Code: Shows the actual code completion we all love.

Interestingly, code blocks Auto Complete comes with Ctrl + space and Ctrl+J default short cut keys. So, here is an image to illustrate what happens when we press ctrl+space and what we want to happen when we press ctrl+space.

How to improve it? Just go to
Settings -> Editor -> Keyboard shortcuts -> Edit
Remove the ctrl+space shortcut from Auto-complete and assign ctrl+space to 'Complete code'.

That's all for now.

Sublime Text 2 - Live Reload plugin not working, workaround in Firefox

2013-07-12T22:24:00.000+06:00

Here is the situation. I use Sublime Text 2 (In short, ST2), avid fan of Markdown and I write almost everything using these two. I have installed several plug-ins in Sublime Text 2 for processing of Markdown, and that includes:

Markdown Preview
LiveReload

A combination of these two is supposed to work in this way:

Write markdown
press ctrl + shift + p, find "Preview in Browser"
Browser opens a window showing preview of markdown generated html file
You continue working, occasionally pressing ctrl + s to save the document, which happens to update the generated html file, and the browser refreshes the html file automatically.

Here is a preview of what I am talking about:

ST2 + Markdown + Preview in Browser = Bliss

There are two things happening (or supposed to happen) in the background when ctrl + s is pressed:

update the generated html file
LiveReload script inserted in the generated html file requests the browser to refresh the page

However, that was not working. The main problem was that for some reason, the html file was not being re-generated when I saved the markdown file. So fixing the Live Reload plugin through upgraded version, using other ways of automatic refreshing the page or even changing the path where the generated html file is being kept are not going to work, simply because the html file is NOT being updated.

But, there is still a workaround. Every time the Live Preview option is used in ST2, it opens a new tab in browser which reflects the latest updates. If we simply force the browser to refresh an already opened URL in an existing tab instead of opening it in a new tab every time requested - it will still solve our problem.

Luckily, there is a Firefox Plugin just for that. Now when I need to see preview, I simply

press a keyboard shortcut,
Firefox shows the updated page
I press alt+tab to regain focus in ST2 to resume my writing.

Problem solved, at least through a workaround.

Could not lock the device - Shotwell / DigiKam can not lock camera or import photo

2013-06-23T20:51:00.000+06:00

I am almost certain that you came here because you received some sort of error similar to this:

Error initializing camera: -60: Could not lock the device

The error number is not fixed though.

Or this:

Failed to connect to the camera. Please make sure it is connected properly and turned on. Would you like to try again?

I am not quite sure about the problem, but I noticed it in both shotwell, DigiKam. I thought it had to do something with permission a sudo empowered shotwell still gave that error - so I thought there was something else at work here.

Here is my guess, by default - our file browsers such as nautilus (ubuntu) or nemo (linux mint) tries to mount the removable devices. It probably considers our digital cameras as such devices, and tries to mount on its own. Shotwell, or other digital photo management tool tries to mount it again to import or something else. In short, there is a conflict between our benevolent file browser and photo manager.

What I did?

This is my Nemo file browser (Edit > Preferences> Behavior) preferences. Noticed the selected area? The first three options were all checked. I unchecked these all and only then I was able to import photos from digital camera.

Give this a try, it just.might.work.

Brightness Controller - Control your primary and secondary monitor brightness in Linux

2013-06-15T23:22:00.000+06:00

Brightness Controller

Ever had this feeling that brightness of your secondary display is too bright? You need a software to control its brightness, or you can try pressing the buttons of your monitor to decrease brightness - but that's too much of a work.

Again, generally default brightness indicator/controller in Linux works in specific values. That means the brightness of your monitor can be set to maybe 10%, 20%...100% - but not 63%. Or maybe 89%. Or a mere 5%.

I felt it myself, you know :)

So, I am presenting you Brightness Controller for Linux.

Brightness Controller allows you to control Brightness of your internal AND external monitor (or primary and secondary display) with the help of xrandr in Linux. The controller is created using python, which in the back end calls os.system commands to execute system commands.

What good is it?

It allows you to control the brightness of your monitor to a better extent. For example, my laptop's monitor brightness can be controlled using hardware keys at discrete values, such as 20%, 40%, 60% ... 100%. Brightness Controller allows you to change the brightness to a better degree of control, ranging from 1% to 100%! It should be mentioned that it changes the present brightness value set via hardware control of your monitor. For example, if you set your Monitor's brightness to 50% using hardware buttons, then that will be the 100% value in Brightness controller.

How do I run it?

Download the latest version. Extract it. In the src folder, just set the permission of the brightness.py file as executable. Double click on it, and it will run.

What are the requirements / dependencies / things I need to run it?

There are just three requirements.

1. Python - Linux should have it by default

2. Python WxWidgets

sudo apt-get install python-wxgtk2.8

3. xrandr - that's what the program uses in the back-end to control the brightness of your monitor!

Further details can be found here in the project page :)
Tested in:

Ubuntu
Linux Mint
Lubuntu
Open Suse KDE (tested by Mr. Noor)

Skype – Too Much Background Noise Solution

2013-06-04T12:54:00.000+06:00

Well, many of us have faced this problem. I faced too. Probably you faced it too. I am here to bring some possible solutions.

I should share what happened with me. I kept hearing background noise even when my friend muted his microphone. I thought it was problem in Skype server, or maybe in my connection – but I didn’t hear any noise when I voice chatted using my mobile phone Skype. I heard less noise even when I used Skype Windows 8 version as well. Something else must be at work here.

One possible problem is that the Microphone has boost settings enabled – which includes unnecessary noise. But if turning it off (I turned it off) does not work, what do you do?

Here is what I did.

1. Turned off automatic volume control of microphone settings. It continuously tries to adjust – never liked it..

2. Turned off automatic volume control of speakers. It continuously tries to adjust as well.

3. Here is the most important part, and this was the solution I kept looking for. I reduced the speaker volume. By default – the speaker volume and microphone volume are at 100%. Because the person you are talking with is not using a high recording volume – you will get less sound. However, your Skype will try to boost it to 100% – making lots of background noises. That is exactly why I kept hearing background noise – even when the person I was talking with muted his microphone.

Let me know if this works for you :)

ফরমাল মেথড এবং সফটওয়্যার ইঞ্জিনিয়ারিং

2013-05-19T12:49:00.004+06:00

Facebook Home - Says Hello Home- Gets Rejected by Mass People

2013-04-16T22:02:00.000+06:00

I have been waiting for Facebook Home. Like many others, I was looking forward to it.

I was actually expecting it to be released on 12 April GMT time, but there was no sign of it even on 1400 GMT. I shrugged and thought it was going to be released when it hits 12 April, in their timezone (wherever / whatever it is).

Big surprise, when it is released - play store showed this message to me.

So, Facebook does not want it in Bangladesh. I shrugged again, and took a look at my local friends' reaction in Facebook.Some were planning to download it from 3rd party sites, some were equally pissed off. Jokingly, I said - look at its rating. We are not missing something big, probably.

At that time, it had a rating of 3.6, although only 42 ratings were there.

Some said it will receive a good rating enthusiastically in no time. Unfortunately, Facebook apps does not have a good history of good rating. Facebook app has 3.6, Facebook pages manager has 3.8 and Facebook manager has 4.4 rating. Facebook Home was going to be something BIG, many predicted - and I personally thought the idea itself is brilliant.That does not necessarily mean the execution of the idea itself will be brilliant.

Therefore, I decided to check the rating of Facebook Home every now and then, and started tabulating data. Will this create history in its own way by changing the way we interact with Smart Phone, or will it be thrown away by us, the users?

Here is what I got.

Y Axis shows average rating, and the X Axis shows number of ratings. As we can see The rating has been continuously decreasing over time. Primary reasons according to 1 star reviews are that Facebook Home is too invasive, it grabs all the attention from use; some stated that it is not intuitive.

So Facebook might, just might have to rethink the app design and user experience. I have not checked the app yet and I am not sure what is the exact reason of blocking a country from using an App, but I guess they will take care of it in time.

Install Latest Intel Graphics Driver in Linux Mint 14 Nadia

2013-04-05T18:49:00.000+06:00

Months ago, intel released a tool which allows installing latest graphics drivers in Linux. Why you want to install it?

Intel Linux Graphics Installer allows you to easily install the latest graphics drivers for your Intel graphics hardware. This allows you to stay current with the latest enhancements, optimizations, and fixes to ensure the best user experience with your Intel graphics hardware

The driver is available for Ubuntu and Fedora. I am using Linux Mint 14 now. Even though Linux Mint 14 is based on Ubuntu 12.10 which is a supported distribution version, whenever I tried to use Intel Graphics Driver Installer, it kept saying these:

distribution not supported

Checking distribution... Failed

So, bbbenji came up with a pretty good solution.

1. Make a backup of your lsb-release file first.

sudo cp /etc/lsb-release /etc/lsb-release.bak

2. Open /etc/lsb-release using your favorite editor in super user mode.

sudo nano /etc/lsb-release

3. Modify the first three lines to this:

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=quantal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 14 Nadia"

4. Save it, and start the installer of Intel Linux Graphics Driver. ( I will assume that you have installed the debian package of correct architecture, i.e. 32 or 64 bit and have added the gpg key already)

5. It will download several files and will install those files. After installation, it will ask to reboot. But you need to revert your changes back in your lsb-release file. So, execute these commands:

sudo mv /etc/lsb-release /etc/lsb-release.ubuntu
sudo mv /etc/lsb-release.bak /etc/lsb-release

After that, simply reboot your PC and enjoy the enhanced graphics, optimizations and fixes.

Although I have not noticed any. Yet.

Note:
In case you didn't take your backup properly, here are the contents of unmodified lsb-release file

DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint
DISTRIB_RELEASE=14
DISTRIB_CODENAME=nadia
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 14 Nadia"

Changing Secondary / External Display Brightness in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

2013-03-16T22:00:00.000+06:00

In my laptop, I also use an external display for ease of work. Thing is, even though I can control the brightness of external display (A Samsung LCD monitor) - I have to press a lot of switches. What's more, I need the display to be at highest brightness during morning and very low brightness at night. These sort of frequent changes is hard to do using monitor buttons.

Therefore, terminal is your friend B-)

Lets find out what your monitors are known as in your system. (make sure that both internal and external displays are active).
Type this command

xrandr

This gives an output like this:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2726 x 768, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS1 connected 1366x768+1360+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 309mm x 173mm
   1366x768       60.1*+   40.0  
   1360x768       59.8     60.0  
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
VGA1 connected 1360x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 410mm x 230mm
   1360x768       60.0*+
   1280x768       59.9  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   1024x576       60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   848x480        60.0  
   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0  
   720x400        70.1  
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Here, LVDS1 is the internal display, VGA1 is the external display. We need the second one.

Lets use this command

xrandr --output VGA1 --brightness 0.8

We are specifying that xrandr will modify the VGA1 monitor and will change its display brightness to 80% of its value. The value can be from 0.0 to 1.0.

I am planning to provide some sort of GUI tool to make this easier ;)
Do you use an external display? Did you face a similar problem? Have a better solution? Feel free to share!

Update
The UI for Linux has been prepared!

Details are available here
https://github.com/lordamit/Brightness

ড্রপবক্স - আমার পছন্দের ফাইল শেয়ারিং, সেভিং, সিংকিং টুল

2013-03-13T13:54:00.001+06:00

ড্রপবক্স আমার অন্যতম পছন্দের ফাইল শেয়ারিং টুল।

এইটা কি করে আসলে?

ধরা যাক আমার কিছু গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ফাইল আছে, যেগুলা আমার ব্যাকআপ করা দরকার। তা সেগুলা আমি নিজের কাছে মেইল করতে পারি, ভালো বুদ্ধি - কিন্তু সেগুলা খুঁজে পাওয়া বা পরিবর্তন করলে বার বার আপলোড করা বিরক্তিকর। ড্রপবক্স অনলাইনে বেশ খানিকটা যায়গা দেয় (শুরুতে ২ জিবি, ফ্রিতে বাড়ানো সম্ভব ১৬জিবি পর্যন্ত), আর একটা ডেস্কটপ ক্লায়েন্ট দেয়। ক্লায়েন্ট কে হার্ডডিস্কের একটা ফোল্ডার দেখায়ে দিলে সে ঐ ফোল্ডারের ভিতরে যত হাতি ঘোড়া আছে, সব অনলাইনে সেভ করে ফেলবে। আবার যদি সেই ফোল্ডারে পরে কিছু পরিবর্তন করা হয়, সে নতুনটা রেখে দিবে, পুরাই নিজে নিজে। মজা না?

তা এটার মূল সুবিধাগুলা কি কি?

১) ড্রপবক্স ক্রস প্ল্যাটফর্ম। উইন্ডোজ, লিনাক্স, এন্ড্রয়েড, ম্যাক - সবখানেই চলে।

২) ফাইল পরিবর্তন করার পর সার্ভারে রাখার সময় সে শুধুমাত্র পরিবর্তিত অংশগুলা পাঠায়, তাই আপলোড করতে অনেক কম সময় লাগে!

৩) অফলাইনেও কাজ করা যায়। মানে যে ফাইলগুলা সিংক (synchronisation) করা হচ্ছে, সেগুলা অফলাইনে পিসিতে থাকে।

৪) বন্ধু বা অন্যদের সাথে ড্রপবক্সে ফোল্ডার শেয়ার করা হলে সেটা ওদের ড্রপবক্সের সাথে সংযুক্ত হয়। যদি আমি সেই শেয়ারড ফেল্ডারে কিছু পরিবর্তন করে সেটা আমার পিসি থেকে সেইভ করি, সেটা যতজনের সাথে শেয়ার্ড আছে, তারা সবাই পরিবর্তিত ফাইল বা ফোল্ডারগুলা পেয়ে যাবে তাদের পিসিতে!

৫) ফোল্ডার বা ফাইল আবার লিংক দিয়েও শেয়ার করা যায় অন্য যে কারো সাথে।

৬) ১ মাসের সব পরিবর্তন সেভ করা থাকে, তাই ভুল করে কিছু পরিবর্তন করা হলে সেটা আবার রিভার্ট করা যায়।

৭) ফাইল শেয়ারিংয়ের যায়গা ২ জিবি দিয়ে শুরু হলেও যাকে ইনভাইটেশন পাঠানো হয় ড্রপবক্সে সাইন আপ করার, সে সাইন আপ করে ক্লায়েন্ট ইন্সটল করলে যায়গা বাড়ে ৫০০ মেগাবাইটের মতো। যে সাইনআপ করেছে সে নিজেও পায় বাড়তি ৫০০ মেগাবাইট। আর এভাবে যায়গা বাড়তে বাড়তে ১৬ জিবি করে ফেলা সম্ভব, পুরাটাই ফ্রিতে!!

যেমন আমার এই লিংক দিয়ে সাইনআপ করলে আপনি এবং আমি - দুইজনই ৫০০ মেগাবাইট করে পাবো :D

Installing Gedit 3 in Linux Mint 14 Nadia

2013-03-11T02:33:00.000+06:00

Gedit is good. To be honest, it is one of my most favorite editors for programming staffs. After version 3 was introduced, many excellent plugins - such as

Source Code Browser
Developer Plugin
LaTeX
Check Syntax and style
Format Code and much more

Problem is, even though these are available via apt in Linux Mint (because it basically uses Ubuntu archives), these are installable for only Gedit version 3.
For example, when I tried installing the gedit-source-code-browser-plugin, it showed this to me.

gedit-source-code-browser-plugin : Depends: 
gedit (>= 3.0) but 2.30.4-2ubuntu1 is to be installed

Linux Mint uses Gedit 2, so using these is not possible. Moreover, it still considers that Gedit 2 is the latest version.
So here is what you gotta do.

Remove Gedit 2, like - obliterate it.
Install Gedit 3.

Here is how.
Open your terminal, (ctrl + alt + t).
Type the following commands one by one.

sudo apt-get purge gedit
sudo apt-get purge gedit-common
sudo apt-get install gedit-common/quantal
sudo apt-get install gedit/quantal

That's all folks!

Kindle Paperwhite : Review, Sending PDF to Kindle, Sending EBooks …

2013-02-15T18:48:00.002+06:00

I got my hands on Kindle Paperwhite, earlier this month. There have been plenty of reviews on the Internet already, so I won’t do that again. However, here are some pointers:

The display is realistically similar to book pages. In fact, so realistic that when I opened the casing and saw the screensaver, I tried to pull it off thinking that it was a sticker.
In Bangladesh, I didn’t get option to buy books from Amazon Kindle Store. Moreover, I could not connect it to Twitter/Facebook because I didn’t sign up for their 1-click payment method.
It has an excellent Oxford English dictionary which can be used to see word definition in detail

How to send books to Kindle Paperwhite?

Kindle Paperwhite can read PDF, Mobi and many other Ebook formats. To send EBooks you already have, Calibre is an excellent freeware which can be used to manage your EBooks, and books it to Kindle. You can also use Send to Kindle App in your desktop, or send books to the email address yourusername@free.kindle.com so that it converts your sent file to a more readable format.

Sending EBooks to Kindle: Things for Consideration

When you want to send an EBook, you need to consider several things.
If it is a PDF, chances are that you will have to zoom in, zoom out, move around the current page frequently trying to find out the comfort zone. You can try to convert it to Mobi format using Calibre, or Mobipocket Creator (free). But that will mean you are going to miss table of content and will have to rely on page number / page location. Sometimes, the conversion might even break in the output.
An alternative is to convert it to HTML using Mobipocket Creator, set the headings to H1 / H2 and then convert it to mobi format using Calibre.
Epub files are easier to convert using Calibre to Mobi format.

That’s about it for now, will give out more details later. If you have an EBook reader/Tablet or planning to have one, which one do you prefer for reading EBooks?

Shahbag Movement from a general Bangladeshi’s Perspective

2013-02-08T14:25:00.000+06:00

I have witnesses history. People, irrespective of age, gender, race, political views are protesting at Shahbag. But why? Before explaining things, please take a look at this video I took last night.

Long History Short

In short, Bangladesh, then East Pakistan was a part of West Pakistan. Bangladesh was deprived from growth in every possible way. Obviously, Bangladeshis were trying to get free from all those discriminations.What happened?
Well, the genius central government of West Pakistan asked to start Operation Searchlight on March 25, 1971. Where hundreds of innocent Bangladeshi were killed to curb the nationalist movement. On March 26, 1971 Sheikh Mujibar Rahman – leader of Awami League fired back announcing independence of Bangladesh – which became the Independence day of Bangladesh.
At that time, many people (commonly termed as Razakar, also refers to Al-badr, Al-shams) favoring West Pakistan helped Pakistani Military to massacre Bangladeshi people, in every possible inhuman way. They were so brutal that around eight to ten million people fled to India to survive the onslaught. Mass Bangladeshi people were fighting regardless. After 9 months of bloody war, Pakistan was forced to surrender. Following Victory, Sheikh took steps to punish the Razakars, Al-Badrs and Sl-Shams who really committed crime and were sent to Jail. Others who didn’t commit severe crime such as helping in genocide were commonly forgiven.
However, later someone else let those Razakars run free. They ran free for several decades, until the International Crimes Tribunal took place.

What is happening?

Every single people of Bangladesh (except the half breeds of Razakar ancestry) were hoping that those Razakars, who killed / helped kill their ancestors, who betrayed their neighbors, brothers and Bangladesh as a whole will be sentenced to death. However, Abdul Kader Mollah was unexpectedly sentenced to life imprisonment.
That ignited the fire. We Bangladeshi people love peace, we are sometimes lazy. But that never meant we would allow this to happen. The spirit of ‘71, which was patiently waiting all these time – said

Rise and Awake. It is time we pay our debts to these humanoid devils once and for all

So, we have Shahbag Movement.

Shahbag Movement

It is a movement where Bangladeshi people are protesting completely voluntarily, without the influence/support of any international or national force, resource. Even the Rickshwa pullers of Dhaka are giving free rides to anyone who wants to join the protest, because that’s how they are contributing. Why?

They want those Razakars sentenced to death. It does not matter which political party supports or opposes us. It is not a political matter, it is a national movement. Not just Shahbag, Bangladeshi people are protesting all over the world. Korea, United States are some examples of that.

(I do not follow politics. I am more or less annoyed with every political party of Bangladesh. So tagging me with any political party won’t work.)

একখানা অসাধারণ এবং কিঞ্চিত বেরসিক জন্মদিন পালন

2013-02-04T20:18:00.000+06:00

এবারের জন্মদিনটা একই সাথে অসাধারণ, এবং একই সাথে কিঞ্চিত বেরসিক। অসাধারণ কেন সেটার আগে একটু বলি – আমি ছোটবেলা থেকে পড়ুয়া। গপ্পোর, রহস্যের, বিজ্ঞানের, জীবনীর বই। (প্যানপ্যানানি ভালোবাসা মার্কা উপন্যাস গল্প ছোটগল্প আমার দুই চোখের বিষ।) সেই অভ্যাসটা হবার পিছনে মনে হয় আমার দাদার ভূমিকা সবচাইতে বেশি। ছোটবেলাতেই দেখতাম খাবার টেবিলে খেতে খেতে বই পড়ছে, আর মা এর ঝাড়ির উত্তরে হু হা করছে অন্যমনস্কভাবে। তার দেখাদেখি আমারও এই অভ্যাস হয়ে গেল। এক একটা বই ধরলে শেষ না করা পর্যন্ত কেমন জানি পেট পুড়তো।
সেই অভ্যাসে একটা বিশাল ছেদ পরে কলেজের পর থেকে। আগের মতো বই কেনা হচ্ছিল না, দাদা, জেঠতুতো দাদাদের বই সব পড়া শেষ আদ্যিকালে। পিডিএফ যোগাড় করে পড়ি, কিন্তু আরাম লাগে না। অতএব কিভাবে কিভাবে বই পড়ার অভ্যাসটা চাপা পড়ে গেল।
মাস এক আগে হঠাৎ দাদা ফেবুতে গুতো মেরে বললো, কি লাগবে? আমি ভেবে টেবে বললাম এইটে। শুধালো, ট্যাবলেট নিবি? ভেবে চিন্তে দেখলাম – ট্যাবলেটের কিছুই আমার কামে লাগবে না। লাগার মধ্যে লাগবে খালি পড়ার জন্য একখানা যন্ত্র। গাইগুই করে উত্তর দিলাম, উহু – এইটা চাই, ঐটা না।

জিনিষটা পেলাম হাতে কয়দিন আগে, পাবার পরে মনে হলো – "পাইলাম, আমি ইহাকে পাইলাম"।
রিভিউ লিখবো সত্ত্বর। খালি একটা ক্লু দেই, কয়েক বছর পরে এই প্রথম এটায় পড়তে পড়তে দুনিয়ার কথা ভুলে গেছিলাম।

এই জন্মদিনটা বিশেষ হবার আরো কিছু কারণ আছে। একজন রীতিমত ছড়া বানিয়ে সেটা উপহার দিয়েছে। কয়েকজন শুভানু্ধ্যায়ীও শুভেচ্ছা জানিয়েছে এসএমএস, ফেবুর মাধ্যমে। আমার জন্মদিন লুকানো বলে শুভেচ্ছাসংখ্যা কম। যারা খুঁজে দিয়েছে, তাদেরটা তাই অন্যরকম শুভেচ্ছা!
রোকন (দ্য জুনিয়র) আমাকে একটা রচনা লিখে পাঠিয়েছে দাদু স্টাইলে, যার বক্তব্য আমার জন্মদিন আমার মূল আয়ু থেকে এক বছর সময় কমিয়ে দিয়েছে, কাজেই সাধু সাবধান! বন্ধুগুলান সবচাইতে বজ্জাত, আমি এতদিন কষ্ট করে বেঁচে আছি বলে কোথায় আমাকে অভিনন্দন জানিয়ে খাওয়াবে, তা না – ট্রিট চায়। যারা যারা শুভেচ্ছা জানিয়েছে, তাদের সবাইকে আমি ধন্যবাদ জানাই।
মা বাবার ভালোবাসাটাও টের পেয়েছি এই জন্মদিনে বাকি সবদিনের মতোই, তাদের অসীম ভালোবাসা নিয়ে কিছু লেখার ক্ষমতা আমার নাই। কিছু হলেই আমি যে পরিমাণ হাউ কাউ করি, আর সেটা যেভাবে তারা সহ্য করে, তার জন্য আর বেশি হাউ কাউ করার উৎসাহ পাই না।

অ, বেরসিক হলো কেন? কিঞ্চিত ভালো মন্দ খাবার প্ল্যান ছিল বাসার সবাইকে নিয়ে, বাবাকে নিয়ে বারও হয়েছিলাম কিনতে – রাস্তায় দেখি মিছিল মিটিং হৈ চৈ। কালকে শুনলাম হরতাল। অতএব বাবা আমি দুইজনই ব্যাক টু প্যাভিলিয়ন।

সবই সোনায় সোহাগা হতো, কিন্তু জীবন তো আর ফারপেক্ট না…

(পুনশ্চ: আমার কোন জন্মদিনেই এত ঘটা করে কিছু হয় না, এবারে কেন জানি এসব করছে। আমি একটু বিব্রত হয়েছি, কিন্তু ভালোও লাগছে। )

Solution: Can’t Access Google Play from Bangladesh? Use VPN!

2013-01-22T02:02:00.000+06:00

Lets get down to business. You are Bangladeshi, and you can not access Google play because of Ban imposed by Government on Youtube for a silly video.

We can of course, use proxy, TOR and other sorts in our computers. But accessing Google Play using Android is a bit different case. So I decided to solve this and share with you today.
First of all, VPN means Virtual Private Network, where you use encrypted data to send over existing network. If you are interested in technical details, click on this link.
Now, VPN is generally not gained for free. But these guys at vpnbook are giving VPN service for free, which basically runs on donations and advertisements. Using it was easy and worked perfectly when I tried it myself.
To gain access to this service, go to Settings of your Android mobile. Under wireless section (maybe under advanced/more settings) you will find VPN.

Access VPN from Wireless Settings

Open it and tap on Add VPN network. We will be using PPTP type, and we can also use PPP encryption if we want a bit of extra security from our end.

Setting up VPN connection Server

I have used their second server, but you can also use the first one. Click save to save it. To get the password, head over to the link I have already shared. Now, connect using it, and you will be asked for username and password. You should save account information if you do not want to type their password every time you are connecting.

Adding username and password when connecting

After a while, you will see this sort of notification.

VPN connection status

From this point onwards, you can use and access Play Store as much as you want. This screenshot was taken today right after I finished writing this article.

Play Store accessed!

Caution

Recently VPNBook is accused of giving up logs to Feds. Lets face it, free things do have their limitations. As they (VPNBook) said,

You (the user) is responsible for your actions or damages caused by using our free VPN service, DO not use this VPN for doing evil and you will be fine. If you do abuse the system, your I.P will be banned. To report abuse please email abuse@vpnbook.com
And accessing Google Play store using VPN is definitely not EVIL, nor is going to violate any law in Bangladesh, as the ban was only upon Youtube.

Update

You might get connection timeout when you try to install app after enabling VPN. I have not been able to figure out the reason, but in case this happens, I go to play.google.com using VPN, find the app and then select it for installation in my device. This approach works for installing apps in Android.

ল্যাটেকে বাংলা ব্যবহারের আরো সোজা উপায় - Using Bangla in LaTeX using Ubuntu/Windows - Easier Way

2013-01-16T12:05:00.001+06:00

আমি মোটামুটি নিশ্চিত, এর চাইতে সহজ উপায় হতে পারে না। আগেরটাতো সোজা ছিলই, এইবারেরটা আরো সোজা।

কাহিনীটা বলি, আমি উইন্ডোজে ল্যাটেকে আগের লেখার মতো করে কাজ করতে গিয়ে দেখি যুক্তাক্ষরগুলো ঠিক করে দেখা যাচ্ছে না, ভেঙ্গে যাচ্ছে। এর পরে গুতিয়ে টুতিয়ে দেখলাম আরো উপায় আছে বাংলা ব্যবহার করার। সবচাইতে ভালো বিষয়, এই পদ্ধতিতে বাংলা ফন্ট ব্যবহার করা যায়। আমার ব্যক্তিগত পছন্দ সোলাইমানলিপি, সেটাই ব্যবহার করেছি।
আগের মতোই লাগবে XeTex.

sudo apt-get install texlive-xetex

উইন্ডোজে আমি MikTex ব্যবহার করি। সাথে XeLatex দেয়াই থাকে। ওটার প্যাকেজ ম্যানেজারও ব্যবহার করা সহজ। কোন কিছু না পাওয়া গেলে (বিশেষ করে *.sty) সেগুলার নাম লিখে খুঁজে ইন্সটল করে নিলেই হবে। FontSpec প্যাকেজটা লাগবে। TeX ফাইলটা হবে এমন

Loading ....

বাস, এবারের আগের মতো করেই XeLaTex দিয়ে কম্পাইল করুন।

xelatex document.tex

উইন্ডোজে সেটা করার জন্য আপনি cmd ব্যবহার করতে পারেন। এই হলো আউটপুট

একটি খেয়াল রসযুক্ত ছড়া

Using NVidia Graphics Card in Linux Ubuntu in HP Pavilion DV4 Laptop

2013-01-10T20:24:00.001+06:00

This laptop, (HP Pavilion DV4 5110TX) is a bit unique.
It has two graphics cards, one is low performance Intel HD Graphics card and the other is high performance NVidia GEforce. This technology is called Optimus Technology.

Even though NVidia does provide Linux compatible graphics card, they do not right now support Optimus technology in Linux. Therefore, it is a bit complex when you want to use that shiny graphics card.

However, there is Bumblebee project to your aid. Follow all the instructions from here if you have a optimus technology enabled awesome laptop, then - as the instruction says, reboot.

No, you won't notice any change immediately. However, you can still access the NVidia power through terminal.

Feeling interested? Good.
Open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and then enter this command

glxspheres

Something like this will show up.

GLXSpheres in action

After a bit of running, press escape to exit it. For me, the output is this:

Polygons in scene: 62464
Visual ID of window: 0xa6
Context is Direct
OpenGL Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile 
60.817214 frames/sec - 55.504222 Mpixels/sec
60.278134 frames/sec - 55.012236 Mpixels/sec
60.865747 frames/sec - 55.548515 Mpixels/sec

Now, run

optirun glxspheres

Notice the changes? No?
The output now, is this:

Polygons in scene: 62464
Visual ID of window: 0x20
Context is Direct
OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GT 630M/PCIe/SSE2
114.725870 frames/sec - 104.703418 Mpixels/sec
126.208169 frames/sec - 115.182623 Mpixels/sec
123.568675 frames/sec - 112.773716 Mpixels/sec

Congratulations, Nvidia's graphics processing capability is now at your disposal. Use it wisely ;)

Update

To check NVidia settings:

optirun nvidia-settings -c :8

In case optirun says the bumblebee daemon was not started, you can use this command

sudo bumblebeed -D

It will start the service and you will be able to execute optirun.

If you want to auto start the service every time you boot, (which's enabled by default, but just in case it was not...)

sudo update-rc.d bumblebeed defaults

That's all :)

বাংলায় ল্যাটেক ব্যবহার করুন উবুন্টুতে - Use Bangla in Latex in Ubuntu

2013-01-07T21:11:00.000+06:00

সম্পাদনা

এর চাইতে আরো সহজ একটা পদ্ধতি বার করেছি। পড়তে পারেন এখানে।

বাংলায় ল্যাটেক (বা ল্যাটেক্স) লিখতে গিয়ে টের পেলাম সহজে করা যায় না। ইউনিকোড এনাবল করেও সাধারণ ল্যাটেক্স করার তেমন কোন উপায়ও দেখলাম না। কাজেই ঘাটাঘাটি করলাম, এবং পেয়েও গেলাম। মোটামুটি কিছু জিনিষ ইন্সটল করা লাগে।

১) একটা নতুন LaTeX Engine ইন্সটল করা

sudo apt-get install texlive-xetex

এটা Xetex ইন্সটল করে, আরেকটা ল্যাটেক্স ইঞ্জিন। এটা দিয়ে বাংলার ইউনিকোড অক্ষরগুলা কম্পাইল করা সম্ভব।

২) বাংলা ল্যাটেকের জন্য ফন্ট ইন্সটল করা।

sudo apt-get install ttf-freefont

এখন একটা ফাইল খুলা লাগবে। ধরেন নাম হলো document.tex

Loading ....

এই উপরের লেখাগুলা ফাইলটায় দিন। কমেন্ট করা আছে প্রয়োজনীয় ব্যখার অংশগুলা। সেভ করে এর পরে এটাকে কম্পাইল করতে লিখুন -

xelatex document.tex

ব্যস, হয়ে গেলো! document.pdf নামে তৈরী হয়ে যাবে আপনার বাংলায় লেখা পিডিএফটি। কাজে লাগলে নিচে কমেন্ট করে জানাতে ভুলবেন না!

Solution: HP Pavilion DV4 – Beats Audio Problem in Ubuntu and then, Windows

2013-01-07T14:12:00.000+06:00

Updated on November 29, 2013.

The problem is weird – to be honest. Which is why – the weirder title. I am sure you will understand it after going through the symptoms.

Symptom

On a fine day, you switch from Windows to Lubuntu or Ubuntu, work, decide to hear some music and realize that the laptop speakers are working fine, but the beats audio part is not working.

You shrug, and then continue working, it does not matter much. However, when you switch to Windows – you realize that the laptop speakers + beats audio are working perfectly. However, your headphones are not. Even though every property you checked shows everything working perfectly, your headphones produces nothing. I tried every settings, every driver updates – and this continued to happen.

Because of this mixed nature, I had to write this weird title. I didn’t notice this problem in continued usage of Windows for several sessions.

Enabling Beats Audio in Ubuntu

You need to follow these steps, shamelessly copied from here.

Install hda-jack-retask from here: https://launchpad.net/~diwic/+archive/hda (ppa:diwic/hda)
Open hda-jack-retask
Select the IDT 92HD91BXX codec (may be different on other models)
Check the "Show unconnected pins" box (the internal speakers do not show as connected)
Remap 0x0d (Internal Speaker, Front side) to "Internal speaker"
Remap 0x0f ("Not connected" but is the under-display speakers) to "Internal speaker"
Remap 0x10 ("Not connected" but is the subwoofer) to "Internal speaker (LFE)"
Apply now, then test with your favorite audio program (some may not work due to Pulse reset, so find one that does, verify sound is coming from all speakers).
If it works, select "Install boot override" to save the settings to apply at boot time.
Reboot. When it comes back, you should have full sound from all speakers. Also test headphones. Plugging in headphones should disable sound from all internal speakers.

Even though the original author wrote this for HP dv6, I tested this for HP dv4. The number of speakers are different in these two models as far as I know. However, going through the steps were enough to completely fix all the sound issues I was having, including the weird one where jacking in headphone didn't disable the sub woofer sound.

~~You need to do these :~~

~~1. open terminal, type this command~~

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

~~2. Add this line at the end of file~~

options snd-hda-intel model=ref

And then restart. You will now hear that beats audio is working properly. However, you will notice that when headphones are connected – laptop speakers are turned off automatically, however – beats audio speaker is still enabled.

~~3. You can turn that off by installing this~~

sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer

~~Gnome ALSA Mixer~~

~~And then, when you need to decrease volume of the beats audio part just decrease PCM value after plugging in your headphone.~~

Handling Audio Recording

This gets a bit weird. As for ALSA 1.0.25 version, it does not automatically switch audio recording device (i.e. from internal mic to microphone jack). To fix it, you will have to change things through alsamixer.
Open terminal, type

alsamixer

Then, Press F4 to view capture settings.

Notice the boxed area? yeah, press up or down arrow key to change

In the highlighted box area, you will have to change the value using up/down arrow key and set your preferred device for capturing audio.

Handling Headphone Problem in Windows

This is a bit weird solution, and in test phase. I did two different things one after other, and I am not sure if these two together, or one individually solved the problem.

Step 1

Go to Windows Audio Properties

(Right click on the Volume Icon, Play Back Devices)

Here are my settings. As usual, Headphones are disabled (Beats audio handles Headphone separately, so it is ok)

Playback settings

Step 2

Ensure that Application Exclusive lock is disabled.

Disable exclusive control of device

And then reboot.

Weird Work Step

Make sure that when you switch from Ubuntu to Windows, you have your headphone jacked in the headphone port before getting out from Ubuntu. There is no explanation from my part, I checked it myself several times. It just works. Might be that Ubuntu disables the headphone jack at hardware level, maybe I did some settings wrongly, will get back when I get some more idea.
Edit: It also works if you jack in headphone, send windows to sleep mode and then turn it on again.

Alacarte in Lubuntu : new item, new menu, edit properties bug Fix / Patch

2012-12-30T01:33:00.000+06:00

I have installed alacarte in Lubuntu 12.10 using aptitude.
After installing, I noticed that it does not work properly, that is - can not be used properly to insert new item, new menu etc.

Solution

The solution is here if you do not bother about explanation, how it was solved etc. All you have to do is:

Go to the link
Download the patch.
Make a backup of /usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py
Replace it with the patch you just downloaded.

Otherwise, you are welcome to read below. It fixes the following issues:

Explanation

I opened it using terminal and found the following trace when tried to add new menu: Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "/usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 267, in on_new_menu_button_clicked
    process = subprocess.Popen(['gnome-desktop-item-edit', file_path], env=os.environ)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1259, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

For new item

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 283, in on_new_item_button_clicked
    process = subprocess.Popen(['gnome-desktop-item-edit', file_path], env=os.environ)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1259, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

The highlighted lines shows one obvious thing. It was trying to find something, and it could not find it. Hence, the error.
Later, I found that this was happening due to this line

if os.getenv("XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP")

It was searching for either XFCE or Gnome, but not LXDE which is used in Lubuntu. Hence the Error. All I had to do was to patch it and include another else if condition in the patch, and it was solved.

Solution: GNUPlot in Ubuntu - Terminal type set to 'unknown'

2012-12-21T21:54:00.000+06:00

Hi All,
GNUPlot is one of the most favourite scientific tools for creating graphs. If you are here, you know about it already. Probably you have installed GNUPlot using aptitude in Ubuntu or its other variants. Then, when you tried to follow instructions from tutorial websites and tried to create a graph by giving command such as this one:

plot sin(x)

NOTHING happened. You were expecting something like this though:

In case you didn't notice - the problem lies with this line.

Terminal type set to 'unknown'

Which you probably noticed when you entered GNUPlot in terminal. Thing is, it is supposed to be solved when you are using an updated version or have set output terminal manually using

set terminal xterm

The key is, you need to install a package called gnuplot-x11 which will allow gnuplot to display output using X11 display
So, fire up your terminal and enter this command

sudo apt-get install gnuplot-x11

When asked, enter your password.

And now, enter gnuplot, and then simply enter plot sin(x) to see the output.

Have fun. :)

The Amazing PsychoSpiderman comic

2012-12-18T15:44:00.001+06:00

LibreOffice - Making it look cooler

2012-12-16T18:02:00.001+06:00

Yes yes, we all know how boring Libre Office is to look at. No matter how good it is, being a free software, it is a bummer to look at the same old interface when every other office suites are moving ahead.

Lets face it, even AbiWord and Gnumeric - the lightweight word processor and spread sheet software looks better than Libre Office.

Boring Libre Office UI

Thing is, User Interface matters. And User Interface can change your mindset about a software without changing its own functionality. That's why you are here. Which is why - I have written this blog to show you how to make your Libre Office look better, something like this:

New and Improved Libre Office

How to do it, right?
Well, you will have to do just three things.

1. Download and install another icon theme, for example crystal icon theme. There are other themes like tango, oxygen. Each of the official one - sucks.

2. Next, download Libreoffice Icons Faenza Mod

3. This is the crucial part. You need to find the existing images_crystal.zip file which you installed using apt-get. The easiest way is to execute this command in terminal.

You will probably see some output like this

From here, the second one is applicable, and we will create a backup of it. Execute this command in terminal in a single line.

Now, lets assume the file you downloaded in the Downloads folder. We need to move it to the office directory so that it can find the new modified icons.

After the new icons are copied, all you have to do now is to open LibreOffice, go to Tools, Options and then change the icon style to Crystal.

Setting the Settings to Awesomeness

That's all :)