Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Threema: yet another instant messaging application for smartphones

Threema - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Desktop versions of Threema (e.g. for Windows or Mac OS X) are on the long-term plan.
Looks like security is  a main goal, unknown protocol used – that's definitely not a plus.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

"WhatsApp Messenger" does not want to run on my Android tablet


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

No Starch Press: Book of GIMP

http://tinker.tv/gimp
Book of GIMP
Whether you're just getting started with GIMP or working to master GIMP's more complex features, you'll find the answers you're looking for in The Book of GIMP.
read more

Chrome refuses connection to certain local ports

Chrome verweigert Verbindung zu bestimmten Ports | c't (in German)

# how to unblock by starting on the command line:
$ google-chrome --explicitly-allowed-ports=6000,6667

how to make Microsoft Outlook to not send winmail.dat as attachment

Winmail.dat sent as an email attachment in Outlook 2007 and 2010

Mac OS X "Quick Look Preview" vs copy+paste



(I only quote this reference to give them some honour.)

$ defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool TRUE # activate!
$ killall Finder # only a Finder started after the last command will obey
$ defaults read com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection # so what's the current value?

Monday, July 8, 2013

turning an "ext2" or "ext3" file system into an "ext4" one


root# tune2fs -j /dev/sdXY # add an ext3 journal, if we start with ext2
root# tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/sdXY
root# e2fsck  -f /dev/sdXY # maybe you want to add …
                           # "-C 0" : progress bar
                           # "-p"   : automatically repair!
                           # "-D"   : optimize directories

To be worked on …

Rick Sladkey's NFS utility "showmount"

showmount is quite useful, if you want to examine the properties of NFS shares instead of just mounting it. I used it, when I found it troublesome to mount a share from a (Linux) virtual machine behind a NAT router (actually a VirtualBox VM host).

Sunday, July 7, 2013

NFS mount behind NAT (virtualbox)

NFS mount behind NAT (virtualbox) | The GNULinux Community Portal

The situation and trouble described there is rather similar to my set-up (VirtualBox + NAT + Linux guest), just that my NFS server is a Synology DiskStation.

I added "insecure" to the options of this share, switched off "Enable NFS" on the DiskStation, made sure the option is still there, enabled NFS on the DiskStation again, finally mounted the share again, and it was there – what a surprise!!!

I still have a UID mapping problem with this set-up.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

the CPU usage of my openSUSE VM seemed abusive, elimated "Nepomuk Semantic Desktop"

I don't think, I do make the intended use of the Nepomuk Semantic Desktop, so I prefer to switch the entire thing off.

I couldn't find the cause through "top", but "pstree -p" showed a lot of processes with "nepomuk" in their names. A KDE search (KDE Start button, "Search") for "nepomuk" helped.
"Nepomuk Server Configuration", toggled "Enabe Nepomuk Semantic Desktop".

Right, maybe I switched exactly off: the KDE search. Well, how bad! But I simply don't like any such thing ("desktop search pre-indexing") beyond the UNIX locatedb. I like it "cheap" and lightweight.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

InoReader is the best Google Reader replacement I came across

It resembles Google Reader really, really a lot.

the Fink project

packages I use:
  • coreutils
  • wget
  • xv
  • xpdf

upgrading to Mac OS X Mountain Lion

  • starting with Mountain Lion X11 for Mac OS X is available on a separate website: xquartz.macosforge.orgsupport.apple.com/kb/HT5293
  • RCS binaries get provided in /Developer/usr/bin, but e.g. "rcsdiff" makes use of a hard-wired "co" by the full path of /usr/bin/co; my fix for this: I symlinked ../Developer/usr/bin/co to /usr/bin/co.
  • you need XCode of course
  • as a Fink user, you need to (re-)install Fink from fink.sf.net (coreutils, wget, xv, xpdf)

downloading Apple's Xcode from the "Mac App Store"

Xcode Downloads and Resources - Apple Developer


  • You decide, you need XCode,
  • you are going to the Mac App Store,
  • you are pressing the Install button,
  • going to download 1.65 GB,
  • and the only feedback you are getting for quite a while is the button saying "Installing".

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Mac OS X "Mountain Lion", X11, the XQuartz project