Author: Alex

Network Manager in Ubuntu stopped picking up a wired network device

linux

This morning I had an issue where the standard Networking Manager in Ubuntu 11.04 failed to pick up a wired internet connection.

ubuntu 11.10 wired network device not managed

I’d been playing around with the interfaces file in /etc/network/interfaces, changing the settings for the ethernet and the wireless networks; but unfortunately neither helped.

After some Googling I found out that there is also another configuration file for the Network Manager in Ubuntu that needs some changing. That is fixed like this:


sudo vim /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Changing from managed=false to managed=true and then restarting the network manager service worked a treat and now the Ethernet is now properly connected

Finish up with a restart of the network manager and then you’re good.


sudo service network-manager restart

installing mySQL from the cli

mysql

Installing mySQL from the command line couldn’t be easier. Installing from root would ensure that everything will be in place.


yum groupinstall "MySQL Database"
/usr/bin/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
service mysqld start
/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation
chkconfig mysqld on

iPad / iPhone accessories in Japan

ipad

If you ever check out Yamada Denki for iPad and iPhone accessories, the range is quite limited and simple. They generally stock a lot of expensive Softbank accessories, so I have been on the hunt for some interesting websites in Japan that stock some decent ones.

The AppBank Store shop stocks a whole range of interesting products and lots more than you will typically find in your department stores here in Tokyo.

Some of the products that have tempted me:
Ipad venture Case-Mate
Ipad 2 Smartcover

Port forwarding on a Yamaha NVR500 for SSH

networking

After we setup our office internet, I originally wanted to accept port forwarding from the outside world for SSH to a machine on our internal network.

Unfortunately, my Japanese is not good and neither is Google Translate when it comes to translating technical stuff. Luckily, with the help of my Japanese colleagues and some guess work, I followed some of the settings on this page here: http://www.obenri.com/_nvr500/remote_connection.html and was able to setup port forwarding into the router. I also had to follow the settings on this page http://cmf.ohtanz.com/blog/archives/44 to ensure the port 22 was forwarding to the correct local IP address.

In the example in the site, it’s taking the internal port forwarding of 45674 to port 80 for an HTTP request. I have my SSH port open on the machine to standard 22, and the rest of the work is done by the NVR500.

If you follow the section on the page under “SSHで直接ログインする”, the instructions should be pretty straight forward, even if your Japanese is not very good… like mine.

Setting up a Samba fileshare on the command line on Linux

linux, samba

Setting up a Samba fileshare on Linux (I prefer Ubuntu for myself) from the command line is simple enough and very easy to configure.

Create the folder, chmod the folder to full read and write settings and set the folder ownership to “nobody”. This should be OK as hopefully you’ll only have access to the shared folder on your local network.

Meanwhile, one line on the CLI will enable the file sharing settings:

net usershare add shared /home/yourhostname/somefolder/shared "yourhostname shared" everyone:F guest_ok=y

That should be it. You can then access the folder with no passwords and from any machine on the local network.

Confirm your settings are OK when running this command below:

root@yourhostname/home/somefolder/Desktop# net usershare info --long
[shared]
path=/home/yourhostname/Desktop/shared
comment=yourhostname shared
usershare_acl=Everyone:F,
guest_ok=y

Search and replace all string instances in vim editor

vim

When I was working on a very, very long script, I wanted to find a way to quickly and easily replace all string instances.

vim includes a :substitute command that searches a pattern in a body of text, then replaces all the instances available.

:%s/foo/bar/g
Find each occurrence of 'foo', and replace it with 'bar'.
:5,12s/foo/bar/g 
Change each 'foo' to 'bar' for all lines from line 5 to line 12 inclusive.

iPhone turns HTML links into telephone number links

iphone

On the iPhone, HTML links of numbers are converted to telephone number links. That means whenever a number with more than 7 digits has an anchor HTML link, and the link is clicked on your iPhone, your handset will attempt to make a phone call to the telephone number.

There is a meta tag that you can use that will ignore these links on the iPhone or on the iPad.

<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no">

					

			
	
			
	


			
				



	
	

		
Including an avatar on your WordPress blog profile

					wordpress
		
			


					

			
After setting up this blog, I discovered that simply adding a picture to your profile would not change your avatar on your WordPress blog.


I did some Googling and found that you will need to sign up for a Gravatar (this stands for Globally Recognized Avatars).


The Gravatar  is integrated into your WordPress blog, and so you will need to sign up for an account here then attach that to your WordPress blog. Using Gravatars