Sharing the Knowledge

Latex Cheat Sheet

2010-04-03T22:27:00.002+05:30

Hope this would enlighten the day of all the SLIIT friends :)

http://www.stdout.org/~winston/latex/latexsheet.pdf

Changing Boot Order in Ubuntu 9.10

2010-02-13T22:17:00.002+05:30

I have a dual-boot system with Windows 7 & Ubuntu 9.10. Recently I found a difficulty when changing the boot order in Ubuntu 9.10, which was so annoying because changing the boot order was an easy process in the earlier versions of ubuntu where we only had to change the "default=0" parameter in the menu.lst located in /boot/grub to something like "deafult=3".

The difference was made here due to the fact that Ubuntu 9.10 is using an all new Grub V.2.0. Unlike in grub V.1.0 we have to look for a file name grub.cfg to change the grub/ boot order. Since grub.cfg is read-only even for the root, we must change access rights like this.

sudo chmod +w /boot/grub/grub.cfg (this command will make the file editable).
sudo gedit /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Change default=0 to default = 'X'

X - line number of the windows partition in the grub menu – 1

After saving, make it again read only: sudo chmod -w /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Check whether the boot order is working properly, if not re-check the default parameter.

SPD-II Online Examination

2009-10-10T23:13:00.004+05:30

This is special post for SLIIT students. Others may find this not that useful :-(

Study Materials:
Upto XML Serialization:
http://hotfile.com/dl/14572042/a348179/SPD_Online_Examination.pdf.html

A very simple webservice:
http://hotfile.com/dl/14574989/40bf48c/Web_Service.pdf.html

Link to all SPD Labs:
http://hotfile.com/dl/14574219/84c6470/SPD-II(SIXTY).rar.html

Hope this would be useful though its late :p

Want to remove annoying quiz and application messages from your facebook homepage ?

2009-10-03T10:24:00.001+05:30

I recently started using this firefox addon: greasemonkey, which turned out to be a very useful one. Using greaemonkey addon, you can install & manage javascript code snippets. userscripts.org is a web site consist of tons of javascript snippets which automates a lot of cool stuffs.

Facebook Purity is such a javascript that you can install using greasemonkey, and using this script you can hide all the posts from your facebook homepage posted by facebook applications & quizes. Those posts are becoming really annoying since they make your FB homepage a mess and eat out a lot of bandwidth too.

There is an option to unhide the posts just incase if you want to see the posts which are hidden by this script. There will be a link on top of the page like this :

All in all a usefull hack to Facebook's default appearance and if you are more curious you can find more scripts from the same site.

Things you need to know about Movie Sources ?

2009-09-07T11:10:00.011+05:30

CAM

A cam is a theater rip usually done with a digital video camera. A mini tripod is sometimes used, but a lot of the time this wont be possible, so the camera make shake. Also seating placement isn’t always idle, and it might be filmed from an angle. If cropped properly, this is hard to tell unless there’s text on the screen, but a lot of times these are left with triangular borders on the top and bottom of the screen. Sound is taken from the onboard microphone of the camera, and especially in comedies, laughter can often be heard during the film. Due to these factors picture and sound quality are usually quite poor, but sometimes we’re lucky, and the theater will be fairly empty and a fairly clear signal will be heard.

Telesync (TS)

A telesync is the same spec as a CAM except it uses an external audio source (most likely an audio jack in the chair for hard of hearing people). A direct audio source does not ensure a good quality audio source, as a lot of background noise can interfere. A lot of the times a telesync is filmed in an empty cinema or from the projection booth with a professional camera, giving a better picture quality. Quality ranges drastically, check the sample before downloading the full release. A high percentage of Telesyncs are CAMs that have been mislabeled.

Screener (SCR)

A pre VHS tape, sent to rental stores, and various other places for promotional use. A screener is supplied on a VHS tape, and is usually in a 4:3 (full screen) a/r, although letterboxed screeners are sometimes found. The main draw back is a “ticker” (a message that scrolls past at the bottom of the screen, with the copyright and anti-copy telephone number). Also, if the tape contains any serial numbers, or any other markings that could lead to the source of the tape, these will have to be blocked, usually with a black mark over the section. This is sometimes only for a few seconds, but unfortunately on some copies this will last for the entire film, and some can be quite big. Depending on the equipment used, screener quality can range from excellent if done from a MASTER copy, to very poor if done on an old VHS recorder thru poor capture equipment on a copied tape. Most screeners are transferred to VCD, but a few attempts at SVCD have occurred, some looking better than others.

DVD-Screener (DVDscr)

Same premise as a screener, but transferred off a DVD. Usually letterbox , but without the extras that a DVD retail would contain. The ticker is not usually in the black bars, and will disrupt the viewing. If the ripper has any skill, a DVDscr should be very good. Usually transferred to SVCD or DivX/XviD.

R5

This is fairly new movie format. Basically the same as DVD Screener - this kind of release is legal DVD released in Russia to decrease the level of pirated movies in this country. Retail is rushed out by the studio, so there is little to no cleanup of the film after the telecine process. As a result, you can see some scratches, hairs or other mess on the picture, but you will hardly notice it while watching. External English audio is often used, as these are supplied with Russian sound by default.

DVDRip

A copy of the final released DVD. If possible this is released PRE retail (for example, Star Wars episode 2) again, should be excellent quality. DVDrips are released in SVCD and DivX/XviD.

TVRip

TV episode that is either from Network (capped using digital cable/satellite boxes are preferable) or PRE-AIR from satellite feeds sending the program around to networks a few days earlier (do not contain “dogs” but sometimes have flickers etc) Some programs such as WWF Raw Is War contain extra parts, and the “dark matches” and camera/commentary tests are included on the rips. PDTV is capped from a digital TV PCI card, generally giving the best results, and groups tend to release in SVCD for these. VCD/SVCD/DivX/XviD rips are all supported by the TV scene.

Workprint (WP)

A workprint is a copy of the film that has not been finished. It can be missing scenes, music, and quality can range from excellent to very poor. Some WPs are very different from the final print (Men In Black is missing all the aliens, and has actors in their places) and others can contain extra scenes (Jay and Silent Bob) . WPs can be nice additions to the collection once a good quality final has been obtained.

Asian Silvers / PDVD

These are films put out by eastern bootleggers, and these are usually bought by some groups to put out as their own. Silvers are very cheap and easily available in a lot of countries, and its easy to put out a release, which is why there are so many in the scene at the moment, mainly from smaller groups who don’t last more than a few releases. PDVDs are the same thing pressed onto a DVD. They have removable subtitles, and the quality is usually better than the silvers. These are ripped like a normal DVD, but usually released as VCD.

Facebook Hack for Pirate Lovers

2009-06-16T21:40:00.004+05:30

If you are a fan of "Pirates of the Carribbean" movie triology this article will uncover a great hack for your FaceBook profile, which is really fun to play with. This is nothing like rocket science or illeagal hacking, just activating a "Pirate Language" inside language settings, already given by FB creators. This is how it will look like after activating "Pirate Language".

To do this, goto language settings page of your profile & scroll down the available languages list & you will find English(Pirate) around the bottom. Select that and save the settings, you will have nice pirate languaged FaceBook profile to work with.

Port forwarding and creating a Static IP - SLT ADSL users

2009-05-10T13:10:00.014+05:30

Note: This post is specifically written for the Sri Lankans though the core concept & the methodology can be adopted to any situation.
Most of the ADSL users in Sri Lanka uses SLT Broadband as their service provider. Since a lot of them are using torrent managers and torrents to download their favourite movies and TV Episodes, I thought it would be a good idea to tell them how to retrieve the maximum out of their connections when downloading with torrent managers. I'm not going in to the details of how to tweak your torrent manager and connection and so on. Instead I'll make you aware of a great tweak that will lift the efficiency of your downloads, considerably.

I'll take µTorrent to do the demonstration on a Windows XP system, & µTorrent users may have noticed a small redcolor icon or orange color icon staying at the bottom of the µTorrent interface. What we gonna try & do is make this icon, a green colored icon , so the incoming connections would not be blocked, and the torrents will be processed smoothly. More information on this can be found here. Let's roll,

REQUIREMENTS:

Wired ADSL connection
ADSL Router
Administrator Privillages to access the router's interface
µTorrent as your torrent manager

The whole process is devided to two sub-processes, setting an Static IP & Forwarding a port to the torrent manager.

How to setup a Static-IP ?

Goto command prompt & type ipconfig /all
From the items listed, note down the DNS Servers (there must be two IP addresses)
Go to Control Panel -> Network Connections & right click on the connection thats used for the internet connection & click on properties
On the general tab select TCP/IP Settings and click on properties button. (See Figure 1.0)(Figure 1.0)
Now change to "Use the following IP address" & type an IP address of the format 192.168.1.xxx (xxx could be any number ranging between 2-254) (See Figure 2.0)(Figure 2.0)
Subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0, Default gateway should be 192.168.1.1 & fill in the DNS server IP's that we noted in the step 2, and press OK twise.
Open your browser & see if you can browse internet, if you cant recheck the DNS server IPs that you have enetered.
Type "ipconfig" on CMD & you will see you newly created IP address being activated.

Note: same can be achieved in other operating systems as well by changing the addresses in same way.

Forwarding a port to µTorrent
To start the proceeding you have to log in to the router's interface. (for the demonstration I'll be using SLT's Comtrend router). Normally you can do this by typing 192.168.1.1 on your web browser.

Login by typing "admin" as username & password, since it is the default one.
From the left side menu goto Advanced Setup -> NAT -> Virtual Servers.
Click on Add.
Select on Custom Server & give some name. (eg: uTor1)
Enter newly created Static IP address as the server IP address.
Minimize the browser window for a while and open µTorrent.
Go to Options -> Preferences -> Connection
Copy the port number used for incoming connections & untick the "Randomize port each start". (If ticked)
Now maxmize the browser again & paste the port number copied from µTorrent into each four boxes. (Need to fill only one row)
Select TCP as the protocol.
Click on Save/Apply.

Now you have finished setting up a static IP address & forwarding a dedicated port to µTorrent. You will soon see the network status icon turned into green . If not, check your firewall configuration & see if it is interfering with µTorrent.

Do you know that you can change µTorrent's default skin ?

2009-05-10T07:42:00.013+05:30

This is very simple. Visit this URL and download an Icon Set of your choice and extract it.
Some of the sets that I liked are linked below:

Another Tango (colorful)

You will find a bitmap file. Type %AppData% on windows run box.(Or manually explore to your application data folder which is in Documents&Settings). Find µTorrent folder, and copy the bitmap file you have downloaded, directly inside the folder. Restart the µTorrent client & BINGO. The icon set of the µTorrent will be changed..

Not only the top icon set, you can change Status Icons, Tray Icons etc. Just go through this complete guide & you can make your µTorrent your own.

µTorrent Skinning Guide.

It is always a good feeling you get when you go beyond the default settings :-)

A Complete Guide-Adding Subtitles to Videos

2009-05-09T11:50:00.011+05:30

Courtsy to the file sharing utilities and peer-to-peer systems, downloading the latest movie or the TV episode is probably few clicks away, these days. But most internet users find it difficult to attach subtitles with the downloaded movies & TV-Episodes. Therefore Im going to share my experience and tell you how to do that.
Note: The audience for this tutorial must be computer users who use VLC player or any other players with required codecs.

Most commonly used subtitle file type that complies with PC based media players(VLC,WMP,PowerDVD) is *.SRT; DVD Subtitle File. At times some torrent-movie uploaders, uploads this subtitle file along with the movie. Therefore, in those situations no need to download them manually. But 90% of the time, only the movie is uploaded. I find it difficult to understand the video without subtitles. If you are a fan of Big Bang Theory (TV Series); you better off having the subtitles since in Big Bang, they speak much quicker & the accent is hard to grab. So lets move on to finding relevant subtitles for a given video clip.

There are ofcourse, two ways to achieve this.

Searching the internet for a specific subtitle file and make it sync with video or simply
Using a software to do download subtitle file.

The Easy Way (Using a software:OSCAR)
There are few softawares floating around the internet that are capable of handling subtitle files. But jsut consider using OSCAR, which is available at opensubtitles.org. You can use this software to downlad & upload subtitles. The tool is convinient to use and best part is it is free of charge. Once the subtitle file is downloaded, the software itself will automatically handle all the configuration that need to done, in order to play the subtitle file. The steps to use this software is noted below:

Go to http://www.opensubtitles.org and register for a free account
Download the OSCAR, extract it and run it by double clicking on the oscar.exe
Go to preferences and & enter the account details that you have registered with before & set the languages that you prefer.
Drag & Drop the video file to "Download" area and click on the Search icon and the software will list the results, momenterally.
Put a tick on the subtitle that you want to be downloaded and click on the Download Icon.
Just play the video with VLC; BINGO there goes the subtitles.

Note: Remember, sometimes I had difficulties connecting to the opensubtitles.org site. But 99% of the times, It is a working site.

Doing it Manually (If OSCAR fails)
What you need to do is just simply do a google search on the subtitle file that you want and once you got your *.srt file first paste it to the folder which you have the video file. Once the *.srt file and *.avi file is at the same folder rename the *.srt file, so that both video file and sub file are the same, only the extension is differ from each other. http://www.opensubtitles.org is a great site which consist of subtitle files in all languages.

eg: The.Big.Bang.Theory.S02E14.HDTV.XviD-XOR.avi
The.Big.Bang.Theory.S02E14.HDTV.XviD-XOR.srt

That is all you need to do if you have VLC Media Player installed. VLC will automatically sync the subtitle file with the video file; simple as that. Since VLC comes with codecs pre-installed it is capable of doing that.

But if you are using Windows Media Player you have to install third party codec pack prior to viewing the video. Otherwise it won't play the subtitles. K-Lite codec pack is ideal for doing this.

Some times the subtitle won't match the video file, and the synchronization might out. (Subs are not synced with the dialogues). I came around with this tiny piece of software called Subtitle Time Adjuster, simply do the job of adjusting the out-of-sync problems of the subtitle files.
Just go through the help file available with that software and you will find a way to adjust your subtitle :-)