Fedora 13 64Bit and Skype

Wondering how to make skype work with your fresh installation of fedora 64bit? Here's how:

First, you must install rpmfusion.org's repository. You can find the howto here:

Next, you need to run the following commands:

sudo yum install libXv.i686 \
libXScrnSaver.i686 \
qt-4.6.3-8.fc13.i686 \
qt-x11-4.6.3-8.fc13.i686

Afterwhich, you can now go to and download Skype.

After downloading, install it:

rpm -ivh skype-2.1.0.81-fc10.i586.rpm

And then run skype from your menu.

The Great Fedora Switch

Moved from Ubuntu 10.04 to Fedora Core 13. Reason: all my LPI Manuals uses CentOS as main distribution, as I can't use that on my laptop, I used Fedora instead.

So far, everything had been working fine. I edited

/etc/usb_modeswitch.conf

and placed the following lines to the file

/etc/udev/rules.d/15-huawei.conf

to enable my Globe Tattoo:

# My Tattoo!!!

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="12d1",

SYSFS{idProduct}=="1446",

RUN+="/usr/bin/usb_modeswitch -c /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf"

Nothing could have been simpler. Also, my sister brought the PS2 from home to my place so I could play the whole time it's here.

Ubuntu Linux + Nokia 5800 XM = 3G Internet Connection

I'm pretty sure that this had already been done before, I am just putting it here so I will remember it later ;)

Okay...

Step 1.Make your bluetooth device discoverable (just for a few seconds, at least)

Step 2.run this command:

% hcitool scan

Find the line that looks like

C0:XX:XX:XX:XX:00 Renz phone

That previous command gives you the bdaddr (Bluetooth Device Address) of your phone. I placed Xs in there (just to secure the phone, yours would actually be HEX Digits.=)

Step 3.Find out your device's DUN (Dial Up Networking) channel by running:

% sdptool search DUN C0:XX:XX:XX:XX:00 

You may come up with the following:

Inquiring ...
Searching for DUN on C0:XX:XX:XX:XX:00 ...
Service Name: Dial-Up Networking
Service RecHandle: 0x10012
Service Class ID List:
  "Dialup Networking" (0x1103)
Protocol Descriptor List:
  "L2CAP" (0x0100)
  "RFCOMM" (0x0003)
    Channel: 22
Language Base Attr List:
  code_ISO639: 0x454e
  encoding:    0x6a
  base_offset: 0x100
Profile Descriptor List:
  "Dialup Networking" (0x1103)
    Version: 0x0100

From here, we can infer that our Dialup Networking Service is @ channel 22

Step 4.Bind your rfcomm0 to this channel:

% rfcomm bind 0 C0:XX:XX:XX:XX:00 22

We basically tell rfcomm to bind to rfcomm0 using our bdaddr(C0:XX:XX:XX:XX:00) to channel 22.

Step 5.Configure your wvdial by editing /etc/wvdial.conf and putting in:

[Dialer Defaults]
phone=*99#
Modem=/dev/rfcomm0
Username=putyourusernameanythingwilldo
Password=putanythingheresmartdoesnotcare
New PPPD=yes
Stupid Mode=yes
Init1=ATZ
Init2=ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 & C1 &D2+FCLASS=0
baud=460800

Step 6.Run wvdial:

% wvdial

Be careful not to press ctrl-c while wvdial is running or else, you will get disconnected.

That's it! Have fun!

29 November 2009

The day started out fine. Woke up at about 8AM and then went back to bed. Woke up again at 9:30 then fixed myself. At about 10:30, I started for the office. It'll be a few more days later before we can migrate to the new office as I heard that there are lots of things to fix before it can be considered to be work-able. Also, the Internet connection for the place hadn't been put to place yet.

I goofed around (meaning worked) for a couple of hours then lunch came. We decided to take rice gruel (goto) with egg and fried tofu instead of the normal lunch. Man, I missed eating goto, I promise to make one for me and my wife at least every two weeks.

After office, Kelly and I went somewhere to talk to a client about building a content management system from scratch. I really think that CMSs should be customized for each client and avoid run-of-the-mill CMSs since you can only customize then as much as you can.

For this CMS, I will probably be using CodeIgniter PHP Framework and MySQL Database Server.

I just finished (albeit, lacking one functionality: the comments section) working on the database schema for the basic CMS. I just hope that my team mates would approve of the schema. If not, it's back to the drawing board for me. Not that I complain :D

As of this writing, I am about 78% complete on the Vicidial Report Generation Tool that I have been working for the past two months already.

SHA256 encryption and all the stuff....

What have I been doing?

I'm no security expert, but I have just implemented (read: copy and pasted code) sha256 encryption to my kcauth codeigniter plugin/module combo ( I don't like codeigniter, really don't know why...)

I'm still thinking if I will be using codeigniter's session or create my own. The former seems to be fine, but since I have no time to scrutinize the code, I cannot really rely on it. The latter would eventually be done, not at the moment since I don't have the time to create one from scratch (yet)

I have also created a HTTP GET middleware to read from a remote eventum source. Hopefully, this will scale as the middleware would be used by an application that's already a memory hog (without proper caching since it is in the development phase still, of course).

Still need to create memcache plugin for that codeigniter thingie. Also, I will need to find an easy payment gateway for the rf service that we are cooking up.

System.exit(0);

Ubuntu and AMP

Here are simple steps to get AMP (Apache, MySQL and PHP) running in Ubuntu.

1.) sudo aptitude install apache-mpm-prefork php5-mysql mysql-server -y

If you need phpmyadmin:

1.) sudo aptitude install phpmyadmin -y
2.) cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
3.) ln -s /etc/phpmyadmin/apache2.conf phpymadmin
4.) a2ensite phpymadmin
5.) /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

you can now go to : http://localhost/phpmyadmin

Subversion + SSH on ports other than 22

What you need:

putty (not the putty.exe but the whole installer as you need pageant, plink and puttygen :D)
subversion

Step 1: Install PUTTY
Step 2: Install subversion
Step 3: Create a profile for your server (indicate port, user, etc.) using putty (be sure not to overwrite Default Profile) (i.e. profile name is MyServer)
Step 4: using puttygen, create a private key and a public key
Step 5: copy the public key ( in the puttygen window ) to the .ssh/authorized_keys (located in your home directory) on your server
Step 6: load your private key using pageant
Step 7: the url for your repository will be svn+ssh://MyServer/path/to/your/repository

You're Done!

PHP5 RRD Module in Ubuntu/Debian Lenny missing!

Today, I started reading about using RRDTool in replacement for the flash-based reports that I was using for a pet project. What stunned me later was to finding out that php bindings for this nifty little tool is absent in my toolkit!

I am here now to tell you how I did it, well, sort of, :D

1.) be sure to download http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/pub/contrib/php_rrdtool.tar.gz
2.) apt-get (or I use aptitude in ubuntu) install librrd-dev php5-dev
3.) extract php_rrdtool.tar.gz (tar zxvf php_rrdtool.tar.gz
4.) enter the directory created by extraction then run phpize
5.) run ./configure then make to compile the module
6.) inside the created modules directory lies two files: rrdtool.so and rrdtool.la. copy both files to your extension_dir (which you can find out if you open the php.ini that is being called by your apache web server) I saved mine in /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs which is the default for debian lenny
7.) add this line:
extension=rrdtool.so
in any of your php.ini file (in debian lenny's or ubuntu's case, you can create a new .ini file in /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d and put that line in there )
8.) restart your apache webserver
9.) create a phpinfo(); file and see if these lines exists:
rrdtool
rrdtool Version 1.2.x extension
rrdtool support enabled

10.) you're done!