Category Archives: tutorial

Fix NTFS Hard Drive

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so the other day my friend lend me his external hard drive so i could import some big files that he had on it.  apparently he didn’t click on safe remove drive under windows and he disconnected the hard drive just like that.  i say this because when ever i was trying to open the hard drive windows was saying that the drive still being used by another application.  i couldn’t started in windows for nothing.

so i decided to move do the same thing in linux (ubuntu).  apparently i was receiving the same error.  after 30 minutes of trying i was getting tired and i was about to return his drive back and make him eject safely his hard drive.  well… before doing that i thought… mmmnnn i wonde if there any free app that i could use in linux in order to fix this problem.  guess what? YES, there is.

this app is called ntfs fix, and what it does is, fixes your ntfs drive.  i installed in ubuntu using the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install ntfsfix
then after installing this app all i had to do was running the following commands:
$ sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdc1
$ sudo ntfs /dev/sdc1
where sdc1 is the external hard drive.  then i mounted the drive and it load like a baby.  well, i hope that this helps 😉

How to Reset your Blackberry Pearl

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the other day i was having problems with my blackberry pearl 8130 so i decided to wipe every off and start from scratch.  first thing that i did was download all the apps that i had installed.  i really do not remember names well enough so i wrote them all down on a piece of paper.  then i backed up my contacts and calendar appointments using “Desktop Manager” and then NEW BB boy.  then if you are sure 😉 follow the following steps:

  1. Backup your bb using “Desktop Manager”
    Disconnect the device from your computer and do the following..
  2. Goto “Options”
  3. then “Security Options”
  4. then “General Settings”
  5. then hit menu key
  6. then “Wipe Handheld”
  7. now you will be prompt to type the word “blackberry”
  8. confirm, and you are done

now all you have to do is to wait until the blackberry restart it self and now you will have a blackberry like the first time you got it. good luck.

Setting up an OpenVPN

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This tutorial will illustrate how to install OpenVPN on a Linux box using Fedora 9 as a server and using Windows XP as your client PC. This is totally free and you will be able to connect to your Virtual Private Network (VPN) all around the world with no problem.

Steps:

  1. Open up “Terminal“
  2. Become a super user type “su“
  3. Now your password
  4. Type “yum install openvpn“
  5. Copy the RSA keys to the openvpn folder
    cp -R /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa/ /etc/openvpn
    cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/
  6. Make a directory for your keys
    mkdir /etc/openvpn/keys
  7. Edit “vars” by typing
    nano vars
  8. Set the parameters for KEY_COUNTRY, KEY_PROVINCE, KEY_CITY, KEY_ORG and KEY_MAIL as desired
  9. add this new line “export KEY_DIR="/etc/openvpn/keys"“
  10. Initialize PKI
    . ./vars
  11. Clean
    ./clean-all
  12. Build CA
    ./build-ca
  13. Build server key
    ./build-key-server server

    Answer “y“, then “y“

  14. Generate certificates for your clients
    ./build-key client1

    Answer “y“, then “y”

    NOTE: If you want to add future users.
    do a “source ./vars” THEN build your key

  15. Generate Diffie Hellman parameters
    ./build-dh
  16. Copy server configuration files and edit
    cp /usr/share/doc/openvpn-2.1/sample-config-files/server.conf /etc/openvpn/
    cd /etc/openvpn
    nano server.conf
  17. Go to these lines and edit them
    cert keys/server.crt
    key keys/server.key
    dh keys/dh1024.pem
    client-to-client

    if you want to have your VPN being route to your LAN then take out ; from push “route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0” and change to the current settings of your LAN

  18. You are almost done. 😉 Now start your OpenVPN server
    service openvpn start
    chkconfig openvpn on
  19. To setup the client. Go to your windows machine and you will go to this site http://openvpn.se/download.html and download their GUI and install it, once you are done come back and finish this 😀
  20. Download the ca.crt, client1.crt and client1.key to the windows machine from your linux box.  insert these files in “C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config“.
  21. Copy the sample file from “C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\sample-config\client.ovpn” and paste it on “C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config“
  22. Now edit your client.ovpn and configure it.  Open “Notepad“.
  23. Edit “remote my-server-1 1194” where my-server-1 is going to be the ip address of your server
  24. Edit
    ca ca.crt
    cert client.crt
    key client.key

    where these now are going to be
    ca ca.crt
    cert client1.crt
    key client1.key

  25. Take out ; for the ns-cert-type server
  26. And that’s it.  you should be able to connect to your server and to others computers in that LAN.  Congrats.  If you wan to test your connection “ping 10.8.0.” which it is your VPN server.

If you are having any trouble with the connection please make sure that your firewall is allowing port 1194.  If you are behind a NAT also make sure that you are allowing that port.

NOTE: This tutorial worked for me but it might not work for you. So it is not grantee.  Do it at your own risk.

Upgrading Fedora 8 to Fedora 9

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Last night I just got finish upgrading my Fedora box from Fedora 8 to Fedora 9. It took me about 1 hour the whole process of downloading the packages and installing them. I did it though the terminal because I don’t have a DVD ROM on that machine and I though that was the best way. I mean I could just format the whole drive but I would need to setup my configurations again and I didn’t wanted to do that. So this tutorial will illustrate how to upgrade your Fedora box from 8 to 9 using the terminal.

Steps:

  1. Go to the “Terminal“
  2. Type “su” to become a super user
  3. Now do a “yum update” to install all the packages needed
  4. Now do a “yum clean all” to clean all packages no needed
  5. Now do steps 3 and 4 again. Just to make sure that we have the latest packages
  6. Run the following command on your box “rpm -Uhv http://mirror.liberty.edu/pub/fedora/linux/releases/9/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/fedora-release-9-2.noarch.rpm http://mirror.liberty.edu/pub/fedora/linux/releases/9/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/fedora-release-notes-9.0.0-1.noarch.rpm“
  7. Next do a “yum clean all“
  8. Now do “yum -y update“. This will actually install all the packages needed in order to have your box upgraded from Fedora 8 to Fedora 9.

I had some problems with with my XAMPP when it was going to load.

root@localhost]# /opt/lampp/lampp start
cat: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Starting XAMPP for Linux ...
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
XAMPP for Linux started.

I resolved this error by doing this…

  1. Go to your XAMPP root folder
  2. Type “cp lampp bk-lampp“
  3. Type “cat lampp.bak | sed "s/export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL/#xport LD_ASSUME_KERNEL/" > lampp“
  4. Type “./lampp start“
  5. Then if you get the following error
    “./lampp: line 94: syntax error near unexpected token `fi'”
    “./lampp: line 94: `fi'“
  6. Type “gedit lampp“
  7. Before line 93 insert “echo "XAMPP is working"“
  8. Now run “./lampp start“

That should take care of that problem and everything should work perfectly.

XAMPP

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XAMPP is an application that it would help you to facilitate the hassle of installing Apache web server, MySQL, Perl and PHP individually. This tutorial will show you step by step on how to install XAMPP in Lunix and have it auto started with your computer. This tutorial was tested on Ubunut and Fedora. Replace x.x.x for the XAMPP version.

Steps:

  1. Go to http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html and download “XAMPP Linux x.x.x”
  2. Open up the “Termial“
  3. Become a root user bu typing “su“
  4. Type the administrator password
  5. Go to where the file “xampp-linux-x.x.x.tar.gz” is downloaded
  6. Extract the files by typing this “tar xvfz xampp-linux-1.6.7.tar.gz -C /opt“

Now XAMPP will be under “/opt/lampp” folder. In order to run XAMPP you will need to run this… “/opt/lampp/lampp start” as a root. If you want to stop it just replace start for stop.

To test whether your server is up go and open your web browser and type “http://localhost“. If it works you are now good to go to the next step.

This step is setting up XAMPP security. In order to do that being the root type “/opt/lampp/lampp security“.

To remove XAMPP from your system type “rm -rf /opt/lampp”

If you want to have XAMPP starting with your machine when it turns on follow this steps.

  1. Find out your default runlevel type “egrep :initdefault: /etc/inittab”
    You should no see a line containing a number between two colons. In most cases 3 or 5 (2 if you’re using Debian).
  2. Go into the directory which configures this runlevel. If for example your runlevel is 3, then you have to change directory into the “/etc/rc.d/rc3.d” directory.If your system didn’t provide /etc/rc.d/rc3.d please try also /etc/init.d/rc3.d and /etc/rc3.d.
  3. Now setup XAMPP to start when your computer turns on type”ln -s /opt/lampp/lampp S99lampp”
    “ln -s /opt/lampp/lampp K01lampp”

    Now XAMPP should start and stop automatically if you boot or shutdown your machine.

And that’s it.  Hopefully you had success like I did 😛

Restore Grub

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This tutorial will illustrate how to restore grub old settings just in case that you have messed up your linux box trying to install another OS as a dual-os.

Steps:

  1. Open “Terminal“
  2. type “sudo grub“
  3. type “find /boot/grub/stage1“
  4. a list of hard drives will appear, now pick the one that is going to provide the grub files.  In my case i am going to pick “hd0” because that is my hard drive.  in this tutorial please replace the 0 for the number of your hard drive given.
  5. type “root (hd0,0)“
  6. type “setup (hd0)“
  7. lastly “quit“

this should take care of grub to be store in the mbr.

Show your Trash Can in Linux

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this tutorial will illustrate how to have the icons in your desktop like windows instead of creating folders to show them icons in GNOME
Steps:

  1. Open your “Terminal“
  2. type “gconf-editor“
  3. Then Goto “apps->nautilus->desktop“
  4. Click the box beside computer_icon_visible, home_icon_visible, and trash_icon_visible
  5. Close the window and you should be set

Show desktop icon

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This easy tutorial for XP  will show you how to have your “Show Desktop” icon on any where in your computer.  Also you could download the file by clicking download.

Steps:

  1. Open “Notepad“
  2. type:
    [Shell]
    Command=2
    IconFile=explorer.exe,3
    [Taskbar]
    Command=ToggleDesktop
  3. Now, “Save As...“
  4. File name “Show Desktop.scf“
  5. Place your show desktop as desired

Import from another blog

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wordpress is so nice that it allows you to import stuff from another blog into wordpress. i currently imported all my data from my old blog from msn live spaces to wordpress. it is really easy to do and it was done through RSS.

this tutorial was done using firefox but i bet that you could use another web browser app.

Steps:

  1. go to you old blog OR the blog where you are going to be exporting the information
  2. click on the RSS button in order to load it
  3. once you have the RSS open, go to “File” > “Save Page As...“
  4. save as “feeds.rss“
  5. Now go to your wordpress blog
  6. go to “Manage” > “Import“
  7. click on “RSS“
  8. “Browse” the file that you just saved as “feeds.rss“
  9. then click “Upload file and import“
  10. now your old blog should be in the wordpress database uploaded