Night Dreaming (by Sudar)

If you are following the articles at Slicehost, then you may notice that PickledOnion uses nano as the default editor. I somehow like vi more than nano (not ready for a debate ) and was looking for a way to make vi the default config editor. After some googling, I found how to do it.

I am writing it down here so that all I have to remember is that I just need to search my blog if I need to do it again in future.

Okay the command you have to use is (I am assuming that you are not logged in as root, which is the recommended approach)

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

And then press the number corresponding to the editor which you want to use. Below is the screenshot of how it looked in my slice.

Tags: Editor, Linux, nano, slicehost, Ubuntu, vi

Recently I got some MP3 audio books from a magazine CD. I wanted to upload them to my iPod so that I can listen to them during my compute to office. But then I found that these were in MP3 format and not in iPod audio book format.

The main feature of the iPod audio book format is that the iPod can remember the last listening position and also we can adjust the reading speed in case, which is not possible if it is in MP3 format.

I started looking for a program to convert MP3 files to iPod audio book format and found an excellent program MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter. It is free, opensource and the best part is that it works.

Download the program and install it. Once installed start the program from start menu and then click the Add button.

Select the MP3 files and then click the Open button. (You can also press shift to select multiple files)

Arrange the files in the correct order and then click the Start Conversion button. You can also edit the tags if you want.

The program will ask to specify the file name and once given it will start the conversion.
Once the program finishes you can add the file to iTunes and then sync it with iPod. Happy Listening

Links:

You can download MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter from its download page.
You can also get some free Audio book from AudioBooksForFree.com

Tags: Audio, Book, convertor, iPod/iTunes

Ever since I moved my mails from Gmail to Google Apps, I was using my Google Apps email address in Google Talk. But still some of my old friends are added in my Gmail address. So I was searching for a way to run multiple instance of Google Talk in the same machine and found this tip. I thought of noting it here so that I know where to search if I reinstall Google Talk in my system.

To run multiple instances, all you need to do is to pass the parameter nomutex to the Google Talk Exe file.

c:\program files\google\google talk\googletalk.exe" /nomutex

If you want, you can create a new shortcut in your desktop with this parameter.

Tags: Apps, Google, Talk

Recently, when I showed you how to automatically backup documents to Google Docs using DocSyncer, I mentioned that it is not possible to backup the documents to your Google Apps account. But today DocSyncer have released an update and now it is possible to backup the documents to your Google Apps account.

You have to go to the Account settings tab and then click disconnect and then connect again. You will be taken to a page where you can select either Google Apps account or standard Gmail account.

This is very useful to me, since I have started to use my Google Apps account instead of the standard Gmail account. Good job DocSyncer!

Tags: backup, DocSyncer, Google Apps, Google Docs

During my days with dreamhost, in order to access MySQL from my local machine, I used to add my ip to the allowed host list. Even though security is compromised here, I really liked to use HeidiSQL for accessing MySQL database server instead of the built in MySQL console. But after my move to SliceHost, I found a little trick using which I can continue to use HeidiSQL from my local machine without adding my ip to the allowed host list.

This nice little trick is called port forwarding. Let me show you how I configured PuTTY so as to enable port forwarding.
First install MySQL and then configure SSH to use key based authentication and change the default port by following the articles at Slicehost. After installing MySQL and configuring SSH, download and install PuTTY from its download page. I recommend you to download the zip file containing all the files.

Then create a new session in PuTTY by entering the ip address and also the port. Then choose Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels. In the source port field enter a valid port number like 8600. In the destination field enter the value 127.0.0.1:3306. 3306 is the default port in which MySQL runs. The reason why I asked you to enter a different port in the source is that, in future if you run a MySQL server in your local machine for testing, it will clash with your port forwarding. Click the Add button and then start the session. Don’t forget to save the session.

Now open your favourite MySQL GUI client. Mine is HeidiSQL. In the connection settings, enter 127.0.0.1 as the Hostname and enter the port which you specified in the source field in PuTTY (8600) as port. Also enter your username, password, default database name and the click connect.

Now the request which goes to port 8600 of your local machine is forwarded to port 3600 of your MySQL server by PuTTY and you can safely use a GUI client for MySQL without adding any ip to the allowed host list. Note that it will work only when PuTTY is having the session opened.

I hope this is of help to you and let me know how it is working for you. Happy PuTTYing

Tags: HeidiSQL, Linux/Unix, MySQL, PuTTY, slicehost, SSH

I was looking for a way to automatically backup my documents in Google Docs from my desktop. After a bit of googling, I found a great service called DocSyncer which worked exactly the same way I wanted it to work. So I thought of sharing the steps which I followed to back up my documents from desktop to Google Docs.

First sign up for the service from its home page.

Then allow DocSyncer access to your Google Docs, by clicking “Grant Access” in the next screen

After this download and install the DocSyncer program from the next screen

By default DocSyncer syncs all documents which are present in your desktop and in your Documents folder. I wanted only a few documents to be synced, so I created a new folder called InSync in my Documents folder and selected only that folder and unchecked all the other folders. If you want to sync all the documents which are present in your Documents folder then you don’t need to edit anything.

That’s it and now all the documents present in the folder that you have selected will be automatically synced. You can download the current version or the previous version of the document from the web interface.

You can also directly download the document from the Google Docs page.

You can also associate document files (.doc, .ppt, .xls etc) with DocSyncer so that they are automatically opened in Google Docs instead of opening them from the local desktop. This can be done by changing the file association from the Account Setting tab of the web interface.

I am using DocSyncer for the past one week and these are my findings based on my experience in the past week.

Pros

• All previous versions of the file are stored.
• You can directly open the file in Google Docs from any computer which has access to internet. You don’t need to have Microsoft Office suite installed.
• Very clean interface and nice desktop Integration.
• Connection through SSL (but you need to enable it in the Account Settings tab)

Cons

• Can easily cluster your Google Docs page if the file is changed very frequently.
• In the current beta version you cannot select any folder apart from the desktop and Documents folder.
• It can upload only to Google Docs and not to Google Apps Docs. Update (2008-Feb-13): DocSyncer has added support for Google Apps account.

Tags: backup, DocSyncer, Google Apps, Google Docs

I am one of the early adapters of Gmail and I simply love it. I could still remember how excited I was when I received an invite from my friend Sumod.

A couple of months back I signed up for Google Apps and have set it up in my domain. It’s really cool to have a personalized email address yourname@yourdomain.com which you can have control over instead of having a generic email address like yourname@gmail.com. If you are still not convinced then read this article from lifehacker.

But then I found it very difficult to maintain two different accounts. For some time I was redirecting the mail that I receive in my Google Apps account to my Gmail account and also setup a custom from address to my Google Apps email address. But it was not looking good in some email clients like outlook, which exposed the customized from address. This made me to search for ways to migrate all my emails from Gmail to Google Apps. I have been using my Gmail account for nearly three and half years and have accumulated nearly 2.5 GB of mail.

Finally I found gXFER which actually worked and now all my old emails are backed up in my Google Apps account. So even if you want to move your emails from one Gmail account to another or to a Google Apps account or vice versa then follow these steps.

First, you need to add the Google gadget which is available in gXFER homepage to your Google personalized home page.

Now click the “Start Migration Online” link which is present in the new gadget which you have added to your Google personalized homepage (iGoogle).

Enter your Gmail account information and Google Apps account information and then click start.

If you get this screen then you are done. The migration is started and all your emails from Gmail will start to appear in your Google Apps account, but it might take very long time depending upon your inbox size. For me it took around 3 days for the complete transfer. The transfer rate is around 100 messages per hour.

The following are some of the points which I noted when my emails were migrated.

• As I said above the transfer rate is very slow, only 100 messages per hour. So it could easily take up days if your inbox size is big.
• All your contacts will be transferred without any problem.
• All the labels and filters that you have created will be transferred. If you have set up a filter to automatically assign a label to a message then it will work. But if you have explicitly assigned a label to a message then it will not be transferred.
• Messages present in the following labels will not be transferred Chats, Spam and trash.
• Your drafts will not be transferred.
• Messages will not be stared automatically, which means all your staring will be lost.
• If any of your attachments is infected with virus then those messages will not be transferred.
• The process appears to be stopped sometimes but actually it is not stopped and works but very slowly.

Once you have set it up, you can enable mail notification in Google Talk and then sit back and watch it as your messages gets transferred to your Google Apps account.

Happy emailing

Tags: emails, Gmail, Google Apps, Migration

In addition to fetching fresh results and following cricket scores, you can also now also get the current time for any city by just searching in Google.

All you have to do is just type time followed by the city name

Eg: time Chennai

You can also search by typing the time zone

Eg: time central

Next time when I have to send a meeting request to my clients (who are in US), I can save a few seconds by doing a Google search rather than changing the timezone in my computer clock to find their current time.

More details in Google friend’s newsletter. Thanks Phil for finding this.

You can also check out my Google Search syntax complete tutorial or the latest additions to Google Search Syntax.

Tags: Google, Search, syntax

Google has added some new search syntax and so here is the update to my Google Search syntax tutorial.

Fetch only Fresh results

First one is to narrow down your search to only the most recent web pages. This is particularly important, since Google has started serving fresh results.

Alex Chitu from the unofficial Google Operating system blog has found that we can use as_qdr query parameter to search only for fresh pages.

In order to use this you have to add a new parameter as_qdr at the end of the url like below
http://www.google.com/search?q=ipod&as_qdr=d

The as_qdr parameter can take the following possible values.

• d[number] - past number of days (e.g.: d5)
• w[number] - past number of weeks (e.g: w5)
• y[number] - past number of years (e.g: y5)

More explanations by Matt Cutts and also at Life hacker.

Cricket

Being born in India, circket is there in my blood and the same for Sadeesh Duraisamy who works in Google. Thanks to him and now we can keep an eye on the latest circket scores by just typing the word cricket in Google’s search box.

Well, it’s time for me to watch the do-or-die match with South Africa for India in the latest twenty20 tournament.

Tags: cricket, Cutts, Google, Matt

I used to get lot of emails from people asking me to help them with Google search syntax, ever since I dissected Google’s Search syntax and I used to reply them back with the correct search syntax.

Recently I received a mail from a person named Jack and I couldn’t come up with the search syntax for his query. So I am listing it here to get the help from the wisdom of crowd and here is the query.

Find all links that have ‘love‘ in the url (allinurl) AND the word ‘sweet‘ in the content of the page.

Can anyone do this?

Tags: allinurl, Google