Use deliveredto: Gmail filter to capture non-typical SPAM

adminGoogle0 Comment
2 min. reading

For past 3-4 months I started experiencing a very weird (?) kind of spam:

  • Always landing in Gmail’s Spam folder
  • That I couldn’t filter out using typical methods

Because:

  • Somehow sender (and sender’s domain) was always white-listed and legit
  • Sender was always different (auto-generated)
  • Recipient was also always different and always not my mailbox(es)

In fact, the only common thing about these messages was that always landed in my Spam box in three copies, ultimately (no matter what the recipient was) delivered to my personal and company mailbox.

The word “delivered to” told me what solution I should consider.

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KeePass’ auto-type feature vs. browser’s password manager

adminother0 Comment
5 min. reading

I personally adore KeePass! But… mainly not for being my private Fort Knox and my single source of all passwords. As I can have the same with every browser’s password manager. What is an absolutely fabulous feature of KeePass, is its powerful auto-type mechanism.

Not only, this is easier and more convenient, but — the most important — it is by far, much, much more safe (see details later into this article)!

Now, the biggest problem is that I also have and I am also using password manager in my browser (similarly beloved Microsoft Edge; screw you Google!). And when I press Ctrl+U to open corresponding URL in a browser, I have login field already prefilled. Usually with an incorrect login, as I have a lot of account saved for every web service in my password manager.

Fortunately, there’s a solution even for this.

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Quick changes in repository name

adminVCS0 Comment
< 1 min. reading

This is just a quick memo to future self on what should be done locally, if I rename some GitHub repo:

git pull
git push
git prune
git remote prune origin
git status

Or even faster:

git pull && git push && git prune && git remote prune origin && git status

I am changing a lot of my repos’ names to figure out some static scheme. This is a “toolset” for that process.

How to check GitHub user’s registration date…

adminVCS0 Comment
2 min. reading

…and other basic account information for any GitHub user?

There are at least two ways of getting this information:

  • the “clickable” way and
  • public API call

The documentation for API call tells about required token, when calling it from cURL or JavaScript.

But my tests has proven that simply pasting this URL to browsers’ address bar doesn’t require any token and works even if you are not logged in to any GitHub account.

Read More “How to check GitHub user’s registration date…”

PayPal exchange rates

adminother0 Comment
3 min. reading

It is very surprising that it is so hard to find actual PayPal exchange rates.

If you search the net for this query, you’ll find a bunch of useless results. With the one pointing you directly to PayPal page titled “Where can I find PayPal’s currency calculator and exchange rates?“. It tells you to go to Wallet and click Currency Calculator. This is completely pointless page, not updated for many years (shame, PayPal!). Currency calculator is gone and no longer available in the Wallet for years.

Finally, I have found a webpage that can do the actual currency conversion using PayPal exchange rates!

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Use SonarQube to debug PHP code

adminother0 Comment
4 min. reading

Installing and using SonarQube Community Edition to debug your PHP code its fairly easy. But in involves a number of steps, spread among few docs, so I decided to write myself this little memo to compile one single step-by-step flow for this.

I assume that I’ll be using SonarQube to check quality of my PHP project (though SonarQube supports dozens of languages). This project is stored locally and directly accessible (this article does not cover dealing with repositories or embedding SonarQube into your release pipelines).

I am using XAMPP to host my PHP projects locally, but that part doesn’t play any significant role here.

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Show errors in PhpStorm with one click

adminother0 Comment
2 min. reading

I am more a tech writer than a programmer. In every app or service that I use (except PhpStorm) I am get used to the fact that I have to click only one time in order to see some error or problem proposed solutions. This works like that in Word and in dozens of other places.

Being get used to this for past 10+ years, it drives me crazy that in PhpStorm this operations always requires two clicks be default. I.e. you have:

  • Right-click underlined word to open context menu
  • Click Show Context Actions item in that menu

There is no way to change it AFAIK, but I found a nice way to make using of this feature a bit easier.

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Help! My computer goes to sleep 1 minute after I lock it!

adminother0 Comment
4 min. reading

Imagine yourself situation, in which you strictly told Windows 11 that you don’t want it to go to sleep under no circumstances, no matter what happens, as long as it is wall-connected and not battery-powered:

And suddenly you realize that 60 seconds after you lock your Windows with Win+L, it goes to sleep anyway.

What now, Bill? Stand back…

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Normal.dot Word 365 template with macros and settings

adminother2 Comments
7 min. reading

In Word version prior Word 365 all you needed to do in order to customize Normal.dot template (i.e. change macros, styles, keyboard shortcuts) was:

  • Start Word with an empty doc or double click Normal.dotm in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Templates
  • Change anything you want
  • Hit F12 and save new template under New.dotm
  • Exit Word, delete Normal.dotm and rename New.dotm → Normal.dotm

This thing is one of many simple and obvious things that Microsoft made really difficult in Word 365.

If you have such file (personal template) that you have been using for years (like I do) and if you try to open it in Word 365 to add some new modification and then you save it then you will find that everything you changed (now and earlier) will be lost. For some stupid reason known only to Microsoft freaks.

Here is how to have modified Normal.dotm with all your settings in Word 365.

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Your eyes are tired? Night Eye to the rescue!

adminother0 Comment
5 min. reading

Windows 11 finally introduces nearly full, system-wide support for black / dark user interface. It’s Microsoft, so you can’t except 100% success (Properties-like, delete confirmation and other system dialogs are still terribly and painfully white), but still.

Then the question comes: what about websites? Everything is so (peacefully to your eyes) dark… until you open your web browser and navigate to a first website.

The answer is: Night Eye browser extension.

They offer you a three months long free test period, but believe me or not, you only need just a few days (or sometimes even a couple of hours) to fall in love so deeply that you simply can’t imagine life without it!

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Extension incorrectly registered in Windows 11 and how to fix this [updated]

adminMicrosoft4 Comments
8 min. reading

This document is now updated for Windows 11, version 22H2 installed on 28.09.2022.

I have installed IrfanView (for browsing images) and VLC VideoLAN (for watching video) — my “default pack” on freshly installed Windows 11 Pro. It turned out that many common file extensions (like .gif, .png, .jpg, .mp4, .mkv and .avi) are not registered with the corresponding applications. While all others (like .bmp, .mp3, .wav, etc.) are registered correctly.

Microsoft has messed things up even further with Windows 11 so the regular methods of manually registering these file extensions (that were working just perfectly in Windows 10) are not working anymore.

If you’re struggling with this or similar problem then you may find certain solutions in this blog post.

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Additional keyboard layout available in Windows

adminother0 Comment
< 1 min. reading

If, after installing Windows 10 or 11 and some languages, when you press Win+Space you see some additional keyboard language (the one that does not belongs to any installed language):

Then the solution is as simple as:

  1. Install that language (English (United Kingdom) in the above example)
  2. Go to language details and install the keyboard layout (Polish (Programmers) in here)
  3. Uninstall the whole just added language language pack

After that pressing Win+Space should reveal only languages and keyboard layouts that you have actually installed in your system.

Source: How to get rid of US language in Windows 11.

Remove garbage from Windows 11

adminMicrosoft0 Comment
5 min. reading

Four years later (after this article) I am removing “uninstallable” garbage from Windows 11 this time. The “uninstallable” is a new word that denotes applications, programs and system elements that you cannot uninstall the regular way (i.e. using Add or Remove Programs component in Settings). But you can with a little bit help from Windows PowerShell and this article.

To not make this post too long, consider it as an update to the original text with only list of applications that can be uninstalled the mentioned way from Windows 11. If you have any additional questions or problems (i.e. how to bring back something incorrectly uninstalled) then, please, refer to the original post.

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Export PuTTY settings or sessions out of Windows Registry

adminother0 Comment
< 1 min. reading

PuTTY stores all sessions in Windows Registry, not in a file, so if you want to export these and import on some other computer or account then follow these steps (source):

  1. Press Win+R to run Registry Editor in Windows
  2. Type or paste the following (and hit Enter to confirm):
regedit /E "C:\Trash\PuTTY Settings.reg" HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham

Adjust path after /E switch to match your expectations.

Execute the following (instead of above):

regedit /E "C:\Trash\PuTTY Sessions.reg" HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions

if you wish to export just sessions, not the entire configuration of PuTTY.

Double click exported .reg file in order to import sessions or settings on a new computer.

Source: How to Export and Import Putty Settings (by TechEarl -May 27, 2018)

Adding new application to Yii 2 Advanced Project Template

adminPHP, Yii0 Comment
4 min. reading

After writing the previous article I have realized that I solved the problem quite wrong. I added the example RESTful app controller to the frontend application in the multi-application Yii 2 Advanced Project Template environment.

I have also realized that the corresponding Yii 2 Guide is very, very poor and limited. It only tells you that you can have many applications (like backend, fronted and console) in the multi-application Yii 2 Advanced Project Template environment. But it leaves you completely guessing on how to actually add new application.

This quick article is my memo to remember steps that must be undertaken in order to achieve this.

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The quickest way to add RestAPI to your Yii 2 app. Part 2

adminother0 Comment
3 min. reading

As explained in the previous article, the example given in Yii 2 Guide about turning regular MVC apps into RESTful one is of a low quality, as it mixes certain things (refer to the previous article for details).

This article deals with this problem and show how to enable REST in Yii 2 Advanced Project Template by adding REST UserController directly to frontend application in that template and thus allowing to server User model through RESTful approach.

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Reducing PowerPoint presentation’s file size using brute-force method

adminother0 Comment
6 min. reading

Since Microsoft is Microsoft and the software produced by this company may surprise you in many ways, it may happen that the ideas given in the previous article turn out to be not enough. And file size of your PowerPoint presentation will still be too big.

In this case a more brutal method is needed.

Since every Microsoft Office document is in fact a .zip archive, we will try to reduce file size by direct modification or manipulation of the content of this file.

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The quickest way to add RestAPI to your Yii 2 app. Part 1

adminPHP, Yii0 Comment
3 min. reading

The example given in Yii 2 Guide is of a low quality, because it It requires User model based on database, not a file. And the guide mixes two things together:

  • Yii 2 Basic Template, which is used in this example, has User model, but based on itself (on a file — list of users is given as an array)
  • Yii 2 Advanced Template has User model based on database, but it uses a multi-application concept in the same time and adding REST support, like shown in this example, isn’t possible.

As an effect, people who just starts their journey with Yii 2 and REST are often confused and finds official example not working in their side.

This article deals with this problem and show how to enable REST in Yii 2 Basic Project Template by using some model (database-based) other than User model.

Read More “The quickest way to add RestAPI to your Yii 2 app. Part 1”

Convert IMG ↔ ISO and other disk image types

adminsoftware0 Comment
5 min. reading

To not make our lives too easy, Microsoft decided to distribute offline installers for Windows 11 in well known .iso format while shipping Office 365 offline installation images as .img.

I don’t like the other format and I don’t have any software to work with it, so I needed to find a way for converting .img disk image format into .iso image.

Various methods and issues around this are discussed in this article.

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Reduce PowerPoint presentation’s file size in easy steps

adminMicrosoft0 Comment
5 min. reading

In these days we want to have our PowerPoint presentations “rich and beautiful”. Cool fonts, soft backgrounds and a serie of animations or transitions that pisses-off everyone except presentation’s author are just not enough. We want to have many beautiful images do depict our presentations. Maybe we even want every slide to have different fully photographic background etc.

This is especially true given the fact that there are many services like pixabay.com which offers you hundreds of thousands of beautiful photos completely royalty-free.

However, there’s a well known problem with PowerPoint. If you add any filter or modification to the image placed on some slide, it will be internally saved as PNG format irrespective of the actual format that source image has!

For example, I had a tiny, 9-slides presentation, where each slide had a different full-page photo as a background. Because images were too bright (overlying slide’s text was hard to read), I applied a -40% brightness filter to each image. All my nine source images were saved as JPEGs and took only 1.50 MB on disk. But PowerPoint presentation using them had… 18,1 MB! Over ten times more. And I had to implement a serie of steps to prevent that.

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