Testing rigor — test stages and types
I don’t generally do testing and my knowledge in this area is minimal, so here’s a short memo on this topic.
Read More “Testing rigor — test stages and types”True Raspberry Pi’s network speed
My Raspberry Pi 3B+ is reaching nearly exactly 20x (twenty times) slower upload and download speeds than any other PC or device attached via wire to the very same network / router:
As it turned out this is normal and expected due to several reasons.
Read More “True Raspberry Pi’s network speed”Count all lines of an IT project
I needed to find a really fast way of evaluating LOC (Lines of Code) that my project has. For all files types, including .php, .js, .md, .html, .sql etc. etc.
Since I don’t know any web service that can do this and don’t have any designates special software for this, I used ol’ good Notepad++.
Read More “Count all lines of an IT project”Remove one-letter word (orphans) from the end of line
In English an orphan is:
A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text
Thus, in English typography it is understood in the context of the whole paragraph. Single line of a new paragraph, left alone on the preceding page (before page break) is not allowed.
Polish language is more strict by that and “explores” an alternative (less known) definition of “orphan”. In Polish typography this term is understood in the context of single line and regarded as a:
Single word (single letter in most cases) left along at the end of line (next to right paragraph).
And similarly this is prohibited in Polish typesetting.
In this article you can find a Word macro for removing such orphans from your text.
Read More “Remove one-letter word (orphans) from the end of line”From Google Maps to Strava…
…or any other service, software or device that supports .gpx files. In one… two… six… steps! :)
- Plot any track in Google Maps
- If there are alternative routes found by Google, make sure that you’ve picked just one
- Copy entire URL and paste it into Maps to GPX service
- Download resulting .gpx file
- Create a new route in Strava
- Click Upload GPX button and upload downloaded .gpx file
And… you’re done.
Read More “From Google Maps to Strava…”Update Origin when it claims a missing DLL
Because Electronic Arts hires a complete morons as developers of their Origin software, you will often find yourself in a situation where:
- Automatic update of Origin for PC fails asking you to download offline installer
- Running offline installer fails with missing DLLs error
Leaving you with virtually no options for updating Origin client.
“Virtually”, because by a complete accident I found a solution for EA stupidity.
Read More “Update Origin when it claims a missing DLL”Quality assurance in Ultibo
You can read here or here on what Ultibo really is and what it can give you.
Now, let’s get a very quick overview around QA and testing of your software.
Read More “Quality assurance in Ultibo”The “start here” point in Ultibo
Ultibo is the very new / completely different way of programming for Raspberry Pi. You are no longer installing any kind of Linux on your RPi and writing some app or script for it.
Instead:
- You create your own kernel image, in which you can do virtually anything
- For very simple solutions your entire RPi “system” can be as small as 1 MB
- You’re programming everything that you need using Free Pascal in a modified Lazarus IDE
Developing anything from scratch sounds like a extremely huge and overwhelming task. More like inventing the wheel again. Well… not necessary.
Read More “The “start here” point in Ultibo”Enable FTP support in Chrome / Edge (August 2021)
There’s an answer at Super User that explains how to enable FTP protocol support in Chrome. It is dated May 29th and right now (Chrome 92 / Edge 92) it is already out-dated / no longer valid. It took only two months to make enable-ftp flag completely gone from Chrome and Edge browsers:
Right now (August 2021) you still have a chance too access FTP address in Chrome / Edge (details below), but I expect that my answer will become outdated in next couple of months just as in the above mentioned case.
Read More “Enable FTP support in Chrome / Edge (August 2021)”Rename an Amazon Lightsail instance
Amazon Lightsail is a perfect solution for a newbies to cloud computing like me. It offers a very simplified interface and overall approach into creation and management of fully featured VPSes (Virtual Private Servers) without the overhead and hassle of using more complex and more professional solutions like Amazon EC2.
The most important part of its greatness, next to simplicity, is pricing. The smallest possible option (just a virtual server with:
- 512 MB memory and 1 core processor
- 20 GB SSD disk and 1 TB of outbound traffic per month
which is far enough to host a simple-to-middle WordPress site will cost you 3.5 USD per month only. One static IP (with the possibility of using your own domain thus) is added free of charge.
You will be billed more only if your site has enough interest to go beyond that 1 TB outgoing traffic or if you decide that you need more computing power. Other than that — just a plain three and a half buck per month.
However, there’s a little glitch when you create your instance with an incorrect or misleading name, because the process of renaming Amazon Lightsail instance includes a few steps and some downtime on your website.
Read More “Rename an Amazon Lightsail instance”Fix incorrect mp3 duration with mp3val
I’ve found a few files for which:
- Video LAN for Windows was playing them without any problems (after a 1 second glitch),
- Winamp for Windows was playing them also without problems, but showing 00:00 as each file’s duration
- mobile player for Android failed to play them showing Cannot play content error.
A quick look-around the Internet showed that a tiny mp3val program can validate any .mp3 file and fix most errors, it finds.
Read More “Fix incorrect mp3 duration with mp3val”Batch remove silence from many MP3 files
I’ve downloaded over fifty one hour long recordings of my church-related celebrations. As with most of such recordings, every file contains about 5-6 minutes of:
- silence or
- non-related sounds
in the beginning during priest’s processing, people gathering etc. Plus it concludes some silence during various moments of celebrations. I wanted to get rid of it.
I found this eleven years old question at Super User. It’s not only very old, but also off-topic (no software recommendation-like questions allowed at SU) so I decided to put my own update here.
Read More “Batch remove silence from many MP3 files”Print two A5 pages on singe A4 paper sheet
Suppose you have a Microsoft Word document that is formatted to be printed on A5 pages. For any reason (you don’t have A5 page, you want to save paper etc.) you want to print it so that two A5 pages will appear next to each other on single A4 page.
On contrary to common beliefs this is not as easy as selecting 2 Pages Per Sheet because, without additional settings, your printer will be still asking you to feed it with A5 paper.
It’s not that easy, but the solution is still surprisingly simple.
This article is specific to (ISO 216 standard) paper size standard and for printing two A5 pages on one A4 sheet. But the very same steps should theoretically work in every scenario where you want to print two half-sized pages on single page format that is twice as big. Thus, printing (plotting?) two B3 pages on one huge B2 poster should work. Or printing two Letter-sized pages (216 × 279 mm) on one Ledger page (432 × 279 mm).
Read More “Print two A5 pages on singe A4 paper sheet”Reverse dates in filenames using Total Commander’s multi-rename tool
Multi-rename tool in Total Commander is fantastic (when you know how to use it) and it saved my ass (before manually renaming many files) in many scenarios, including some very specific or even weird ones.
This scenario is one of such.
I had dates written directly as a part of filename, i.e.: Document name (DD-MM-YYYY).jpg, but (as shown) starting with day and ending with year. I had to reverse them, but only dates, keeping the rest of file untouched — i.e. Document name (YYYY-MM-DD).jpg.
At first, I thought that this time I will be forced to do this manually. But, I recalled multi-rename tool’s documentation and its small part about backward characters counting (i.e. from end of filename).
Read More “Reverse dates in filenames using Total Commander’s multi-rename tool”A very quick introduction to QEMU
If you’re developing your own applications for Raspberry Pi:
- Either Linux-based or
- Without the limitations of a traditional operating system
There’s a never-ending question on testing your results.
Copying:
- New version of your app into Linux on your RPi and running it or
- New disk image to microSD and booting entire device
Doesn’t seems to be a huge problem.
But, when you have to do this dozens of times each day than an emulator-like questions appears.
Read More “A very quick introduction to QEMU”Make PuTTY a little bit more friendly
A more like memo for myself. In this article:
- Change font and window size
- Change cursor appearance
- Set default login user
- Keep window open
- Set everything above as default profile
And in addition: some cool stuff like auto-load session, restart session, duplicate session etc.
Read More “Make PuTTY a little bit more friendly”Get some base Linux info in QNAP TS-210 using console
QNAPs runs on (sometimes heavily modified) Debian distributions. But, what about kernel version etc.?
There several ways of getting this information from console. Out of them following works on TS-210:
uname -acat /etc/issuecat /proc/version
If you ever need more information on this then… LMGIFY.
In this article I’ll show you the very basic commands that can be used on QNAP TS-210 (modified Debian Linux) to obtain system release, version, hardware info etc.
Read More “Get some base Linux info in QNAP TS-210 using console”Border-less full-screen console app in Ultibo
I made my first project in Ultibo and compiled some example one. Everything was just fine (actually — perfect), if not for that green border with Ultibo name and release version.
Don’t get me wrong. I already love UItibo and will spread the word. But, for security reasons, I’d like to get rid of any info that clearly communicates what was used to build particular piece of software.
Fortunately, with a small research (here and here), it turned out that the solution is very easy.
Read More “Border-less full-screen console app in Ultibo”Error code 6009 when deleting folder from OneDrive
If you’re getting “Error Code 6009” during attempting to delete any folder from OneDrive:
Then look carefully for all open browser windows and tabs. Because this error means that you are trying to delete a folder which contains any file that is already opened in some window or tab.
If you cannot find any tab or windows of such kind then restart browser and try to delete folder again (alternatively, restart the whole computer). As there maybe some background task, not visible to you, that is holding a file lock and preventing you from deleting a parent folder.
3.5 inch GPIO display and RPi
There are a lot of displays for Raspberry Pi. We can list them by image technology:
And by connection method:
There are a lot of arguments and parameters to consider when picking one that is best for you:
- DSI is the most expensive, but leaves both HDMI and GPIO port free
- HDMI is cheaper, but occupies one USB port (powering) and of course HDMI port
- GPIO is the cheapest solution, but occupies GPIO port which is not acceptable in most scenarios
I have decided to buy the last one because it was purely for testing purposes.
Read More “3.5 inch GPIO display and RPi”Doing IT in Switzerland
I have a chat with a HR guy from Switzerland. He gave me some wages for the IT (May 2021; post-COVID!):
- Project Manager: 720 CHF per day (650 EUR per day | 775 USD per day | 60k INR per day | 3 000 PLN per day)
- Technical Writer: 600 CHF per day (550 EUR per day | 650 USD per day | 48k INR per day | 2470 PLN per day)
- DevOps: 300 CHF per day (275 EUR per day | 325 USD per day | 24k INR per day | 1 235 PLN per day)
- Business Analyst or Software Develoeprs: same as Project Manager above
- QA tester or ITQ trainer: same as DevOps above
Most likely gross, but still… Swiss IT is doing good. Really, good…
Get started with Raspberry Pi
In this quite old article I have provided just a typical non-sense introductory blah, blah about playing with Raspberry Pi. People who hasn’t done anything yet to their RPi box where sent there to the original “Get started with Raspberry Pi” article at the RPi’s homepage.
Now, it is time to write my very own “getting started” article. A short list-command memo of what should be considered after you unpack, power up and access via SSH your next RPi box.
Read More “Get started with Raspberry Pi”Login as root user to Raspberry Pi
As in this article, you cannot login as a root user in Raspberry Pi (neither locally nor via SSH), because you don’t know the default’s root password. In this article, I’ll show you how to change it to be able to login to it, but only locally (still no SSH access), which is good.
Again, as in here, you should never, ever access or use root account. Instead you should use pi user (after changing its default password) and elevate it to superuser with sudo su or by casting sudo in front of each console command.
Various wako problems with Alt+Tab and Microsoft products
Ever since Windows exists there was a very handy Alt+Tab combination to quickly switch between open applications. Nowadays, when people are using many screens for single computer it might be less often used, but still is very familiar and handy.
Not for so long time, but still for quite long, Microsoft is doing everything to make that simple, obvious and easy to understand combination work as wrong as possible in their products, so from time to time you may run into a really weird behaviour. For example:
- Pressing Alt+Tab in Excel 2010 or older, when two or more workbooks are open does not work (user focus remains in the same workbook there wanted to switch from)
- Pressing the same combination in Microsoft Edge causes focus to shift through tabs rather than active applications.
Fortunately these inconsistencies and workflow breakers exists only in certain Microsoft products and are easy to fix.
Read More “Various wako problems with Alt+Tab and Microsoft products”MEGA — file sharing and cloud storage far above average
The IT world grows, big data becomes your everyday’s pal. Whether you are a developer or project manager, you need to store more and more data each and every day. Getting a good quality and reliable solution becomes a bit challenge. To help you with that I wanted to tell you a bit about MEGA service.
I found it by a complete coincidence (I am not getting paid for this post!) — a friend has shared a file with me. I dug into details and found it interesting. In my opinion MEGA is far better than most file sharing services and can challenge even well known cloud storage options like Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive.
So, what makes MEGA that unique? In short: command-line tool, NAS support, mobile apps, browser’s extensions and many more.
Read More “MEGA — file sharing and cloud storage far above average”