cmikavac.net » tips & tricks

How to add a YouTube channel feed to Google Reader?

pootzko — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:01:06 +0000

Before they rehauled Google Reader for G+ you could import a YouTube channel feeds into your Google Reader just by copying and pasting channels link into Google Reader, no problem. A link that looks like this used to work:

http://www.youtube.com/user/CHANNEL_NAME

But, now it doesn’t work any more (I wonder why they broke it and why isn’t it fixed?).. Fortunately I was left with some of the older YT feeds that still worked so I looked at how their links look now. What you can now do to import channels into Google Reader is to use this link form:

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/CHANNEL_NAME/uploads?alt=rss&v=2&orderby=published&

Make sure to replace CHANNEL_NAME with your desired channel name and there you have it.

Making sound files for REminiscence (Flashback) work

pootzko — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:24:48 +0000

As REminiscence README indicates (“To hear background music during polygonal cutscenes with the PC version, you’ll need to copy the .mod files of the Amiga version”), you will have to copy Flashback sound files into the DATA directory within your REminiscence directory. They can be obtained here. After you have downloaded and extracted the files, you will rename them as follows:

ascenseur -----> mod.flashback-ascenseur
ceinture ------> mod.flashback-ceinturea
chute ---------> mod.flashback-chute
debut ---------> mod.flashback-jungle
desinteg ------> mod.flashback-desintegr
donneobj ------> mod.flashback-donneobjt
fin -----------> mod.flashback-fin
game_over -----> mod.flashback-game_over
holocube ------> mod.flashback-holocube
intro ---------> mod.flashback-introb
journal -------> mod.flashback-options1
level4 --------> mod.flashback-teleporta
logo ----------> mod.flashback-logo
memoire -------> mod.flashback-memoire
missions ------> mod.flashback-missionca
missions2 -----> mod.flashback-fin2
options -------> mod.flashback-options2
planetexplo ---> mod.flashback-teleport2
reunion -------> mod.flashback-reunion
taxi ----------> mod.flashback-taxi
voyage --------> mod.flashback-voyage

If you did everything properly, you should hear this beautiful music after you launch REminiscence (and all the other music clips throughout the game of course).. Voila!

Removing multiple elements from a list in Python

pootzko — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:42:44 +0000

Let’s say you need to filter a Python list and remove all elements that match a given criteria. If you wanted to remove a single element, you could just use ‘del list[i]‘ (example). But if you wanted to remove multiple elements this might be a problem since you would be modifying and iterating over the list at the same time (keeping track of list indexes can become very confusing, very fast).

A simple solution to this problem would be to keep record of all list elements (indexes) that need to be removed, and to remove tham afterwards. Also, one other thing to be wary about is that the removal process should be done in reverse because otherwise you would shift all the elements to the ‘left’ every time you removed an element from a list and you would (again) have to keep track of list indexes.

A simple function example:

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matchingFilter = ['criteria1', 'criteria2']

def criteriaFiltering(aList, matchingFilter):
deletionIndexes = []
i = 0

for listLine in aList:
for match in matchingFilter:
if match in str(listLine):
continue
else:
deletionIndexes.append(i)
break
i += 1

for number in reversed(deletionIndexes):
del listLines[number]

return aList

This might not be the fastest ‘algorithm’ to do the job, but it works well enough for me..

How to remove ‘lastsaid’ history and chat logs from Pidgin

pootzko — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:56:20 +0000

Turning on History plugin in Pidgin will insert the last conversation into your current conversation. All this lastsaid entries can be found somewhere inside of blist.xml file which is located in your Pidgin conf directory (/home/username/.purple directory in GNU/Linux (not sure about where it is in MS Windows though)).

This is convinient if you want to view what was written before you accidentialy closed the chat window or if you forgot what were you last talking about with someone and if you want that information quickly. But, it is not convinient at all if you want to wipe it along with chat logs since lastsaid entries are at a different location and are not the only entries that can be found in blist.xml so you can’t just remove that file either. If you use a couple of protocols and have more than just a few buddies, removing lastsaid lines from blist.xml manually would probably prove to be pain in the ass.

So, what every curious programmer does in case he doesn’t have a feature he wants/needs? – He just makes it. :D Since I started playing with Python, I decided to create a small py3k script I could use every once in a while to completely wipe both lastsaid history and chat logs from Pidgin.

What you need to do to make this script work is – you need to put it into your Pidgin conf directory (just put it into a file called something.py) and after that just run the script (you need to have python installed on your machine to run this script).

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#! /usr/bin/env python3
import xml.etree.ElementTree as etree
import shutil
import os

# deletes 'lastsaid' blist.xml entries
if os.path.exists("blist.xml"):
tree = etree.parse("blist.xml")

buddies = tree.findall(".//buddy")
for buddy in buddies:
nodes = buddy.findall("setting")
for node in nodes:
if node.attrib == {"type": "string","name": "lastsaid"}:
buddy.remove(node)

tree.write("blist.xml")

# deletes chat log files if they exist
if os.path.exists("logs"):
shutil.rmtree("logs")

I hope this helps. Also, if you have any questions/problems with the script, feel free to drop a comment..

SVN over SSH in kdesvn

pootzko — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 21:55:15 +0000

This one might just spare you about 2-3 hours of your time doing SVN+SSH kdesvn googling. One would think it would work out-of-the-box, but it doesn’t. To get kdesvn to work with SSH, there is one small undocumented trick – using an environment variable (as if you were using command line SVN+SSH). To do that, put the following line into your .bashrc:

1	export SVN_SSH="ssh -l "

If you try using SVN+SSH without it, kdesvn will try to login to remote server using your current username (the one you are using on your local machine). Of course, each time unsuccessfully because it’s not the right username. After that, go to Subversion->General->Checkout a repository, and enter:

1	svn+ssh://path_to_your_svn_repository

…in the URL field. Also, choose the target directory and check any other desired options. After that, just bookmark the connection and you’re all set up.

GEdit FTP browsing / editing under KDE (using GNOME bookmarks without Nautilus)

pootzko — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:38:24 +0000

Problem with using GEdit (v2.30.4 in the moment of writing this post) for FTP browsing/editing under KDE (if you don’t have Nautilus installed in your KDE) is that since it is a GNOME app – you need a way to somehow manage your connections which is usualy done through Nautilus by using GNOME bookmarks (the ones you would create by going to Places -> Connect to Server) and at the moment there is no way to create this bookmarks from within GEdit.

Anyway, you can do the same thing by editing .gtk-bookmarks file located in your home folder even if you don’t have Nautilus installed. Here’s a few examples of what you can put inside:

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ftp://username@domain/ bookmark_name
ftp://username@domain/:3322 bookmark_name
ftp://username%40domain@domain/ bookmark_name
ftp://username@domain/folder_path_option/ bookmark_name
sftp://username@domain/ bookmark_name

The first one is just a regular FTP login bookmark. The second one uses a different port than the default one. The third one is for usernames containing @ (like in the image below) which you have to replace with %40 to differentiate them from @ for domain association. The fourth one uses the folder_path_option like in picture below and the fifth one is for using sFTP. Of course, you can combine all this together depending on your needs…

Browsing/editing directly from GEdit is much faster than using Filezilla which prompts for uploading every time after you edit and save the file which is kinda annoying, or for example using Krusader which works well with FTP, but if you use sFTP – then it edits files localy instead of online so you have to save them as a new file and upload them again… You get the drift.

WordPress – Kako u WordPressu blokirati IE6?

pootzko — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 08:37:32 +0000

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 već dugo vremena zadaje glavobolje web developerima – traži posebne setove pravila kako bi se elementi u njemu pravilno prikazali, ne podržava brojne moderne tehnologije web izrade, nedostaju mu brojna sigurnosna svojstva koja se u današnjem svijetu smatraju standardom…

Srećom, postoje načini da se korisnike ovog zastarjelog browsera probudi iz zimskog sna i ukaže im se na to da postoji i nešto novije, ugodnije, bolje. Naravno, netko će se javiti i reći da se u korporativnim okruženjima još uvijek može naći IE6. Osobno kažem – pa šta, vrijeme je da se to promjeni, koliko je još potrebno čekati? Naravno, stvar je izbora, ali ne mislite li da bi tehnologiju umjesto pasivnog čekanja trebalo gurati naprijed, odbacujući ono što ne valja? Živio Darwinizam!

Nedavno sam gledao kakva rješenja za problem zvan IE6 nude WordPress plugin-ovi, a zahtjevi koje sam imao bili su zapravo vrlo jednostavni. Nisam želio JavaScript koji će se polutransparentno učitati preko postojeće stranice omogućujući da se ispod njega nazire što se na stranici nalazi i da ga se može lako zaobići. Želio sam redirect na posebnu podstranicu koja će korisnika upozoriti na to da koristi zastarjeli softver. Također, želio sam da ta podstranica korisniku izbaci ikone sa prijedlozima za download nekolicine najnovijih i najpopularnijih browsera.

Nakon par isprobanih pluginova, zaključio sam kako Stop IE6 zadovoljava moje zahtjeve te kako uz to ima i zgodan dizajn. Osim toga, još mi je jedna sitnica upala u oko – Stop IE6 je stvorio domaći developer Alen Cvitković kojemu se (ukoliko ovo čita (ili ne)) ujedno želim i zahvaliti na pisanju dotičnog plugina.

Pridružite se i vi i gurnite web i uspavane korisnike korak naprijed za ‘opće dobro’. ;)

Ovaj post je bio napisan za WordPress Školu koja je ugašena.

WordPress – Uvjetna CAPTCHA

pootzko — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 08:33:05 +0000

Prvi korak u obrani od spama kod wordpressa svakako je instalacija Akismeta, no što kada Akismet zakaže i valjane komentare označi kao spam? Ručno provjeravati stotine spam komentara u potrazi za nekoliko ispravnih? Pa i ne baš… samim time gubi se smisao spam filtera, hm? Upoznajte - Conditional CAPTCHA plugin.

Conditional CAPTCHA može se koristiti kao komplement Akismetu koji će ukoliko Akismet određeni komentar označi kao spam izbaciti CAPTCHA-u te na taj način izvršiti dodatnu provjeru radi li se stvarnoj osobi ili spamu. Ukoliko ‘komentator’ ne prođe CAPTCHA provjeru, komentar se automatski odbacuje ili šalje u trash spremnik. U slučaju uspješnog prolaska provjere komentar se ili automatski odobrava ili odlazi u spam spremnik gdje čeka da ga provjerite. Naravno, obični korisnici neće niti primjetiti da postoji CAPTCHA ukoliko ne ostave previše sumnjiv komentar, jer ih u slučaju normalnog sadržaja Akismet neće niti označiti kao spam te se samim time neće aktivirati niti CAPTCHA provjera. Prednost ovog pristupa nad isključivim korištenjem Akismeta je u tome da u spam spremniku više nećete imati stotine komentara kroz koje treba proći i provjeriti ih za ‘false positives’ već eventualno tek nekoliko komada. Uz to, Conditional CAPTCHA plugin dozvoljava korištenje obične CAPTCHA-e ili reCAPTCHA-e koju je moguće dodatno stilizirati putem CSS-a.

Sretno komentiranje i pazite što pišete… ;)

Ovaj post je bio napisan za WordPress Školu koja je ugašena.

Sony Playstation gamepad as remote controller on Linux?

pootzko — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:26:22 +0000

You have an old PS gamepad somewhere in your closet collecting dust and you would like to use it as a remote controller on your Linux box? Is it possible? Yes. The first thing you’ll ned is one of these PS-to-USB adapters:

They’re quite cheap, and you can probably find one in your local electronics supply store for the price of about 5-8€. You could also get one for a very small price on eBay… After acquiring one, the question is – which application to use with PS gamepad? I found QJoyPad to work pretty well – it’s easy to configure and it will automaticaly recognize your gamepad, so that’s one less thing for you to worry about. Just get it from your distros repositories (or if you’re out of luck – get the source code and compile it by yourself).

I configured it for some basic desktop maneuvering. For example so that I could command VLC from my bed not having to get up each time to turn the volume up or down, or if I want to rewind a part of a video, put some music on, read email… This is how I configured the buttons, perhaps it will help:

Holding “shift” or “ctrl” buttons + “left” or “right” keyes is for rewinding videos, L2 and R2 buttons are for volume… You can even set zooming in your Compiz to work with ctrl+alt+left/right – so you could zoom in read all this tiny letters from a distance (for example if you want to choose a song in your favorite audio player or whatever). You also get “space” for pausing multimedia…

I also wanted to use analog stick instead of a mouse, but it was just too fast and too responsive in the beginning. But, what you can do is you can also set its sensitivity and treshold up to suit your needs. You’ll need some time to get used to clicking around with analog but it gets easier after aiming at everyones forheads during a few movies. :D

YouTube Repeat Bookmarklet

pootzko — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 23:21:26 +0000

Need a YouTube repeat button?

Well, YouTube still doesn’t provide us with one… but you can use this simple javascript bookmarklet I made which will redirect you from any YouTube video to YouTube repeat service in a very quick and simple way – no more manual ‘repeat’ URL insertions… Just drag this link onto your bookmark toolbar and click on it whenever you’re viewing a video you want to put on repeat. Rejoice!

drag >> ♺ << this