How to view hidden files such as .bash_profile in WinScp (Linux)

If you are using a graphical file system browser such a WinScp,  you may need to switch it to display hidden files by pressing the key combination (Ctrl+H).

How to check CPU info on a Linux machine

Hi,

You can use the below command to see the CPU info for a linux machine:-

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo

How To Check RAM Size for Redhat Linux Desktop System

Hi,

You can use the below command to check the RAM Size:

$ cat /proc/meminfo

Linux command to check disk space

Hi,

You can use below command to check disk space on a linux server:-

# df -h

Here, the -h option is to see output in human readable format. You will see the device size in terabytes or gigabytes or megabytes!

Additionally, you can use the below command:

# du

to see the amount of disk space used by the specified files and for each sub-directory.

How to Check if Your Linux System is 32-bit or 64-bit

Hi,

You can check whether your linux system is 32-bit or 64-bit by running the below command:-

# uname -m

An output such as below,
x86_64
means that your linux system is 64 bit!

Alternatively, an output such as below,
x86
means that your linux system is 32 bit!

How to switch between users on one Linux terminal

Hi,


Below are two common ways to switch between users on one linux terminal:

1. Using su command:-

$ whoami
UserName1
$ su - UserName2
Password:
$ whoami
UserName2

To logout:
$ exit
logout

If you want to login as root, you obviously  can do it by the above method. All you have to do is not to specify any username.

$ whoami
UserName1
$ su
Password:
$ whoami
root

2. Using sudo command (provided it is installed)

How to find which version of Oracle is installed on a Linux server

Hi,

There are several ways to find which version of Oracle is installed on a Linux server.
And, one of the easiest method is as follows:-

1. Connect to the Oracle DB via Oracle SQL developer

2. Open SQL Worksheet against any of the schema

3. Type the below query:

select * from v$version where banner like 'Oracle %';

The response will be something like below:-

4. From the above result, you can see that the DB version is 11.2.0.4.0

5. Done!!

How to find the Machine Name/IP Address of the machine on which the mounted drive location is actually present

The mount program records mount point information in /etc/mtab.

In this mtab file, towards the end of the file you can see the actual machine names and the mount points.

The first entry in these lines is the machine name followed by the mount points!

Short blog :)

How to remove payment methods from google play store

Hi,

Lets dive right into it :)

1. Launch Play Store on your android phone

2. Click on the menu option (3 horizontal bars icon) from the top left as shown below:-

3. Come down till you see Account option and click on it:-

4.Click on the first option "Payment methods":-

5.Now scroll down till you see the option"More payment settings" and click on it:-

6. You will get the option "Open with chrome" as below:-

7. Click on the Chrome button and you will be navigated to a google payments centre as below:-

8. Here, you can click REMOVE against the card which you want to remove. If you want you can also edit the credit card details as well. You can remove all the cards from here as well or add new payment methods..

9. Done!!

Kill Processes using Command Prompt in Windows 7 (might work for higher versions as well)

Hi All,

In this blog am going to share the method by which you can kill processes using Command Prompt in Windows 7. So, lets get started:-

For this we will use the Tasklist and the Taskkill command as follows:

1. Open the command prompt in the administrative privileges mode.

2. Now, type the command: Tasklist and press Enter.

3. It will list down all the running processes.

4. Move down the list till you find the process that you want to kill and make note of its PID (process id).

5. Now, run the command: Taskkill /PID <enter the above PID> /F where /F is used to kill the process forcefully.

6. You can also kill the process by its name.

7. Say, you want to kill Chrome.Use this command:Taskkill /IM chrome.exe /F

8. In fact, you can kill multiple processes at the same time, by running a command like below:
Taskkill /PID <PID1> <PID2> <PID3> /F

Please make sure to include single space between each element of the above commands..

Done!

Steps to prevent TWRP or any Custom Recovery from being overwritten by Stock Recovery

Hi,

Greetings!!

In this blog i would like to share the handy tip that can save your TWRP Recovery or any other Custom Recovery from being overwritten by the Stock Recovery at Android System Reboot.

FYI,

Below are the generic steps for installing a Custom Recovery via Fastboot method:-

1. Set up the ADB & Fastboot on your computer -- let me know if any query regarding this

2. Download the Custom Recovery Image compatible to your device and store it in
    Fastboot folder

3. Enable USB Debugging on your device from the Developer Options.

4. Open the folder where you saved your TWRP recovery and do a Shift + Right Click and select
    "Open Command Window here" option.

5. Set your device in Fastboot mode and then connect your device to PC via USB cable
     (Switch off the device & press Power + Vol Down button for some time till you  see the Fastboot logo on screen -- 
     key combination might differ, might be Vol Up button in your case, please check)

6. Type the below command to check that your device is recognized:-
    fastboot devices

7. Once confirmed, type the below command to install the Recovery:-
    fastboot flash recovery recovery.img 
     (here, provide exact name of the recovery that you downloaded)

8. [CRUCIAL STEP]Type the below command to boot into TWRP.
    Once it is booted, it will patch the stock ROM to prevent the Stock recovery from
    replacing TWRP:-
    fastboot boot recovery.img (here again , provide exact name of the recovery that you downloaded)

9. Done!!


Do let me know in case you have any query :)

Enable Hindi or other language Keyboard on Windows 7

Hi,

Greetings!!

In this blog i share the steps that will help you enable Hindi Keyboard in Windows 7. With slight modifications here and there, this method might work on other Windows as well. So, lets get started:-

A. Enabling the Hindi Keyboard:-

1. Launch Region and Languages option from the Control Panel, as shown:-

2. Click on the Keyboards and Languages tab in the popup widow, click on "Change keyboards..." button:-

 3. Click on the Add button:-

 4. Scroll through the list of languages till you come down to Hindi (India) and select it:-

5. Expand the Hindi (India) -> Keyboard option and select "Devanagari - INSCRIPT" while keeping the other options unchecked. Then click OK:-

6. Then you will see the window like below. Click on Apply:-

B. Using the Hindi Keyboard:-

1. Press the key combination Alt + Shift to activate the Mangal font (Hindi) as shown below:-

2. Press the keys referring the Hindi Keyboard Layout below to start typing in Hindi. Sample below:-

Hindi Keyboard Layout

Some notes:-

1. You can go back to English keyboard by typing the ALT+SHIFT key combination again.
2. If you want to type the 'matras', press the associated key.
3. And if you want to apply the 'matras', press the associated key along with the SHIFT button.
4. It will take some time getting used to, but with time the experience becomes smooth!

Happy typing!!!

How to replace Kingoroot with supersu

Greetings!!!

I am very much into rooting, installing custom recovery and then loading custom ROMs on to my mobile phones. There are several ways in which an android device can be rooted.

Two major techniques are either using computer or rooting from the mobile itself. This second method involves using an app. There are several apps that can be used to root an android mobile. However, below are some of the most famous ones:-

Framaroot
Kingoroot
Towelroot

There might be a situation when you rooted your device by means of any of the apps above and now you want to move to supersu. For this, follow the below steps:-

1. Root your device with Kingoroot (latest version)
2. Install an older version of supersu
3. Then from this older version of supersu, remove the root permissions associated with Kingoroot
4. Uninstall the Kingoroot
5. Upgrade the supersu to latest version, either via playstore or by using Flashify (you will have to download the latest supersu supported by your device)


Enjoy!! You have successfully replaced the Kingoroot with supersu!!

Delete all the files and folders inside a folder in DOS

Greetings!!

Recently i faced a scenario where i was unable to delete the log files because of some error related to path being too large.

After some thought, decided to use the DOS to achieve the same. Tried several commands such as del, deltree, rm, rmdir etc.

The command that I found to be the most effective was as below:

cd c:\Performance\logs [Command to navigate to the logs folder]

rd . /q /s                           [Command to delete all the files in this logs folder]

Please make note of the “.” in this command. 

Note: Because you are in c:\Performance\logs, it will fail to remove that folder but everything else will be deleted.

Cheers!!

A Journey that was not!!! - Mumbai

Mumbai is a place where common people face uncommon things and still manage to survive. It is also a place where people come to fulfil their dreams. I also have a special attachment with this place. You see, my wife is from mumbai while I am located in pune.

Every once in a while, we come here to spend some time with her parents (who are now my parents as well ;)). At the time of writing this blog, am on one of those visits.

We came here last week and spent good time with family. We made visits to temples, watched movies, visited places. In all, had a really good time.

Yesterday was our return journey to Pune.We started from kanjurmarg at around 2:15 pm and our plan was to reach thane before 3 to be able to catch the Singhad Express.We were completely clueless of what was in store for us and many others like us.

We reached kanjurmarg station in few minutes. While on the platform we heard the announcement that the kurla and sion station railway lines were submerged in several feets of water.And hence the local trains were cancelled for indefinite time.

We then tried ola, uber but were disapponited with extra high rates. The ubiquitous auto came to our resque. We took an auto to thane and were charged 200 bucks. Still a better deal compared to the exhorbitant rates offered by the cabs.

By the time we reached thane, it had started to rain very heavily. And the downpour continued for over 3 hours from the time we reached the station. In this time, we checked the status of our train and got to know that it has not even started from its origin i.e. CST.

After waiting for over an hour, we decided that it would be better to head back to kanjurmarg as there was no update on our train. And the locals were also cancelled. We then started checking with auto drivers to take us back home.

Our problem was compounded by the fact that we were not carrying any umbrella and that our son was growing restless with each passing second. Checking with autos did not yield any positive response as no one was ready to take the risk due to uncertain situation.

Finally, god showed some mercy. While waiting on the platform, we had befriended a lady. She informed us that she was waiting for her husband who was coming to pick her. And offered to drop us till kanjurmarg skywalk. We couldn't have asked for more.

By the time her husband arrived, we had enquired with several auto and taxi drivers. And tried hiring cab as well. But to no avail. Then we boarded the zylo brought by the lady's husband. They also allowed two other people to board their car.

It was on this journey back to kanjurmarg that we saw how bad the situation really was. Multiple times , we had to pass through several feets of muddy water. We saw many vehicles faltering and eventually coming to a halt right in the pool of water. And had to be moved manually to cross the pool.

Fortunately, we were in zylo which has a very sturdy build. And hence were able to cross these pools without any risk. All the while, one of the other passenger kept sharing his experiences of the entire day and that how his house was flooded with water and that his mother was alone at home and hence needed to reach home quickly.

After dropping these two people on the way, the zylo finally reached the kanjurmarg skywalk. We got down there while the good Samaritans went on their way towards vikhroli. In this hustle bustle, we forgot to ask their name as well. However, they will forever remain in our memory as true angels, who converted our terrible day into a memorable one with their kindness.

May God bless them!!

Adding Compare Plugin in Notepad++ 64-bit

Greetings!!

As you might be aware, Plugin-Manager is presently  not available in Notepad++ 64-bit version. As the name suggests, it allows to manage the plug-ins in Notepad++ such as Compare, Converter, MIME Tools etc. 

Good thing is that the absence of Plugin-Manager does not prevent us from adding plug-ins manually.

Recently, i felt the need and hence added the Compare plug-in manually in Notepad++ 64-bit

Below is what i did:

1. I downloaded the Compare plug-in from this location:

• https://github.com/pnedev/compare-plugin/releases/tag/v2.0.0

2. Name of this plug-in is ComparePlugin_v2.0.0_X64.zip

3. Unzipped the contents of this folder and found the below files inside:

• Folder called ComparePlugin
• And a file called ComparePlugin.dll

4. Copied these two inside the plugin folder of Notepad++ located here:

• C:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins

5. The plugins folder looked something like this:

6. Restart the Notepad++

7. Compare plug-in should now be available, as seen below:

8. Cheers!!

Unable to find a java virtual machine in Oracle SQL Developer

Greetings!!

I do believe that some of you must have encountered the below error in your IT career:

You did a fresh installation of Oracle SQL Developer on your Windows machine, say, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2012 etc. Or it might be the case that its already installed on the machine and this is the first time that you have started it. It will pop-up the below dialogue box:

You might end up pointing it to the wrong java.exe path, something like:

• C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_121\bin\java.exe

Now what happens is that it will write this entry in the sqldeveloper.conf available at path like this:

• C:\app\elib\product\11.2.0\client_1\sqldeveloper\sqldeveloper\bin

It will look like this:

As you can, this is the same wrong path that you entered the first time. And because of this, every time you try to launch the Sql Developer, it will give the message like below:

Right?? :)

Be rest assured, there are two ways to resolve this:

Option 1. Delete this entry from the .conf file mentioned above. This will then cause the prompt to appear again. You can then give the correct path. It should be something like this (might be slightly different on your machine depending on your oracle version etc.): 

• C:\app\elib\product\11.2.0\client_1\jdk\bin\java.exe

The Sql Developer will then start as expected!

Option 2. Replace this wrong path with the correct path, something like :

• C:\app\elib\product\11.2.0\client_1\jdk\bin\java.exe

And then try to start the Sql Developer and it should start as expected!

Cheers!!

How to resolve "api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll" file missing error

You might be aware of the media player software application called Kodi. I have been using it for almost a year now on my mobile phone. I tried installing it on my laptop as well but failed due to the above error (mentioned in the post title ;)). Since i was getting the job done on my mobile anyways, i allowed this error to prevent me from installing it on the lappy.

Being a performance testing professional, am not really used to giving up on issues. Hence, decided to give one more try. Below is what i did to resolve the issue (hope it proves useful to you as well):

1. Install all the pending windows updates

2. Go to Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Update and click Check for updates

3. Install all pending updates and restart the computer.After the restart, repeat the above steps till no more updates are found.

4. Download the Visual C++ Redistributable 2015.

• For Windows 64-bit
• Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 (64-bit)
• For Windows 32-bit
• Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 (32-bit)

5. Run the vcredist_x64.exe (64-bit) or vcredist_x86.exe (32-bit) and select Uninstall, if already installed.

6. Run the .exe again and select Install and restart the computer.

This is what really worked for me and i have Kodi working on my laptop :)

Using more emoticons on Office Communicator

Using more emoticons on Office Communicator

It must have happened that at some point of time you might have felt the limitations of the emoticons available on the office communicator. I myself have felt the same lot many times.For ex : lot of times, i have felt the need to use the thumbs up icon. But could not do anything about it as this is how the MS wishes it to.

However, recently i found a novel way of overcoming this, at least to some extent. 

Please follow the below steps:-

1. We will make use of the Windows Character Map

2. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map

3. It looks like this (please select the Font as Windings):-

4. Now, choose the image as shown and click copy:-

5. Now, you can paste this image in the communicator:-

6. You may go ahead and do the same for any other image available, as well.. :). Hope it helped !!!