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Reset your lost Ubuntu Password

December 7th, 2007
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If you ever get locked out of your Ubuntu installation as I found myself to be tonight, you can reset your password quite easily using the following steps.

  1. Power up your computer.
  2. Press ESC at the grub menu.
  3. Press e for edit.
  4. Highlight the line that begins “Ubuntu, KERNEL ………” and press e.
  5. Go to the end of this line, add rw init=/bin/bash and press enter.
  6. Press b to boot your system.
  7. Your system will boot up to a passwordless root shell.
  8. Type in passwd username where username is the username you lost the password for.
  9. Set your password.
  10. Type in reboot.

That is it! you can now log in using your new password. You can even reset your root password here but cannot login with it at the login screen.

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T-Mobile T-Zones Outage

October 18th, 2007
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As of 8am this morning, T-Mobile seems to be having problems with their EDGE based T-Zones service. A call to T-Mobile’s customer service number confirmed this. They are said to be fixing the problem and hoping to get the service back up asap. No ETA was given.

If you are using a Windows Mobile phone you will get the “The remote party has terminated this connection” message.

UPDATE: The EDGE network is up and running as of sometime around 6:15pm.

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Alternate Shortcuts to cut-copy-paste

October 15th, 2007

Did you know there are alternate shortcuts to the commonly used cut (ctrl+x), copy (ctrl+c) and paste (ctrl+v) shortcuts?

Action Shortcut Alternate Shortcut
Cut Ctrl+X Del+Shift
Copy Ctrl+C Insert+Ctrl
Paste Ctrl+V Insert+Shift

These are kind of confusing so I’m sticking to the Ctrl+ shortcuts. For those who use different keyboard layouts like Dvorák the X, C and V keys are placed far apart and awkward to use. In such cases the alternate shortcuts maybe easier to use.

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How to configure Pidgin to work with Google Talk

August 2nd, 2007

Pidgin (formerly GAIM) is an open-source multi-protocol IM client which can allow to chat over MSN, Yahoo, AIM and many other protocols. The following settings will allow Pidgin to work with Google Talk.
Read more…

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This blog is not dead…

February 14th, 2007

I just haven’t had the time to post anything recently as I got very busy with work. Inshallah, you’ll see more posts soon as I make more time for the blog.

For the time being, I’d like to leave you with a gem from sayidna Abu Bakr As Siddiq (ra) who said:

Run away from greatness and greatness will follow you.

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Logging off other users from your account in XP

September 17th, 2006

In situations where you have a computer being shared among multiple users, fast user switching is a great feature in Windows XP to switch from user account to user account. However, once several users are logged in to their accounts simultaneously (have switched accounts, not logged off), you start noticing system performance degredation because all the accounts have processes and/or applications running that are using up system memory.

Logging off users with Process Explorer

If you want to keep the fast user switching feature enabled as well as have the option to forcefully “boot off” other users freeing up memory for yourself, Process Explorer from sysinternals is a great program. Its basically a version of the default Task Manager with an over dose of steroids. Its main feature is to show “which program has a particular file or directory open” and give “you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.” The logging off feature is a small feature of this program. Under the “Users” menu you will be given a list of all users that are logged in and under each username will be an option to log them off. I should mention that logging off a user with any applications running WILL cause any unsaved work to be lost. So use with care.

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Lahore, Faisalabad among others added to Google Earth

June 14th, 2006
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A major upgrade of data to vast areas of Pakistan seems to be in the works by Google for Google Earth. Major cities included in the recent update include most notably Lahore and the Eastern part of Faisalabad. The resolution for these areas is apparently similar, if not on par with that of Karachi and Islamabad. The inclusion of Lahore and Faisalabad completes the top cosmopolitan cities of Pakistan with Karachi and Islamabad already been covered. For people interested in real estate in these major cities this update is greately helpful.

Other areas at first seem to be picked at random but everything seems to fall in place when one notices that most of the mountainous regions of Balochistan are also included in the update. Jacobabad, Sukkur, Rohri, Rahim yar Khan, Okara, Gujranwala are some of the other cities included too.

I have confirmed this but you may have to install the beta version of Google Earth to be able to view these places. I may be wrong. If you are able to view these places with the older version, please let me know.

Blog

Qibla Direction using the Sun

June 4th, 2006

The most reliable method to determine the direction of the Qibla is by looking at the Sun. Every year, because of the revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the inclination of the axis of rotation to the Ecliptic, the Sun is directly ABOVE THE KABAH only two times.

  1. May 28 at 9:18 am (GMT) [12:18 pm local Makkah time], and
  2. Jul 15 at 9:27 am (GMT) [12:27 pm local Makkah time].

Similarly, the Sun is BELOW THE KABAH (in Makkah) only two times.

  1. Jan 13 at 9:29 pm (GMT) [00:29 am local Makkah time], and
  2. Nov 28 at 9:09 pm (GMT) [00:09 am local Makkah time].

The direction toward the Kabah can be easily determined by finding the direction towards (or away from) the Sun at the instants when the Sun is ABOVE (or BELOW) the KABAH.

The Qibla direction would be TOWARDS THE SUN, at the instant WHEN THE SUN IS ABOVE THE KABAH. The Qibla direction would be AWAY FROM THE SUN, (in the direction of the SHADOW of a vertical rod) at the instant WHEN THE SUN IS BELOW THE KABAH.

The only obvious requirement is that the Sun should be visible at that instant. Nearly half of the world would be able to see the Sun at these times. The other countries would not be able to see the Sun, because the Sun would be below their local horizon, at those times.
Read more…

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Gmail in Arabic

June 1st, 2006
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Google has quietly added support for two new languages, Arabic and Hebrew, a couple of days ago. They really seem poised to take over the web based email service catering to 40 different languages. They have specifically been targeting the arabic speaking world first adding arabic to english and english to arabic translation services and now arabic in gmail.

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Amazing way to make the front page of DIGG

May 19th, 2006
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diggDigg is all the rage these days with everyone trying to make it to the front page to try and get more traffic to their sites. I’m a huge fan of Digg myself, visiting the site atleast 20 times a day. When digg started, the topics that made to the front page seemed to be very diverse but I have to say that nowadays things seem to be getting a bit repetitive. The stories making to to front page seem to do more and more with a handful of topics that are getting somewhat tiring.

After spending a little bit of time I came up with a list of things one has to do or the topics one can write about to make it to the front page. This is by no means a sure shot way but it does seem to have worked from what the numbers show.

  1. Add “AMAZING” to the title (more than 20 pages in the past 60 days)
  2. Apple related(25 in the past 2 days)
  3. Google related(10 in past 2 days)
  4. Gaming Consoles (PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 combined) related (28 in past 2 days)
  5. AJAX (5 in past 2 days)
  6. Firefox (3 in past 2 days)
  7. A “howto” for just about anything (23 in the last month)
  8. CSS related

Try it out for yourself. See how far you get. But don’t submit any junk articles. I’m sure you’ll get much more than the usual 8 – 12 Diggs I’ve previously gotten.
Digg if you agree.

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