Walker News » Software

How To Access WhatsApp Setting Or Set Status On HTC One V?

Walker — Sun, 13 May 2012 18:12:01 +0000

It’s really frustrated to find apps setting on HTC One V (the scaled down version of HTC One X), as there is no menu button (the dotted vertical line) displayed by the app like WhatsApp, ES File Explorer, etc.

So, how to set WhatsApp status if you can’t find the way to access WhatsApp setting/menu page?

Here you go – the Recent Apps button of HTC One V (the red circle, as shown in screenshot) is also functioning as a menu button of an active app!

Thus, open WhatsApp then tap and hold down on the Recent Apps button for 3 seconds or longer, then you’ll get access to configure settings, create new chat group, set WhatsApp status message, etc. In the Chat screen, long press the Recent Apps button you’ll see options to set wallpaper, add shortcut (of chat) to home screen, email conversation, etc.

Once again, using the Recent Apps to function as menu/setting button is applicable to most apps, such as ES File Explorer.

How To Capture Screenshot On Device Running Android 4.0 ICS?

Walker — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:17:34 +0000

Devices running Android 4.x Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) should all support native screenshot capturing function, i.e. there is no need to root the OS cum install app just for capturing screenshot right on device.

Standard ICS shortcut

On Galaxy Nexus, dubbed as Android Dev Phone (ADP) running standard Android 4.0 ICS, you can hold down both power AND volume down buttons together (with reference to “Snap a screenshot” of Galaxy Nexus features page).

The Acer A500 that upgraded from Android 3.x Honeycomb uses the same way. Some users claim this trick doesn’t work or it’s tricky. I personally try it and find out that I cannot press both buttons briefly – this won’t work. If you see either the volume control displayed on screen or the screen goes black (sleep mode), it means fail. To snap a screenshot of Acer A500 (as below), you must hold down BOTH power button and volume down key firmly for 2-3 seconds (or longer).

Custom ICS shortcut

For HTC One X, the shortcut key is different from standard ICS (c.f. HTC One X How-tos), and it’s a bit tricky too for some people – hold down power button first THEN ONLY quickly press the HOME button.

Using Wget To Recursively Download Folders From FTP Server With Login And Password

Walker — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:18:47 +0000

Question: How to automate a Linux shell script (or Windows batch file) to recursively download a folder via FTP server that requires login ID and password?

Answer: Uses wget, a non-interactive command-line program available in both Linux/UNIX and Windows platform, that can login FTP server and perform recursive download for a directory.

Example: Login to FTP server 172.28.7.21 as walker using password dotnet, to download the whole folder content of mybackup (which contains a bunch of files and sub-directories). In this case, the wget syntax is as this:

wget -r ftp://walker:'dotnet'@172.28.7.21/mybackup/*

You can also use wget option switch for specifying login ID and password, e.g.:

wget --user=walker --password='dotnet' -r ftp://172.28.7.21/mybackup/*

NOTE:
1. The use of asterisk is a MUST to indicate all files and folders.
2. The login password must be enclosed by single quote character.

New Features Of Acer A500 With Android 4.0 ICS Update

Walker — Sat, 12 May 2012 17:41:38 +0000

My Acer A500 tablet is almost one year old, but it looks new after upgrading to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich – the first benefit or apparent “feature” in my view.

With Android 4.0, there is no need of rooting OS + 3rd-party app for taking screenshot of A500 right on the tablet – just press and hold down both power button and volume-down key together for about 3 seconds (or longer) will do.

By dragging one app icon to on top of another app icon, Android 4.0 ICS automatically creates an unnamed folder (which appears as a circle with apps icons in it), which is useful for grouping similar apps together.

It’s a new experience of browsing apps screen, where app pages become layers as you swipe from one page to another. To stop and/or disable apps, open Settings screen and select Apps from left pane, then tap an item listed on the right pane for further action.

There is panorama feature for the camera app (can’t remember I’ve this prior to ICS upgrade) but it doesn’t include function of recording video and taking photo concurrently (as what HTC One X can do). Oh yes, there is no Face Unlock either :(

Besides, the Acer Ring is not there and it can’t open apps from locked screen, though these features were mentioned in Acer announcement dated Feb 17, 2012.

So, what else do you get from the latest Android 4.0 ICS update for the Acer A500 tablet (that is worth to mention but I’ve accidentally missed it out here)?

How To Configure Linux Cron To Trigger Job At Fixed Interval?

Walker — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:14:06 +0000

To configure a Linux cronjob that will automatically run after every 15 minutes, at each hours and days, a novice or junior system administrator might write the Linux cron configuration in such way:

0,15,30,45 * * * * /bin/date

Of course there is nothing wrong with the configuration, it works as describe, but it can be improved or simplified for readability, and probably looks more professional :)

Linux crontab shorthand

Here is the modified version using Linux crontab shorthand to schedule cronjob that will run at a 5-minute interval:

*/5 * * * * /home/walker/wdate

which will get Linux scheduler to automatically run shell script called wdate at every 5-minute.

Chinese Calendar For Windows 7 and Windows 8

Walker — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:11:11 +0000

For people who are searching Chinese calendar for Windows, I would recommend them to try Microsoft Chinese Date & Time, a good old freeware made for Windows XP but also works perfectly on Windows 7 and even the latest Windows 8 (tested on Developer Preview edition).

Besides displaying Chinese lunisolar calendar system (农历; pinyin: nónglì) alongside the Gregorian date, this freeware also features four configurable clocks for displaying current time in other time zones with reference to system time. If the two additional clocks of Windows Vista/7/8 is not sufficient, you could top up another 4 clocks from this freeware!

The screenshot shows today is the fifth day of Chinese New Year 2012, the year of Dragon. You can certainly find out the Gregorian date of Qingming Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Winter Solstice Festival, Solar term (节气; pinyin: jiéqì), etc.

How To Check DB2 Table Size?

Walker — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:32:07 +0000

For IBM DB2 v9.x users who would like to find out the total physical disk space used by a table, you can get the estimated table size from SysIbmAdm.AdminTabInfo administrative view.

Besides, DBA can also retrieve logical size of table from AdminTabInfo. For detail information, please refer to IBM DB2 9.7 LUW official guide.

This guide is tested on both DB2 9.7 and DB2 9.1 installed on Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.7.

For example, the following SQL SELECT statement is used to display physical size of each table in a database, sorted in ascending order (run it at Linux/Windows command prompt as DB2 CLI command):

db2 "SELECT SUBSTR(TabSchema,1,15), SUBSTR(TabName,1,15), TabType, (Data_Object_P_Size + Index_Object_P_Size + Long_Object_P_Size + Lob_Object_P_Size + Xml_Object_P_Size) as Total_P_Size FROM SysIbmAdm.AdminTabInfo ORDER BY Total_P_Size"

If you only interested in checking table size of particular table or schema, just use WHERE clause to get specific result.