Walker News » Tutorial

How Easy To Access Web Search Engine In Google Chrome

Walker — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 09:11:07 +0000

No one will be happier if there are no web search engines available to locate pieces of information from billions of web pages virtually stored in World Wide Web.

Thus, Google Chrome user interface presents easier way to access a user’s default Web search engine, be it Google Search, Microsoft Live Search, Yahoo! Search, Wikia Search, etc.

Access web search engine in Google Chrome Address bar

This first method is the simplest and fastest way to access user’s default Web search engine:

While Google Chrome window is active, press CTRL+T (to open a tabbed window) OR CTRL+D (to set input cursor to Address bar or to highlight text in Address bar) AND type your search term (in Address bar, of course) follow by pressing ENTER key.

In this way, you can access the default Web search engine with one hot key (CTRL+D or CTRL+T, depend on you expectation) and start typing the keywords followed by ENTER key.

^{Access to web search engine service is easy in Google Chrome.}

If the default Web search engine is set to Google Search, all Google Search features are available in Google Chrome Address bar, e.g. typing either one of these double-quoted search terms (without including the double-quotation mark) in Address bar: “pi” (reference tool), “3ft in m” (calculator / converter), “time london” (local time), “define:addict” (dictionary), etc.

Access web search engine with the highlighted keywords

This second method is not faster than the first, but it’s faster and convenient in its nature. For example, if you would like to search the web for this “friendly” botanical name “Centella asiatica” or a even “weird” scientific name “Callorhinchus milii”, do you think it’s easier to type the keywords manually or to copy and paste?

If the keyword is found on a web page open in Google Chrome, you can easily find out more relevant online information of this keyword, by just highlighting the text and right click, there is a Search For ““ option in the Context menu (i.e. no need to go through extra steps – copy & paste).

How to set default web search engine in Google Chrome?

To configure the default search engine used by Google Chrome, click the spanner button (tooltips as Customize and Control Google Chrome) on top-right corner and select Options from the drop down menu.

In the Google Chrome Options dialog box, go to Basic tab (default tab shown), select your favourite web search engine as the default of Google Chrome.

If your favourite is not there, click Manage button to add in more web search engines to the list, or select one from the list and click Make Default.

An additional note, Google Chrome is smart as it can detect any web search services that you’ve used in a web page and automatically add them to the list.

For example, if you’ve used the Google Custom Search box in this page, WalkerNews.net is automatically included in Google Chrome Search Engines list:

^{Google Chrome automatically detects web search services on a page and automatically add it to the list.}

So, you might no need to worry about the Add button. In most cases, just select the listed search engines and set it as default by pressing Make Default button.

How To Use mp3DirectCut – A Standalone MP3 Cutter To Cut MP3

Walker — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:02:59 +0000

mp3DirectCut is a tiny, standalone freeware, a “MP3 cutter” that you could use to cut a MP3 file into pieces (for fun?). You may use this free MP3 cutter program to cut a portion of the most sensational rhythm of song in MP3 format for mobile phone ringtone.

Certainly, mp3DirectCut is in my standalone program list and kept in my pocket almost every day! (Pocket? It’s the 8GB thumb drive – tiny size in physical measurement but big in storage capacity!).
How to use mp3DirectCut to cut a MP3 file (for ringtone)

First, download the freeware from Martin Pesch’s website, or directly download the official self-extractable file (MD5 checksum 9104b7fe19005bda2ffdb86c092412e4) or download the zipped mp3DirectCut (file “installed” by the self-extractable file; MD5 checksum 9f5e812833552dd705b50ddcd763f07d).

^{mp3DirectCut - a tiny, standalone MP3 cutter freeware that someone can use to cut a MP3 file for ringtone.}

If you “install” the self-extractable version, double click the mp3DirectCut icon created on Desktop. For those who use the zipped format (which contains the files “installed” by official self-extractable file), extract it and double click mp3DirectCut.exe.

Click File menu and click Open (or press CTRL+O keyboard shortcut) to select a MP3 file.

Click Play button to play the MP3 file. Click Stop button when the sensational rhythm comes in. Next, adjust the time value of Now: (see next screenshot; highlighted in blue colour) and click Play again. Repeat this step – adjust and play – until you’re happy with the “precise” time when the sensational rhythm kicks in. Then, click the Set Begin button to mark the “start”.

After clicking the Set Begin button, click the Play button to continue playback and click Stop button when you expect it to stop. As usual, repeat the “adjust and play” step to precise “end” your favourite rhythm. Once you are happy with the “end” time, click Set End button.

Finally, the Selection text-box (see next screenshot; highlighted) contains the portion of rhythm that you’ve defined by clicking “Set Begin” and “Set End” button. To cut, copy, or save this portion (for ringtone), simply click Save Selection from File menu (or just press CTRL+E keyboard shortcut).

(The Save Selection will save the “cut” portion into MP3 format. If your mobile phone supports MP3 ringtone, just transfer the file to cell phone. Otherwise, get a converter to convert the MP3 to ringtone format supported by the phone.)

Windows Vista Multiple Networks: Wireless To Public WIFI and Wired To Private LAN

Walker — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:51:47 +0000

Today, I found an insecure public WIFI in office that allows me to surf Internet directly (without going through the corporate proxy server).

As Dell Latitude D410 built with both Ethernet and wireless network connection, so I would like the wireless network adapter connecting to Internet via that insecure public WIFI and use the wired Ethernet network to access corporate network.
However, soon after I plug in CAT-5 cable to Ethernet port, the Windows Vista Multiple Networks failed to access Internet via public WIFI connection.

How to configure Windows Vista SP1 Multiple Networks so that only the wireless is used to connect to Internet and use the Ethernet LAN connection to access corporate / internal network?

^{How to configure Windows Vista Multiple Networks - use wireless to connect Internet and wired Ethernet to access internal LAN network?}

In my case, both the Ethernet LAN connection and Wireless network connection has a default route 0.0.0.0. However, the Ethernet LAN connection always given a lower route metric than the wireless network connection. (Is it the faster network interface prioritized for lower metric?)

Thus, all network packets addressed to Internet IP forwarded to Ethernet network interface rather than to the wireless network connection, which has a higher route metric.

Solution: There might be a better solution, but I choose to delete the default route of Ethernet network interface from route table.

Configure Windows Vista Multiple Networks – Delete Unwanted Default Route 0.0.0.0

While ONLY the wireless network interface is connecting to that insecure public WIFI, execute route print in an elevated Command Prompt window shows there is only one active network interface (i.e. 192.168.0.103) and its default route (0.0.0.0.):

^{Windows Vista route print command display the route table information - the Interface List and Route Table.}

Now, after connecting the Ethernet port to corporate network via CAT-5 cable, the route table has two active networks interface and their respective default route (but different metric, i.e. 20 and 25):

^{Windows Vista route table with multiple default routes.}

So, I have to delete / remove the default route of Ethernet network interface:

route delete 0.0.0.0 IF 11

where the IF 11 refers to Inteface List # 11 (which is displayed by route print command output, in the Interface List section).

In my example (2nd screenshot), the IF 11 refers to Broadcom Nextreme 57xx Gigabit Controller (as highlighted with blue color) while IF 12 is the wireless network interface that appears as Intel (R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection.

At this point, I’m happily browsing any web sites without restriction (oppose to web browsing through corporate proxy server with WebMarshal filtering feature) via wireless network interface that connecting to public WIFI.

At same time, I am able to access MS Exchange Server and all other corporate network resources using the faster Ethernet LAN connection. (Although, I’ve to add some routes with different gateways to access the 192.x.x.x segments, which is part of the corporate networks).

How To Use Infrared To Send Files From Windows Vista To Nokia N73?

Walker — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:29:14 +0000

As with most Nokia NSeries models, my bloody old Nokia N73 can send and receive files over USB, Bluetooth, or Infrared connection.

Although the USB connection is faster than the Bluetooth or Infrared connection, it’s troublesome (for me) to bring along the proprietary Nokia CA-53 cable on every working days.
So, I’ve to rely on either Bluetooth or Infrared to transfer files between Windows Vista SP1 and N73 (while I’m at outside/office with Dell Latitute that supports Bluetooth and Infrared too).

Now the Bluetooth in Dell Latitute is breakdown, I’ve to be more patient with Infrared connection that transferring data at 115200 bps (or 14.0625 KBps) :-(

How to send files from Windows Vista SP1 computer/laptop to Nokia N73 over an Infrared connection?

The answer is not difficult, but required few simple steps to complete it:

On Nokia N73, press the Menu key (refer to Symbian S60 UI Shortcut Key, the key labelled “A”), navigate to Tools, and finally click the Infrared icon to activate Nokia N73 infrared function.
Face the Nokia N73 Infrared port to Dell Latitute Infrared port, as near as possible, i.e. to make sure Infrared ports at both end are in range and no obstacles blocking in between. (Besides the slow connection speed, this is another downside of Infrared connection).
Note: Don’t look at the activated infrared port that might hurt your pretty eyes!
Keep your eyes on Windows System Tray (normally, it’s on bottom-right corner). Soon, the Windows Infrared icon (first icon next to the “EN” in the screenshot below) appears in System Tray (a.k.a. Notification Area in Windows Vista), with tooltips indicate a new device called N73 is in range.
^{How to use an Infrared connection to send files from Windows Vista to Nokia N73?}

Next, you’ll see the message says “Another computer is nearby. Click here to send files to the computer N73″.
Now, you can just click the Infrared icon or right click on it and select Transfer Files option to open up Infrared’s Send File dialog box. Browse to the target folder, select one or multiple files and click Send.
Back to Nokia N73. You will likely get a prompt to accept connection or immediately getting files transfer status bar on screen. A SMS notification received whenever Windows Vista completes sending a file to Nokia N73, i.e. the file transferred to Nokia N73 kept as SMS (instead of storing to a folder as file). To retrieve the file, just open the SMS as usual.

P/S: You might need to configure Nokia N73 Messaging to use memory card instead of phone memory, if you are about to send a large file size to N73. (Refer to Sending Big Movie File To N73 for this configuration.)

Of course phone memory is nothing wrong, if free memory space is big enough to keep the file (so as memory card).

How To Send Program File As Attachment In Gmail?

Walker — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:00:30 +0000

If you’re trying to send a program file as attachment in Gmail, an error message similar to this will be shown: “Error – HoboCopy.exe is an executable file. For security reasons, Gmail does not allow you to send this type of file.”

It won’t works if you simply rename the program file extension (.exe) to other file type that is allowed by Gmail anti-virus scanner / attachment filtering system, according to Gmail Help on “attachment” topic:
Gmail will not deliver email with application program file attachment (even if the program files are zipped into .zip, .tar, .tgz, .taz, .z, .gz, etc format.

Encrypt the zipped file might able to bypass the attachment filtering system, but Gmail doesn’t allow an encrypted zipped file, as outlined in this section.

A trick to send program files as attachment in Gmail

If you’ve a useful program (like SWF-Exporter) to share over email, it should be a tiny program (Gmail allows email not greater than 20 MB) and “green” software (i.e. no virus, malicious code, Trojan, etc).

For example, the open-source HoboCopy.exe for my buddies who are interested to extract FLV movie cached by Google Chrome in Windows temp folder.

Next, use the trick of Microsoft Office embedded object to send the document as attachment in Gmail:

Compress the program files into zip file format. Indeed, any compression format will do, but .zip is the common compression format and thus is preferred.
Open up Microsoft Word 2007 (any Microsoft Office version that support embedded object, preferable Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel),
1. Access to Insert menu,
2. Click the “Object” button under the “Text” ribbon,
3. Go to “Create From File” tab,
4. Uncheck the two check-boxes that related to “link to file” and “display as icon”,
5. Use the browse button to select the zipped program file,
6. Click OK button to insert it as an embedded object in Word document.
Send the Word document (that already embed the zipped program file) as a normal attachment in Gmail

I’ve just tested this trick again, and it’s still working in machine that running Vista Ultimate SP1, Power Archiver 2007 and Microsoft Word 2007.

GNU Coreutils: GNU Date Is Easier For Date Time Calculation In Linux Shell Script

Walker — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:47:21 +0000

I mentioned about date time calculation shell script in an earlier post. Though, the GNU date examples related to Unix Epoch time (a.k.a. Unix time, POSIX time, Julian time) in that post aren’t really successful (so as the Julian time calculation in C program code) :-(

(Time is not an easy-to-understand topic, especially people who keen on “A Brief History Of Time” that written by Stephen Hawking).

OK, put aside that Physics topic about time. Back to the question: How easy is to do date time calculation in Linux shell script (and not about Windows Vista Date Time Matter)?

First of all, GNU date is one of the many Linux programs that grouped in a great package, with a given name GNU Coreutils.

GNU Coreutils is bundled with Red Hat Linux distribution, and is believed being a ubiquitous GNU package among Linux distributions.

For example, in my RHEL4 machine, ls -laSh /bin/date shows it’s only 47KB in size and the rpm -qf /bin/date shows it’s part of the coreutils-5.2.1-31 package.

This GNU date can either set or change the current system date/time or to display date/time format according to user queries. For those serious programmers who use Julian time, you should happy to know that GNU date understands UNIX Epoch time too!

What is that Epoch Time exactly?

The computer times are represented as a count of seconds since an epoch, i.e. a well-defined point of time (hence, it’s called Epoch time).

On GNU and POSIX systems, the epoch time is defined as 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. Thus, it’s also known as UNIX time, POSIX time, or some simply calls it Julian time.

Here are some GNU date arithmetic and time calculation examples, which I’ve referred to the official GNU date documentation (also appears in info date):

walker@walkernews.net # date
Thu Aug 28 17:10:38 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "3 hours ago"
Thu Aug 28 14:10:41 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "+3 hours"
Thu Aug 28 20:12:01 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "last month"
Mon Jul 28 17:13:11 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "next month"
Sun Sep 28 17:14:15 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "+2 months"
Tue Oct 28 17:14:56 GMT 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "2 months ago"
Sat Jun 28 17:16:44 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "yesterday"
Wed Aug 27 17:13:35 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "tomorrow"
Fri Aug 29 17:13:55 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "3 days ago"
Mon Aug 25 17:22:42 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "+3 days"
Sun Aug 31 17:23:08 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "last friday"
Fri Aug 22 00:00:00 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "2008-08-22 +3 days"
Mon Aug 25 00:00:00 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "2008-08-22 -5 days"
Sun Aug 17 00:00:00 BST 2008

How to format the GNU date output format? For example, to get the day, weekday, month, year of 23 days ago can be coded as such:

walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago"
Tue Aug  5 18:23:24 BST 2008
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago" +%e
 5
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago" +%d
05
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago" +%m
08
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago" +%-m
8
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago" +%b
Aug
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago" +%B
August
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago" +"%e-%-m-%Y, %B"
 5-8-2008, August
walker@walkernews.net # date -d "23 days ago" +"%e-%m-%Y, %B"
 5-08-2008, August

You may refer to man date for detail list of GNU date output format modifiers. Also, take note the difference of +%m and +%-m is that the later remove the zero padding.

The zero-padding looks neatly when display in string format. However, zero-padded numeric is not valid in Bash shell script arithmetic interpretation, i.e. 08 – 05 will fail as the valid syntax is 8 – 5.

Unix Epoch time calculation examples with GNU date

The +%s is another GNU date output modifier, i.e. to output number of seconds since Unix Epoch. And, the date/time format for -d option switch is close to ISO 8601 date/time format, i.e. YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (it’s not a strict ISO 8601 Date/Time format, but close to it).

For example, the UNIX time of 25th of December 2008 at 12:25PM 08 seconds is given as this:

walker@walkernews.net # date -u -d "2008-12-25 12:25:08" +%s
1230207908

So, the Julian time of 2008-08-08 20:08:08 (the date and time of Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony) is as such:

walker@walkernews.net # date -u -d "2008-08-08 20:08:08" +%s
1218226088

That’s 1218226088 seconds elapsed since Unix Epoch time at 2008-08-08 20:08:08.

To convert UNIX Epoch time or Julian time to human readable date/time format:

walker@walkernews.net # date -u -d "1970-01-01 1218226088 secs"
Fri Aug  8 20:08:08 UTC 2008

Windows Media Player: How To Embed WMV File In HTML Code?

Walker — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:45:46 +0000

Thanks to many photo/video hosting sites available for free (but restricted to certain rules), e.g. Flickr and YouTube, everyone has an easier way to share their happiness captured in digital media files over the Net.

Some buddies, however, would like to share them entirely on their personal weblogs (thank to WordPress and Web 2.0 that have made it possible).

OK, embedding pictures in HTML and show the photos inline on a webpage is easy as usual. But, it needs more typing to embed video in HTML and stream the video content inline on a webpage.

Embedded image/video VS Inline image/video

In brief, “embedded image/video” present an URL or HTML link to the media file that might invoke a download process for the target file, a new browser window to display the media file, or invoke a third party program (non-browser application) to open the media file.

Then, “inline image/video” means web browser understand how to open and display the media file inside the same browser window, in line of the text surrounding it.

How to embed Windows Media Video/WMV file in HTML code and stream the video content inline on a webpage?

Windows Media Video/WMV file sample:

http://walkernewsdownload.googlepages.com/HP-iPaq-614.wmv

Embedded WMV file:

The code:

HP iPAQ Business Navigator

The result:
HP iPAQ Business Navigator

Inline WMV file:

The sample of code:

The result of the sample code:

Note: You might need to download and install Windows Media Player plugin/add-on to play inline Windows Media Player files.