chmod group read/writable on a deep sub-directory under home

On rare cases where you need to provide group read and writable access from a multi-level sub-directory under your home, not that it's recommended from security perspective.  Note when making your home directory readable by group you will have problem with passwordless ssh.

cd ; p="/home/runwuf/project/test/p1/runwuf" ; while [ $p != "/home"  ] ; do chmod g+rw $p ; p=`echo $p | rev | cut -f2- -d"/" | rev` ; done

transfer photos from iphone to linux

here's a simple command to grab all photos off the iphone (tested on 4s) to linux.
apt-get install gphoto2
gphoto2 --auto-detect -P -R

Google Earth on Ubuntu 13.10

Google Earth requires ia32-libs, you'll see the following message when install Google Earth on Ubuntu 13.10:

dpkg -i google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb

 google-earth-stable depends on ia32-libs; however:
  Package ia32-libs is not installed.

ia32-libs on 13.10 has been replaced by 3 separate packages as the following:

apt-get install ia32-libs

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree       

Reading state information... Done

Package ia32-libs is not available, but is referred to by another package.

This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or

is only available from another source

However, the following packages replace it:

  lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0

apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0

if you attempt to install google earth package again it would still complain missing ia32-libs, you can use the ignore-depends option to bypass this:
dpkg -i --ignore-depends=ia32-libs google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb

you may need to run the following to correct some other missing packages:
apt-get install -f

In short, just copy & paste the following:
apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0 ; \
dpkg -i --ignore-depends=ia32-libs google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb ; \
apt-get install -f -y

k9copy on Ubuntu 13.10

k9copy is no longer available after Ubuntu 12.10, simply because the author does not believe in Linux anymore due to the war between different desktop & distro :-(
http://k9copy.sourceforge.net/web/index.php/en/nouveautes/12-theend
Thank you Jean-Michel for this wonderful program!

If you want to use k9copy, you can use the deb from 12.10:
64-bit:
sudo wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/103736674/k9copy_2.3.8-3_amd64.deb

32-bit:
sudo wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/103714201/k9copy_2.3.8-3_i386.deb

sudo apt-get -f install

Enjoy!

Picasa for Linux

Picasa for Linux was no longer supported by Google since years ago, I'm sure there are still a few people on Linux using it but they don't even provide the download files for the older version anymore. 

You can find them here:
http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/import/p/picasa/

If the above link is no longer available, try google for the following files:

picasa_3.0.5724-01_amd64.deb	2008-Oct-27 12:21:39	29.7M	application/x-debian-package
picasa_3.0.5724-01_i386.deb	2008-Oct-27 12:20:12	29.8M	application/x-debian-package
picasa_3.0.5744-02_amd64.deb	2011-Jan-24 08:59:33	30.3M	application/x-debian-package
picasa_3.0.5744-02_i386.deb	2011-Jan-24 09:00:16	30.3M	application/x-debian-package

picasa on linux cannot gmail

first of all, I don't know why Google doesn't offer picasa linux version download anymore! it's really annoying.  Good that I kept a .deb file downloaded somewhere from the past.  With picasa installed on Ubuntu 11.10, I had problems sending out pictures through my gmail!

looking at the logs, it doesn't tell you much...
[173601742] id 1: Attempting connection type 0 (attempt 0)
[173601765] InternetQueryOption failed (87)
[173601775] Proxy information for connection: LAN Connection
Using direct connection
[173601777] InternetQueryOption failed (87)
[173601779] Proxy information for default connection:
Using direct connection
[173601786] id 1: Stream summary:
POST request: https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientAuth (0)
Modified request headers:
 Added header: Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8
Added header: Accept-Encoding: gzip

BindStatus messages received: 70,
Request made via proxy
Post data size: 112
[173601788] id 1: Error: HttpOpenRequest failed (12157)
[173601789] id 1: Failed to establish connection.  will retry if possible
[173601791] id 1: Attempting connection type 1 (attempt 1)
[173601796] id 1: Stream summary:
POST request: https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientAuth (0)

It turns out on my Ubuntu11 it's got libssl1.0.0 installed, but picasa is looking for
libssl0.9.8, so just install it picasa would work again through gmail!

apt-get install libssl0.9.8

UPDATE:
on 64-bit Ubuntu 13.10 , install the 32-bit
apt-get install libssl0.9.8:i386
also install:
apt-get install lib32nss-mdns

IBM Installation Manager record & silent install

to record:
./IBMIM -record was8-install.xml

to install:

./IBMIM --launcher.ini silent-install.ini -input ./was8-install.xml -acceptLicense