Author Archives: Brahim

Allow invalid date in MySQL

Just in case you absolutely have to insert a date in MySQL that does’nt exist, eg 2014-02-30, you can run MySQL server in a special mode that authorizes such dates :

	mysqld --sql-mode="ALLOW_INVALID_DATES"

MySQL will only check that the month is in the range from 1 to 12 and the day is in the range from 1 to 31.
see Mysql DOC

Not permitted to mount disk ? [EN]

A few days ago, I started to have a very disturbing “Not permitted” message when trying to mount a usb disk from Thunar. The only way I found was to pmount the disk : not as intuitive as just clicking the disk on Thunar.

But after some googling, I found where was the real problem : udisk, who is responsible of mounting disks, uses polkit to know if I have the right to mount, or not, external disk. So, if you have the same problem, follow this steps :

sudo nano /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.udisks2.policy

(use your favorite text editor in place of nano)

Then, look for the section with “udisks2.filesystem-mount”, inside you’ll have a “defaults” section with interesting stuff :

<defaults>
<allow_any>auth_admin</allow_any>
<allow_inactive>auth_admin</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>auth_admin_keep</allow_active>
</defaults>

Now, replace all “auth_admin*” by “yes” to give access for every user, like this :

<defaults>
 <allow_any>yes</allow_any>
 <allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>
 <allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>

Save your modifications. Forget this annoying message !

How To Forward Outlook Emails With VB Script [EN]

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  1. In Windows, create a certificate via Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Digital Certificate for VBA Projects
  2. In Microsoft Outlook, open the VB editor and copy/paste the code below
  3. Replace your@email.here and save
  4. Click on Tools > Digital Signature
  5. Click on [Choose] and select your certificate
  6. Click OK, then save and close the VB editor
  7. Create the Outlook rule with [run a script] as action and select your macro
  8. That’s all folks !
Private Const TO_EMAIL As String = "your@email.here"
Sub ForwardAllEmail(theMail As MailItem)
	On Error GoTo EndSub
	Dim mailObj As Outlook.MailItem
	Dim item As Outlook.MailItem
	Set mailObj = Application.Session.GetItemFromID(theMail.EntryID)
	Set item = mailObj.Forward
	item.Recipients.Add (TO_EMAIL)
	item.Send
	Set item = Nothing      ' Set variables to null to prevent memory leaks
	Set mailObj = Nothing
	Exit Sub
EndSub:
  MsgBox "Error: " & Err.Description
End Sub

Invisible code sticks forever [EN]

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A few months ago, I read an article about brain training by learning a new language : very interesting story about William Alexander who failed to learn french but strenghten his brain trying to.

But this is not the subject of this post. As I finished to read the article, I tried to reach William Alexander’s website and was redirected to a crappy chineese online store. I immediately thought he was hacked and after reading the page source code, I find this piece of script :

<script type="text/javascript">
var language = navigator.browserLanguage?navigator.browserLanguage:navigator.language;
if (language.indexOf('en') > -1) document.location.href = 'javascript:void(0)';
else
document.location.href = 'http://www.line-kopi.com';
</script>

What’s going on here ? The code checks the browser language and redirects to the fraudulent site only if the language is anything other than english ! So, every time some non-english dude complains to William about this problem, William tries the site and accesses it successfully and just forget about it… The malicious code can stay here for months,  with just a little trick but very annoying result !

And for the record, I, of course, alerted William and he removed the malicious code …

Tmux for the impatient

New session : tmux

Attach to a session : tmux a

Detach : Ctrl+b d

Scroll : Ctrl+b PgUp/PgDown (quit with q) also can use mouse after first page up or down

Copy mode : Ctrl+b [ (quit with q)

Split horizontally : Ctrl+b “

Split vertically : Ctrl+b %

Switch pane : Ctrl+b arrow key

Resize pane : Hold Ctrl+b + arrow keys

 

install xclip so buffer copied insied tmux are also available to X : sudo apt-get install xclip

The Extreme Productivity Philosophy that Created Facebook and PayPal

Back in 2005, long before they began approaching $10 billion in annual revenue, everyone thought that Facebook was a cool app, but no one thought that it would ever make any money.  Observers laughed at the idea that Facebook could be a real business.

With that backdrop of doubters and detractors, Noah Kagan, employee #30 at Facebook, pitched Mark Zuckerberg with what he thought was a genius idea: prove the Facebook skeptics wrong and show them that the fledgling startup could make real money.

 

Read more : http://blog.idonethis.com/one-thing-extreme-focus-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-paypal-peter-thiel