Skype4Slackware : a Skype packager for Slackware

Microsoft makes packages of “Skype For Linux” only in .deb and .rpm format.

If you want to use them on Slackware you have, every time, to download the file,  convert it into a native package and install it.

Can we execute this procedure using a tool that requires only to be launched ?
The answer is simple : YES.

See how to use Skype4Slackware.

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Install Mozilla Firefox portable on Linux

Installing an instance of Mozilla Firefox portable on Linux is pretty simple but this action could reserve you some trouble if you have to do it manually every time.

Because of this i created a very simple script which does the dirty job and can create a portable installation of this the browser. Supported Firefox versions, at the moment, are:

  • Mozilla Firefox standard (lastest release)
  • Mozilla Firefox ESR (latest release)

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MultiCopy: copy a file to multiple destinations

Often i have to copy manually a single file into many destination directories (or files), so i decided to create a command line tool to do help me in doing this task: Multicopy (mcp).

The program can be used as show below:

  • mcp <src_file> <directory_1> <directory_2> … <directory_n>
    copy file <src_file> into the given directories
  • mcp <src_file> <file_1> <file_2> … <file_n>
    copy file <src_file> into given files (creating/overwriting them)
  • mcp -b <byte_buffer> <src_file> <directory_1> <directory_2> … <directory_n>
    copy file <src_file> into given directories using a buffer of <byte_buffer> bytes
  • mcp -b <byte_buffer> <src_file>  <file_1> <file_2> … <file_n>
    copy file <src_file> into given files (creating/overwriting them) using a buffer of <byte_buffer> bytes

If you have files/direcotry named as a parameter accepted by mcp you could use — (a couple of – character) to tell the program that every string that follows is not a parameter it has to parse but simple file names and/or directory names.

Usage Examples:

  • copy file /tmp/test.txt into directory /home/davide/ and into file /usr/local/copia.txt
  • copy file /tmp/test.txt into /tmp/uno.txt and /tmp/due.txt, reading/writing blocks of 4096 bytes
  • copy file  -b into /tmp/prova and /tmp/prova2

The source code is available on GitHub at this url, you will find also a couple of precompiled binaries (one built on Slackware64 for x86-64 and another one built on Raspbian for RaspberryPi 3).

Manage D-Link DCS-960L motion detection using rfid tokens

After having presented RFIDer and after having show you a simple shell script to control motion detecion of a D-Link DCS-960L, i want to describe how to merge those two programs in order to enable/disable motion detection using rfid tokens and a rfid reader.

As usually i’m using a RaspberryPI as a central unit.

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WP-Disk-Free: WordPress free disk space checker

To monitor free disk space on a server hosting a WordPress website i created a new plugin, a sort of clone of the unix command df,  called WP-Disk-Free.

This plugin allow you to:

  • define in the Settings page minimum free disk space  (MB) to use as a warning quota
  • receive an email, sent to a configured address in the Settings page, when free disk space goes below the warning level
  • receive an email, sent to a configured address in the Settings page, when free disk space goes back above the warning level

I hope this plugin will be useful also to many other bloggers out there, as  WordPress Extra File Types and WP Plugins&Themes Auto Update.

RFIDer: tool to get data from a rfid reader

For a home automation project i had to connect a rdif reader (this one) to a Raspberry Pi 3 and then have the system execute a program each time a token is read by the reader:RFIDer is the tool i developed to do this job.

RFIDer sources (GPLv3 license) are available, but you can also find precompiled binaries  for some platform.

Once compiled and installed on your linux box RIFDer will allow you to read digits from an input device and send everything read to the standard input of a program launched each time the read process is completed; a single “read procress” ends when the rfid-reader send a message equivalent to an “ENTER” keypress.

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Manage D-Link DCS-960L motion detection using a RaspberryPi

Installing and configuring a surveillance camera is becoming an operation very easy and very common, strong technical skills are not required anymore.
The question is: can we control a “home camera”  with our RaspberryPi ? The short answer is: YES !

I’ll show how to use the RaspberryPi to control, using jus the linux shell, a D-Link DCS-960L .

Continue reading “Manage D-Link DCS-960L motion detection using a RaspberryPi”

How to delete Gradle cache files

If, like me, you are having troubles compiling projects (also Android Studio ones) after having upgraded Gradle you can try to delete cache files.

I’m assuming you are working on a Linux box and that your Android projects are saved inside  ~/AndroidStudioProjects/

  • How to delete general caches:
  • How to delete Android Studio caches:

    I hope these commands will help you!