Mind of Matt

Category: Computing

  • What powerline adapter to use that can be fully managed under Linux?

    Powerline is a technology for transmitting data over the AC grid. All devices provide an RJ45 Ethernet plug (and some also wifi and USB), so they support client devices of all operating systems. Basic configuration of encryption is likewise OS independent, as nearly all of them use a "pairing" button for that. However, to set […]

  • How to fix excessive numbers of FTP connections in in TIME_WAIT state?

    When you use FTP for recursive downloads or uploads and the FTP server has a firewall installed, you might get blocked due to "too many connections". Nearly all of those connections would be in TIME_WAIT state, and are only visible on the server side (not when you check on your client with e.g. netstat -anp […]

  • How to repair an Android phone where only the bootloader works?

    Yesterday, I nearly bricked my phone (HTC Desire HD), but got it back up and running again. Here is how – it is a relatively simple technique but I did not find it on the web, so I thought I'd share it. Assume your phone (any Android phone for that matter) is in the following […]

  • How to use a webcam as a high-resolution scanner?

    All software that I found (esp. the many Android apps developed for this purpose) use the webcam by taking a single picture and improving it digitally to be a "scan". This however leads to low resolutions. A better way is to use several pictures and stitch them together. This would be possible most comfortably with […]

  • How to create a panorama from video under Linux?

    Option 1: Autopano Pro Autopano Pro is a great sophisticsted panorama software that comes with a Linux version (.deb package even!). It is commercial software for about 100 USD, but has a demo version that will do about the same, just watermarking the generated panoramas. They have a an article "Fun : Stitching video frames" […]

  • How to count words in XML and HTML files?

    For HTML files, you can use the command-line tool html2text (even with several files at once), together with wc: html2text *.html | wc –words For XML files, you can use the command-line tool xml_grep instead, again together with wc. It allows to specify an XPath-like expression to define which parts of the XML text to […]

  • How to fix when the mouse stops clicking in Lubuntu?

    The mouse stopped clicking at times – it seemed to happen at arbitrary moments. The pointer would still move, but it was no longer possible to click in any way (on my ThinkPad X201 Tablet meaning: trackpoint buttons, touchpad buttons, touchpad tapping, pen input, finger input). The reason for this behavior was probably a defective keyboard […]