It all started with me accidentally knowing about [Pop!_OS](https://pop.system76.com/). Until last week, I was a content Windows user for several years. After all, I only had to run my IntelliJ IDE, a browser and a postgres instance on Windows, so couldn't complain. But once I settle with something, I reach a point when I want to explore if there are any better alternatives - and I looked if I could dual boot linux. That's when it all went downhill!

AT first, I looked at [Ubuntu](https://ubuntu.com/) since I used it extensively five years ago. Later, I stumbled on [Pop!_OS](https://pop.system76.com/) which seemed to be built on top of Ubuntu with some additional bells and whistles. So I decided to give it a try.

Downloaded the ISO image and the USB Flasher software - [Rufus](https://rufus.ie/en/), only then to realize that I did not have a USB stick. It took 30 minutes of digging the electronic garbage at my house to find a old USB stick.

Right then - flashed the ISO image onto the USB stick as a bootable drive, set up the BIOS to load from the stick and started installing the Pop!_OS.

It went well - the OS came prebuilt with Nvidia drivers, so that was a relief. Didnt' have to digg through internet to find drivers for the Graphics card that I have on my machine. The UI was slick and modern. Loved the "Nerd" feeling it gave while using a Linux (all I did was clicked on Install button and followed the wizard, but hey! it's linux!! ;) )

The issue started when I tried to reboot. Instead of asking to to choose between Windows / Pop!_OS, the bootloader directly took me to Pop!_OS. That irked me, as I needed dual boot. I started googling / asked the lords at ChatGPT to show me a way. With the information I collected, I started mangling with the boot records!

For a while, I was able to force the dual boot by pressing Space bar at the right time - but this is not a ideal experience. Then I mangled the boot record a bit more and I finally ended up corrupting the Windows bootloader. Handling boot records wasn't something that JavaScript teaches you! :D

Now I ended with a fresh Pop!_OS that doesn't have any of my project data and a corrupted Windows 11 that has my data but I couldn't boot into. Perfect.

Long story short - I wiped everything and installed Ubuntu as a sole OS. Since I have all my projects backed up in GitHub, it wasn't hard to get it back up. Only issue was that I lost the postgress DB that I was building for the past 2 years. Unfortunately, I did not have a DB schema nor data backed up. Only relief was that I still had the data files committed in git and the source code - so I was able to infer the schema from code and rerun the scripts to build the DB again. And I am refactoring my code to use [Sequelize](https://sequelize.org/) so the schema is also in the code.

Now my dev environment is setup and I am back on Ubuntu.



Hello Ubuntu

I wrote about [how to check which application is using which port](https://veerasundar.com/blog/how-to-check-which-application-is-using-which-port/) a long time ago. I was using command line tools then to find out the ports.

Now after a decade, I am using a much simpler way tp find the ports of my servers running locally.

## Using Resource Monitor to find out port

1. Go to Windows `Start` menu, type in `Resource Monitor` and then open the application.
2. Once opened, go to  `Network` tab.
3. You will see the below window.

![Windows Resource Monitor](/img/resource-monitor-port.png)

The `Resource Monitor / Network` shows all the running process and their corresponding listening ports, along with the number of bytes sent and received by this process.

## Killing a process that's running on specific port

Say if you want to kill an application server that is listening to specific port, but you don't know which application server was it. You can use `Resource Monitor / Network` for this.

For example, I want to kill the node process that's listening on port 3000. In the above screenshot, I can see that the node process with PID 8672 is running on port 3000. Now, I can find this process with PID 8672 in the `Processes with Network Activity` panel at the top and then right click on process name. Now, I will have the option to  either `End process` or `End process tree` which both will kill the current process.

Hope this article helped you to find the application that was running on a port and then kill it if necessary.




How to see which application is using which port in Windows


By default, Nexus 4 does not provide the option to select a custom MP3 / sound file as the ringtone. You are limited to the set of built-in ringtones provided by Nexus.

But, here's a simple trick to set your own custom ringtone. Don't worry, you don't need to install any creepy app to do that (of course, there's an app for that, but we don't need it now). All you need is a laptop and a USB cable.

Here's how you set custom ringtone in Nexus (assuming you have Windows 7 here):

1. Connect your Nexus 4 to your laptop and make sure it **Connected as Media device (MTP)**.
2. Now, in Windows Explorer (or any file browser in your OS), open the Nexus folder, and navigate to the **Ringtones** folder.
3. Copy your custom ringtone files here.

Tada! Now you'll see the newly added ringtone listed in Nexus **Settings -> Sound -> Ringtone** panel.

**Protip:** You can use freely available [Audacity] (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) to create your custom ringtones out of any MP3 / Sound files.


How to set custom Ringtones in Nexus 4


Day one of [JSFoo][1] is just got over. Went to the event with lot of expectations and came back with some new ideas/topics to explore. Here's a summary of what I learnt from today's sessions.

[1]: http://jsfoo.in

Except the keynote, rest of the sessions simultaneously happened in [two tracks][2]. So, I had to opt for one session while missing the other one. Anyway, the organizers seems to be recording the whole event. So, I hope I can catch up with the sessions I missed later in video format.

[2]: http://jsfoo.in/2012/#schedule

The first session I chose was '**Scaling node at Errorception**' by [Errorception][3] founder, [Rakesh Pai][4]. As I'm exploring node for my own web app, its very obvious for me to go for this. The speaker talked about how he's running Errorception on Node Mongodb stack. The highlights from his speech was:

[3]: http://errorception.com/ "Errorception"
[4]: http://blog.rakeshpai.me/ "Rakesh Pai"

1.  Don't write monolithic app. Instead break them into several micro apps (front end, queue processor, etc). This helps you to maintain it without much pain and deploy/take down the apps without affecting each other.
2.  Build a Queue layer for inter-app communication. That way, even if you take down a app, the messages won't be lost and they'll just be there in the queue until your app pick them up. He seems to be using **redis **for this purpose at Errorception.
3.  CPU bound app? Run away from node.

Then there was a 30 minutes of Q/A session about '**Web Storage**'. The presenter talked about different options for storing data locally at browser. It was new information to me that developers (ab)used the **window.name **property in order to persist data. This hack is totally an insecure way to preserve data and should never be considered for anything secure.

After a delicious lunch (I always complain about food in Bangalore, so when I say delicious, it is DELICIOUS!), I sit there in the '**Create JS**' session by [Harish Sivaramakrishnan][5].\*\* \*\*He totally inspired the audience by building a game from scratch in 45 minutes using [CreateJS][6] library. This library lets you to draw objects on Canvas instead of directly manipulating pixels by hand. A totally cool JS lib and if you are into game/visual programming using Canvas, you shouldn't miss this one.

[5]: http://hsivaram.com/
[6]: http://www.createjs.com/#!/CreateJS

The final sessions I attended were about using JQuery Deferred instead of inner-nesting callbacks and I18N Wikimedia libraries. Both provided some good information which I'll be using in my next projects.

Final session of the day was from Rakesh Pai who demoed his project of Controlling a toy car using Node server. He'd integrated the toy car with the Raspberry pi computer and ran the node server in it. A cool hardware hack, received great appreciation from the crowd.

With that the first day got over.


Day one of JSFoo


It's been few months since I started the [twikural][1] service. For the people who didn't know about Twikural;

[1]: http://twikural.veerasundar.com/ "Twikural - Daily thirukural"

[Twikural][2] is a web service that sends two couplets from the well known *[Thirukkural book][3] *everyday to its subscribers. People can subscribe to the service via either [Twitter][4] or [Facebook][5].

I have already open sourced the [code behind twikural][6]. If you like to browse the source code, you are welcomed to do so in [Github][7].

[2]: http://twikural.veerasundar.com/ "Twikural - Daily Thirukural"
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TirukkuÃ¡¹€ºaÃ¡¸· "Thirukkural"
[4]: https://twitter.com/twikural "twikural"
[5]: https://www.facebook.com/twikural
[6]: https://veerasundar.com/blog/open-sourcing-twikural-an-app-engine-project "Open sourcing Twikural"
[7]: https://github.com/vraa/twikural "Twikural source code in Github"

In this post, I'm going to explain the details behind the project and how the entire thing works. Lets begin.

## The Big Picture

[![][9]][9]

[]: http://twikural.veerasundar.com

The site runs on **Google App Engine **and built using **Java 7**. The Java code does not use any fancy frameworks - it's all plain old Servlets and JSPs. But in the front end, I am using **Twitter Bootstrap** to ease the designing task and supporting different screen sizes. To interact with Twitter, I'm using **Twitter4j**.

There are two *cron jobs *that scheduled to run at 9 AM and 6PM respectively and sends out the tweets and Direct messages to the subscribed users. Then twitter takes care of updating the Facebook status of Twikural page.

As you can see in the above picture, the site talks only to Twitter, even though it supports Facebook as a subscription channel. This made possible by using the Facebook integration feature that Twitter provides. Using this, whenever there's a tweet is published, Twitter will automatically update the connected Facebook page status.

Users can subscribe via either [Twitter][9] or [Facebook][5]. The advantage of subscribing via Twitter is that the user will get an direct message (and possibly an SMS if he'd enabled it).

[9]: https://twitter.com/twikural

So that's pretty much about what's happening behind Twikural at a higher level. If you'd like to read Thirukkural everyday, you should [subscribe to Twikural][10]. And feel free to share your feedback. The comments are always welcomed.

[10]: http://twikural.veerasundar.com/subscribe.jsp "Subscribe to Twitter"


Twikural - How it works?


Today I got stuck on what could be a simple problem to long time Ubuntu users - making changes that require *root *access.

I never faced this problem until today because my Ubuntu user account/password was enough to make system level changes as it was treated like admin user by Ubuntu.

Today I tried to modify the directory */var/www *which is owned by the _root_. Since the folder is not owned by me, Ubuntu asked me to enter the *root* password and I typed my Ubuntu user password. It didn't work, obviously.

Then I tried to escalate the permission level to *root, *so I tried the command: *su root *and gave my Ubuntu user password. This also failed.

After googling sometime, I found out that,

1.  Ubuntu does not allow you to directly login as _root_.
2.  The first Ubuntu account you create is treated like *admin* account.

So, in order to escalate yourself as a *root *user in Ubuntu terminal, I had to give the command: '**\*sudo su -' **(without quotes) *and then enter my current Ubuntu user password. After that, I was escalated to *root _user and then able to modify the _/var/www \*folder as I wanted. Piece of cake!!


root user in Ubuntu


Now, lets do a small exercise. Have a look at the below photo and tell me which button will you press to see the balance in your account? second one'¦or the third one?

![the problem with ATM menus][1]
the problem with ATM menus

No, 2.5 isn't the right answer. I figured it out that the third button will do the balance checking while the second button will withdraw money from my account. Well, it took two tries to figure this out, thanks to the confusing placement of ATM menus and their corresponding buttons.

Well, it isn't the problem of UI designers. They did their best to bring out a visually pleasing screen. But then when you integrate that screen with the physical ATM interface, the usability has gone for a toss. Mainly because the **viewing angle**.

As you can see from the above photo, most of the ATM users will be looking at the screen from the same point of view as seen in that photo. Due to the perspective, the screen menus often mismatch with their corresponding buttons. To see the correct button for the menus, you need to bend down and keep your eyes parallel to the screen.

Good exercise, huh!? And, when tall people do this, it would be real fun to watch! ![:P][2]

Coming back to the point, how hard it will for the ATM vendors to design an interface like this?

![properly numbered atm menus ][3]
properly numbered atm menus

Numbering the menus and buttons will make it easy for choosing the correct menu. I hope this will avoid the confusion. What say?

[1]: https://veerasundar.com/img/2011/08/atm-1024x768.jpg "atm"
[2]: https://veerasundar.com/blog/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif
[3]: https://veerasundar.com/img/2011/08/atm-numbered-1024x768.jpg "atm-numbered"


The problem with the ATM Menus


Notepad is the lightest yet powerful text editor I've ever came across. It's fast, slick and has been my [default text editor][1] for years.

[1]: https://veerasundar.com/blog/notepad-a-cool-source-code-editor

In the past, I've learned/discovered few tips that helped me a lot while using Notepad . In this post, I'm sharing those tips in the hope that it might help someone else too. If you know any other tips about Notepad , please feel free to share.

## 1. Transform your Notepad to a post-it

Re-size the Notepad editor window to the size you want and then **press F12** which will make the text editor to stick on top of all other windows and will hide toolbars/menu bars.

To get back original window, just click on the **Restore** button.

## 2. How to delete a Macro in Notepad

To delete a macro in Notepad , go to **Settings -> Shortcut Mapper -> Macros** and then right-click on the macro name which you want to delete and click **delete**.

## 3. Edit two files side by side in Notepad

Open the two files which you want to edit simultaneously. Right click on any one file's tab and then select **Move to other view** which will split the screen into two for each of the file.

Of course, you can have more than 2 files open at the same time, and you can move any file into any view. Just follow the above said tip.

## 4. Switching between vertical and horizontal split in side by side editing mode

When you edit two files side by side, the files can be split either vertically or horizontally. To switch between vertical Horizontal, right click on the bar which splits the views and then select **Rotate to Left** or **Rotate to Right**.

## 5. Auto close HTML/XML tag

Go to **TextFX -> TextFX Settings -> Autoclose XHTML/XML**. After checking that option, when ever you edit a html or xml file, the tags will be auto-closed as you type.


5 tips that you might not know about Notepad++


Mind Maps are **great**! Repeat, Mind Maps are **very, very great**! Let me show you why.

My work often demands me to switch between several tasks. In any given day, I have to work on several different features, bug fixes and analysis. At first, I was using simple text files to keep things organized. But then as the time goes on, this method proved very in-efficient and time consuming.

So I moved to Mind Maps. I use the free Mind Mapping software [SciPlore MindMapping][1] (I tried [FreeMind][2] too!) to organize my day-to-day notes.

[1]: http://www.sciplore.org/software/sciplore_mindmapping/
[2]: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

Let me tell How I organize my notes using Mind Map, in the hope that if you are planning to use Mind Map, you'll have some reference to start.

## Starting with the base structure:

Here's how my top level mind map looks like:

![mind mapping structure ][3]As you can see, there are three top level nodes under _Global_:

[3]: https://veerasundar.com/img/2011/03/mind-map-1.png "mind-map-1"

1.  **\*Constants **- \*I use this node to store some static information like, stage URLs, test account names, passwords, etc.
2.  **_Methods _**- This is my knowledge store. I use this node to organize any techniques, or how-to-dos. For example, how to deploy a build on stage, how to remove clearcase views etc.
3.  **_Variables _**- This is the most happening node in this lot. This is my _working space._ This node contains my every day-to-day notes and activity logs. So, lets go further into this node and how I organize this one.

## Organizing the working directory:

![mind-map-working-directory][4]I further split the *Variables *into several team that I'm part of and year (to reduce the clutter) and to Sprints. At work, we follow Agile methodology, so it is very easy for me to organize notes per Sprint. Again for each sprint, I will work on stories as well as bugs. So, I splitted that too.

[4]: https://veerasundar.com/img/2011/03/mind-map-working-directory.png "mind-map-working-directory"

## Not just organizing, but visually prioritizing tasks

Here comes the good part. SciPlore lets me to put some icons next to each node. There are n-number of little icons that I can use to classify a node. For example, if a task is blocked for some reason, then I can assign a RED SIGNAL icon, so that I can immediately recognize the show-stopper if I come back to this task after switching between several tasks. Similarly there are lot more icons there which I can use. Here's a sample classification of one of my Sprint tasks.  
![mind-map-icons][5]

[5]: https://veerasundar.com/img/2011/03/mind-map-icons.png "mind-map-icons"

As you can see above, I have prioritized some stories with the numbers and marked some of them as completed. So, if I just open the stories node, I'll immediately get a picture of what is done and what is yet to be done.

## So, why should you use Mind Maps?

Let me list some of the benefits I get through Mind Maps.

1.  I spend **less time **searching for informations.
2.  I **immediately get to know **what is happening in my project. What's done, what's blocked and what's yet to be done (by means of assigning proper icons). So, at a glance, you get the whole status.
3.  **Visually organizing **rather than copy pasting and using indentation to group things, when compared with text files.
4.  Rather than scattering notes files into multiple folders, I can use a **single mind map **file to store them all.
5.  **Less Clutter **- SciPlore lets me to hide unwanted nodes so that I can focus only on the active task.

So, if you want all the above benefits, you should consider using Mind Maps! It's all up to you. ![:)][6] But, if you are already using Mind Map, I would be really interested to know your story.

[6]: https://veerasundar.com/blog/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

Feel free to leave a comment about what do you feel about this post!


How I use Mind Maps


Sometime back, I wrote about [Java web application hosting][1], in which I listed out the different options available to you to [host your Java web applications][2]. Now, let's look at the different solutions to **host your code**.

[1]: https://veerasundar.com/blog/hosting-java-applications-in-the-web "Java web hosting"
[2]: https://veerasundar.com/blog/hosting-java-applications-in-the-web "java web hosting"

Before you dive in, please note that:

1.  Most (if not all) of the services provide the free plan only with basic features. Want more, pay them! ![:)][3]
2.  The focus is on Subversion hosting only (because at the end you might wonder why Github wasn't be seen in the list!).

[3]: https://veerasundar.com/blog/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

Let's list the [best web hosts][4] for your code!

[4]: http://www.hostingobserver.com/ "Hosting Observer - Your Guide to Finding the Best Web Host Online"

---

## Assembla

[![assembla-code-hosting][6]][6]

[]: http://www.assembla.com/

**Beanstalk**

[![beanstalk-code-hosting][7]][7]

**BerliOS**

[![][8]][8]

## Bootstrap Today

[![][9]][9]

## Bounty

[![bounty-source-code-hosting][10]][10]

## Codesion

[![][11]][11]

## Gna

[![][12]][12]

## Google Code

[![][13]][13]

## My Version Control

[![][14]][14]

## Project Locker

[![][15]][15]

## Slik SVN

[![][16]][16]

## SourceForge

[![][17]][17]

## Unfuddle

[![][18]][18]

## Versionshelf

[![][19]][19]

- - \*I'll be updating this list in future, if I come to know about a free code hosting solution. In case if you want to add anything to this list, please feel free to

[contact me][19].

[]: http://beanstalkapp.com/
[]: http://developer.berlios.de/
[]: http://bootstraptoday.com/
[]: https://www.bountysource.com/
[]: http://codesion.com/
[]: http://gna.org/
[]: http://code.google.com/hosting/
[]: http://www.myversioncontrol.com/
[]: http://www.projectlocker.com/
[]: http://www.sliksvn.com/
[]: http://sourceforge.net/
[]: http://unfuddle.com/
[]: http://www.versionshelf.com/
[19]: https://veerasundar.com/contact "contact me"


Hosting your code for free


If you are using your Opera Mini mobile browser to access regional websites, you might have faced this issue. Instead of seeing the proper regional content (in my case, its Tamil), you might have seen boxes all over there in that tiny mobile screen. This is because, by default, Opera Mini browser couldn't be able to render the complex scripts, i.e. regional fonts.

So, to enable the regional (Tamil or Telugu or you name it!) language in Opera Mini browser,

1.  Open the address **about:config** in your opera mini browser. This will open the browser's option page.
2.  Scroll down until you see something like this: **Use bitmap fonts for complex scripts**.
3.  Set the above option value to **yes** and then click on **Save** button.

That's it. Now you'll be able to enjoy the local content from your Opera Mini browser.

## Technicalities:

All the web traffic from Opera Mini browser goes through Opera's proxy servers, which optimize the web content for mobile experience. As I said above, Opera Mini does not have the capability to render complex scripts in mobile. So, by setting the above option, we are letting the Opera's proxy servers to render the complex scripts as images and send those images to mobile browser. Thus you'll see the regional content as images, instead of fonts.

PS: came to know about this tip when I met the Tamil tweeters on last Sunday. Thanks to them for sharing this info.


#tech (11)