Guylhem's most recent funny hacks & thoughts

Fritzbox incoming caller-id by Growl

I hate having to get up in order to look for the %$# dect phone only to decide from the caller-id that the call is not important and not worth answering

There is a not-so-simple solution on wehavemorefun depending on php+an outdated growl-network protocol, but thanks to gntp-send we can do the same much more easily with a modern (1.3+) Growl supporting gntp.

Simply telnet on your fritzbox and create the following /var/calllog (which must be chmod +x), where I’m supposing your Mac is on 192.168.178.11 and Growl is configured to accept network notifications with password “yourpasswd”

#!/bin/sh

/var/media/ftp/gntp-send -a Fritzbox -s 192.168.178.11 -p yourpasswd “Call from” “$1”

To get the binary :

cd /var/media/ftp/ && wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/984275/gntp-send && cd ..

That’s all - no reboot required of course! Ain’t that much simpler ?

Facebook page

To keep in touch by facebook, I have prepared “Guylhem” facebook page, which is linked with the twitter account. There is very little content at the moment, however it should come little by little :-)

Happy new year 2012!

My dearest friends,

Year 2012 started well - if only by not resulting in the Mayan predicted end of the world.

Yet I was told as a joke that this “event” was just postponed to december 21, 2012 - to which I replied “Well, that is good news - almost 12 free month gained!”

In jokes, as in life, we sometimes only see the bad points. We tend to forget about the good parts.

Yet as a doctor, when I think about “12 months”, I am reminded that this is above the average life expectancy for patients with treated small cell lung cancer in extensive stage. These patients are people like you and I - only with a little less luck. As I said before, we tend to forget that, maybe because we do not understand how blessed we are. How lucky of us to fear a rumor while most of these patients will face a much more certain fate!

Likewise, the economic situation we are all facing is just a reminder of how spoiled we were, and how ungrateful we have been. 

Just for one or two tiny issues, we forget to bless the lord for all the goods things that were and still are given to us on a daily basis. We have come to expect them and give nothing in return. We take for granted. We think we deserve everything. Those who don’t have faith just think they are entitled to everything society produces.

Year 2011 has been very good for me, and year 2012 also started very well - and I guess that if you are able to read this message, it is going well for you too.

Of course, like everyone, I had my ups and downs. I am for example fighting cybersquatters, and I’m sure you have your own challenges as well. Sometimes they may feel overpowering. Yet just a glance at people with a little less luck makes me thank the lord - every morning as I wake up, for every meal he provides me, and for every challenge he presents me.

New year wishes are a good moment to think about friends, changes and the future. I usually wait until the very end of january to send my wishes, because they are, let’s say “not so conventional”, and I wouldn’t want to spoil the moment.

This month, I am sure you have been wished the best by everyone you know, just like I was.

Yet we should all remember the ‘Chinese curse’ - three curses of increasing severity, the first being “May you live in interesting times”, the second being “May you come to the attention of those in authority”, and the third and worst being “May you find what you are looking for and may your wishes be granted”.

So I will not wish you an interesting year, fame, or finding what you are looking for. That is what I had in year 2011, which back in january  I would have preferred to be quite different, yet something I understood in december to be quite foolish. I wanted more, but now I thank the lord for such presents, because many people were far less lucky. In 2012, I will try not to forget that whenever I feel like complaining.

Therefore, just as I wish for myself, my family and my closet friends I have the luck to see offline, I will only wish for you in 2012 to find happiness in the lords way.

Jesus said “the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). May we all follow Jesus in this new year- not by just our words, and not even by our actions, but by our understanding of his infinite wisdom - the first understanding being how lucky we all are to hear his message of salvation.

Happy new year 2012 from the French West Indies!

Best regards

Dr Guylhem Aznar, MD PhD

PS: @jesus on twitter shows poor taste. Don’t fall for cheap imitations - follow our true lord and saviour in your heart, not on the internet :-)

—

vCard: http://guylhem.tel

Remove ~/Desktop with Gnome

Just 2 steps away:

1) Start gconf-editor and click:

apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktopapps/nautilus/preferences/desktop_is_homedir

apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop

2) Then rmdir ~/Desktop - done!

Item review : SYBA SY-PEX40035 SATA3+IDE Ports PCI-Express

Recently I purchased such a card on ebay. I don’t think I will ever again!

Basically, the PATA connector is put right on top of the SMD resistors near the card end :

This results in a progressively growing empty space being left behind the connector, from the right to the left, also causing an incomplete cable connection.

Longevity problems could also be an issue.

Anyway, with so many unpopulated areas for additional SATA connectors, it looks like a general purpose board cheaply refitted for additional uses. I strongly recommand against buying this version.

Amazon.es : happy ending before christmas

Finally, this story takes an happy ending before chirstmas!

Everything began to get properly managed when I started placing phonecalls, using the +34 number listed on amazon.es. A sales representative more conscientious than the others finally transferred my call to his manager who made some big promises.

But they were not just promises, because he managed to keep them!

Basically, not only did he admit Amazon being responsible for the problems that happened (and apologized for them), but he did some serious action: he got the refund process fixed and also said I would get my motherboard before christmas day. And I did!

He managed to have Gigabyte send me the 1.3 version, on time, as promised!

As one can see in the label, it is a proper Z68MX-UD2H-B3 rev 1.3 motherboard -what I ordered and paid for, when it was described as such when Amazon was selling it under ASIN B0050GNQAK.

In the box, the user manual even contains a flyier stating this version properly supports PCI Express 3.0 - which is the biggest difference between rev 1.3 and the bogus rev 1.0.

Therefore, I called my bank to stop the credit card complain process. Maybe that’s what got Amazon.es to pull its act together??

Or maybe it was just badly managed by software routines updating the order and the websites, as I was told on the phone, until an actual human being finally analyzed the situation and figured out how wrong it was and did what needed to be done.

I don’t know what to think there, but following Occam razor I’d go for the 2nd reason - computer mistake spiraling out of control.

Moral of the story- if something happens, even with an e-commerce like Amazon, get on the phone and repetitively complain until you get someone who understands the issues. You will then get results.

Anyway, I am very grateful to Mr Ruiz from Amazon.es and Ms Wang from gigabyte.fr ; even if I ended up calling my “PREMIUM” delivery option, my trust in Amazon is fully restored.

[BTW the reason I cancelled my Premium delivery: having this option only valid on one Amazon shop (ex: amazon.fr) is not worth the 50 Eur/$75 per year because you might place your order wherever the item you are looking for is being sold. For example, try to get some Noiseblocker brand fans on amazon.fr and compare the short list you get to amazon.de choices.

If this option worked for one amazon account on every shop (amazon.com .fr .es etc.), or if every shop had the same items available,  I might change my mind]

MacOSX : Stuck in a grey screen with circling cursor after some remote changes

Never happened before, so this this warranted further investigations!

First I went into single user mode, where I saw notices of mDNSresponder that could not be spawned.

Figured out I tried to change some perms on the user interface, to increase security on my mother computer, and thus created a strange bug. A google search on mDNSresponder pointed me to: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/184944-os-hangs-blue-screen-just-before-login.html#post1055281 :

“it was caused by sharing the boot volume via Server Admin and then removing read access for ‘everyone’ (within Server Admin). In my opinion this is a serious bug - Server Admin settings should never be able to inhibit booting - preferably file sharing controlled by Server Admin should be totally independent of any local conventional OS X file sharing, or is this too much to expect?”

Solution : single user boot or CD rescue booth, then as explained in the post :

ls -ld /

(followed by the return key) ; Correct permissions are: drwxrwxr-t and the eighth character is critical. If it is not an r you can correct it as follows, so type:

/sbin/mount -uw /

(followed by the return key) ; then type:

chmod 1775 /

(followed by the return key) ; then type:

exit ; reboot

Thanks google, you save my day here !

Amazon.es in fraud + lying

These last days I thought Amazon.fr might have changed the product description between the date of my order and the date of my refund claim. It seemed far fetched, but it was the only real explaination I saw for the difference between what I ordered and what I got.

Now I have proof that amazon.es is doing exactly that, and even more by falsificating client orders. IMHO it is called fraud.

See this screenshot of the item description for ASIN B0050GNQAK, as posted here on december 10, 2011 : it is clearly a revision 1.3 (follow the big red arrow!!)

And if you do not believe a screenshot is binding, I am sure I did not made any mistake in my order since amazon itself confirmed by email I would get a revision 1.3:

from: auto-confirm@amazon.es sender-time: Sent at 23:25 (UTC)date: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 23:25subject: Tu pedido de Amazon.es

(…)

Pedido nº:

171-9404429-3853925

(…)

Importe total:  

EUR 145,47

 
Fecha de envío estimada para estos productos: 7 dic 20111“Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3, 32 GB, dual, 1066, 1200, 1300, 1333, 1600, 1800, 1866, 2133 MHz, DDR3, 1.5 V, Intel (rev. 1.3)”
Accesorio; EUR 126,25
En stock
   Vendido por: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.

Now guess what ?

Today on december 12, 2011, at the very same URL, the very same item is listed as revision 1.0 - and with the same item number (ASIN). Ain’t that strange ?

Check for yourself on  http://www.amazon.es/Gigabyte-Z68MX-UD2H-B3-dual-1066-Intel/dp/B0050GNQAK/ :

That could be an honest website update, but that would be a wrong guess because you need to hear the end of this story.

The very worst is that they ex-post-facto “updated” (some would say “falsificate”) my purchase to list the motherboard I purchased as a revision 1.0 - in contradiction with their own email!!

The only question is why? IMHO, it is to deny customers who got scammed the possibility to return a product different form the one they ordered, so that they can not ask for a refund.

Here they can only ask to return it for an exchange of the same product. The same product is a revision 1.0, which will be officially be attributed to the customer this time, who will thus give away all its hopes to ever get a 1.3

I was more than patient, but that is just too much. Today I got 2 calls from people form Amazon.fr who offered they apologies, and explained that yes, they did a mistake, that it was they fault, and that they would issue a full refund:

Suite à notre conversation téléphonique, je suis désolé d’apprendre que vous ayez reçu votre carte mère avec la révision 1.0 au lieu de 1.3.

Veuillez trouver ci-dessous un lien vers l’étiquette de retour personnalisée. Il s’agit d’une étiquette prépayée, vous n’avez donc pas à affranchir votre colis. 

But still, they didn’t think my thousands K of purchased goods on amazon were worth a single dollar coupon. Lamers.

Anyway, I consider the matter with amazon.fr settled.

But Amazon.es is not doing anything like that. They are now even trying to falsificate my order, by claiming I ordered a 1.0 while I have multiple proofs I ordered a 1.3 - even they own sending slip and their own bill !!!

At this time, I can only see of one good solution : I am going to call my bank and ask to revert the charge, then sue amazon.es for fraud. What they did is just not acceptable. I have all the proofs that they posted a product description, then altered it, then also falsificated the order so that they can pretend that the ordered was right and refuse any refund.

I wonder how long such business practices would fly in the US?