Autistici Inventati Email Configuration for Mozilla Thunderbird Client

Here's the smtp, pop, and imap configuration for thunderbird for using Autistici/inventati email which will give you emails that ends in autistici.org onenetbeyond.org etc

incoming mail
server	mail.autistici.org
protocol	POP or IMAP
port	for POP: 110 (TLS) or 995 (SSL) for IMAP: 143 (TLS) or 993 (SSL)
username	user@inventati.org

outgoing mail
server	smtp.autistici.org
port	465 (SSL), 587 (TLS)
username	user@inventati.org

Replace inventati.org with autistici.org, onenetbeyond.org privacyrequired, etc to connect for respective email addresses.

Collected from http://www.autistici.org/en/stuff/man_mail/connectionparms.html

Corel Draw X6 Malayalam Font Problems

Recently for my college magazine I had to troubleshoot the Malayalam section.

A friend collected the Malayalam articles from various students of the college and sent to someone in Kerala to type them out.
The stupid typist in Kerala typed that using some software in an ascii font.

You have heard of arial, times new roman, etc. These are fonts that make English letters come beautifully. Now, imagine we replace the symbol 'A' in Times New Roman and keep malayalam letter അ there. Then, whenever you type 'A' in that modified font, you'll get the Malayalam character. But if you change the font you'll get 'A' itself. This is how an ascii font works.

So this typist had typed the entire thing such that it works only with Ambili font.

It would have been fine if that worked properly in corel draw. But the letter ണ്ട  (nda) does not work in such a case because corel draw thinks that the ascii font does not need complex processing. ( http://community.coreldraw.com/forums/p/33588/172022.aspx )

Since there was no time to convert all that to unicode, I converted it using this software called payyans. http://wiki.smc.org.in/Payyans

Remember, the pip repository has a very old version of payyans. You're better of downloading the latest version from savannah.

After I converted all the text to unicode, there was another problem.

The letters ണ്‍ ന്‍ ര്‍ ല്‍ ള്‍ are given its own position in unicode. But in the past they used to be a sum of different letters and zero width joiners. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-width_joiner

Corel Draw X6 could recognize only those letters with zero width joiners.

So I had to manually replace in a word document the following:
ല്‍ to ൽ
ണ്‍ to ണ്‍ (they were the same)
ന്‍ to ൻ
ള്‍ to ൾ
ര്‍ to ർ

Now the corel draw x6 would show these fonts properly using a unicode font like Rachana or Meera. http://malayalam.kerala.gov.in/index.php/Fonts

Running RaspberryPi remotely by forwarding its display to your laptop

If you have a RaspberryPi and want to use it via your laptop, you don't have to restrict yourself to the command line.

Set up raspberry such that it receives an IP address from the router (say 192.168.1.48)

Ubuntu 14.04 by default xinit can be done only by console users, so, switch to console 6 by pressing

Ctrl + Alt + F6

login with your username and password

xinit /usr/bin/ssh -Y pi@192.168.1.48 lxsession -- :1

You might have to configure passwordless login

Ctrl+alt+F8 is where the pi session is

Ctrl+Alt+F7 is where your session is

Root Android One phones (micromax canvas a1, karbonn, spice uno) without unlocking, without flashing recovery

Hi!

If you want to root your android one phone without any hazzle, just follow these steps.

adb reboot bootloader

fastboot boot recovery.img

Then install the supersu app via sideload

adb sideload supersu.zip

3 bulbs 3 switches puzzle with LED bulbs

Here's the puzzle.

There are three light switches up in the attic of an old house. They control three light bulbs down in the basement. The problem is that you don't know which switch is connected to which bulb. You can make one trip down to the basement to figure this out. How are you going to do it?

Think and you'll easily come up with the traditional answer that's applicable to incandescent bulbs.

Don't know?

The answer that's expected is: Switch on one bulb for a long time, then switch it off, switch another on, and go to the basement immediately. The bulb shining has the second switch. And the warmer of the two unlit bulbs has the first switch.

What if the bulbs were made of LEDs?

Since the question isn't serious, I came up with two solutions of my own - which may or may not answer the question correctly. For educational purpose, they are:

1) Use an arduino to make one LED blink. Switch one on, keep one off. Go to basement and correlate the bulbs.
2) LEDs can emit light as well as detect light. So, if the bulbs are not arranged in an equilateral triangle fashion, switch one on, and measure the multimeter readings in the other two switches. Then go to the basement. The bulb closer to the shining bulb has the switch which showed the larger multimeter reading.

Flaws and other solutions are welcome.

Share text from computer PC to whatsapp via Android phone

There is no official desktop client for whatsapp. And this makes sharing text or links from computer to whatsapp contacts very tedious.

A usual way people do this is typing down the text using phone, or sending themselves an email via gmail which they copy to whatsapp.

But this free, open source app called QRtoWhatsapp, eliminates the need for all that hazzle.

Things you need

A QR code creator on your PC. Linux, Windows

QRtoWhatsapp app installed on your android phone

Zxing barcode scanner app installed on your android phone (asks to install the first time you run the QRtoWhatsapp app)

Whatsapp on your android phone.

To download QRtoWhatsapp go to the github repo here, and click on view RAW

Google Removes Free SMS Apps from Play Store

Early today Google has removed all the free sms apps from its Play Store.
These include Free SMS India, SMS Free, Free 2 sms, etc.

Free SMS India now returns an error "We no longer support this gateway" when you try to send an sms.

This is probably due to a Terms of Service violation and now you'll have to visit sites like way2sms or 160by2 directly through their website to send free SMS.