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February 7, 2008

FART: easy grep-like utility for Windows

The Find And Replace Text utility is a handy little command-line tool to have if you're a Windows user. It can function as a simple grep-like utility for quickly searching through whole directories of files, and you can also use it to perform mass search and replace operations on a file or group of files.

The command format is fart <options> filename search <replace>. Basic options are -r (recursive), -c (print filename and match count), -i (ignore case), -n (print matched line numbers), --c-style (interpret backslashes as c-style characters).

For example, let's say a Linux buddy of yours sent you a bunch of html files and they have unix line endings that are barfing in notepad. One simple command fixes the problem, replacing all the newlines with a full PC carriage return, line feed combo:

fart --c-style *.html \n \r\n

Or perhaps you need to quickly track down some work that is left to be done throughout a big project directory. You can use fart to recursively search a directory and spit out all the file names and line numbers containing the text "TODO":

fart -nr * TODO

It's easy to see how you could shoot yourself in the foot with this one. Make sure to fart with caution and back up your files before doing a big search and replace.

FART @ SourceForge - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Feb 7, 2008 09:55 PM
Lifehacker, Windows | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

February 6, 2008

TrueCrypt for OS X

TrueCrypt 5.0 was released yesterday and OS X has been added to the list of supported operating systems, making it the only open source volume encryption utility that works in Linux, Mac and Windows. It's a really slick utility for creating an AES-256 or Serpent encrypted volume that you can drop sensitive files inside.

You can use TrueCrypt to create an encrypted volume image inside a file, or you can encrypt a whole disk image or partition. The OS X version uses MacFUSE to provide user-mode mounting of the encrypted disk. The main application window, pictured above, gives you a simple interface for creating and mounting encrypted images.

Once an image is mounted, you can use it like a normal hard disk. Unmount the disk and you're left with a file full of random gibberish. FAT is the only filesystem that's available through the interface, but once the disk is mounted, you can reformat it with Disk Utility to use XFS.

There are a couple of things worth noting. In the Windows and Linux versions a special bootloader is available that lets you encrypt your entire system drive. It doesn't look like that option is available in the OS X version. Also, when I tested the latest OS X binary this evening, the "hidden volume" plausible deniability feature wasn't working. Hopefully that will be added in a future release. Until then, TrueCrypt is better suited for storing tax documents and things you wouldn't want visible to a laptop thief, rather than the details of where you've hidden the bodies.

TrueCrypt - [via] Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Feb 6, 2008 08:34 PM
Cryptography, Data, Mac | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

February 5, 2008

Wii Drum Kit

The Wii Drum Kit is another great example of a tangible user interface made possible with the Wiimote. The latest version adds support for the Nunchuck, so you can use both hands to play your virtual drum kit. This one is a Windows application, and source is available at the This is Not a Label blog.

The Wiimote + Nunchuck combination seems like the perfect interface for an air drum. Different gestures are used to trigger a specific drum, so the high hat is a flick to the side, the snare is a forward hit, etc. There's no kick pedal, of course, but the fist stamping motion that's used is a reasonable alternative.

Wii Drum Kit - Link
Control Your Applications With a Wiimote - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Feb 5, 2008 07:18 PM
Gaming, Music, Windows | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

February 4, 2008

Ubuntu Tweak

Hans sent us a link to HowtoForge's guide to installing and using the Ubuntu Tweak utility.

Ubuntu Tweak is a tool that lets you change hidden Ubuntu settings, for example: hide or change the splash screen, show or hide the Computer, Home, Trash, and Network icons, change Metacity, Nautilus, power management, and security settings, etc.

It's only applicable for the Gnome desktop, but it's a really convenient tool for tweaking your computer's splash screen, desktop and hibernation settings. There's nothing here that you can't do via other settings management programs or config files, but the interface is simple to use and it collects a lot of Gnome's system settings in a single application.

Tweaking Hidden Ubuntu Settings With Ubuntu Tweak - [via] Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Feb 4, 2008 07:04 PM
Linux Desktop, Ubuntu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

February 3, 2008

Rebuild a Roomba battery

Before you buy a replacement battery for your dead Roomba, you might want to consider rebuilding the pack yourself. You can get a couple of 6 cell Sub-C NIMH packs for less money and more amp hours than the stock battery.

I've been wondering whether it would be economical to just rebuild the battery pack, versus buying a new one. From the looks of it, all it takes is 12 NiMH cells, and from the looks of the case, it looks to be C-Size form factor. For less than $36, I can pick up 12 4500 mAh C cells. I can see iRobot has tried to prevent people from doing this by using TRIANGLE bits for their battery cases, but that's simple to get through.

To remove the triangle bits, just find a small flathead screwdriver that you can wedge in nicely.

Rebuilding a Roomba Battery for Less - Link, Photos

Posted by Jason Striegel | Feb 3, 2008 07:24 PM
Electronics, Home | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

Experiment with a virtual neuron

Over at the Mind Hacks blog, Vaughan writes:

The Children's Hospital Boston have created a fantastic 'virtual neuron' which allows you to explore the basics of neural transmission with an interactive flash demo. Strictly speaking, of course, it's designed for children, but it's remarkably good fun whatever your age. Once you've got the demo window up, the options at the top of the screen allow you to choose different demonstrations, and the text below explains what's happening. Yay!

Virtual neuron at Children's Hospital Boston

Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb
Price: $24.95
Buy: Maker store - Mind Hacks
This exploration into the moment-by-moment works of the brain uses cognitive neuroscience to present experiments, tricks, and tips related to vision, motor skills, attention, cognition, and subliminal perception. Each hack examines specific operations of the brain. By seeing how the brain responds, you'll learn more about how the brain is put together. If you want to find out what's going on in your head, then Mind Hacks is the key.

Posted by Brian Jepson | Feb 3, 2008 05:23 PM
Mind | Permalink | Comments (0) | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

February 2, 2008

Sidebar separator hack for OS X

Becky Stern forwarded us Jonathan Berger's simple and useful hack that adds dividers to the Finder sidebar.

I use the Finder's Sidebar pretty heavily, but it was getting to be a mess that could really use some dividers. Solution? Make an empty folder called " ..................." and stick it in there.

You'll need a leading space with periods. Dashes also work and patterns like " - - - - - -" are satisfying too. Periods work particularly well, because you can make the filename long and when it's abbreviated in a skinny sidebar it'll still look correct with "..." added at the end.

To add more than one separator, you need a unique folder for each one. To do this, you can either make folders with different numbers of periods, or, for a consistent length, just place all the folder copies inside each other like Russian dolls.

The final trick is to give the separator folders a blank icon to disguise the fact that they are just folders sitting in your sidebar. I was too lazy to do this part and I'm still happy with the effect, though it doesn't look quite as hot as Jonathan's screen grab above.

Hacking Separators Into the Leopard Finder Sidebar - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Feb 2, 2008 10:49 PM
Mac | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

February 1, 2008

Meta-model: tools for clarifying communication

Hackszine reader nathaN writes:

i have mind performance hacks here on my lap, and i found hack 56. you included transformational grammar, surface/deep structure, you have to be aware of this other book on my desk, next to my lap. The book describes a method of using transformational grammar to analyze statements and gather incredible amounts of information, the technique is called the Meta Model, i had to write this post after i found #56 in your book. it's out of print, i think, but it's not too hard to find used if you make a few calls. it cost ME $35, but its probably online as well, torrents or whatever =(

its the single most useful "hack" i've ever found, ive been using it for about an year and it gives me more options than i know how to take advantage of.

The Structure of Magic I, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder
Introduction by Virginia Satir and Gregory Bateson.
Science and Behavior Books, Inc
copyright 1975

Unfortunately, the Google Books entry for The Structure of Magic I wasn't a full scanned version. There is, however, a wealth of information about the Meta-model and other Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) tools on Wikipedia:

The meta-model in neuro-linguistic programming (or meta-model of therapy) is a heuristic set of questions designed to specify information, challenge and expand the limits to a person's model of the world. It responds to the distortions, generalizations, and deletions in the speaker's language.

In the process of communicating, the mind is forced to translate a person's experiences and their internal understanding of the world into words, making language a highly optimized and compressed representation of a complex internal mental state. This translation occurs a second time, as the listener parses language and interprets that communication based on their own mental world model and past experiences.

The meta-model provides tools for quickly parsing the structure of a communication, determining implied meaning, and locating potential points of misunderstanding. When you can recognize the linguistic translation artifacts that are common patterns in the communication process, you can respond to them. On the receiving end, this helps you better understand the experiences that underlie the speaker's language. On the sending end, it helps you to better communicate without misunderstanding. Internally, it helps you to analyze and debug your own model of the world.

Meta-model (Neuro-linguistic Programming) - Link
Mind Performance Hacks @ the Maker Store - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Feb 1, 2008 09:42 PM
Language, Life, Lifehacker, Mind, Mind Performance | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

January 31, 2008

R: open source statistical computing

I was digging around for an open source statistics package today and came across R, a GPLed statistics and and data analysis suite. Sweet!

R provides a wide variety of statistical (linear and nonlinear modelling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, ...) and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible. The S language is often the vehicle of choice for research in statistical methodology, and R provides an Open Source route to participation in that activity.

One of R's strengths is the ease with which well-designed publication-quality plots can be produced, including mathematical symbols and formulae where needed. Great care has been taken over the defaults for the minor design choices in graphics, but the user retains full control.

So I've been messing around with this for the last half hour and it's really an exciting package, especially if you're a coder or unix geek. You interface with R through a command line programming interface, executing simple statements, setting variables, and defining functions. It feels similar to issuing commands at a unix prompt, except you're working with data sets instead of file descriptors.

What's cool is the robust capability of the standard function set. Want to read in a data set from a tab delimited table you found on the internet? Check this out:

# Read a table in from a URL (tab delimited table with row headers)
Mydata <- read.table(https://someserver.com/table.txt', header=TRUE)

# Display summary (mean, median, min, max, etc.) for each column
summary(Mydata)

# Get the standard deviation for the values in column "foo"
attach(Mydata)
sd(foo)


Learning the command set is a little daunting at first, but the console even does tab completion. If you don't know what a function does, just put a question mark before it. For instance, "?sd" will quickly pull up help for the standard deviation function.

I've only scratched the surface, but there are links below to some R beginner guides which should help you get started. Anyone out there more familiar with the package? Please share any useful links and tips in the comments.

The R Project for Statistical Computing - Link
An Introduction to Statistical Computing in R - Link
Producing Simple Graphs with R - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Jan 31, 2008 08:35 PM
Math, Science, Statistics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

January 30, 2008

UV photography on the cheap

There's an easy way to make a UV pass filter for your camera. It just takes a $5 incandescent black light, a large bottle cap and some duct tape.

For years I've wanted to mess around with UV photography. Unfortunately, all the websites on DIY UV seem to assume an infinite amount of money and access to specialized equipment on my part. There are two things that I don't like, when someone tells me I HAVE to spend a lot of money (quartz lenses starting at $3000) or that i need specialized equipment (Wratten 18A filters, not cheap either).

So I set out to do it my way, and here's my $5 solution to UV wavelength photography.

It's not completely void of visual artifacts, especially at the edges of the photo, but that's what the crop tool is for. As long as you're creative, which you are, you can make it work for you and get really nice results. Save the 3000 bucks for that trip to Europe... you know, where you can exchange it for about 2000 Euro.

Photography in the Ultraviolet spectrum - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Jan 30, 2008 08:54 PM
Photography | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

January 29, 2008

Remove shake and motion blur from photos

It's a real drag when you think you've taken a great picture, only to load it up in photoshop and discover that your hands weren't as steady as you thought they were. Depending on the magnitude of your error, chances are you can correct most small camera bumps or pans using a deconvolution filter. The particular technique used depends on which package you use, but they are all built around manipulating the image in the frequency domain to reduce the photo's linear blurring.

Nathan Willis dissected three applications for removing the effects of camera movement from your photos. Two of them, Refocus and Iterative Refocus, are open source Gimp plugins. The third, Unshake, is a closed source Java application that is capable of producing high-quality results with little user effort (though your CPU will be hurting for a minute or two).

If you watch the movies, you have probably seen the impossibly accurate "computer enhancement" hand-waving that turns a blurry mess into a crystal clear mug shot or license plate for the hero to chase. Real-world image enhancement is not that good, but you may still be surprised at the level of quality a good Fast Fourier Transform and deconvolution can produce.

All three of these applications produce admirable results. Refocus is the fastest, and subjectively Unshake produces the cleanest results. It is unfortunate that among the three alternatives, one is not free software and the other two lack active maintainership. But since the math is well understood, maybe someone will pick up where the other programmers left off, and bring even better refocusing technology to the image editors of tomorrow.

The above photo is from the Unshake site. It seems to work well for predominately straight-line blurs over the range of 8 pixels or less. I haven't tried the two Gimp plugins, but I have a feeling the Iterative Refocus package could produce the best results given enough tweaking of the setting.

It's all Fast Fourier Transforms and way over my head, but it works (and frankly, if it was good enough for the Hubble, it's good enough for me).

Unshaking and refocusing your photos - Link
Unshake - Link
Refocus - Link
Iterative Refocus - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Jan 29, 2008 08:51 PM
Lifehacker, Photography | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

January 28, 2008

Buffer overflow discovered in Wii Zelda

A couple Wii hackers have found a way to glitch Zelda into running unsigned code. From the forum discussion at TehSkeen:

Yes, that's right - an exploit for the Nintendo Wii has been discovered and it allows you to run custom code. The method is pretty simple. Copy over a save file for Zelda, load it and the code runs. Don't get too excited yet. They have only been able to run 4 lines of code, but this is in a days work.

Right now I'm still having trouble reading through the forums due to all the attention this has been getting. I suspect it'll be a little while before the dust settles and we find out the nitty gritty of repeating the hack and making it actually do something useful.

With any luck, this will lead to a small bootstrap loader that will allow homebrew Wii development to take off, similar to the glory days of the Dreamcast.

Zelda Exploit: Run Unsigned Code w/o Modchip - Link
Zelda homebrew exploit - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Jan 28, 2008 08:14 PM
Gaming | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

January 27, 2008

HOWTO: Make a roll-up keyboard

Making a flexible, "roll-up" keyboard from a standard USB keyboard is a lot easier than I would have expected. Rolling your own is about as simple as removing the membrane from inside an existing keyboard and gluing key labels in the appropriate places.

Aside from having a portable full-size keyboard, and the additional geek-cred that your workspace will attain, it also seems like this is much easier to clean. Considering what a biological cesspit of a petri-dish most keyboards are, this may have a beneficial health impact for you too.

Make your own Roll-Up Keyboard - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Jan 27, 2008 08:04 PM
Hardware | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

January 26, 2008

HOWTO: download MP3s from MySpace

There are a lot of sites that provide little Flash audio widgets that allow you to listen to a tune but make it difficult to download. MySpace, for example, has a player that a lot of bands use to promote their music. Songs are downloaded to the player in normal MP3 format, but each time you load the player it is given a special token that it can use to access the audio. This token is passed back to the server in the query string by flash when a file is requested, which authenticates the download. Once the download has completed, the token is invalid for future downloads. Essentially, this protects people from figuring out the song URL and then hotlinking to it from another site.

What it doesn't do is protect you from downloading and saving a copy of the MP3 to your own machine. The Flash widget makes finding the URL a bit of an annoyance, but it's easy enough to discover that you can initiate your own download before the player has completed. Here's how:

1. Wait for the page to finish loading and then play the song you want to download.
2. Open up the Activity Monitor window in Safari, or use the network activity monitor in FireBug for Firefox.
3. You'll be able to quickly find the MP3 url. It's the one with the heinously long query string, probably a few MB in size, and the only thing still downloading.
4. Double click the URL to open it in a new window.

At this point, you have the song URL in your browser's address bar and the Flash player is still downloading the file. Depending on what browser you are using, opening the MP3 may have started downloading the file to your download folder. If that's the case, you're done!

Safari will try to play the MP3 inside the browser and doesn't allow you to save, though. That's okay—we'll use the command line instead. Just cut the URL from your address bar, hop over to a Terminal window, and type in the following:

curl -b nada 'https://paste_long_url_here' >out.mp3

Just make sure to put the single quotes around the URL that you've copied. If you execute this before the Flash widget's download has completed, curl will begin downloading the audio file and dumping it into out.mp3. If you were too slow, you'll get a 404 error. You'll have to replay the file, get the new URL, and try again. It usually takes a half minute for the file to finish streaming in, so you shouldn't have trouble getting this to work.

Posted by Jason Striegel | Jan 26, 2008 11:21 PM
MySpace | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack | Digg It | Tag w/del.icio.us

January 25, 2008

Pleo personality tools: MySkit and YAPT

Ugobe hasn't yet released the official Pleo SDK, but a couple of AIBO hackers have already adapted some neat behavior editing tools for the Pleo.

MySkit allows you to develop motion and audio routines that the pleo can perform. As you are developing a skit, you can preview it on a virtual Pleo. This makes it easy to experiment with your motion animations before testing on the real robot.

When you've created a number of skits, you then can use YAPT (Yet Another Pleo Tool) to create full behavior response profiles that can be uploaded to the Pleo. The behavior profile that you create will allow your custom skits to be triggered by any of the Pleo's sensors, which includes the various touch sensors as well as Pleo's tilt, sound, and inactivity events. To run the new personality, just save it to an SD Card and insert it into Pleo.

MySkit Performance Editor for PLEO - Link
YAPT: Yet Another Pleo Tool - Link

Posted by Jason Striegel | Jan 25, 2008 09:33 PM
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Most recent posts: page 1 of 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 >>
Browse the complete archive by category or month.

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Welcome to the Hacks Blog!

Recent Posts

• FART: easy grep-like utility for Windows
• TrueCrypt for OS X
• Wii Drum Kit
• Ubuntu Tweak
• Rebuild a Roomba battery
• Experiment with a virtual neuron
• Sidebar separator hack for OS X
• Meta-model: tools for clarifying communication
• R: open source statistical computing
• UV photography on the cheap

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