blog.watashii » Software

Change Power Scheme From Windows Command Prompt

watashii — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:16:53 +0000

If you have a laptop, Windows provides different power schemes that you can switch (or create your own) for power management. You can switch your power scheme the same way using the command prompt using the powercfg utility.

To list all the available power schemes, open the Windows command prompt and run powercfg /list

C:\Users\Watashii>powercfg /list

Existing Power Schemes (* Active)
-----------------------------------
Power Scheme GUID: 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e  (Balanced)
Power Scheme GUID: 49ef8fc0-bb7f-488e-b6a0-f1fc77ec649b  (Dell Recommended) *
Power Scheme GUID: 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c  (High performance)
Power Scheme GUID: a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a  (Power saver)

To change your power scheme (to Power Saver for example), run powercfg /setactive

powercfg /setactive a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a

Tip: You can also put the above command inside a batch (.bat) file and run this conveniently like a shortcut.

Install & Uninstall Probes/Gateways on Netcool Omnibus

watashii — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 05:56:06 +0000

Installing probes & gateway for Netcool/Omnibus 7.2 and below (ie prior to 7.3) is done by using the nco_patch patch tool over an existing Netcool Omnibus installation, with the un-tarred path of the patch (Unix):

$ $NCHOME/omnibus/install/nco_patch -install /tmp/probe-nco-p-mttrapd-9_0/patch/probe-nco-p-mttrapd-9_0/

To list all the patch (ids) that has been already applied to the installation, run the following command:

$ $NCHOME/omnibus/install/nco_patch -print=id gateway-nco-g-oracle-4_0 gateway-nco-g-remedy-8_0 probe-nco-p-mttrapd-9_0

To remove/uninstall the probe, we use the same nco_patch tool with the patch id :

$ $NCHOME/omnibus/install/nco_patch -remove probe-nco-p-mttrapd-9_0

Netcool/OMNIbus – Replay raw capture alarms

Windows Desktop Shortcut to Activate Screensaver

watashii — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 06:59:00 +0000

For all the power saving green freaks out there, heres how to create a handy Windows desktop shortcut to activate the screensaver immediately.

Step 1

Right click on the desktop > New > Shortcut

Step 2

In the “Type in the location of the item“, add in the following: %SystemRoot%\system32\logon.scr /s

Note this is the location of the screen-saver executable file that is used during Windows user login. You can switch to another screen-saver file of your choice (eg look for different .scr files under the C:\windows\system32\ folder)

Step 3

Give it a shortcut name to complete, eg: “Activate Screensaver”

Step 4

Optionally you can change the icon of your choice: Right click on your shortcut > Properties > Change Icon…

Subversion – Allow Author Name Logging

watashii — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:44:40 +0000

To log the author name when trying to check-in files using Subversive/Eclipse over SVN, switch to SVN Repository Exploring perspective > right-click on your repository > edit the Location Properties > Advanced tab > and enable Override author name:

However, the following error may occur on the SVN repository server:

svn: 'Set revision author' operation finished with error: Disabled repository feature
svn: Repository has not been enabled to accept revision propchanges;
ask the administrator to create a pre-revprop-change hook

The solution is to create a hook, ie an executable script, on the SVN repository server under the hooks directory. Create a file, named pre-revprop-change.bat (for Windows, but similar fashion on *nix) with the following commands:

@echo off
REM pre-revprop-change.bat hook script
if "%4" == "svn:author" exit /b 0
echo "Changing revision properties %4% is prohibited" >&2
exit /b 1

This will allow the author name log property (svn:author) updates to be accepted (which is rejected by default).

IOGraph – Capture Mouse Movements Into Art

watashii — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 02:16:14 +0000

IOGraph is a simple Java application that captures your mouse cursor movements on the screen and plots them on to a blank canvas picture. All you need to do is run the application, minimize it, then perform your usual routines on your computer. After a while you will see a cool looking graphic art that you can export.

The capture displayed here was taken for 1 hour at work on my dual monitor computer. The large black dots represent how long the mouse have paused; the longer, the larger. Notice my right monitor was hardly ever used!

Firefox Reserved Ports Restricted For Security Reasons

watashii — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:22:44 +0000

When browsing to web sites based on non standard HTTP ports, such as port 636 for LDAP SSL, Firefox bans access with the above message. By default, a number of ports are blocked from access due to a number of potential security vulnerabilities. These banned ports are usually reserved for specific services and are not ideal for web browsing.

To unblock these ports, we can specify the network.security.ports.banned.override preference in about:config. This is a new preference inside about:config, so right-click on the screen and create a new String preference to the port you want to allow access. You can also specify a range instead of a single port number, such as 1-1024. Just a word of warning, unblocking ports will pose a security risk.

Unable to Enable/Startup RAS

watashii — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:16:24 +0000

On a BusinessObjects XIR2 (SP3) Solaris installation, the following effects may be occurring:

The RAS server refuses to startup using ./ccm.sh -start ras or ./startservers commands.
Performing a ./ccm.sh -enable ras will complain that the RAS object does not exist, even though it is listed within ccm.config file.
When the RAS server instance is deleted from the CMC, restarting all the servers and performing ./ccm.sh -enable all or ./ccm.sh -display, the RAS entry does not show up at all.
When the RAS server instance is deleted and added using the ./serverconfig.sh tool, the RAS entry does not show up at all in CMC, ./ccm.sh -enable all or ./ccm.sh -display.
When the ./ccm.sh -start ras does performs successfully, related serverpid’s are created, RAS processes are running, but RAS entry does not show up in ./ccm.sh -display or CMC, and the RAS server’s tcp ports are not opened at all.

Note there is no single method to fix this and is case-by-case, and depends on the software/patch level your BO installation is on. Here are my steps to get the RAS running again:

Stop all the servers.
Run the ./serverconfig.sh tool and delete the RAS server.
Run the ./setup/env.sh script to be safe
Run the server_patch_xir2.sh script. This is a patch provided by SAP support and is not available on the BusinessObjects installation. Uploaded here for convenience, but you should get it verified before using it (Disclaimer).
Run the ./serverconfig.sh tool and add the RAS server.
Optionally, custom edit the ccm.config file for the corresponding RAS entry that was automatically appended by the previous step.
Start the CMS: ./ccm.sh -start cms.
Run ./ccm.sh -enable all. Hopefully the RAS entry gets listed and enabled here.
Try to start the RAS again: ./ccm.sh -start ras

Enable & Setup Sharing Folders in VMWare Player 2.0+

watashii — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:01:26 +0000

To enable sharing folders on VMWare Player guest OS (without Workstation etc), the following entries can be added in the .VMX file:

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "FALSE"

sharedFolder.maxNum = "1"

sharedFolder0.present = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.enabled = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.readAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.writeAccess = "TRUE"
sharedFolder0.hostPath = "C:\"
sharedFolder0.guestName = "MyHostCDrive"
sharedFolder0.expiration = "never"

Load your Windows guest OS and go to the VMWare Player menu > Sharing Folders… > Then check ‘Always Enable’

Your shared folder on Windows host OS (in this example C:\) can now be accessed on the guest OS via \\.host\Shared Folders\

To add more shared folders, increase the value of maxNum in .VMX file, and copy the same config settings for sharedFolder0.XXX into sharedFolder1.XXX…sharedFolder2.XXX and so forth.

Install and Run Ubuntu on VMWare Player

Live Messenger 8.1/8.5 Bypass Mandatory Upgrade

watashii — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:48:47 +0000

Today when logging into my Windows Live Messenger 8.1, I received a message forcing me to upgrade to the latest Windows Live Messenger (2009). This was discussed on their blog less than 1 month ago (thanks for the short heads-up). However, like many others, upgrading to the 2009 version was not ideal. That is: it just doesn’t work at all.

For me, I ran into problems logging in (via my workplace), as I kept getting the error: “Signing in to Windows Live Messenger failed because the authentication service is not compatible with this version of the program.
Error code: 8100030f”. And NOTHING in the online help provided any clues with this message!

So the only resolution for me was to find a way to continue using the old version. Here I found a workaround to skip the mandatory upgrade (I’m on XP, however Vista should work also).

1.) Exit your Live Messenger, then locate the messenger executable file, where-ever you’ve installed it.

2.) Right click on its properties.

3.) Under Compatibility tab, change the compatibility mode for Windows 2000. This is because Live Messenger 8.1/8.5 is still compatible on an older version of Windows, and this version will not enforce a mandatory upgrade.

4.) Press OK and start Live Messenger. It will repair itself for the first time it starts.

5.) Login should be back to normal afterwards!

Do you know any other workarounds?

Vacuum Database to Speedup Firefox

watashii — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:37:15 +0000

Firefox performance can be improved by defragmenting the internal SQLite database. This can be done by running a vacuum command within Firefox, as explained in Mozilla Links. The process are as follows:

1) Open Tools > Error Console (or Press Ctrl + Shift + J)

2) In the Code text box, paste the following (in one single line)

Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].
getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).
DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");

Note: Make sure the double-quotes are normal quotes and not slanted quotes

3) Press Evaluate. Firefox will freeze for a few seconds while the database is being defragmented.

A handier add-on extension is also available to perform this action.