Be elegant: print your protected PDF files!

Often we have a pdf document that need to be printed or to save a part of it. However, if the PDF file is protected (i.e., secured to prevent some specific tasks such as printing) traditional PDF viewers aren't able to print as shown in Figure below.

A quick and easy workaround is to use GSview (Ghostscript view) commonly used  for the displaying or printing the document pages. At the time of writing the most updated version (GSview 5.0) is available at:

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/get50.htm.

Once you install and use GSview, the printing is matter of clicks!

You may print the document to papers or save the whole/part of the documents as an unprotected PDF file using tools like doPDF.

Sync your cloud data elegantly!

Nowadays Cloud providers offer more spaces in free. However, to sync your data, either you need to manually upload you in the cloud server or use tools by the providers. Almost all providers like Google, Dropbox, SkyDrive have their own app to sync your files in the cloud. However, to sync, you need to place your file in the specific folder of your local machine. For example, if you use Dropbox, you need to place all your files to the 'Dropbox' folder created at the time of the installation of Dropbox desktop. Same is true for Google Drive and SkyDrive. So, if your files are in seperate drive or folder, you need to copy it in the designated folder which is bothering to me. Even if you create the shortcut of your folder, it won't work, only the link will upload to cloud, not the exact data file. So, what is the solution? I searched a bit in net, and get an idea here. The answer is quite simple: use symbolic link. Details of symbolic link is discussed here. What we need to install the free software Link Shell Extension . Copy your desired folder (i.e., E:\Docs\Folder1) and paste the symbolic link in app folder (i.e., if you use Dropbox, for default it is C:\Users\USER_NAME\Dropbox). Now Dropbox will automatically sync all the files of  E:\Docs\Folder1 .

Adding your Android device in a MAC filtered router

If you secured your wireless connection filtering the devices only by MAC address, then your new mobile device might not connect to your router. I have faced similar problem when I got my new smartphone. In Windows, getting wireless MAC is simple: type ipconfig /all in cmd and you get all the MAC addresses. Now, in Android devices, go to Settings -> About phone -> Hardware information and you will find in Wi-Fi MAC address. Put this address in your router and your device will now able to connect in Internet! I have checked this in HTC Sensation which runs in Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread).

Write upon PDF fles without installing any software!

Sometimes we need to write on PDF files, more particularly when it comes to complete any forms or giving signature upon any PDF documents. Couple of commercial solutions available into market, but there is also online solutions. Here comes PDFescape - which is a Free PDF Editor Form Filler. One can easily edit PDF files and can even place an image to any portion of the file without installing any software. Recent days I have to fill couple of PDF forms and my free version of Acrobat Reader unable to serve my purpose. I find PDFescape very handy regarding this.

One more thing, if you need to exact any page or couple of pages from an PDF file, you can use doPDF. To do this, after installing the software, just open the file, select doPDF as printer and print the desired number of pages. A sample screenshot is shown here.

What I follow to post codes in Blogger

There are may alternatives and workarounds available in the net to post code snippets in blogger. But process I follow is the simple one founded in following link.

What I do is to
(1) Simply go to the site SIMPLEBITS
(2) Paste the code
(3) Place the code in my blog by clicking Edit HTML link on top

Voilà!!

Adding Source Code in Latex

One of my favorite sites for quick Latex reference is Wikibook. Today I got a new package listings which can insert directly form a source code file and generate necessary formatting in Latex document. Just use the package in your Latex document file :

\usepackage{listings}

And then use the following command where you want to place code :

\lstinputlisting{myfile.cpp}

For more details see the link :
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Packages/Listings

Also take a look in the following link for writing pseudo-code and algorithms in Latex.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Algorithms_and_Pseudocode

Configure 10MBPS Full-Duplex Mode in Ubuntu

If you have your internet provider limiting you Link speed/duplex mode like mine, there is  a workaround available in Ubuntu. Okay, in windows it can be done graphically by

Device Manager > Network Adapter > Properties > Advance > Link Speed/Duplex Mode

But in Ubuntu, its quite different, but easier than Windows you must say! Go to terminal, and simply type the following command using your root password :

sudo mii-tool -F 10baseT-FD

Give other settings like IP address etc. as usual.

Use terminal directly from Kate

Kate, along with Geany is one of my favorite text editor. One of the good features of Kate is that it open a file in terminal in the files own loacation. For Example, if you have a file in D drive, with following path : Folder1/Folder2/Folder3/File1 then Kate will open it in terminal in the same location say Folder1/Folder2/Folder3/File1 for my given example.

Ubuntu users might find that terminal in disable in Kate. Personally I also face the problem. The reason for the problem is Kate actually build on KDE distribution. Hence if you use the terminal of Kate, you need to install the package konsole in Ubuntu. So, go to your Ubuntu desktop terminal (Application > Accesories > Terminal) and type the following command :

sudo apt-get install konsole


Use Ubuntu font in Lucid

The all new Ubuntu Font

There is a new font for Ubuntu called 'Ubuntu' from the release versions of 10.10 to onwards.

But if you do not want to upgrade your system like me, then you can use the all new Ubuntu font in your current distribution. I am currently using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx), so I write this based upon Lucid.

Now, lets start! First add the repository for Ubuntu true type fonts and then simply download font package. Here is the command to write in terminal :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/ubuntu-font-family
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ttf-ubuntu-font-family

It is time to change your font. Go to System>Preferences>Appearance Settings and modify the Font tab shown bellow:

Slide Number in Warsaw theme of Latex-Beamer

Recently I have made my first presentation on Latex Beamer. But I have faced problem to give slide number using the theme Warshaw. There is a method to do this by the following command :

%\setbeamertemplate{footline}{Your Footer Text \hfill\insertframenumber/\inserttotalframenumber}


But which actually removes footer graphics. A workaround I found to place slide number in Short Title of the presentation. So, you can use this in your \title command :

\title[My short title \hspace{25mm} \insertframenumber/\inserttotalframenumber]{My Title}


The resultant output :

Solve Bangla Text problem in Firefox 4

Whenever I first use Firefox 4, I saw that Bangla texts are coming distorted. According to this link from Mozilla Support team, the problem can be fixed by changing font (Option > Content) in Firefox 4.

But the problem remains still remains as the header of the tabs shows distorted characters. Also, if you write anything in the search text box, letters are also misplaced. Today, I found the workaround of that problem. The problem actually happens if you change your system default font (Vrinda) to anything other like Siyam Rupali or any Unicode Bangla font. This is done when you setup Avro keyboard 5. So, the solution is, click Setup icon > Font fixer in Avro Keyboard 5 and click to Restore as shown in figure.

After restart your PC, problem will be fixed!

Note: I have tested it in Windows Seven. For Windows XP, installing IComplex from OmicronLab might solve the problem.

View Last Modified Date of a Web Page

Couple of days ago, I need to see how old a web page, specially actually when it was modified last. Then I found there is an JavaScript method to do this.

For seeing last modified date of any web page, go to the page and simply write the following to browsers address-bar.


javascript:alert(document.lastModified)


Easy and simple!