Tip on Diogo Gomes

Bypassing a restrictive Firewall using SSH

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:52:19 +0000

If you are faced with a restrictive firewall implemented by your local admin. But luckily enough to have access to a SSH server! You can use the following tip:

A SOCKS proxy can easily be setup using SSH, in a terminal type:

ssh -D 8080 -Nf your.sshserver.com

Then just change your Browser/Application settings to point towards localhost port 8080

Secure Screen Sharing

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:15:29 +0000

At home I keep a MacMini Media Center which from time to time I access it remotely. Usually I do this through the SSH Server in OS X. But eventually I might need to access it through a GUI. Here comes in hand Apple’s OS X nifty tool called “Screen Sharing” which is actually a VNC Server/Client.

You can setup “Screen Sharing” at the same place you setup the SSH Server in “System Preferences -> Sharing” by ticking “Screen Sharing” and “Remote Login” respectively.

Squid transparent proxy in Ubuntu 8.04

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:50:57 +0100

Squid is the defacto proxy system. Either in the lab or at home I use a transparent squid proxy in order to have a global cache system for all my devices (I really hate browser caches that take all you disk space).

For years now, in order to configure a transparent Squid proxy you had to put in the following lines:

httpd_accel_host virtual
httpd_accel_port 80
httpd_accel_with_proxy on
httpd_accel_uses_host_header on

plus the complimentary iptables rules in your router:

Leopard Terminal

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:22:44 +0000

As a switcher I’m several times faced with the awkwardness of the differences between my previous work environment (Linux) and my new one.

One of the most annoying ones has been the handling of the function keys. First I though that after a while I would get used to the mapping in OS X terminal, but then again I still work with too many Linux machines in the Lab, and therefore never really let go of old habits.

Creating an electronic Curriculum Vitae

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:55:48 +0000

Any now and then, one ends up needing to provide a Curriculum Vitae AKA Résumé (CV).

Either for applying for a job or just to be used to assert your credentials (for example while running for project fundings), you always end up needing an updated CV.

So what do most people do ?

They keep a document of their idea of a CV
They keep a document formated using the “Europass standard”
They keep it online using services such as LinkedIn

Of course there are other options :)

OS X Essentials

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 01:42:01 +0100

Today one my friends became a switcher, thanks to a new Macbook

One of the first things to do was of course to send him links of some of the things I consider essentials to any OS X user:

Most basic widget (I don't get why apple doesn't ship such widget...) iStat Pro
Codecs :) for that I use Perian and Flip4mac
Instant Messaging is brought to you by Adium aka "the duck"
File Transfer (FTP,SCP) is another duck's business: Cyberduck
Re coding your multimedia files? You better pull your HandBrake
With so much multimedia around the house you better get it all Deliciously sorted
Which you can then brag about in IRC using Colloquy
Since life is not just about fun you can use neoOffice to get some work actually done

DISTCC + AVAHI

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:22:05 +0100

When considering a project involving a large number of source files, compilation time is always an issue. DistCC is in these cases a very good solution. From DistCC site:

distcc is a program to distribute builds of C, C++, Objective C or Objective C++ code across several machines on a network. distcc should always generate the same results as a local build, is simple to install and use, and is usually much faster than a local compile

My problem was how to keep the **$DISTCC_HOSTS** variable updated, since computers in my lab never seam to be left alone (after all... this is a lab :) ).

My idea was therefore to use AVAHI and to come up with a simple unix pipe that would feed the $DISTCC_DIR/hosts file.

Using svn+ssh with RapidSVN

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:18:20 +0100

After spending some time searching, I realized that this might help someone else.

Not being able to properly replace MS Visio in neither a Linux or OS X environment, I’ve been stuck with MS Office and a Virtual Machine for this sole purpose in my Linux and OSX environments. I keep my machine very light, I only install MS Office (Word+Excel+Visio), Firefox & Thunderbird, Putty and RapidSVN. This enables me to quickly access and edit a document, either using a web repository (e.g. BSCW), e-mail or SVN (don’t ask why, but some people like to use SVN to share documents in binary format).