AlferSoft Blog

Here is an easy way to convert from HTML to JPG. Actually, I’m converting the HTML to PDF and then from PDF to JPG.
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I’ve adapted the instructions from this Ubuntu thread for Debian Lenny.
The original idea was to build ffmpeg with AAC support, but then I’ve found some other problems with mp3 codec, so I needed to apply a patch and rebuild everything.
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To create two bridged virtual serial ports use the following command:

socat -d -d pty,raw,echo=0 pty,raw,echo=0


The output will show you which are the virtual ports (or pseudo terminals) created, e.g.:

2010/02/19 16:16:33 socat[9662] N PTY is /dev/pts/3
2010/02/19 16:16:33 socat[9662] N PTY is /dev/pts/4
2010/02/19 16:16:33 socat[9662] N starting data transfer loop with FDs [3,3] and [5,5]


Note: if you are using Ubuntu and you do not have this command, try:

sudo apt-get install socat


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Suppose that you want to calculate the space used by all the png files in current directory and all its subdirectories. From a terminal type:

find . -name '*.png' -exec du -ab {} \; | awk '{total+=$0}END{print total}'


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The easiest way I found is dumping the binaries into text files using hexdump and then comparing them with your favourite program (diff, Meld, etc.). E.g.:

hexdump -C a.bin >a.txt
hexdump -C b.bin >b.txt
diff a.txt b.txt


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From a terminal type:

sudo apt-get install xtightvncviewer


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