Archive for the ‘*nix-tools’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/09/15
I wish I had found this overview eons ago: [Wayback/Archive] Managing the Mail Queue Files and Directories.
The most important bits on the various kinds of files that appear in your message queue:
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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Power User, sendmail | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/06
Sometimes I need [Wayback/Archive] Redirect Checker | Check your Statuscode 301 vs 302 on the command-line, so cURL to the rescue: [Wayback/Archive] linux – Get final URL after curl is redirected – Stack Overflow. The relevant portions of answers and comments further below.
TL;DR:
Since I prefer verbose command-line arguments (you can find them at the [Wayback/Archive] curl – How To Use on-line man page) especially in scripts this HTTP GET request is what works with Twitter:
% curl --location --silent --output /dev/null --write-out "%{url_effective}\n" https://twitter.com/anyuser/status/20
https://x.com/anyuser/status/20
This failed (twitter dislikes HTTP HEAD requests):
% curl --head --location --silent --output /dev/null --write-out "%{url_effective}\n" https://twitter.com/anyuser/status/20
https://twitter.com/anyuser/status/20
Notes
Given so many of my scripts now run on zsh, I added the new-line because of command line – Why does a cURL request return a percent sign (%) with every request in ZSH? – Stack Overflow. You can strip that bit.
Note that these do not perform client side redirects, so they do not return the ultimate originating URL https://x.com/jack/status/20 (which was the first ever Tweet on what was back then called twttr) as Twitter on the client-side overwrites window.location.href with the final URL. Similar behaviour for getting the Twitter user handle of a Twitter user ID, more on Twitter tricks below.
Tweet by TweetID trick via [Wayback/Archive] Accessing a tweet using only its ID (and without the Twitter API) – Bram.us.
Further reading (thanks [Wayback/Archive] vise, [Wayback/Archive] Daniel Stenberg, [Wayback/Archive] Ivan, [Wayback/Archive] AndrewF, [Wayback/Archive] Roger Campanera, and [Wayback/Archive] Dave Baird):
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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, bash, Batch-Files, Bookmarklet, Communications Development, Conference Topics, Conferences, CSS, cURL, Development, Event, HTTP, Internet protocol suite, JavaScript/ECMAScript, Power User, Scripting, SocialMedia, Software Development, TCP, Twitter, Web Browsers, Web Development | Tagged: 76 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/04
Every now and then you make a typo when accessing remote systems through UltraVNC vncviewer.exe (I did the worst: thinking I had hit Enter to select the most recent connection, but typing a password instead).
I could not find settings in the registry, nor a vncviewer.ini file, so I used Process Monitor and filtered all events for the most recently started vncviewer.exe to figure out where it would store configuration files.
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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Power User, VNC/Virtual_Network_Computing, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/07/31
I try to stay on the default shells of environments as much as possible, especially as that makes life easier when needing to work on an non-customised system.
Apple switched back from an ancient latest GPLv2 version 3.2 of bash (they regard newer GPLv3 as toxic to their revenue stream¹), introduced MIT-license based zsh and introduced a bash nag screen a few years ago forcing users to switch. Suppressing that message reliably is trickier than you might think².
After so many years of bash, I still stumble over things that zsh does differently: [Wayback/Archive] command line – Why does a cURL request return a percent sign (%) with every request in ZSH? – Stack Overflow (thanks [Wayback/Archive] Travis and [Wayback/Archive] zaTricky) is a “feature” with a simple workaround for cURL:
This is a zsh feature that prints a percent-and-newline after a command completes if that command does not already include a newline at the end of its output. If zsh did not do this, you would either not ever notice the fact that the command didn’t print a newline – or you’d see zsh’s command prompt not start on the margin and think it was a bug in zsh.
…
$ curl http://api.macvendors.com/0015c7
Cisco Systems, Inc%
$ curl -w '\n' http://api.macvendors.com/0015c7
Cisco Systems, Inc
…
Since the above example now writes a redirect messages (good bye HTTP, welcome HTTPS), and I very much dislike short command-line parameters, here is version with the long form of the [Wayback/Archive] curl -w or --write-out parameter :
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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Apple, bash, bash, Development, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, macOS 14 Sonoma, macOS 15 Sequoia, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, zsh | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/06/11
Didn’t know nx had a scriptable RPN command-line calculator dc (for Desk Calculator) which does not seem to need white space characters in the input stream or input file.
It likely is a source for command-injection attacks given the question [Wayback/Archive] unix – How come is this command returning “GET A LIFE!”? – Stack Overflow, so I did a bit of digging and found this great platform:
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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Development, Power User, PowerShell, Python, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/05/29
Now that Python 2 has been dead for long enough (has it been unsupported for 5 years? yes it has: [Wayback/Archive] Status of Python Versions), it was finally time to change my alias for running a local web-server to serve files from a directory (:
So, from [Wayback/Archive] What is the Python 3 equivalent of “python -m SimpleHTTPServer” – Stack Overflow (thanks [Wayback/Archive] ryanbraganza, [Wayback/Archive] k.avinash and [Wayback/Archive] Petr Viktorin):
python -m http.server 8000, it will start the server on port 8000
Docs with the migration hints: [Wayback/Archive] 20.19. SimpleHTTPServer — Simple HTTP request handler — Python 2.7.18 documentation
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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, bash, Batch-Files, Development, Power User, Python, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/30
More on the reason why I learned a few SQLite things soon, but for my link and documentation archive, below is what I learned.
Most commands use the database file C:\temp\History which has no extension as that is how I got the file in the first place (spoiler: it’s a Chrome browser History from one of my user profiles).
Let’s get started:
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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, bash, CommandLine, Conference Topics, Conferences, Console (command prompt window), Database Development, Development, Event, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Software Development, SQL, SQLite | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 