The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Lesson learned: do not copy/paste code from the `Visual` WordPress.com editor…

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/16

[WayBack] Lesson learned: do not copy/paste code from the Visual WordPress.com editor; copy from the Text editor or the Preview… – Jeroen Wiert Pluimers – Google+.

Note: likely the HTML below got rendered badly by WordPress.com, so the gist below has the same text as a MarkDown file.

Ever wonder why copy-pasting code from your WordPress.com post fails?

The first statement fails, but the second works:

[root@linux:/etc] # useradd --create-home --shell /bin/false autossh24
useradd: unrecognized option '--shell /bin/false'
...
[root@linux:/etc] # useradd --create-home --shell /bin/false autossh24
[root@linux:/etc] #

The reason is that the first is copied from the Visual WordPress.com editor that renders this HTML inserting   which is a different unicode characer (0x00A0) than a normal space (0x0020):

<blockquote><p><code data-mce-selected="1"># <strong>useradd --create-home --shell&nbsp;/bin/false autossh24</strong></code></p></blockquote>

However, the the second copied from the Text WordPress.com editor succeeds because it has all regular spaces:

<blockquote><code># <strong>useradd --create-home --shell /bin/false autossh24</strong></code></blockquote>

Luckily the Preview render is correct:

<blockquote><p><code># <strong>useradd --create-home --shell /bin/false autossh24</strong></code></p></blockquote>

Lesson learned: do not copy/paste code from the Visual WordPress.com editor; copy from the Text editor or the Preview.

–jeroen

[WayBack] Ever wonder why copy-pasting code from your WordPress.com post fails?

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, PHP, Scripting, SocialMedia, Software Development, Web Development, WordPress, WordPress | Leave a Comment »

delphi – IfThen(Assigned(Widget), Widget.Description, ‘No Widget’) doesn’t crash. Should it? – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/16

Very interesting question [WayBack] delphi – IfThen(Assigned(Widget), Widget.Description, ‘No Widget’) doesn’t crash. Should it? – Stack Overflow.

Three important things here:

  • depending on inlining and kind of arguments, function calls can evaluate their arguments one or multiple times
  • lacking formal language specification, you never know if a method will be inlined or not
  • function calls should not have side effects

Via another interesting discussion at [WayBack] Inline functions are not guaranteed to evaluate their arguments exactly once… – David Heffernan – Google+

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

mail-filters/Makefile at master · fumiyas/mail-filters

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/15

Cool tool if you use Postfix: mail-filters/Makefile at master · fumiyas/mail-filters.

You set it up like this:

cd /etc/postfix
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fumiyas/mail-filters/master/postfix/Makefile

Then each time you change your postfix configuration:

cd /etc/postfix
make

In that directory, it will (re)generate a Makefile.postmapbased on the lines with hash in main.cf, then make each .db file from the source hash file.

After that you have to manually restart postfix, which depends on your Linux flavour.

Similar solutions:

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Development, Makefile, postfix, Power User, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

AlessandroZ/LaZagne: Credentials recovery project

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/15

Just when I thought I made a note of a password I hardly ever use, I didn’t, luckily this open source tools understands how to recover many kinds of passwords: AlessandroZ/LaZagne: Credentials recovery project.

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Chrome, Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, Firefox, git, Internet Explorer, Office, Opera, Outlook, Power User, Python, Scripting, Skype, Software Development, Source Code Management, Web Browsers, WiFi, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Default OpenSuSE Postfix main.cf forgets to configure SASL for cyrus…

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/15

If you see the below in your Postfix log when trying to test your config, then the SASL configuration is empty. Oddly that seems the default on OpenSuSE for a while now, despite it providing cyrus SASL out of the box.

Sep 15 14:30:07 katrien postfix/smtpd[12719]: fatal: bad string length 0 < 1: smtpd_sasl_path =
Sep 15 14:30:08 katrien postfix/master[12400]: warning: process /usr/lib/postfix/smtpd pid 12719 exit status 1
Sep 15 14:30:08 katrien postfix/master[12400]: warning: /usr/lib/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling

Prior OpenSuSE versions had this in /etc/postfix/main.cf:

# SASL stuff
############################################################
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = no
smtp_sasl_security_options =
smtp_sasl_password_maps =
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = no
#smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth
#smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot

Newer OpenSuSE versions have this:

# SASL stuff
############################################################
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = no
smtp_sasl_security_options =
smtp_sasl_password_maps =
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = no
# cyrus : smtpd_sasl_type = cyrus, smtpd_sasl_path = smtpd
# dovecot : smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot, smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth
smtpd_sasl_path =
smtpd_sasl_type = 

Despite the newer having these installed:

# rpm -qa | grep cyrus
cyrus-sasl-crammd5-2.1.26-14.2.aarch64
cyrus-sasl-2.1.26-14.2.aarch64
cyrus-sasl-plain-2.1.26-14.2.aarch64
cyrus-sasl-digestmd5-2.1.26-14.2.aarch64
cyrus-sasl-gssapi-2.1.26-14.2.aarch64

Solution:

smtpd_sasl_path = smtpd
smtpd_sasl_type = cyrus

Since the values for both lines are default, you could even comment them out; see the documentation:

–jeroen

Via: [WayBack] postfix IRC logs [July 26 – 2007]

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Linux, openSuSE, postfix, Power User, SuSE Linux, Tumbleweed | Leave a Comment »

When your triple/quad-play providers refuse to give your VoIP SIP credentials, but allows access to your modem: use Wireshark on the WAN side

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/12

Every now and then I hear about providers that refuse to hand over the VoIP SIP credentials.

If you do have access to your modem, you can Wireshark the WAN side, then reset the modem and capture traffic until it has obtained the VoIP information:

[WayBack] Telfort SIP (getest met Glasvezel) | Het leven van Teus & Simone:

Veel mensen op het forum van Telfort vragen zich af of ze de SIP gegevens kunnen krijgen voor telefonie zodat men de ExperiaBox niet hoeven te gebruiken. Gezien dat de Telfort Support deze gegevens…

Via:

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Internet, Power User, Wireshark | Leave a Comment »

git – How to read last commit comment? – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/12

For only the latest commit message:

git log -1 --pretty=%B

For the full commit without diff:

git log -1

For the full commit including diff:

git show

Via: [WayBack] Often during a commit … I wish to read my last comment to remember what progress I have made (thanks Charles-Bailey!)

–jeroen

Posted in Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, git, Software Development, Source Code Management | Leave a Comment »

crontab.guru – the cron schedule expression editor

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/12

Confused by crontab expressions? Me too, so I was happy to find: At minute 3 past every 12th hour: crontab.guru – the cron schedule expression editor.

It has a [WayBack] truckload of common crontab expressions, but more importantly allows you to live edit one, then explains in human terms what it means and when the schedule runs next.

If you like a step by step cron configurator, then you can try [WayBack] Cron Job Generator by GenerateIt.net but need to note it cannot interpret a cron expression.

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, cron, Linux, Power User | Leave a Comment »

including enumerations and JPEG compression examples for wPDF 4 Manual: Compression related properties

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/11

Since I was tracking down an issue having to to with generating DIB in a compressed PDF: [Archive.is] wPDF 4 Manual: Compression related properties

Property CompressStreamMethod

By modifying this property you can let the PDF engine compress (deflate) text. By using compression the file will be reasonable smaller. On the other had compression will create binary data rather than ASCII data. While “deflate” produces the smallest files, “run-length” compression is compatible even to very old PDF reader programs.

Property JPEGQuality

wPDF can compress bitmaps using JPEG. This will work only for true color bitmaps (24 bits/pixel) and if you have set the desired quality in this property.

Property EncodeStreamMethod

If data in the PDF file is binary it can be encoded to be ASCII again. Binary data can be either compressed text or graphics. You can select HEX encoding or ASCII95 which is more effective then HEX.

Property ConvertJPEGData

Note: Only applies to TWPDFExport.

If this property is true JPEG data found in the TWPRichText editor will not be embedded as JPEG data. Instead the bitmap will be compressed using deflate or run length compression. It is necessary to set this property to TRUE if the PDF files must be compatible to older PDF reader programs which are incapable to read JPEG data.

Note that EncodeStreamMethod does not do compression, but it does belong here because the encodings result in different PDF sizes.

The settings are not documented in more detail, so here are the enumerations explaining them in a bit more depth:

–jeroen

Posted in ASCII95, Delphi, Development, Encoding, HEX encoding, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Delphi Code Monkey: Cool Advanced Troubleshooting Technique – WinDbg

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/11

This so much reminds me of a struggle in the Toshiba Tecra 750CDT era: [WayBack] Delphi Code Monkey: Cool Advanced Troubleshooting Technique – WinDbg.

First about Warren’s issue:

His laptop froze only in Windows 10, but not Windows 7, after doing some debugging work. Display is on, but non-responsive. He ruled out a lot of things, thought it was a video issue, looked for pointers how to research it ending to force memory dumps by keyboard then running WinDbg to further pinpoint the cause.

He solved the issue by removing the Lenovo supplied Intel graphics driver and forcing the Intel HD Graphics 520 OEM drivers onto the system and posted a few interesting links:

Then some history:

Back in the 750CDT days, the problem was the combination of Toshiba using OEM S3 Virge/MX video drivers, Windows GDI and TImageList with a lot of images in them (basically: the component palette).

Result: interrupt freeze of the laptop, so not even mouse or keyword would work.

Solutions:

  • use Windows NT, not Windows 95
  • disable all S3 hardware acceleration
  • use the Toshiba 780 series video drivers

From then on, I’ve never developed on Windows 9x based systems any more, but Windows NT based systems (even though it was much harder to get drivers for all hardware components), this despite the fact that with Windows NT 4, Microsoft video drivers from ring 3 to ring 0 (they were at ring 3 until and including Windows NT 3.51 [Archive.is]). On the one hand the move to ring 0 caused more blue screens, on the other hand made it a lot harder to directly access hardware from user software running at ring 3.

 

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows 10 | Leave a Comment »

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