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24,993 verified issues
Running DNS locally for home network
I have a small home network that just got larger (new roommate, my existing roommate got a laptop (on top of her computer), my friends coming over with laptops, etc.). I'd like to run a local DNS server for lookups of my local network stuff ( , , , , ). I used to have a business line with a static IP, and run bind/named internally. However, now I have a normal account. My ISP's DNS servers are constantly changing (for whatever reasons my ISP doesn't like to keep the same IP range for long). I need my local DNS to be automatically updated to use my ISP's DNS for external traffic, but be able to maintain an internal DNS server (getting to update the hosts file is being a hassle with every new machine on top of rebuilding existing machines with win7 or Ubuntu 9.04). Additionally, My ISP's DNS servers often crash or become unresponsive. Are there any open DNS servers that are reliable (I don't want to reconfig every day) that I could use as my primary, then if those fail, then use my ISP'…
How to delete a file in Windows with a too long filename?
My wife has several files and folders that somehow ended up having filenames that have caused them to be undeleteable (can't be deleted) by normal means or via the command line. I believe the filenames are too long due to the depth of the folder structures. Does anyone know of a good utility for cleaning up files like this?
Replace \r\n with newline in Notepad++
How do I replace the string "\r\n" with the same characters? Example: replaced with:
When should I use /dev/shm/ and when should I use /tmp/?
When should I use and when should I use ? Can I always rely on them both being there on UNIX?
How do I enable the shared clipboard in VirtualBox?
Where is the configuration option for sharing clipboards (copy & paste) between the host OS and the guest OS?
How do I make Bash my default shell on Ubuntu?
I have a in my home directory, but it isn't getting run on login. If I do the following, then things seem to be as I expect: But normally that all happens on login. Thoughts?
Switch between windows on Mac OS X?
On Windows when I do alt+tab I can switch between windows. If I have 5 firefox windows open then using alt+tab will switch between them. On my MacBook, cmd+tab switches between applications, not windows, so it will switch between firefox and xcode, but not between two different firefox windows. I am sure there is some way to use keyboard shortcuts to switch between active windows. What am I missing?
How do I find the location of an executable in Windows?
I remembered that I used a tool called as to find locations for any executable programs like this in a console: Now I cannot find this tool. Not sure if Windows has a build-in tool to do that search?
Open folder for a given path in Mac OS X
Let's say I have a path to a folder in a text document or in the clipboard, for example: How can I quickly open this folder in Mac OS X? In Windows I could open the Run-dialog, paste the path into the input box and the folder would open. Is there a similar way in Mac OS X?
How to supress "Terminate batch job (Y/N)" confirmation?
In cmd, when we press Ctrl+C we get the target application terminated but if the target application is called from a batch file, we get this "Terminate batch job (Y/N)" confirmation. I can never remember an instance where I chose not to terminate the batch job. How can we skip this confirmation?
Add directory to $PATH if it's not already there
Has anybody written a bash function to add a directory to $PATH only if it's not already there? I typically add to PATH using something like: If I construct my PATH in .bash_profile, then it's not read unless the session I'm in is a login session -- which isn't always true. If I construct my PATH in .bashrc, then it runs with each subshell. So if I launch a Terminal window and then run screen and then run a shell script, I get: I'm going to try building a bash function called which only adds the directory if it's not there. But, if anybody has already written (or found) such a thing, I won't spend the time on it.
Recursively delete empty directories in Windows
I have a directory on my Windows 7 machine that has hundreds if not thousands of sub-directories. Some of them have files, some do not. I want to delete all the empty directories. Looking at the del and rmdir DOS command, it does not look like you can recursively do this without deleting all the files. Is there a way to do this from the command line?
"This file came from another computer..." - how can I unblock all the files in a folder without having to unblock them individually?
Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista have this deal where zone information is preserved in downloaded files to NTFS partitions, such that it blocks certain files in certain applications until you "unblock" the files. So for example if you download a zip file of source code to try something out, every file will display this in the security settings of the file properties "This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer" Along with an "Unblock" button. Some programs don't care, but Visual Studio will refuse to load projects in solutions until they've been unblocked. While it's not terribly difficult to go to every project file and unblock it individually, it's a pain. And it does not appear you can unblock multiple selected files simultaneously. Is there any way to unblock all files in a directory without having to go to them all individually? I know you can turn this off globally for all new files but let's say I don't want to do that
How can I find only the executable files under a certain directory in Linux?
How can I find only the executable files under a certain directory in Linux?
How do I get an entire directory in sftp?
I'm just learning to use sftp, and I want to copy a directory from the remote computer to my local computer. If I try it gives me this error: doesn't work, either.
which/whereis differences
What's the difference between and ?
Upgrading and installing packages through the Cygwin command-line?
I'm a blind computer user that uses Cygwin. The installation program isn't very accessible: upgrading, installing, and removing specific packages is quite hard to do since you have to use simulated mouse keystrokes to click and scroll. Is there a way to either manually install/upgrade packages or install/upgrade them through the command-line?
How to reliably keep an SSH tunnel open?
I use an SSH tunnel from work to go around various idotic firewalls (it's ok with my boss :)). The problem is, after a while the ssh connection usually hangs, and the tunnel is broken. If I could at least monitor the tunnel automatically, I could restart the tunnel when it hangs, but I haven't even figured a way of doing that. Bonus points for the one who can tell me how to prevent my ssh connection from hanging, of course!
Command to unlock "Locked" files on OS X
I copied a lot of read-only files from a Windows system to my Mac. When viewing the Info for each file using "Get Info", I can see they are Locked. I'm writing a bash script to copy over some files and I'm getting an error that says "Operation not permitted" So, first I need to unlock the files. Since I'll be pulling files from the Windows system often, I want my script to unlock these files. What is the terminal command to unlock "Locked" files on OSX?
Assigning custom extensions to a language's syntax highlighting in Notepad++
In the current version of Notepad++ opening .sql files results in Notepad applying SQL syntax highlighting to it. I'd like Notepad++ to do the same for other extensions as well, is there some setting where I can define this?