looking back...

I know to some it looks like I have walked far on this path, but the truth is that I am no further than where I was years ago. I have gone around in circles; Lost and confused, time and again I have asked myself where..why? I have spent all this time and yet I am no closer to an answer. So I try to diverge myself from the known and venture into the all consuming darkness, hoping that somewhere along the twisting path I will find what I'm looking for.

Howto: use your iPhone as webcam in Linux (without WebcamStudio)

So this is the story - my laptop (yes it's a bit of a relic) doesn't come with a webcam. While I do have one of those tiny USB webcams, it has never been very reliable. It sucks in low-light, and the resolution is shitty at best - and don't even get me started on those wires. As is the case with many such stories, necessity thus drove me to find this nifty little solution.

I found a nice little app on the AppStore called iWebCamera which sounded like it could do just the trick! according to their website, iWebCamera could stream the images/video from you iPhone's camera to your computer. The catch here of course, is that you need their "driver" software installed on the computer. This is all fine..if you're on a Mac or Windows machine. Linux users aren't completely left out though, as the very handy "WebcamStudio" does support iWebCamera. However, the problem is that the current version (0.56 at the time of writing) doesn't support v4l2 (which I needed for skype compatibility)

*note; v4l2 support in WebcamStudio is coming in the next release. You're welcome to wait until it comes out. I did it this way because I didn't need the extra features WebCam studio.

let's get started after the break!

Tab Completion for Dhiraagu WebSMS Script

A LONNNNG LOONG time ago (two years specifically) I wrote a bash script that would allow me to send websms's on the command line.

This script has been working perfectly for me since the day I wrote it. However, the problem was that my "directory" file had started to grow a little out of proportion, and I started having trouble remembering all the aliases I put in it. So I wanted to enable custom tab completions on the script.

Enter this tiny bit of code.
All you have to do is insert the following at the end of your bashrc file (usually in ~/.bashrc)

complete -F _bdwsmscomplete websms
_bdwsmscomplete()
{
 local CUR PRE OPTS CONTACTS
 local WSMSDIR="$HOME/.wsmsdir" #change accordingly
     CUR="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}"
 PRE="${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD-1]}"
 OPTS="-h -v -s -d -u -p -n"
 CONTACTS="$(cut -f1 -d',' ${WSMSDIR})"
 
 if [[ ${CUR} = -* ]]
 then
  COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W "${OPTS}" -- ${CUR}))
  return 0
 fi
   
 case ${PRE} in 
  -n)
   COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W "${CONTACTS}" -- ${CUR}))
   return 0
   ;;
  websms*) 
   COMPREPLY=($(compgen -W "-n" -- ${CUR}))
   return 0
   ;;
 esac

 return 0
}

If everything went well, you should be able to hit the [TAB] key while at the -n option and it'll automatically try to fill in the name of your contact.Enjoy!

P.S You'll need to re-open the terminal.

RELEASE - Thaana Keyboard for iPhone is now LIVE

It's here! So much for my "teaser campaign"..

If you have an iOS4+ (firmware 4.0 and above) device and you're jailbroken, you can now enjoy typing stuff (including emails,sms's,contacts,etc...) in Dhivehi, right from your phone. (yes...you can SMS other iPhones and some Android phones  in thaana - see here and here on how to install thaana font on android)

Head on over to Cydia and put http://www.m0bi.com/cydia in your sources list.
Add the m0bi repo to your cydia sources,refresh and install the package from the package list. If you're a complete n00b and have no idea how to do that, follow this guide here on how to add cydia sources.

Hit the jump for a screenshot tour on how to enable the new keyboard.

So once you have the m0bi repo setup, tap on it and you'll be able to see all the packages from the repo. Look for iThaanaKB or Thaana (Phonetic) Keyboard in the list. tap..install... And follow the picture story below.

We are releasing this under the terms of GNULesser

Enjoy!
Many thanks and respect to kennyTM,fabkk2002 and all the other guys who helped out. Wouldn't have been possible without the work you guys put into it. And thanks once again to ap0 for the support and hosting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iPhone Thaana Keyboard (Coming Soon)

Update: The SHTF in a day or so - stay peeled! 

Bringing the iPhone (I know you have one) a little close to home. Here is a little teaser for those of you interested.

Keey an eye out here, and don't forget to add http://www.m0bi.com/cydia to your cydia sources. (No this is NOT being developed by eLL M0bile's people in Malaysia. They had nothing to do with this.)

Read more after the jump

Dear eLL Mobile (and others)

This has been a long time coming. I didn't want to do this; I did not want to appear like a self absorbed attention whoring bitch. I did not want to do this simply because I do what I do for goodwill, and for the love of it. I do not seek name, profit or fame. I simply wish that somebody somewhere (including myself) may someday find use for whatever I have done here.

I was saddened today to learn that eLL mobile - among others - have been profiting off our (myself and afxal) work with the iPhone iOS thaana font pack and the alQuran dhivehi translation mod. Perhaps "profiting" is too mild a word to describe it.

I understand that you are a business venture. I have no problems with you installing them on your customers phones. I have no problems with you using our repository. I don't even have a problem with you charging a small service charge for the process. You are most welcome to do so. what I do have a problem with however, is your interpretation of the term "small service fee". 

Sure it incurs bandwidth costs and time (time=money afterall,) but I hardly think that 100Rf to install the font-pack is a fair price. I can get 20, I can get 30...I can even understand 40, but 100? that's pushing it.  I can only imagine the kind of profits you're making. To top it off, you actually had the nerve to claim that you "developed" it, and that you are "developing" solutions for 3.1.3 devices. That it would take about two more months to complete it. Now if you really are working on your own solution, please accept my apologies. Let me know if you need help - I would be glad to share my own experience.

Not only have you failed to respect the hard work that we put into this, you have failed to recognize it. You have even gone to such lengths as to remove the repository once you're done installing, and removing the link to my blog. I put the blog link there for a reason. So that people can know where the translation came from, and they could report problems. The idea is not to garner attention, but to get feedback. Feedback that could have helped improve things.

I am not waging war against you. I am not starting an anti-campaign against you. I just wanted to let you know that your blatant disregard for the spirit of community has deeply upset me. I am not seeking compensation or apologies or anything of that regard. A simple thank you initially is all the compensation that I would have ever demanded. What I am asking for, what I really want - is a little respect. Not for me or afxal; but for the people whom you are so blatantly exploiting.

Are we really to feed off each other? are we truly that lost? Have we forgotten the saying that what we give will comeback to us tenfold? Have we been so corrupted by "business" that we have forgotten the value of a common, simple courtesy?

Blog theme up for grabs.

I'm not sure if anybody actually really wants to use this but a couple of guys asked me in the comments so I'm putting this up for download. It's a bit messy and hackish in some ways but it works I guess.

It relies heavily on fancybox and jQuery so you'll need to add those. Also uses syntaxhighlighter. If you look closely you'll find that there's a very rough, custom brush for syntaxhighlighter in here that's used for chordpro highlighting.

Enjoy.

Download Template Here

Dhivehi for alQuran on iPhone is now LIVE!

grab it while it's fresh boys... in relation to my previous post here, Afxal an I have finally managed to push through the bundle to the public. Now this process is a wheeeeeeee hweeeeeeenee weeensy teeeeenee tiny bit risky so if you're very very unsure about it let somebody else help you out in installing.

Well there it is folks. Add http://m0bi.com/cydia to your cydia sources and enjoy!

As always, the release is issued under the terms of GNULesser license agreement.

Overhauling again

I decided that I needed to change the look of the page again. While I loved the pyrmont theme that I was using before, it appears that a lot of other people LOVE it too - not to mention most of them being blogs that I frequent. It was, in effect, beginning to get confusing.

SO! welcome to the new layout. I've made some changes and optimized things a bit and added a few nice features like adding automatic lightboxing to all pictures. Now it hardly uses any images to do the layout, and also relies heavily on jQuery. I'm quite pleased with how this one came out. I wanted to phase out as much of the distractions as possible and make it as clean and elegant as I could.

Do let me know if something is broken though :)

iPhone Dhivehi Quran Translation

After much hacking away at the iPhone's file system over the last two days, I've finally managed to get Unicode thaana stuff to display properly on the iPhone iOS 4.x

THE BAD NEWS is that people using older 2G iphones running 3.x firmware are still outta luck on the unicode front. I'm working on it though...

anyway as a by product of the aforementioned success, I've managed to put together a little hack that'll add the Dhivehi translation of the Quran (as found on http://presidencymaldives.gov.mv/quran ) into the alQuran app from alMubin.com

the package will be available from afxals cydia repo at m0bi.com/cydia so just add that up and you'll be good to go. also depends on afxals thaana package for iOS, and erica utilities. Also you'll need to have alQuran installed. *if you needed me to tell you that then....well...what the hell..?*

here are some screenshots of it in action! (I KNOW that the text appears on the wrong side...I CAN fix it I just chose not to for reasons of...elegance lets say)

on the licensing side, since this will inevitably "mix" with non-free code, I am releasing it under GNULesser/LGPL

Now if you're curious on how I got the "dhivehi" to appear on the keyboard selection popup ... well let's just say I'm working on it.

 

Experimental Thaana Spell-checking with Hunspell

During our (MOSS) recent meeting with the presidents office about the Zekr translation project, we came to realize that "spell checking" thaana writing is something that people really want - especially in government offices. This gave me incentive to follow up on my previously failed experiments with this.

[NOTE: I am aware that this feature is available in "Xiosis Scribe", however their approach to this appears to be somewhat lacking and IMHO disappointing. Also, the closed source nature of their system pisses me of]

I decided to try and implement this by building a custom dictionary for hunspell. This approach has several advantages too great to be ignored. a) it eliminates the need to write the spell-check engine from the ground up. b) It provides immediate integration into software like openoffice and firefox (and potentially even MSWord) to name a few. Of course there is the risk that it might not be able to handle dhivehi's "rules" - but as I always say if the Arabs and the Hebrews can do it - and it has been done - then so can we.

So I used the scripts I wrote for The Radheef project to generate words, and wrote a simple affix file to munch it down with. Using a dictionary comprising of all the "headwords" in the Radheef, and this affix file I was able to obtain some promising results - enough to convince me that it just may be possible to achieve reasonable results using Hunspell.

and the saga continues...

The contents of the Affix file

The test file to run the spell check on

We give hunspell a chance to process it...

and this is the resulting output ("misspelled" words with their suggestions)

I hope I got the attention of some talented young out there and hope that you take an interest in this.

Get rid of MV Boli on Windows 7/Vista/Xp

some time ago our dear friend MoyaMeeha wrote on how to "get rid of the damned boli font" on Windows XP and whatnot. Unfortunately Windows Vista broke the tool that was used..and it remained broken in windows 7.

Sadly though, MV Boli remains to haunt us.

FORTUNATELY though, it appears to be a relatively simple task to rid ourselves of this menace!

WARNING: Always make a backup of your registry before editing it.

The fix involves changing out two registry keys. I'm not entirely sure if changing the first one is absolutely necessary, but we'll do it anyway for good measure.

in the start menu search bar, type "regedit" and open it. (XP users type regedit in the Run dialog)
Once in the registry editor navigate to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]

Here you'll see a listing for a bunch of fonts. Scroll down until you find the name of your REPLACEMENT font (eg MV Faseyha). Double click this, and copy the value. Now scroll to where it says "MV Boli", double click it and paste the value you just copied into the dialog box. Click ok. Also make a note of the NAME of the replacement font. Choose the replacement font wisely. It has to be a good unicode font. I recommend MV Faseyha, Faruma or one of the fonts from the Iyyu or Elaaf family of fonts.

Now navigate over to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]

from here find the key "MV Boli", double click it and change the value to the name of the replacement font exactly as it was in the previous list (without the "(open type)" bit) eg. "MV Faseyha","MV Iyyu Formal" etc...

save and exit. Then restart your system. Boli should be replaced now.

IF you're feeling super lazy, I've put together a small registry patch file that should do the work for you. However I do not recommend using this as the font file name and stuff may differ between systems.

Download HERE

thanks apo and ÎĦΣçҜәѓ™ for the help testing this out.

Dict Database for Dhivehi Radheef Update

I'm releasing a minor update to the previously released database.

by minor I mean a complete overhaul - I had to rewrite the entire conversion script because of the recent "hard drive crash". I've managed to fix the "number reversal" problem, and also changed the formatting a little. Also included in the dictionary now are additional information about the words like "kan ithuru","nan ithuru" and so on....

Otherwise everything is pretty much the same. Installation instructions can be found on the previous post HERE

updated files are here:
RAW zip: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5385653/radheef/dict-radheef.zip
deb : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5385653/radheef/dict-radheef1-03.deb

Zekr: Changing Translation Display Font

Since I wrote about the availability of Dhivehi translation text for Zekr: The open source quranic study software, I've received numerous complaints about being unable to change the font that is used to display the text. Brother Mohsen of the Zekr project was kind enough to help us out.

(This article also titled: getting rid of or changing MV Boli font in Zekr) - that DAMNED boli font!

in Zekr, goto Tools->Options and select "View" from the side column. From here click the add (+) button to add a new setting key and call it "trans_dv_fontName" and click OK. You can now change the value assigned to this key and add "MV Faseyha" (or any other font you like).

You can also add "trans_dv_fontSize" to specify the size of the translation text.

On a side note, if you want the Quranic text to display nicely, download and install the me_quran font from http://arabicfonts.wikispaces.com/

ADSL Usage checker update

I took some time today to revamp the ADSL usage checking script I wrote some time ago and added a few more features like the ability to output more detailed information.

I added a few more options like the ability to customize the output string, check for updates, and so on and so forth. Here's the updated script. It's a bit lengthy...

#!/bin/bash
##################################################
# Ugly Dirty yet functional script to check ADSL
# usage statistics for Dhiraagu subscribers.
# 
# type ./dslusage -h for options
#
# This script is provided as is, without liabilities
# or guarantee.
#
# 2010 KudaNai - http://kudanai.blogspot.com
#-------------------------------------------------


username= #your login name
password= #your password here
package_allowance=20 #must be specified
version=0.2

#End of configuration section.
PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"
fmtstring="DSL Usage:\tGBUSEDGb / GBALLOWGb ( GBLEFTGb remaining)" #Default format string

function pusage() {
 echo -e "\tUSEAGE: ${0} "
 cat ${0} | tail -n 23 | sed "s/#//g;s/VERSION/${version}/g"
 exit
}

function error() {
 echo -e "ERROR: $1\n"
 if [ -z $2 ];then pusage;fi
 exit
}
function checkupdate() {
 if [ -z $(which curl) ];then error "This functionality requires cURL. Please install it and try again" 1;fi
 local ver=$(curl --silent http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5385653/ddslcheck/ver)
 if [ $(expr ${ver} \> ${version}) -eq 1 ]
 then 
  echo "A newer version ${ver} is available online."
 else
  echo "You are probably using the latest version."
 fi
}

while getopts 'vVUhu:p:f:' OPTION
do
 case $OPTION in
  u) username=${OPTARG};;
  p) password=${OPTARG};;
  a) package_allowance=${OPTARG};;
  v) fmtstring="Dhiraagu ADSL Usage Details as on\n`date`\n\nCustomer:\tSUBSCRIBER (USERID)\nPackage:\tPACKAGE_NAME\nusage period:\tBILLING_START to BILLING_END (BILLING_CYCLE)\n\nDSL Usage:\tGBUSEDGb / GBALLOWGb ( GBLEFTGb remaining)";;
  V) cat $0 | tail -n 5 | sed "s/#//g;s/VERSION/${version}/g";exit;;
  f) fmtstring=${OPTARG};;
  U) checkupdate;exit;;
  h) pusage;;
  ?) pusage;;
 esac
done

if [ -z $(which img2txt) ]; then error "You need to install caca-utils before proceeding" 1;exit;fi
if [ -z $(which wget) ];then error "You don't have wget installed...seriously?" 1;exit;fi
if [[ -z ${username} || -z ${password} || -z ${package_allowance} ]]; then error "You need to specify username and password";fi

cd /tmp # ---------------here on down everything is done inside temp
wget --quiet --no-cache --post-data "web_user=${username}&web_pass=${password}" -p http://dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/login.php
if [ ! -f "dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/comparision_graph.php" ];then error "Invalid username/password" 1;fi

OIFS="{$IFS}"; IFS=$'\n'
count=0
for LINE in $(sed -n 's/.*"#000080" size="2">\([^<]*\).*/\1/p' dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/topframe.php;sed -n 's/.*through \(.*\) to \([^<]*\)<.*/\1\n\2/p' dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/comparision_tpl.php)
do
 ARR[${count}]=$LINE
 ((count++))
done
IFS="${OIFS}"

gstring=$(img2txt -H 400 -W 4 -d none -f ansi dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/comparision_graph.php)
gtotal=$(echo "${gstring}" | grep 44 | wc -l)
gused=$(echo "${gstring}" | grep 43 | wc -l)
gbused=$(echo "scale=3;${gused} / ${gtotal} * ${package_allowance}" | bc -l)
gbleft=$(echo "scale=3;${package_allowance} - ${gbused}" | bc -l)

echo -e "${fmtstring}" | sed "s/SUBSCRIBER/${ARR[0]}/g;s/USERID/${ARR[1]}/g;s/PACKAGE_NAME/${ARR[2]}/g;s/BILLING_CYCLE/${ARR[3]}/g;s/BILLING_START/${ARR[4]}/g;s/BILLING_END/${ARR[5]}/g;s/GBUSED/${gbused}/g;s/GBLEFT/${gbleft}/g;s/GBALLOW/${package_allowance}/g;"

rm -r dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv
#
#OPTIONS:
# -a Specify package allowance for limited connections.
# -f Define custom format string.
# -h Print this help.
# -p Specify password.
# -u Specify username.
# -U Check for updates.
# -v Verbose output. Print more details.
# -V print version information and exit.
#
#FORMATTING:
# The format string can by anything containing any of the following
# special variables which will be substituted with appropriate values.
# use \n,\t for newlines and tabs.
#
# SUBSCRIBER,USERID,PACKAGE_NAME,BILLING_CYCLE 
# BILLING_START,BILLING_END,GBUSED,GBLEFT,GBALLOW
#
# Dhiraagu DSLUsage checker
# 2010 - KudaNai [ http://kudanai.blogspot.com ]
# vVERSION
#

Dhivehi Quran Translation now available for Zekr and Tanzil.info

UPDATE: The translation pack and is available from the Zekr website now. Download from there.

Ramazan Mubarik fellow bretheren. It gives me great pleasure to (sort of) formally announce the release of the Zekr Quranic study tool with Dhivehi localization and translation packs.

I'm also happy to announce that www.tanzil.info now hosts the Dhivehi translation of the Holy Quran for everybody to enjoy, free of charge.

This has been part of a MOSS initiative, and I'd like to thank everybody who worked on the project with me. Particularly Mohamed Malik, Bunyameen and Sobah.

As of version 1.0 of Zekr, you can select "Dhivehi" as a display language under tools->options.

The translation pack hasn't been officially sanctioned yet, we're waiting for the Presidents office to formally OK the project. Meanwhile, you're welcome to "unofficially" download and use it.

INSTALLATION is a simple three step process.

1. Download and install Zekr from www.zekr.org
2. Download the translation pack (see link belowupdate above)
3. Run Zekr. goto Tools->add->translation and select the zip file you just downloaded.

you can now select the translation under view->translation.

*note: if you encounter a "could not find Java VM" error, make sure you have a recent version of Java installed on your system. Download Java from http://www.java.com/en/download/

If you find any errors, please send an email to kudanai [yetu] gm[ail] dotu [comu]

you can find full details and installation instructions in this months MOSS magazine.

Download Dhivehi translation pack for Zekr

Zekr website

Hard-Drive Crash!!!

There is only one thing you can say in a situation like this...

FUCK!!!!!

and it doesn't make things easier that I actually saw this one coming and did make a backup, only to discover that my backup drive was also faulty.

Well...it's going to take me a while to get back up on my feet again. I'm probably going to have to re-do all my little projects and stuff...


DAMNIT ALL TO HELL!!!

Eco Fashion and Maldives

And in our Spring lineup, we have this lovely number.

Made entirely of plastic bags for the Environment day exhibition held at A.Dh  Hangnaameedhoo Madhrasa by two students; Reesh (9th Grade) and Iffath (10th Grade)

This sort of thing hardly ever gets the exposure it deserves.

Grab Dhiraagu ADSL usage from the terminal

UPDATE: There's a new version of the script out with more options and better configurability. Check it out HERE

Anybody who even occasionally stumbles on my blog should know full well by now that I have some personal beef with Dhiraagu. It's not that they suck..per se. It's just that I feel that they could, as a company, do much better.

Having said that, not having plain-text data available on the ADSL usage page (which incidentally has been trapped in a time-freeze-bubble since the 1960's) is just plain stupid on the part of whoever designed it. No matter though, where there is a will, there will be a way.

Previously I used to do it like this; Simply grabbing the graph image from the concerned page and popping it into eog so I can have a look.

wget --post-data "web_user=${username}&web_pass=${password}" -p http://dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/login.php;eog ./dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/comparision_graph.php;rm -r ./dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv

substitute ${username},${password} and eog as necessary.

But that wasn't enough..what If I wanted something in Conky or something to that effect? That would be a lot more convenient than having to look at that fart of a graph they have up there. So I came up with this simple solution.

SIMPLE but NOT ELEGANT... this is ugly, but it gets the job done.

#!/bin/bash
#simple "hack" to grab and decode the ADSL usage
#graph from Dhiraagu. No magic going on here.
#require caca-utils (img2text)
#
#2010 KudaNai - http://kudanai.blogspot.com
#-------------------------------------------------


username= #your username
password= #your password
package_allowance=20 #your_package allowance

cd /tmp
wget --quiet --post-data "web_user=${username}&web_pass=${password}" \
 -p http://dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/login.php

gstring=$(img2txt -H 400 -W 4 -d none -f ansi dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv/comparision_graph.php) #yes...gstring
gtotal=$(echo "${gstring}" | grep 44 | wc -l) #blue colored line
gused=$(echo "${gstring}" | grep 43 | wc -l)  #yellow colored line
gbused=$(echo "scale=3;${gused} / ${gtotal} * ${package_allowance}" | bc -l)
gbleft=$(echo "scale=3;${package_allowance} - ${gbused}" | bc -l)

echo "used: \t${gbused} Gb\nleft:\t${gbleft}Gb\nAllow: \t${package_allowance}Gb"

rm -r dsl.dhivehinet.net.mv

Guitar Chords: Ey Hithaa

I don't know who the original artist of this song is, but the version I'm posting is the cover done by "Out of Doors" featuring the lovely Ms. Lubaina from their new album "Eyzamaanaa" (out now and available in select shops around the country - try ShellBeans)

If you think the Original was good, you should hear the new one :)

Enjoy.

{t:Ey hithaa}
{st:Out of Doors (Feat. Luba)}

{c:Intro chords A#m, D#m , F }
{c:Or play with Capo on 1st - Am,Dm,E}

[A#m]Beyvafaa heydhen vaanvee, [A#m]roohu beynunvaa araamu dh[D#m]eefaa eyhith[F]aa, eyhi[A#m]thaa
[A#m]Beynumeehey aniyaadheyn, [A#m]meyge vindhah fun araamu dh[D#m]eefa, eyhith[F]aa, eyhi[A#m]tha
[A#m]Loabi veynee karunaigaa [A#m]thehmanee hey dhen mih[D#m]aaru heefaa, eyhit[F]haa, eyhi[A#m]tha

[A#m]Loabi mee veyn libey th[D#m]oofaanakee hey, eyhi[F]thaa, eyhi[A#m]thaa

{c:Interlude Riff}

[A#m]Neydheme dhaaimee vey[D#m]naa mi hoonaa eyhi[Fm]thaa, eyhi[A#m]thaa

[A#m]Ashigen mee loabeegaa, [A#m]hadhahaa veyneh libey engeyhey, ey hi[F]thaa, eyhi[A#m]thaa
[A#m]Roohu loabin hehvaalaa [A#m]jaadhuvee hoonun ufaan[D#m]udhenhey ey hi[F]thaa, eyhi[A#m]thaa
[A#m]Ishqugaa, dhen mivee beyk[D#m]aaruvaan hey... ey hi[F]thaa, eyhi[A#m]thaa

Beyvafaa heydhen vaanvee, roohu beynunvaa araamu dheefaa eyhithaa
Beynumeehey aniyaadheyn, meyge vindhah fun araamu dheefa, eyhithaa..eyhithaa

And here is a youtube video of the original song.

DICT database for Dhivehi Radheef

An year ago I asked myself "wouldn't it be cool if you could lookup words from the Radheef right from gnome-dictionary?"

and so dict-radheef was born.... (bear with me)

a screenshot should give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

now isn't that just dandy?

Anyway I've put it all together in a neat little deb file for you kids to install. It should tell you all the dependencies and stuff. Grab it..install it..voila.

Setup

at this time, you'll need to setup a DICT server on your local machine (or intranet..however you wanna roll) if you're installing from the deb, it should grab all the necessities for you, and all you have to do is point gnome-dictionary to the local DICT server.

do do this, go to edit->preferences and click "add". Enter whatever in the fields except hostname. HOSTNAME: 127.0.0.1 and that's it.

for you hardcore types.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=145949

Download

deb package : debian-all http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5385653/radheef/dict-radheef1-02.deb
no deb : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5385653/radheef/dict-radheef.zip

Overhaulin'

this sshiteskies are being updated yo..


Expect a few things to break in the meanwhile. Sorry about that..

To boldly go where I never thought I'd go...

Have you ever done something that you really wanted to do, but you doubted all the way through. Should I do it? Would it end in disaster or triumph? There's only one way to find out...

The choice has been made though... there is no turning back.

Dhiraagu webSMS Conduit

I posted a simple bash script a long time ago to try and ease the process of sending webSMS's. While the age when everybody around here was messing around with the service is long gone, I have personally found the service to be quite useful (it's free after all!), and still occasionally mess around with it. The script works through and through and has served it's purpose well over the ages. The problem however, was that it still required the exchange of a (relatively) large amount of data between the client (me) and the server(Dhiraagu). While this is inconsequential on a regular broadband connection, it is a problem on my rather expensive mobile data connection.

Thus, out of this particular need, and after a brief spurt of late night coding (4:00 am - 4:15am?) the following PHP script was born. It is to live on my hosted server, and there act as a "Conduit" between myself and Dhiraagu. As you can see, it is, more or less, a "port" of the original Bash script to PHP...and I hope the PHP gods won't rain thunder and rocks on my head for the horrible job I did of it.

An unexpected upshot of this however, is that it allows me to use it over SSL which I suppose is always a good thing.

 

Anyways...here be the thing.

Enjoy.

 

 

<?php
/*....
PHP script to act as a go-between for Dhiraagu websms
to minimize data-exchange. Ideally for use over a
mobile network.

just upload the php file to some place that supports
php_curl and make a standard GET request to the file
with the follwing parameters:

user,pass,num,msg,<cookie>

where cookie is optional, and is the session string of
an existing session.

The Script returns a JSON encoded status message.
*/

$old_error_handler = set_error_handler("myErrorHandler");
$SessionData=array(
	'status' => 'OK',
	'count' => NULL,
	'cookie' => NULL,
	'retries' => 0,
);

function terminate_now() {
	global $SessionData;
	echo json_encode($SessionData)."\n";
	exit(1);
}

function myErrorHandler($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline)
{

    global $SessionData;
    if (!(error_reporting() & $errno)) {
        return;
    }

    switch ($errno) {
    case E_USER_ERROR:
        $SessionData['status']="ERR: ".$errstr;
        terminate_now();
        break;

    case E_USER_WARNING:
        $SessionData['status']="WARN: ".$errstr;
        break;

    default:
        $SessionData['status']="ERRUNKWN: ".$errstr;
	terminate_now();
        break;
    }

    return true;
}

function make_curl_request($url,$post_params,$useCookie) {

	global $SessionData;

      	 	$ch = curl_init($url);
      	 	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
		curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER,1);
		curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION,1);
		curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_HEADER,1);
        	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 2);
        	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$post_params);
		curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION,1);
		if($useCookie) {
			curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_COOKIE,'Dhi='.$SessionData['cookie']);
		}
        	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

	        $output = curl_exec($ch);
	        curl_close($ch);

		return $output;

}

function login()
{
	global $SessionData;
	$username=$_GET['user'];
	$password=$_GET['pass'];

	$return=make_curl_request('http://websms.dhimobile.com.mv/cgi-bin/websms/index.pl',
				'username='.urlencode($username).'&password='.urlencode($password),FALSE);

	if(preg_match('/^Set-Cookie: Dhi=(.*?);/m', $return, $cookie_out)) {
		$SessionData['cookie']=$cookie_out[1];

		//CHECK DAILY QUOTA
		if(preg_match('/send (.*?) more/',$return,$msg_count)) {
			if(($SessionData['count']=$msg_count[1])<1){ 				trigger_error('You have Reached your Daily Quota',E_USER_ERROR); 				 			} else { 				sendsms(); 			} 		}  		return true; 	} else { 		trigger_error('Invalid Username andor Password',E_USER_ERROR); 		return false; 	} } function sendsms() { 	global $SessionData; 	$number=$_GET['num']; 	$message=$_GET['msg']; 	if(strlen($message) > 140) {
		trigger_error('Message Truncated',E_USER_WARNING);
		$message=substr($message,0,140);
	}

        $return=make_curl_request('http://websms.dhimobile.com.mv/cgi-bin/websms/send_message.pl',
				'mobilenumber='.urlencode($number).'&message='.urlencode($message),TRUE);

	//VALIDATE THE RETURN STUFF
	if(preg_match('/send (.*?) more/',$return,$msg_count)) {
		$SessionData['count']=$msg_count[1];
	} else {
		if(($SessionData['retries']++)>3){
			trigger_error('maximum number of retries exceeded',E_USER_ERROR);
		}
		login();
	}

}

if (isset($_GET['user']) && isset($_GET['pass']) && isset($_GET['msg']) && isset($_GET['num'])) {
	if(preg_match("/^7[4-9][0-9]{5}$/",$_GET['num'],$number)){
		$_GET['num']=$number[0];
	} else {
		trigger_error('Invalid Number Format',E_USER_ERROR);
	}
} else {
	trigger_error('Insufficiant Arguments',E_USER_ERROR);
}

if(isset($_GET['cookie'])){
	$SessionData['cookie']=$_GET['cookie'];
	sendsms();
} else {
	login();
}

terminate_now();
?>

Dhiraagu webSMS Conduit

I posted a simple bash script a long time ago to try and ease the process of sending webSMS's. While the age when everybody around here was messing around with the service is long gone, I have personally found the service to be quite useful (it's free after all!), and still occasionally mess around with it. The script works through and through and has served it's purpose well over the ages. The problem however, was that it still required the exchange of a (relatively) large amount of data between the client (me) and the server(Dhiraagu). While this is inconsequential on a regular broadband connection, it is a problem on my rather expensive mobile data connection.

Thus, out of this particular need, and after a brief spurt of late night coding (4:00 am - 4:15am?) the following PHP script was born. It is to live on my hosted server, and there act as a "Conduit" between myself and Dhiraagu. As you can see, it is, more or less, a "port" of the original Bash script to PHP...and I hope the PHP gods won't rain thunder and rocks on my head for the horrible job I did of it.

An unexpected upshot of this however, is that it allows me to use it over SSL which I suppose is always a good thing.

 

Anyways...here be the thing.

Enjoy.

 

 

<?php
/*....
PHP script to act as a go-between for Dhiraagu websms
to minimize data-exchange. Ideally for use over a
mobile network.

just upload the php file to some place that supports
php_curl and make a standard GET request to the file
with the follwing parameters:

user,pass,num,msg,<cookie>

where cookie is optional, and is the session string of
an existing session.

The Script returns a JSON encoded status message.
*/

$old_error_handler = set_error_handler("myErrorHandler");
$SessionData=array(
	'status' => 'OK',
	'count' => NULL,
	'cookie' => NULL,
	'retries' => 0,
);

function terminate_now() {
	global $SessionData;
	echo json_encode($SessionData)."\n";
	exit(1);
}

function myErrorHandler($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline)
{

    global $SessionData;
    if (!(error_reporting() & $errno)) {
        return;
    }

    switch ($errno) {
    case E_USER_ERROR:
        $SessionData['status']="ERR: ".$errstr;
        terminate_now();
        break;

    case E_USER_WARNING:
        $SessionData['status']="WARN: ".$errstr;
        break;

    default:
        $SessionData['status']="ERRUNKWN: ".$errstr;
	terminate_now();
        break;
    }

    return true;
}

function make_curl_request($url,$post_params,$useCookie) {

	global $SessionData;

      	 	$ch = curl_init($url);
      	 	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
		curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER,1);
		curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION,1);
		curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_HEADER,1);
        	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 2);
        	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$post_params);
		curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION,1);
		if($useCookie) {
			curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_COOKIE,'Dhi='.$SessionData['cookie']);
		}
        	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

	        $output = curl_exec($ch);
	        curl_close($ch);

		return $output;

}

function login()
{
	global $SessionData;
	$username=$_GET['user'];
	$password=$_GET['pass'];

	$return=make_curl_request('http://websms.dhimobile.com.mv/cgi-bin/websms/index.pl',
				'username='.urlencode($username).'&password='.urlencode($password),FALSE);

	if(preg_match('/^Set-Cookie: Dhi=(.*?);/m', $return, $cookie_out)) {
		$SessionData['cookie']=$cookie_out[1];

		//CHECK DAILY QUOTA
		if(preg_match('/send (.*?) more/',$return,$msg_count)) {
			if(($SessionData['count']=$msg_count[1])<1){ 				trigger_error('You have Reached your Daily Quota',E_USER_ERROR); 				 			} else { 				sendsms(); 			} 		}  		return true; 	} else { 		trigger_error('Invalid Username andor Password',E_USER_ERROR); 		return false; 	} } function sendsms() { 	global $SessionData; 	$number=$_GET['num']; 	$message=$_GET['msg']; 	if(strlen($message) > 140) {
		trigger_error('Message Truncated',E_USER_WARNING);
		$message=substr($message,0,140);
	}

        $return=make_curl_request('http://websms.dhimobile.com.mv/cgi-bin/websms/send_message.pl',
				'mobilenumber='.urlencode($number).'&message='.urlencode($message),TRUE);

	//VALIDATE THE RETURN STUFF
	if(preg_match('/send (.*?) more/',$return,$msg_count)) {
		$SessionData['count']=$msg_count[1];
	} else {
		if(($SessionData['retries']++)>3){
			trigger_error('maximum number of retries exceeded',E_USER_ERROR);
		}
		login();
	}

}

if (isset($_GET['user']) && isset($_GET['pass']) && isset($_GET['msg']) && isset($_GET['num'])) {
	if(preg_match("/^7[4-9][0-9]{5}$/",$_GET['num'],$number)){
		$_GET['num']=$number[0];
	} else {
		trigger_error('Invalid Number Format',E_USER_ERROR);
	}
} else {
	trigger_error('Insufficiant Arguments',E_USER_ERROR);
}

if(isset($_GET['cookie'])){
	$SessionData['cookie']=$_GET['cookie'];
	sendsms();
} else {
	login();
}

terminate_now();
?>

Bulk responding to facebook wallposts

So it happens that my birthday is coming up, and like last year there's bound to be a shitload of posts on my Facebook wall...and like last time I'm probably expected to respond to said posts otherwise I'd be "rude".

Here's the dilema though, I can't be bothered to spend all the time going through the wall, clicking on links..responding blah blah. What I'd like to do, is respond to all of them in bulk. So here's my solution...

1.download all wallposts to a csv file
2.edit said csv file and add responses to those posts that i want to respond to
3.send off said responses.

How-to after the jump

If I'm going down...

I ain't dead yet folks. Not that I think anybody cares much. The last few months have been a bad time for me, as I've been trying to get my life back in order and sort out my priorities... mostly I've been trying to get off my ass.

and It's working... as you can see (yes I know this is a little vain, but I'm rather proud of my achievement)