Where does Nautilus store it’s folder share info?

Using a GUI is nice and all but sometimes I want to know where configuration data is stored.

The Gnome file manager, Nautilus, allows Linux users to share folders on a Windows network. Users of other operating systems will find this hard to believe but before this it was difficult to do as you needed to be an administrator and edit a configuration file called /etc/samba/smb.conf (Users of other desktop managers use similar tools).

This was convenient but I wanted to know where Nautilus puts this configuration data. I searched my home directory, I looked in /etc/samba/ (just in case) and eventually found this page:

I located the config files.

It appears as though /var/lib/samba/usershares holds a text file for each share that has been created.

The usershares directory is owned by root:sambashare and the files inside are owned by the user sharing the folder, so I guess it’s a compromise between a system process (Samba) and users wanting to configure it.

Editing those files is simple, and I guess I could use “net usershare” too. I had to restart Samba too which probably wouldn’t be needed if I had use the “net” command.

The Dark Knight was no Batman

I’d been really looking forward to watching The Dark Knight Rises since it came out a few weeks ago. I diligently avoided all spoilers and laughed when I heard one or two strange stories about the ending. I finally got to watch the movie last night in an almost empty theatre.

I hated it.

It’s not often that I’ll leave a theatre angry at the movie I’ve just watched but this happened last night. The movie was too long and destroyed the Batman mythology. The Batman story has always been flexible. Characters are changed about, sometimes the stories contradict each other but usually those stories are seen as separate to the main Batman story line. That might excuse some changes but this movie knocked huge gaping holes in it and threw a twist in at the end to make sure it was completely destroyed. *sigh*

I’ll leave you with this, The Dark Knight Rises: 20 Mistakes Nolan Should Have Avoided which is a pretty good overview of mistakes made in the movie. Do not read if you haven’t watched the movie.

Oh, and go read Batman: Knightfall. It’s the story this movie was based on but it’s so much better.

Search more Twitter with Tweet Tweet

My Tweet Tweet plugin hasn’t been updated in a while. It stores Twitter conversations in your local database. Not just your own tweets but also the tweets of those you follow.

Storage can be a problem once the plugin has been running for a few months however. The log table gets quite big so last year I added code to the plugin that broke up those tables once they reached a predetermined size. In my case I go with 100,000 rows. I have over 20 of those tables now (some in an old database I haven’t copied over yet) and until today the search function in the plugin only searched the most recently created table.

All that’s changed now. It’ll search back through the other tables and compile a list of up to 10,000 tweets. It’s still a little rough but if you’ve been running the plugin for some time give the development version on the developers page a go. Here’s a search for Aurora. The original image was 21793 pixels high, so this is the latest and earlier tweets in that search:

aurora search on twitter

aurora search on twitter

Dog peed on the carpet?

shih tzu eyes

In any home where a dog is indoors that dog is going to pee on the carpet sooner or later. Hopefully the “little accident” will be noticed quickly but if not it’ll dry into your carpet and you might not even notice it for a while if the house is well ventilated.

Then some time later comes that unmistakeable odour. The sickly sweet smell of urine, of a dirty public toilet in your living room corner or in a neglected spare room. You just know that it’s deep in the carpet by now. Bacteria doing their thing in the fibres of your precious floor covering. Ugh!

You’ll be happy to hear there’s a really easy way to clean it up. No need to buy an expensive carpet cleaner containing exotic sounding chemicals. There’s no need to fumigate the room, or steam wash the carpet. Just white vinegar and water first and then dry it. Follow up with bread soda and then a dilute bleach, 3% hydrogen peroxide mixed with a little washing up liquid.

It’s quite amazing how well it works.

Happy Birthday Commodore 64!

issue 50 of Zzap 64!
Issue 50 of Zzap! 64

The Commodore 64 is 30 years old this year and it went on sale in August 1982 so I think it’s about time I wished it a happy birthday. Back then I was messing on a Commodore Vic 20 (or more likely it was 1984 or so), then I had a Speccy and I didn’t get my hands on a C64 until 1989. It was already declining somewhat but it still had a few years of life left in it. Issue 50 of Zzap! 64 was the first issue of that famous magazine I owned. My brother and I bought it in Paul’s Street Shopping Centre! The newsagent is long gone but I have that issue around here somewhere ..

Matt Allen visited a primary school and a secondary school and asked kids there what they thought of the Commodore 64. I don’t think they were impressed by loading errors and long loading times. He probably should have brought a 1541 disk drive and an Action Replay cartridge!

Continue reading “Happy Birthday Commodore 64!”

How to fill the seats at the 2012 London Olympics

Empty seats at the Olympics
Empty seats at the Olympics

Tickets for the 2012 Olympics have been much sought after by the general public so it was shocking to see so many empty seats at events, even high profile ones. More tickets have been put on sale but there are other ways to fill those seats. Thanks Dr_Sandvich for the link!

Continue reading “How to fill the seats at the 2012 London Olympics”

If crawling was an Olympic sport…

The pond by Zelenogorsk
The pond by Zelenogorsk

The players of DayZ would have a fair chance of winning first place in the Olympics if crawling on all fours was included in the games.

I’ve managed to survive for 2 days now but running through the forests and crawling through open spaces is tiresome. The zombies can still see and hear you while crawling but it’s harder and it feels like cheating when I crawl for too long. I was still spotted twice and killed my first zombie with a hatchet this evening! Nice, silent weapon too. Another zombie down the road didn’t hear a thing.

Pity about the lunatic survivors around here though. Twice I spotted them being chased and the second time they brought zombies into the supermarket where I was hiding up. Luckily the zombies didn’t see me and went out back in the general direction of my fast running ‘friend’.

I’m of two minds about DayZ. The game is slow to reveal everything which is incentive to continue playing but crawling around on my belly isn’t the most entertaining way to spend an evening. Because so little happens and it requires you to be careful, slow and methodical it’s quite easy to while away a few hours!

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