George Birbilis' blog

HowTo: Use WSL2 with Docker Desktop instead of Hyper-V backend

2021-06-26T02:18:11Z

At installation guide of Docker Desktop one reads: Containers and images created with Docker Desktop are shared between all user accounts on machines where it is installed. This is because all Windows accounts use the same VM to build and run containers. Note that it is not possible to share containers and images between user […]...(read more)

Worm-like exploit message for Facebook Messenger app on Android

2021-04-02T02:36:21Z

A friend click by mistake on a message like the following at the Facebook Messenger app on Android, resulting on this same message being sent to all his Facebook friends: When I received it, of course I didn’t click it, since it uses a short url and an icon (says “Look what I found for […]...(read more)

HowTo: Reboot remote Windows computer with unresponsive RDP

2021-02-17T10:31:58Z

I recently had an issue with an older Windows Server 2008 R2 server that couldn’t logout which had resulted to Remote Desktop not connecting to it anymore (not even with the “admin session” option). Luckily I had an admin go and physically cycle its power since it was a physial one without any lower level […]...(read more)

Fix: javascript location.hash throttling issue with IFrame

2021-02-11T02:58:18Z

I had implemented a simple (and most importantly working in older browsers too) way of communication between an IFrame and its parent page via location.replace(“#” + hash), which doesn’t add entries to history like location.hash=… does, and the onhashchange event, when I noticed Edge-Chromium was throwing a “Throttling navigation to prevent the browser from hanging.” […]...(read more)

Fix: WordPress not detecting updates, wp_options table corruption

2021-01-27T01:35:25Z

I have been trying recently to troubleshoot a WordPress website that was not detecting available core and plugin updates. So I installed WordPress Debug Bar plugin and after enabling WP_DEBUG in wp-config.php I could open the Debug menu from the WordPress admin bar and see some errors being logged. At the wp-content/wp-debug.log file that I […]...(read more)

HowTo: install multiple Corel Painter brushpacks silently

2021-01-22T19:11:36Z

I got a nice expression software charity bundle with Corel Painter 2020 (current version is 2021) and a bunch of brushes in it and then noticed that the brush packs where available for download as separate installers than the Painter software. So I launched one of the brush pack installers from the command-line (can give […]...(read more)

HowTo: Extract numeric suffix from a string in Python

2020-08-24T18:15:12Z

I recently needed to extract a numeric suffix from a string value in Python. Initially I did the following: import re def extractNumSuffix(value): return (None if (search:=re.search(‘^\D*(\d+)$’, value, re.IGNORECASE)) is None else search.group(1)) Note that return has a single-line expression. So print(extractNumSuffix("test1030")) prints 1030 Tried it online at: https://repl.it/languages/python3 However, then I found out […]...(read more)

HowTo: Install Python, PIP and cx_Oracle on MSYS2 / Windows

2020-08-23T22:12:23Z

Here’s how to install Python, PIP package installer and cx_Oracle extension module on MSYS2: $ pacman -S python warning: python-3.8.3-1 is up to date — reinstalling resolving dependencies… looking for conflicting packages… Packages (1) python-3.8.3-1 Total Installed Size: 108.66 MiB Net Upgrade Size: 0.00 MiB :: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y … $ pacman -S […]...(read more)

Using cross-platform fswatch for monitoring file system changes

2020-08-15T23:07:04Z

I was just looking for a way to monitor for file system changs in a cross-platform way. After searching the answers here and the ones at the other question mentioned as possible duplicate in that question’s comments, I think I’d go with fswatch since it is has cross-platform support. It uses different kinds of monitors […]...(read more)

Python rstrip and whitespace

2020-07-10T11:10:55Z

Was just reading https://www.w3schools.com/python/ref_string_rstrip.asp which says The rstrip() method removes any trailing characters (characters at the end a string), space is the default trailing character to remove. Notes: 1) the chars param was added at Python 2.2.3, can’t use it at older versions as noted at https://docs.python.org/2.6/library/string.html string.rstrip(s[, chars]) Return a copy of the string […]...(read more)

HowTo: make raw_input & input work the same in both Python 2 and 3

2020-07-10T11:00:23Z

Was just trying to make a Python 2 script work in Python 3 and at first it seemed I just needed a small change to add missing parentheses to the argument of a couple of print statements. But then another issue came up, it wasn’t understanding the command raw_input(somePrompt) that was occuring at various places […]...(read more)

HowTo: Use DISM and SFC tools to check+fix your Windows installation

2020-04-15T05:28:00Z

If you’re having issues with your Windows 7 or newer, you should consider whether its installation has become corrupted (due to malicious software or hard drive errors). After doing a disk check (say by right clicking the appropriate drive under my computer and selecting Properties, then Tools tab and Error checking) and a complete virus […]...(read more)

HowTo: Optimize your website enabling web server GZIP compression

2020-04-15T04:40:07Z

Was recently checking out the fine tools from GTmetrix for optimizing some websites I manage and one of the issues I noticed on a client’s site was that GZIP compression was turned off. They have a GZIP compression setup article for IIS and Apache web servers that contains a sample for Apache with compression rules […]...(read more)

Fix: Microworlds Pro installer showing gibberish instead of Greek

2020-04-01T06:17:55Z

A friend sent me the other day a screenshot from the installer of Microwords Pro Greek version on Windows 10 that was showing gibberish instead of Greek. At their school on Windows 10 it was showing up fine, so they wondered what the issue was. They mentioned that on Windows 10 english it was showing […]...(read more)

Fix: Cisco Webex Meetings install fail (AddDllDirectory @ KERNEL32.dll)

2020-03-29T01:52:56Z

Looking into the following error message occuring with Cisco WebEx Meetings installer on Windows 7, found this useful discussion: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/a0970bfe-2bca-4ae3-a463-a5a04df83770/could-not-locate-dynamic-link-library-kernel32dll?forum=w7itproinstall where the following are suggested: – install Update for Windows 7 (KB2533623) from Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26767 – video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpRRiMGJ_xA...(read more)

Fix: make ownCloud installer display in English language

2020-03-26T09:33:55Z

OwnCloud is an interesting solution for setting up a file sharing cloud for a group of people. However,one issue I’ve found with its Windows desktop client’s current version (which looks clean of any viruses since I always check first) is that if your Windows 10 is configured with a preferred language that the desktop client’s […]...(read more)

Fix: Buildbox activation issues on load

2020-02-23T05:51:01Z

Buildbox is a wonderful game authoring tool (that spans the whole nocode-code continuum, including the low-code aspect). It now has a free version too with nice templates and tutorials included. I had an issue with the Windows version (it also has an indentical MacOS-X version since it’s a Qt-based app) where it was complaining about […]...(read more)

HowTo: disable video autoplay in Chromium-based Microsoft Edge

2020-02-07T01:40:18Z

Getting really annoyed by YouTube’s insistence to autoplay (and not even stop the previously playing video) everytime you navigate to a browser tab that shows YouTube content (say using CTRL+TAB / SHIFT+CTRL+TAB to find a tab you’re looking for when you have too many and they only manage to fit their icons so no title […]...(read more)

Fix: Acer Aspire One (AS1) ZG5 blank screen at startup

2019-12-22T22:15:35Z

Seems Acer Aspire One (AS1) ZG5 can have a recurring problem, esp. if its battery is near its end of life. If it shuts down abruptly its BIOS settings seem to get corrupted and its BIOS instead of discarding them seems to freeze. Luckily they have a way to update the BIOS via USB key […]...(read more)

MySQL DATETIME vs TIMESTAMP and the year 2038

2019-11-01T16:45:44Z

Judging from MySQL documentation at https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/datetime.html, it sounds best to use DATETIME rather than TIMESTAMP if you want your database to be future proof. After all 2038 is only 18+ years away. The DATETIME type is used for values that contain both date and time parts. MySQL retrieves and displays DATETIME values in 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' […]...(read more)

HowTo: Reset browser cache of CSS files upon ASP.net MVC app publish

2019-10-18T20:45:01Z

On an ASP.net MVC webapp I’m maintaining, I had the issue that due to caching of older CSS (stylesheet) files in the browser, if the user didn’t press F5/refresh, it wasn’t showing you some message (since I had added the class .center-horiz-vert in the CSS that didn’t exist in the older cached css the browser […]...(read more)

Fix: “A numeric comparison was attempted” at VS build (Costura.Fody)

2019-10-18T19:56:00Z

After upgrading from Visual Studio 2017 to Visual Studio 2019 I was able to update NuGet packages Fody and Costura.Fody of a solution that needed them (to package assembly DLLs inside console EXEcutables) and the solution was rebuilding fine. However after I synced the solution via a Git repository on another machine and installed the […]...(read more)

Fix: Invalid Firmware Image at Dell Inspiron 3537 BIOS update

2019-08-10T04:56:14Z

For some time now I was trying to update the BIOS of an older Dell Inspiron 3537 laptop from inside Windows (with the InsydeFlash application that the respective Dell update package employs), only to get a blue screen saying Invalid Firmware Image upon reboot and the BIOS update was skipped every time. Since that update […]...(read more)

HowTo: round a number up to N decimal digits in Javascript

2019-06-18T00:21:45Z

Was just trying to round-off some Google Maps coordinates for display in Javascript up to 3 decimal digits and that was a bit like a blast from the past (the end of the ‘90s to be more accurate)… So here’s my contributed answer at: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2221167/javascript-formatting-a-rounded-number-to-n-decimals This works for rounding to N digits (if you just […]...(read more)

HowTo: remove Javascript imports from OpenLayers map examples

2019-06-12T04:31:26Z

OpenLayers is a fine alternative to the map visualization part of Google Maps Platform, however many of its examples sometimes use features from future and server-side Javascript versions, like “imports”. Based on lou’s answer at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51093964/why-examples-dont-work-a-struggle-with-imports/56549364, here’s a fix I just did to make the Marker animation example work when you just copy-paste the example […]...(read more)