Systems
A better way to losslessly join MP3 files
I recently revisited a previous how-to I wrote up two years ago, thinking that there must be a better way to losslessly combine multiple MP3 files than to use 3 separate utilities.
The good news is, I think I’ve found the one true method. The bad news is, it still uses 3 programs. But, just like last time, the commands are short and sweet, and it’s easy to throw them into a shell script. more …
Android kernel: Find the base address to use with mkbootimg for your phone
This is old hat for serious Android hackers, but for me it took long enough to find (no help from Google or grep) that I’ll post it here. If you’re building your own Android kernel, the last step in the process is to pack the kernel binary and gzipped ramdisk together into a boot image with mkbootimg. Here’s where to find the base address to use for the “–base” parameter for your device. more …
OpenVPN on Sprint LG Optimus S
Now that ThundeROM includes the Xionia kernel with the Linux TUN/TAP driver compiled as a module, it was downright easy to get OpenVPN working on my LG Optimus S. I didn’t even have to compile anything! Here’s a quick run-down of what I did. more …
Android SDK and NOEXEC tmp partition hint
If you’ve installed the Android SDK, but running the tools/android GUI fails with an error message when Java can’t find your SWT-GTK libraries, here’s a possible explanation: Your /tmp partition is mounted with the noexec option. more …
Replacing MacBook’s AirPort card with an Atheros AR5BXB6 from an IBM Thinkpad
Four years of 85°C CPU temperatures took their toll on my friend’s MacBook. Her AirPort wireless card still functioned, but suddenly her wifi signal had become unusably weak.
I checked her system configuration, opened up her first-gen MacBook, and everything looked fine. But with plenty of others reporting similar issues, it was most likely the card had succumbed to heat. It could sometimes maintain normal wireless range for several minutes — when started totally cold — but after the system temps warmed up, would go back to only a few feet of range.
The model number printed on the AirPort card is an Atheros AR5BXB6. A Google Products search for “AR5BXB6” turned up these $13 Thinkpad pulls among others available online, and for $13 we figured it was easily worth a shot as a drop-in replacement, compared to the cost of a new Apple card. It turned out be only a little tricksier than that. more …
How to losslessly concatenate / merge MP3 files
You’d think it would be very easy to combine multiple MP3 files into one, while preserving all the ID3 tag metadata and without re-encoding the audio (which is lossy). Well, it actually isn’t that hard at all, but since Google couldn’t find the answer for me, I thought I’d write it up. more …
How to transfer domains away from GoDaddy
It’s Super Bowl Sunday, a day I particularly enjoy transferring domain names out of GoDaddy, the registrar that once tempted me with low prices but now mostly just annoys me. Here’s how to move your domains to a new registrar quickly, easily and without fouling anything up (you don’t want your website to disappear!) in the process. more …
Running WordPress on Nginx
WordPress is designed to run on Apache and use rewrite rules stuffed into an .htaccess file, but it’s pretty simple to set up WordPress to run using Nginx instead. I’ll share a sample configuration here that I’ve been using for the last two years. more …