Download your gmail inbox to harddisk for offline usage in Ubuntu

I don't know when i have started using gmail. But now, i am wondering why it doesn't makes me bored eventhough i am watching the same appearence and 'looks of gmail' for more than five years. Gmail is something more than the 'appearences' since it provides a secure and fully fledged mechanism to communicate your personal and business affairs. That may be the reason why i haven't googled for something like 'best online email service' for those past years where i experienced the power of Gmail. 

Here i am introducing an application named 'Gmail Backup' that helps you to download and back up all your mails from the Gmail inbox to your computer's hard disk. The collection of mails that you backed up can be viewed and read offline with the help of some text editors, browsers or email applications such as thunderbird without going online...

 

Setup and Installation

Since the Gmail Backup is a python based application you may need some additional python libraries for running the gui. So first  install the latest version of wxPython on your ubuntu box with the help of Synaptic package manager or apt. The installation  with apt pacakge manager using terminal is given below.

#  First import the key into your apt's list of trusted keys (we both hate warnings !! and this is how we remove the warnings about the digital signature)  

$ curl http://apt.wxwidgets.org/key.asc | sudo apt-key add - 

# Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file. Change 'natty' to the suitable one if you are using an ubuntu distribution other than Natty narwhal. 

  #wxWidgets/wxPython repository at apt.wxwidgets.org
  deb http://apt.wxwidgets.org/ natty-wx main
  deb-src http://apt.wxwidgets.org/ natty-wx main

  

#  Run the this command to update your local copy of the packages meta-data. 

$ sudo apt-get update

 

# Now install the wxPython packages using the following commands.

  $ sudo apt-get install python-wxgtk2.8 python-wxtools wx2.8-i18n libwxgtk2.8-dev libgtk2.0-dev

The packages libwxgtk2.8-dev and libgtk2.0-dev may need to be installed if a 3rd party application requires wxWidgets when building from source.
 

# Inorder to access the gmail with such an application you need to enable the IMAP option on the gmail settings. Go to your gmail inbox with your browser. Navigate to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP section on the gmail settings page to enable the IMAP as shown in the figure.

 

Now download the gmail Backup application from the link here. Extract the zipped file. Using your terminal navigate to the location of the zipped file.
 

#  Use the ls command to list all the files 

$ ls -l *.sh 

#  Run the file named gmail-backup-gui.sh to start the gui interface of the Gmail Backup application shown below.

$ ./gmail-backup-gui.sh

 

# Enter the required information and press the backup button to start downloading the mails. You can view the mails with the help of a browser/text editor/email application[kmail,mozilla thunderbird]. All the mails are stored in the specified folder seperately as eml files.

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a Javascript a day | my javascript tutorial . . .

                 Here i share my basic experimentsi had done with javascript. Its not enough for making a geekness with that, but only for making the first lessons of javascript ...

What is javascript ?

JavaScript is a scripting language that will allow you to add real programming to your webpages. You can create small application type processes with JavaScript, like a calculator or a primitive game of some sort. Important uses of javascript are

• Browser Detection
• Detecting the browser used by a visitor at your page. Depending on the browser, another page specifically designed for that browser can then be loaded. 
• Cookies
• Storing information on the visitor's computer, then retrieving this information automatically next time the user visits your page. This technique is called "cookies".
• Control Browsers
• Opening pages in customized windows, where you specify if the browser's buttons, menu line, status line or whatever should be present.
• Validate Forms
• Validating inputs to fields before submitting a form. An example would be validating the entered email address to see if it has an @ in it, since if not, it's not a valid address. 

 
where is the playground ?

The browser will use the 
<script type="text/javascript"> and </script> to tell where javascript starts and ends respectively.

The <script> …… </script>  Tag can be included in

• <head> section
• <body> section
•  Both <head> section and <body> section
•  In an External file with .js extension    
• Eg : <script type="text/javascript" src="xxx.js"></script> 

To declare a variable in JavaScript, use the var command.    Eg : var state, city, zip, country; 

Basics

• Write directly into the document.

     >> document.write("Welcome to my world!!!");

• Write using POPUP Boxes

     Alert Box
     >> alert("Welcome to my world!!!");

     Confirm Box
     >>if (confirm("Do you agree")) 
               {alert("You agree")}
           else{alert ("You do not agree")};

    Prompt Box
    >> username=prompt("Please enter your 
                    name","Enter your name here");  

Check out this link to make out the rest.

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Download flash videos in Ubuntu without any application

Here is a simple trick that you can use to download your favourite flash videos from Youtube or metacafe without any application. You can stop your search for an apt application for downloading youtube videos... installing it on linux...Just leave everything...

Just login to the youtube and click on some videos to play it.


While the video is streaming, check the /tmp folder in the Ubuntu's file system. There you can see the same video file being updated with filename like Flash26YGf2.flv


You can copy this video file to some other place to make it viewed later. If you reload the the webpage or open some other video in the same tab/window of the web browser then the previous video file will be overwritten with the new one. So better is to copy the flash video file just after it is completely buffered in the web browser.


This tip has one another advantage too. If you want to see the end part of a flash video file which is about 1 hour length, you dont need to download the complete video from the beginning. You can seek the video into desired portion in the website. Then video file in the tmp directory will be starting from the new positon to which you seeked it.


So this technique is simple and cool where you need only a flash video player embedded in the web browser only to save the video. This methode can be used in situation where you  can play  video but blocked from downloading it since you have no account registered in those websites.

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How to install traditional language fonts in Ubuntu

The multi-language support by operating systems offer a way to type in and read contents of the even traditional languages. Yet there are still some problems persist when you need to install new fonts in your traditional languages. The main problem causes when you visit a website which is in traditional language. Most probably the browser will display junk characters which are unreadable. Here is a how to about installing traditional languages in your Ubuntu machine.

1. First download the font on to your machine, let it be font.ttf

2. Take the terminal and copy this font.ttf to  the Fonts  directory in Ubuntu as root (usually /usr/share/fonts).

 $ sudo cp ~/Downloads/font.ttf  /usr/share/fonts

Relogin to the system to make the changes come into effect.

If you do not have the root permission, please do the following steps.

Copy the font.ttf font to a directory.

Change to that direcroty and run the following  commands.

Run ttmkfdir > fonts.dir

Run ttmkfdir > fonts.scale

/usr/X11R6/bin/xset fp+ <font directory>

/usr/X11R6/bin/xset fp rehash

Open the browser and change the character encoding to “User Defined”

Installing new fonts in windows


In windows you have to copy the fonts in to the C:/Windows/fonts directory.

  

 

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Keyboard shortcuts for Mozilla Firefox

CTRL + A

Select all text on a webpage

CTRL + B

Open the Bookmarks sidebar

CTRL + C

Copy the selected text to the Windows clipboard

CTRL + D

Bookmark the current webpage

CTRL + F

Find text within the current webpage

CTRL + G

Find more text within the same webpage

CTRL + H

Opens the webpage History sidebar

CTRL + I

Open the Bookmarks sidebar

CTRL + J

Opens the Download Dialogue Box

CTRL + K

Places the cursor in the Web Search box ready to type your search

CTRL + L

Places the cursor into the URL box ready to type a website address

CTRL + M

Opens your mail program (if you have one) to create a new email message

CTRL + N

Opens a new Firefox window

CTRL + O

Open a local file

CTRL + P

Print the current webpage

CTRL + R

Reloads the current webpage

CTRL + S

Save the current webpage on your PC

CTRL + T

Opens a new Firefox Tab

CTRL + U

View the page source of the current webpage

CTRL + V

Paste the contents of the Windows clipboard

CTRL + W

Closes the current Firefox Tab or Window (if more than one tab is open)

CTRL + X

Cut the selected text

CTRL + Z

Undo the last action

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Internet access and package installation behind a proxy server in Ubuntu

When there is a proxy server in between your system and server you have to specify the proxy address in all the applications that is intended to access internet such as firefox, bittorrent... Proxy servers are mainly deployed for subnets, for example a network inside a college is connected to internet using a proxy server (not technically, since there are gateways,routers...) to sensor and restrict the students internet activities, protect from unauthorized access... 

If you have to run any application behind a proxy server, you have to specify the proxy server address and the port number to the application that need access the internet. This is because the default port numbers used by the transport  layer protocols are changed by the proxy server. Squid is one among the important proxy programs that is prefered by network administrators. In the following cases please replace the proxy address and port number with the corresponding feilds applicable to you.

Setting Proxy address in Mozilla  firefox

Click on edit --> Preferences.

Select the Network tab under the advanced tab. Click on the Settings button. In the Network settings window select the manual configuration. Then enter the HTTP proxy and port on the current window. Save the settings...When you start browsing the firefox will automatically ask for authentication. Then you have to specify the username and password in the proxy server. 

Setting Proxy in Synaptic package manager

If you are using synaptic package manager as the package installer, You have to do some configuration before using apt package manager.

Click on the Settings --> Preferences

Choose the network tab and select manual proxy configuration. Set HTTP proxy and FTP proxy. Then enter their port numbers also. Click on the authentication button to set username and password.

Setting proxy for APT package manager
APT is a command line utility for installing packages. Probably many people are addicted to terminal do the following . . .

If you have no authentication for the proxy server then use the following command line. 

export http_proxy=http://192.168.0.2:3128
export ftp_proxy=http://192.168.0.2:3128

If you have username and password the use

export http_proxy=http://username:password@192.168.0.2:3128/
export ftp_proxy=http://username:password@192.168.0.2:3128/

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