Jemshad Dot Com

Though dot (.) is a valid character in a gmail id, gmail never really uses that. Instead, it ignores the dot(s) in the email address. This means that, if your email id is foo.bar@gmail.com, you can login to the same account as foobar@gmail.com, foob.ar@gmail.com or any combination like that. Now that is not really an advantage. Nobody would want to login to the same account with multiple ids.

Creating aliases for your gmail account using this feature:

The real advantage is when using the same email account for different use and avoiding clutter by setting up labels based on the To: address of the email. I can, for example, give foo.bar@gmail.com to my friends and foobar@gmail.com to others. After that, all I have to do is, setup filters so that all mail for foo.bar@gmail.com get labeled with ‘Friends’ and sorting becomes easy. You don’t need multiple email accounts. The position of the dot can be changed or more dots included to create more and more aliases for your email address. The fact that gmail ignores dot in the email address was told to me by Razee Marikar.

Related posts

• smart wc(1) (0)
• Random Linux Tips (0)

As well all know, the -c options of wc(1) command in linux gives the number of bytes in a file. wc -c never reads the entire file for counting the number of bytes. Instead, it does a stat on the file and gets the number of bytes occupied by the file. This is the case if we say wc -c file. Now consider the case of wc -c < file. That also gives the same output – the number of bytes occupied by the file. In this case, the difference is that, the redirection is setup by the shell and the contents of the file is fed to the stdin of wc. Some smart implementations of wc will figure out the actual filename by doing a stat on the stdin and gets the byte count by doing stat on the file. This is highly efficient compared to reading the entire file and counting the number of bytes. wc on latest linux distributions does this way. The same on FreeBSD or solaris will take longer time to execute the same command.

Source: #bash channel at irc.freenode.net

Related posts

• gmail ignores dot in the email address (0)
• Random Linux Tips (0)

Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) also known as Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD) is one of the common problems among software professionals. For me, it appeared as a pain in the wrist joints, shoulder pain and neck stiffness. The pain in the wrist joints where much serious than rest of them. The adjustable keyboard tray with mouse pad and fully adjustable chair allows me to sit properly and work. But the normal keyboard requires bending of wrist for typing. This started getting me trouble. The picture shows the difference.

The Keyboard:

Then I got myself a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. It alligns perfectly with the normal position of arms and therefore eases the typing effort. No more bending of wrists and the comfortable pad gives enough support. It has lot of shortcut keys which you can configure in windows. I always work on linux and therefore kind of useless for me. Correcting the posture or properly keeping the arms won’t fully avoid RSI. The best method is to take short breaks in between and do small bending and stretching excercise. That works the best. Next section explains how I force myself to take breaks in between. It is not an easy task which you can do just by determination. Sitting in front of the computer, you won’t realize how fast time goes.

Take short breaks:

Yes, I know – it is easier said than done. Everyone knows that you should take breaks if you are typing for a long time or doing something continuously for longer duration. But it seldom works. That is when I accidentally happened to see this software rsibreak in ubuntu repository. It is a KDE4 application which will lock the screen at configurable intervals. You can configure the time intervals as well as the duration. While the screen is locked, it shows a countdown timer also. Just utilize that time to give some excercise for your body parts. I had always been a KDE user. But KDE4 failed on me. It was fancy, it was colorful and all that, but not something I wanted. So I moved to GNOME. The only thing I missed in gnome was KDE’s klipper which is far better than gnome’s glipper. Moving to gnome meant finding an alternative for rsibreak also. After upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04, I noticed that there was an inbuilt mechanism to do something similar. Now as I am typing this, it locked my screen once. We can postpone the break using a small button at the bottom right of the screen, but it will popup again after some time, forcing the user to take a break. Trust me, a software like this helps a lot. Though we all know that short breaks help in avoiding RSI and other computer related health problems, we never do it. We never get time to do it; thats the fact.

Enable Typing breaks in Ubuntu 9.04:

Go to System -> Preferences -> Keyboard. In that, select the tab “Typing Break” and enable the options. Configure the timings according to your preference and you are set. Try it out and let me know if it helped you

Related posts

• No related posts.

Phone: 080 25255152   |   9343463923
Address: 794, 9th A Main Road, Indira Nagar 1st Stage, Bangalore- 560038
Landmark: Near Coffee Day (CMH Road)

I had been to this place in May 2009 on a saturday morning for a whole body massage as I had started feeling shoulder pain and neck stiffness, which are probably after effects of the job am into. Sitting in front of the computer and working had started getting me RSI on my wrists which I overcame by a few steps. Searching on net for kerala ayurvedic massage centers gives lot of results, but with almost no reviews. Kottakkal arya vaidya shala would have been great, but their only branch in Bangalore is at Malleshwaram, which is too far from Indiranagar. This place was somewhat near to me and I thought I would give it a shot.

It was a small dark room with a dark wooden massage table in the center. You have to change to a single piece of cloth (which they provide) before they start the massage. Warm oil is poured in drops all over they body and two people standing on either sides of the massage table will do it synchronously. I liked their synchronization – it was almost perfect. They didn’t ask me if it was too rough or soft for me. They were just doing it at their will. The whole thing was for one hour split into two sessions. Massage for 45 minutes and 15 mins, hot water bath. They provide towel and soap which I had taken with me in case I needed. Though the massage, the ambience and all was good, after coming out of it, I didn’t really feel refreshed – something I was expecting out of a whole body massage.

Related posts

• No related posts.

####[ GNU/Linux One Stanza Tip (LOST) ]#######################

Sub : Tracking your reboots [#2] LOST #309

To know the history of your last few re-boot sequences, do:
$last reboot
last looks back in the wtmp file for all logins. The pseudo
user “reboot” also logs in at all reboots of the system

####[rohanalmeida (at) it-om.com]#############################

Related posts

• smart wc(1) (0)
• gmail ignores dot in the email address (0)