Handling tif image produced by MS Office Document Scanning

I scanned a paper using MS Office Document Scanning (on Windows XP) and the output was a tiff image file. Using file command, I could see the file type as below:

image.tif: TIFF image data, little-endian

As usual, I wanted to open it with a image editing software like gimp or imagemagick or krita or even with document viewer like okular but to no avail. The error produced by GIMP was: unsupported layout, No RGBA loader. The error produced by Krita was: Cannot create storage. I tried convert a utility packaged with imagemagick to convert the image to jpg :

[zamri@triniton KINGSTON]# convert image.tif -quality 90 kpd.jpg

I got this error:
convert: image.tif: unknown field with tag 512 (0x200) encountered. `TIFFReadDirectory' @ tiff.c/TIFFWarnings/525.
convert: image.tif: unknown field with tag 513 (0x201) encountered. `TIFFReadDirectory' @ tiff.c/TIFFWarnings/525.
convert: image: unknown field with tag 514 (0x202) encountered. `TIFFReadDirectory' @ tiff.c/TIFFWarnings/525.
convert: image.tif: unknown field with tag 37677 (0x932d) encountered. `TIFFReadDirectory' @ tiff.c/TIFFWarnings/525.
convert: image.tif: unknown field with tag 37678 (0x932e) encountered. `TIFFReadDirectory' @ tiff.c/TIFFWarnings/525.
convert: image.tif: unknown field with tag 37680 (0x9330) encountered. `TIFFReadDirectory' @ tiff.c/TIFFWarnings/525.
convert: compression not supported `image.tif' @ tiff.c/ReadTIFFImage/811.
convert: missing an image filename `kpd.jpg' @ convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/2776.

So I searched the internet and I found the solution on this website. I installed foremost by issuing this command: urpmi foremost. Luckily Mandriva has this utility in its repositories. Then I issued this command:

foremost -i image.tif -o image

The first argument -i is the input file and second arg -o is for the dir where we want to extract the content of the image. It appeared that the tif file was compressed and contained many files including the jpg file that of interest to me. The output of above command was a directory (folder) named image. In the directory,I got:

audit.txt jpg/ ole/

In directory jpg, I got :

00000000.jpg 00000703.jpg

The file named 00000000.jpg was the image file type jpeg that can be opened with any image viewer. The other one was the thumbnail.

Mounting Mac OS X partition from Linux

My friend asked me to save his data on a Mac OS X partition since his machine couldn't boot properly into Mac OS X GUI mode. So I booted the machine with Ubuntu 5.04 Live CD. I know it was an old version but who cares as long as it supports hfsplus filesystem used by Mac OS X.

So I mounted one of the partitions where he saved his work with this:

sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/hda5 /mnt (for Ubuntu)

(If you are using other distro and logged in as root, just omit the sudo from above command.)

where /dev/hda5 is the partition and /mnt is the mount point.

From now, insert usb drive and copy file to it. After this, he can wipe out all partitions and/or reinstall Mac OS X.

KDE 4.3 Beta 1 released for testing

KDE.org announced the release of KDE 4.3 Beta 1 for testing. This is the first review of the 3rd iteration of KDE 4 desktop.

Some highlights of this beta release are:
1.Integration of PolicyKit and Geolocation services
2.More usable Run command pop-up (press alt+F2 to activate)
3. Many new and improved add-ons for plasma
4. Many bugfixes and improvements across all applications and more integration of features coming with the KDE 4 platform
5. New tree mode in System Settings

and many more. For a complete list of changes, you can browse subversion log.

Reference
http://kde.org/announcements/announce-4.3-beta1.php

Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring released

Mandriva has announced the launch of the final version of Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring (codename Pauillac). This new version comes with a host of improvements and changes, as always. Fun fact: this is the first release reported to us by Anne Nicolas instead of Adam Williamson. For those that keep score.

The Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring comes in the flavour of your choice, KDE, GNOME or LXDE, in more than 70 languages. There's the Free edition (100% open source software) in 2 DVDs for 32 and 64 architecture and the One edition (installable live CD, available in KDE and GNOME versions). Major updates includes KDE 4.2.2, GNOME 2.26, Xorg server 1.6, Linux kernel 2.6.29, Xfce 4.6, Qt Creator 1, Tcl/Tk 8.6, syslinux 3.75, and much more.

Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring comes with an improvement in boot time. The tools of Mandriva Control Center have also been optimised. Network center now supports advanced network configuration together with additional pre-configured Internet providers, integration with new network devices and support for different wireless regulatory domains. msev, the Mandriva security framework, has been also redesigned.

The ext4 file system is now supported in the stable version and proposed during installation. Last update of syslinux comes with the HDT module (Hardware Detection Tool), which brings you a way to detect all your hardware before booting your system.

You can take the 2009 Spring tour, read the Release notes and Errata, and of course, download.

Source

Firefox 3.0.10 fixes critical vulnerability

The Mozilla developers have announced the release of version 3.0.10 of their open source Firefox web browser. The security and stability release addresses a critical security vulnerability introduced in Firefox 3.0.9.

The vulnerability is a regression which in some cases caused frequent crashes. Users running the HTML Validator add-on were particularly affected, although other users also experienced the crashes. The problem was due to memory corruption, similar to problems identified as security vulnerabilities in the past.

More details about the release can be found in the release notes. Firefox 3.0.10 is available to download, or Firefox users can use the Firefox update service by selecting Help, then Check For Updates.

Source

Testing Red Alert 2 with wine

I had unsuccessful attempt to run (old) Red Alert 2 game with sound using wine 1.x.x. After ignoring to test it for a few months due to my busy work, yesterday I decided to try it again. It worked. My wine version is 1.1.17. My Red Alert 2 is Yuri's Revenge with no-cd patch. Below is how I set wine to make sound works. The graphics setting is just an additional setting to set virtual destop to make the game runs in a window (and not in full screen as default).

Audio Setting
Run winecfg to change audio setting for wine.

Click on the Audio tab. Make sure PulseAudio (recent wine support PulseAudio driver) and OSS driver checked and in DirectSound section make sure Hardware Acceleration is set to Emulation. And then click OK button to save the settings.

Graphics Settings

Click on Graphics tab and check Emulate a virtual desktop setting and set Desktop size to 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768.

Now it's ready to be run. See screenshots below.

postfix can't connect to MySQL

I got this error in syslog when postfix was trying to connect to MySQL:

Apr 13 17:34:53 webmail postfix/smtpd[6726]: warning: connect to mysql server localhost: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)
Apr 13 17:34:53 webmail postfix/smtpd[6726]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from rv-out-0506.google.com[209.85.198.233]: 451 4.3.0 : Temporary lookup failure; from= to= proto=ESMTP helo=

I got a reference to MySQL database in my main.cf which triggered the error:

local_recipient_maps = mysql:/etc/postfix/sql-recipients.cf

From the error it was obvious postfix couldn't connect to MySQL. Email from outside wouldn't be received properly by dbmail. I checked MySQL service and it was running and I could log into MySQL manually. I found a solution after googling a bit. The cause was in file /etc/postfix/master.cf. I got smtp service of postfix to run chroot'ed (see y below).

#service type private unpriv chroot wakeup maxproc command + args
smtp inet n - y - - smtpd

So I changed the line to:

#service type private unpriv chroot wakeup maxproc command + args
smtp inet n - n - - smtpd


Voila!. It worked. See log below:

Apr 13 18:03:02 webmail postfix/smtpd[7039]: connect from rv-out-0506.google.com[209.85.198.239]
Apr 13 18:03:03 webmail sqlgrey: grey: domain awl match: updating 209.85.198(209.85.198.239), gmail.com
Apr 13 18:03:03 webmail postfix/smtpd[7039]: B3246A3075: client=rv-out-0506.google.com[209.85.198.239]
Apr 13 18:03:04 webmail postfix/cleanup[7042]: B3246A3075: message-id=<23c8d5620904130314j7f4c619di57c7d8c0d217ed62@mail.gmail.com>
Apr 13 18:03:04 webmail postfix/qmgr[7033]: B3246A3075: from=, size=2277, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/smtpd[7046]: connect from webmail.myfakedomain.net[127.0.0.1]
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/smtpd[7046]: 26BBFA3076: client=rv-out-0506.google.com[209.85.198.239]
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/cleanup[7042]: 26BBFA3076: message-id=<23c8d5620904130314j7f4c619di57c7d8c0d217ed62@mail.gmail.com>
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/qmgr[7033]: 26BBFA3076: from=, size=2751, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/smtpd[7046]: disconnect from webmail.myfakedomain.net[127.0.0.1]
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail dbmail/lmtpd[20480]: Message:[serverchild] serverchild.c,PerformChildTask(+349): incoming connection from [127.0.0.1] by pid [20480]
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/lmtp[7043]: B3246A3075: to=, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10025, delay=2, delays=0.96/0.01/0/1, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok, id=01032-05, from MTA([127.0.0.1]:10026): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 26BBFA3076)
Apr 13 18:03:05 webmail postfix/qmgr[7033]: B3246A3075: removed