Restarting BI Publisher server

In order to restart your BI Publisher server you'll have to navigate to the directory where you installed that server i.e. /u01/app/oracle/product/ etc... once your there you can check the status of all the services which are running with ./opmnctl status. Now to stop all services you type ./opmnctl stopall and once it is finsihed executing you type ./opmnctl startall. All done!

Notepad++ and XMLTools Setup

I had a need to check an XML file at work and was looking for a tool. I found out that notepad++ can do this but it requires you to install the xml tools plugin which is not included by default. I looked around for a while and eventually found directions to set this up but think it should not have been this hard to typing this up in hopes that it helps someone in need.

• Download notepad++ and install it.
• Go to resources from the notepad++ website and check the directory of plugins available for it or click here plugin directory.
• Download the XML Tools plugin and follow the directions on the directory page for installing it.
• Now you should be able to see the XML Tools in the Plugins menu of notepad++.  If you click the "How to Use" link in the menu you will be promoted that your missing libxml/libxslt and you need to download it. It also provides links but this is where I got confused because the links, one does not work and the other does not have the correct files or at least I was unable to figure them out.
• Now you need to download a file called ext_lib.zip and unzip it. You need to put the unzipped .dll files in the root directory of notepad++ which should be something like "C:\Program Files\Notepad++".
• Restart notepad++ and you'll be able to see the full menu. 
• Enjoy!

This post is not written to take credit away from anyone. I am not the creator or developer of any of the above tools. I just wrote this for my self and if this helps someone else, good.

How to Sync iPhone to New Computer - The easy way :)

There are a lot of how to's online about the subject of "How to sync your iPhone to your new computer" but none of them show you how to do it the easy way. They all have some elaborate and complicated method of doing so, which is almost impossible for novice computer users to follow. I looked into this because when my sister bought a new computer she could not find an easy way of syncing her iPhone to her new computer. So, please follow the below "how to" to accomplish this task easily:

- First copy your entire iTunes folder from old computer to an usb drive.
- On your new computer install iTunes, then go to your My Music folder and delete the iTunes folder already located there.
- Now plug in the usb drive and copy the iTunes folder which you copied from your old computer into your My Music folder on the new computer.
- Once you have completed the copy process, open your iTunes program and attach your iPhone to your new computer.
- You'll notice that it did not ask you to erase and sync your iPhone this time, if it still does you have done something wrong and have to go back and copy the iTunes folder again and make sure you delete the existing iTunes folder before you paste iTunes folder from your old computer.
- Once your iPhone is attached to your new computer, after iTunes folder has been successfully copied and pasted from the old one, it would start to sync with your new computer :)
- Now after the sync is complete you'll see your iPhone listed in iTunes and once you click it you'll see all your app's, music etc... but you will not see App's in iTunes menu.
- To finish this off you'll have to download any free app, after you authorize your new computer, and after it finishes just simply sync your iPhone with iTunes again and you'll be able to see App's link in the iTunes menu.

Now if you follow the steps patiently and do everything I have mentioned you'll be able to move your iPhone to your new computer easily.

Good Luck. Enjoy!

Ronen, Deva Invoker Back Story

Forgotten Life…

Ronen, A Deva Invoker.

Where am I? What is this place? Why am I here? How did I get here?

These are all the questions that have bothered Ronen from as long as he can remember. The only thing he knows for sure is that his name is Ronen but that is the only thing he can clearly remember. Nothing else comes to mind no matter how hard he tries to remember. There's some idea there which occasionally comes through in a moment of brilliant clarity, but most of it stays fairly foggy…

Ronen mostly keeps to himself and is often thinking about his past life. Sometimes when he concentrates, bits and pieces flash in front of him from his past. So far from what he has pieced together from these flashes is that he was an incredibly advanced soul during his most recent past life, close to achieving the epic transcendence that his spirit has always sought through a thousand lifetimes. But some how his spiritual journey was interrupted and led to his rebirth. Is this my purpose in this life? I must find out the truth about my past life and figure out how to satisfy my spiritual journey in this life.

He is a follower of Ioun because he admires her commandments to seek the perfection of ones mind by brining reason and emotion into balance with one another. He truly believes that Ioun would want him to accumulate, preserve and distribute knowledge in all forms, so he is always ready to settle disputes by stating facts using his knowledge and  memories from past lives. He is always watchful of people who seek to control knowledge and keep secrets, if he does find people like that he is the first to oppose their schemes, unmask their secrets, and blind them with the light of truth.

Ronen truly believes that he is an earthly manifestation of Ioun bound to utilize the divine power that is granted upon him with great care and in pursuit of eliminating evil. Believing that his existence is to attain and distribute knowledge of the worlds, Ronen has decided to take up with an unlikely band of  adventurers, Certificate of Destruction, in hope that he will be able to satisfy his thirst of knowledge as well as to get answers regarding his past life.

How to download & install rpm packages

You should always download rpm packages using the 'wget' command and then install them using the 'rpm' commands. For Example:

• Go to /tmp directory -- cd /tmp
• Download the required rpm package -- wget http://url or ftp://url
• Then install it using rpm commands -- rpm -ivh nameofrpmpackage*

Or you have the choice of doing all this with one command if you trust the source your downloading from or else it is a big security.

• Download and Install the rpm -- rpm -ivh http://url or ftp://url
  

How to Install OpenSSH on CentOS 5.3 Server

I would like to make it clear that the below instruction were found by me after a considerable search plus I ran into little problem with them so I thought I should do a write up quick as well. I am not trying to steal anything just redoing some instructions as I did during my installation process.

We are going to install OpenSSH, since this is going to be compiled from source, hereafter when ever OpenSSL, OpenSSH, or Zlib have a security issues you can quickly patch without much difficulty. The versions for each of these I am using now are the most current ones, you might have to update them to the latest ones when your installing them.

1. Download & install zlib by using the following commands:
1. # cd /tmp
2. # mkdir -p /opt/zlib
3. # mkdir zlib1.23
4. # cd zlib1.23/
5. # wget http://www.zlib.net/zlib123.zip
6. # unzip zlib123.zip
7. # make
8. # make install prefix=/opt/zlib/
2. Download & install OpenSSL by using the following commands:
1. # cd /tmp
2. # mkdir -p /opt/openssl
3. # wget http://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-0.9.8k.tar.gz
4. # tar xvzf openssl-0.9.8k.tar.gz
5. # cd openssl-0.9.8k
6. # ./config --prefix=/opt/openssl --openssldir=/opt/openssl
7. # make
8. # make test
9. # make install
3. Now we are going to install OpenSSH. In the configure section of this installation we'll havet o point to the OpenSSL and Zlib installs we did earlier. We also have want to point to our xauth file, to check the location of the xauth file use the command -- # which xauth -- if this doesnt work then you might have to do -- # find / -name xauth -- if this also doent work then your probably missing the xauth file. If your miss the xauth file you'll have to install it using the following command:
1. # yum install -xorg-x11-xauth
4. Download & install OpenSSH by using the following commands:
1. # cd /tmp
2. # mkdir -p /opt/openssh
3. # wget ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/portable/openssh-5.2p1.tar.gz
4. # tar xvzf openssh-5.2p1.tar.gz
5. # cd openssh-5.2p1
6. # ./configure --prefix=/opt/openssh --with-ssl-dir=/opt/openssl --with=xauth=/usr/bin/xauth --with-zlib=/opt/zlib
7. # make
8. # make install
5.  We have to make few changes to the sshd init.d script, which is included with CentoOS 5.3. To be able to use this script to start and stop our version of SSH we'll have to change some paths in the /etc/init.d/sshd file. Make sure that the below variables in the file point to correct path of OpenSSH.
1. # Some functions to make the below more readable
   KEYGEN=/opt/openssh/bin/ssh-keygen
   SSHD=/opt/openssh/sbin/sshd
   RSA1_KEY=/opt/openssh/etc/ssh_host_key
   RSA_KEY=/opt/openssh/etc/ssh_host_rsa_key
   DSA_KEY=/opt/openssh/etc/ssh_host_dsa_key
6. After you make the above appropriate path changes you'll have to restart SSH, as follows:
1. /etc/init.d/sshd restart
7. After this check the version your telnet is showing, it should be the OpenSSH  5.2 you just installed. Give the command as follows:
1. # telnet Localhost 22
8. The output should be something similar to:
1. Trying 127.0.0.1...
   Connected to localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1).
   Escape character is '^]'.
   SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.2
9. This conculdes our OpenSSH installation on CentOS 5.3 Server.
   

How to manually mount a USB Drive in CentOS 5.3 Server

1. Plug in the device
2. Issue the command --# dmesg -- It should appear as a SCSI device, you should also be able to read the devices vendor and model. It should be something similar to /dev/sdb.
3. Issue the command --# fdisk -l -- this would determine the partition on the device, usually most of the USB flash and other external drives have only one partition. Your output should be something similar to /dev/sdb1.
4. Now create a directory by issuing command --# mkdir /mnt/usb -- the directory name should be something easy to remember for you.
5. Now you'll have to mount the device by using the mount command -- # mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb -- this should mount your device. You can browse to the /mnt/usb directory to view the contents of the USB device.