Say Hello to an awesome desktop

Unity Desktop tweaks

So, this is a post for all those looking to skin up their unity desktop with some awesome tweaks to make their desktops stand out.

Let's take a look on what are the things that I have installed to achieve this look:

• Unity-tweak-tool
• Numix theme
• Variety

Lets get started with the first one i.e Unity tweak tool. I will be discussing a way to install it using ppa and then give some customisations which I like.

So here are the steps:

After installing ubuntu 16.04 or 14.04 simply do

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool



These two steps are sufficient to install the tweak tool. 

If all went well you would see something like this:

Okay, so now heading to the second step, we are going to install those awesome looking icons and the numix theme.

Lets add the ppa required:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:numix/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install numix-gtk-theme numix-icon-theme-circle

So over with the above steps, here is the snap of dash on the unity desktop showcasing the awesome icons.

Now the last and final step, we are going to install variety:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install variety

After completing all the above steps successfully, you will have to just go and open the unity tweak tool from the dash or from terminal by the command :


~$ unity-tweak-tool

After exploring the tool for some time you can adjust the number of desktops on the unity desktop.

Many people think that they can only have 4 desktops on the unity desktops but using tweak tool you can have so many that you might forget the number. XD

In the tweak tool , you can tweak the themes in order to apply the numix icon theme.


Have fun tweaking the unity desktop. Drop in your comments for any suggestions, issues etc.
Cheers!

Python and Facebook graphAPI: Do amazing things.

This post is for those who are looking for a bit of fun using the facebook graphAPI and a bit of python scripting.

Believe me, with Python you can do wonders in just 20 lines of code. 

A holy person tells me about the list comprehensions in Python:

l = [anything for anything in some other anything!] #Some joke :P

The above line is just one example of what Python can do in just one line of code, which other languages can't do. Of course the cost is speed. But I'll tell you one thing. We are not doing Competitive programming or any other very time limited things. We have sufficient time for performing the real life interactions with graphAPI and perform all the reading of data from dictionaries and lists and json data.

Okay, so alot of talking above. Let's get back to work.

So wandering over the internet, I read somethings about the facebook GraphAPI and thought why not make something which makes my life easier a bit.

I immediately started looking for the resosurces for using GraphAPI. I was comfortable with Javascript to a great extent, but still on learning about facepy or the facebook-sdk for python I thought, why not keep my hands still dirty with python.

So I went over to facebook-sdk's github page and documenatation page(links below), and was fascinated by the moment when I just logged my 'id' in the console. I knew it will work now.

So i read the docs further and built a simple python script to automatically like Birthday posts on my wall.

I am not mentioning the code here. Mail me if anyone wants to talk further about this.

What I basically wanted to convey was that, we should never limit ourselves to one thing. Go deeper, into unknown and you would come out knowing some great things.

Python and GraphAPI--- Amazing pair.

Do give a +1 if you find it interesting.

Thanks!

Some links:
Facepy Github page
facebook sdk docs

Some great Programming Hacks in C/C++.

We do use so many things to optimise our programs, from good algorithms to good data structures made specifically for that purpose. But, often we tend to write more lines of code which can be saved by using some special features offered in C++. These are known as preprocessor directives.

Till date, most of the people have been using just the #define directive to declare a variable. Most people dont know that they can even define functions in the preprocessor directives.

1. #define REV(a,n) reverse(begin(a),begin(a)+n)

There are so many other templates that people use to make their

programming even faster

One more example of such an hack is the typedef keyword. This thing

particularly is more useful in competitive programming, where you can

save your time by making some typedef statements in the beginning of

program itself. Here's a sample code for the purpose:

While all these things are only a few techniques to reduce your time, here are some links where you can continue to read:

Template in competitive programming

Also I have a github repository where I post some important links actively:

Important-links

Throw in some comments, if you find this post good.

Want to limit your time on facebook? here's a solution

Fb-Script

So, its about yesterday, when I put my hands on the selenium web driver for the node-js.

I was amazed with the capabilities, and to start with I created a script in javascript that allows you to login to facebook and browse there for a fixed amount of time which is set by the user.

Its all open source and the source code is available on Github and the steps for using is given in the Readme file included in the source code.

Here's the link for Github:

Click here: Fb-script

On the way next, I plan to make this more interactive by taking the code to python and then implementing some more features.

Throw some comments for hugs and bugs.

Enjoy!

Github: Student pack gets unlimited private repositories

Cheers to all! Busy with the things in the night and suddenly an email comes on your phone. Check your inbox, you see that's from Github. After reading, I just remember of writing this blog. The news is so exciting.

You now get unlimited private repositories in your student plan account and all of it for free.

Thanks to the amazing people at Github who are encouraging the development in young students.

The email reads:

"

Welcome to unlimited private repositories

Good news — your plan now includes unlimited private repositories. Whether you're using private repositories to learn new things or flex your creative muscles, you can keep all of your projects in one place without worrying about how many repositories you're using (if you need help migrating, we’ve got a tool for that). We hope this new plan will help you work on as many ideas, experiments, and projects as you can think up.

We’ve automatically updated your account to include unlimited private repositories. As part of this change we also updated our pricing, but since you’re using the Student Developer Pack, your plan remains free. 

"

So are you excited about this? Go on check your email.
Don't have a student account? 
I have a video on that: Here
Still not clear. Comment on Youtube or here on the blog for any queries.

Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 LTS noticeable feature changes

Ubuntu Gnome 16.04LTS

Yakety Yak

 

So, Finally the Curtain was unveiled from the official stable LTS(Long Term support) version of Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 on May 1 , 2016.

The new version hasn't got any  considerable changes right from the  desktop like Windows 10, yet you will start noticing the difference in every instance you use it.

 The list of new changes in the version are(more features will be added):

 

• First of all a new blank desktop created dynamically can now stay open between two full desktop windows unless previous versions where this was a serious con. 

•   Second there has been some addition to the default backgrounds and lock screen wallpapers.

• You will notice some small changes here and there with the UI in context menus.

•   One major addition is the Gnome software application which replaces the ubuntu software center. Gnome software center also has a very good UI when compared with the ubuntu software center.

• In the search itself now you will get suggestions from the software center, which is something similar to what unity offers.

   

  Head over to comments section

  to add new features you notice! 

     

Getting started with MEAN stack

MEAN stack

MEAN stack which is the short form for MongoDb , ExpressJs AngularJs and Nodejs is the stack that is currently gaining a lot of popularity among the Web Developers.

The best thing which I personally feel in this stack is that all of the development happens in only one language i.e JavaScript.

Since all the above standing for MEAN are JavaScript libraries hence the development environment is very lightweight and doesn't require learning many things. You master the complete stack at once.

Taking the stack's components individually, let's start with Nodejs:

Nodejs is the server side language. This is the language that you will be using on server to handle the requests which your angular app will be sending to you. Its completely in Javascript and also comes with a package manager called npm(Node package Manager).

NPM is very helpfull in setting up your project.


Going over to ExpressJs:

    ExpressJs is a very lightweight framework for NodeJs that helps you in shortening the entire code you write  by giving you inbuilt functions to perform the tasks. Also this is the part you will rely on for routing and other such tasks.

AngularJs:

AngularJs is what I would regard as the best thing that any developer could do with Js. Talking about it , from the ground up it feels so powerful. With the MVC architecture its data binding between the controller and view is so awesome. There is so much to talk about Angular that this short intro is not enough.

MongoDB:

MongoDB is a no SQL database designed to be used with the MEAN stack. It is no SQL means that it doesn't store the data in the form of tables and rows but stores them in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) compatible form. Also it has enhanced features like data sharding which lack in mysql.

Some links to start learning Mean Stack:

• First of all, have a good grip on HTML,CSS and JavaScript.



• Start by learning basics of angular by reading the docs on the website of AngularJS



• Here are some tutorials from youtube that I found good: MEAN stack Intro



• This is the link for a series of 5 videos that will teach you to make a very nice contact list app : Part (1/5) Building a Contact list App

For any further questions please leave in the comments section below. Have a great MEAN time.

Some interesting C++ Tricks

Awesome C++ tricks

1). Print anything in C++ without using semicolon:

Answer:

This is a very common C++ question which sometimes may be asked by any of your friends or given as a challenge to you . But trust me after doing this problem you will say "It was nothing at all."

Here's the code:

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdio>
using namespace std;
int main(){
    if(printf("Hello World")){
        //and you are done
}
}

Understanding the program:

For doing this question a person must know about the usage and working of the printf and scanf functions.

printf() function not only prints on the screen but also returns the number of characters printed by it on the screen. Now in this case any string inside printf returns a value greater than 0 to the if condition, which makes it true and hence the program prints on the screen without any error and semicolon!!.

2). Printing a semicolon without using the semicolon:

Answer:

This question is almost similar to the above question but here the only knowledge required is of the ascii value of the special characters like semi colon. 

As we know the ASCII value of semi colon is 59 hence in the above question, just by replacing the Hello world with {  printf("%c",59)  }

Gnome : The Desktop Environment for UI Geeks

Hey friends, this post is focused on introducing you all to the Gnome Desktop Environment, which is focused on providing the users a charming User interface along with powerful workspace like capabiities.

So let's start by the lock screen:

Default lock screen

The lock screen in Gnome is clean and simple which shows you the pending notifications and also the time along with date and day. The top bar shows the username and also the battery and connectivity status.

Coming to the desktop part of the gnome, there's not much to see when it logs in. By default the desktop icons are hidden and hence you are greeted with a blank screen featuring your wallpaper.

But upon clicking the super(Win) button you will see an interface that gives you the access to multiple desktops and also to all the apps installed.

The overall UI is so clean and refreshing that you will not feel that feeling of using linux as you would on a debian machine.

This Desktop environment can be downloaded as a default with ubuntu or can also be installed on your existing unity or KDE desktop environment by using terminal. Stay tuned for a further post about instructions on this process.

The text editor you will fall in love with

A C code being written in Sublime Text 3

From the time when we start learning HTML , while most of us start on Windows or a MacBook having notepad and TextEdit respectively.

The problems with this texteditors comes when you have to code in a language of your choice.

Things like proper indentation, The appropriate termination of braces, syntax highlighting and most of all the syntax completion, are the most important things we look in a god text editor.

SUBLIME TEXT

As the sublime text makers say "The text editor you will fall in love with", this is one text editor that people around the world prefer because of its portability and scalability.

Trust me when you start using sublime text , you will regret that why in the world you used notepad!


Click here to download it today and start coding.

Some fun with terminal

Some funny terminal commands on linux that will make you awe-struck

People generally think that the linux terminal is only a weird black box which most of the hackers use, but you know what its just a way to represent the GUI functionality without the need of GUI.

1)

        

For getting  a steam locomotive run through your terminal window just type in the command by first pressing ctrl + alt + T to open the terminal and then type sudo apt-get install sl.

This will install the package on your ubuntu machine.

Now you can execute this package anytime you like by just typing in 'sl' and press enter.

A steam locomotive will run through your terminal screen.

Well its just so funny to watch it.

Get ready for some more awesome posts on the linux terminal.

A Very Early Flavour of Android 6 Marshmallow on the Oneplus One

Alpha version of CM13 on Oneplus One

Since past few weeks the INTERNET is flooded with the arrival of Nexus 5X and the 6P, and what comes with them is the Android M(Marshmallow), the next sweet version of Android(no pun intended!). Those who have Nexus 5 have got or are getting the OTA update of the latest version of Android but for those who don't have a Nexus, check with your mobile company for the availability of the update.

And.. The Oneplus One..users rest assured beacuse the team at CyanogenMod has already started to prepare for the Android M release with their next version of CyanogenMod namely CM13. 

The team has uploaded the very early source code on GitHub which any one can try on their Oneplus One! One thing to note is that this is a very very early Alpha version of the release and is not an official release. So, there are many bugs including:

• Music player unable to play the music
• Now on tap not working
• Frequent error message showing System UI has crashed

Therefore its all on you if you want to update or not! Here are a few screenshots to check from my Oneplus One:

Here's How to change brightness in Ubuntu 14.04!

Hey, have you switched just now to Linux Ubuntu and wondering that your keyboard buttons or the Linux brightness control options are not working? If this is the matter then don't worry the terminal in Linux is your friend that will never leave you alone!

Open terminal through the application menu or by pressing the keyboard
 combination: Ctrl + alt + T.

So now that you have opened the terminal you would be welcomed by a screen that reads your username. Type the following command into the terminal with the value of brightness being written after the word echo. Just change this number and viola! Your brightness gets changed to the value you just set it to.

Now isn't that a bulky line to write everytime you want to change the brightness of your screen! Don't worry! Terminal knows about this and therefore when you open a new terminal window, the next time you want to change the brightness just press Ctrl + R and type brightness and immediately the whole line of code will come automatically; then just replace the value with the one of your choice and it will work.

Have fun with Ubuntu! Do comment for any queries.

Exodus ROM for Oneplus One!

For all those who have got their Oneplus One rooted and are still in a rom mayhem..wait no more!

Just flash EXODUS ROM and you will get to know the wonders this ROM offers to you.

Lets talk about it in detail and overhaul the ROM!

1. Boot Animation: The boot animation starts with a few dots and then goes to a GOOGLE coloured rotating X which finally turns into EXODUS! See it in action below:
   

  2.  Launcher and UI: The moment when the ROM boots up you will see the UI that      is very much similar to CM 12.1 with that vertical scrolling menu by default.

The most popular reason why EXODUS ROM is so popular is because of the range of customizations it offers!

Notice the smaller navigation bar with red coloured buttons and also 4 buttons! All in your hands! Just keep reading to see!

Here are the screenshots of the settings section so that you too can peek!

There is a section in settings called as 'Exodus' where all the exciting features of the ROM are categorized into four categories: Interface, Hardware, Themes and Rom controls each of which has several different features within it. Digging under them you get the following:

Interface:

The interface menu lets you customise many options like Navigation bar and navigation ring targets.

This is where you can make your navigation bar same as above.

Hardware:

This menu consist of genral features like customising the function of hardware buttons and some special functions like double tap to wake/sleep.

Rom controls:

Now this functions contains some advanced features like changing the SElinux mode which is required when you install certain apps like Viper4Android.

Overall the rom is very light and highly responsive! You will rarely notice any lag in the OS.

Rooting instructions follow:

Rooting Oneplus One 

Download Exodus Rom latest build:

EXODUS ROM




If you have any queries then feel free to comment below!Enjoy the power of Oneplus One.

Oneplus One: CM12.1 hands-on

Oneplus One running CM12.1 on top of Android 5.1

Finally after lots of CM12.1 nightly beta releases the CM team released the official CM12.1 OTA update for the Oneplus One.

The update is about 318MB in size and can require some time depending on the internet connection speed.

Just after installing the update you can notice the speed of the device feels increased and the app drawer as a new orientation i.e vertically scrolled. Have a look at the new app drawer:

The alphabets in the bottom row are for easily letting the user move over to the alphabet corresponding to the app they want to open.
For those who are not the fans of the above style can go back to normal page style by long pressing a blank space on the home screen and then clicking on the three dotted triangle and then selecting the option for page style.

Another element of surprise is the inclusion of Truedialer which has Truecaller embedded into the OS.

Now, getting information about the unknown call is so easy with the trucaller reach out-of-box.

Another noticeable feature can be found out in the Display and Lights Menu:

LiveDisplay:

This is another option that let's you tweak enough things related to display such as the display temperature.

LCD Density:

 

 

 This option is somewhat similar to the resolution option on your PC that lets the UI to appear smaller or biiger depending on the resolution you set.



Overall The OS update is worth the wait and also adds couple of awesome features and also fixes a major security issue of Android device in which a person could be able to take control on any Android Device by an MMS.
 

Whatsapp for Android scores a great update!

It has been quite some time that Whatsapp messenger for Android had received any noticeable changes in the updates,but anyways its all good to wait and see such nice updates from them.

The update notes in the Play store as:

• Per chat custom notification settings and mute
• Mark chats as unread or read
• Added new emoji.You can also tap and hold on some emoji to choose a different color.
• When receiving a contact card,you can now quickly message or save the contact if they're on Whatsapp
• Lower the data usage used during Whatsapp calls in settings> Chats and calls
• Language support for Urdu and Bengali

Different colors for emoji

Lower Data usage

3

Set custom tones for individual chats

Head over to This link to download the Whatsapp Messenger and share your comments about the latest update!

WINDOWS 10 FEVER:Multitasking

Doing many things at once is what you can say,"The need for Today".Let's see how Microsoft's new OS stands on this respect!

Task View with multiple desktops

Running multiple apps at once saves a lot of time that can be wasted while doing one task at once. pick an example where you are seeing or Facebook newsfeed simultaneously your Mail and at the same time listening to the music!
 Let's see how multiple apps run at the same time in Windows 10!

Earlier in Windows 8.1 we had the ability to open 2 apps and that too side by side! But with Windows 10 as (10-8=2)! Microsoft has added the ability to run 4 apps on one same screen
Have a peek:

Incredible and beautiful! 

 Okay so now do we have more than 4 apps open?,not a problem! With windows 10 switching apps is a breeze. Using the three finger gestures(If supported!) As mentioned in the previous blog post you can dramatically increase your speeds at work!

And also as can be seen in the first picture that an option to add multiple desktops is included! How about adding the desired numbers of dektops? Yes, you can virtually add any number of desktops and can switch between them.

Note what Microsoft says on this:"Task view is also where you can go to switch between desktops. The top part of this view shows previews of the windows you have open, just like Alt+Tab. However, task view also is able to filter this list when you create virtual desktops, so only the relevant windows appear. Under that you will find the list of desktops you have open. The labels along with accurate previews make it easy to find what you want to switch to. However, what if you’re trying to find that music player and you forgot which desktop you had it on? With hover preview it really is a breeze. Just hover over each desktop preview and Windows will let you peek into any desktop to see what windows are open there. That’s right, no need to switch to one desktop at a time to search for the window you’re looking for! You can even click on the app preview from task view to bring that window straight to the top.We know from time to time you may want to re-organize which windows go on which desktop. Of all the virtual desktop feedback provided by Windows Insiders since the January Tech Preview (build 9926), over 63% of requests were in regards to making it easier to move windows across desktops. We heard you loud and clear! We decided to expedite drag-and-drop support in our schedule so that we could provide Insiders with the feature sooner. You can now drag any window into the desktop you want to move it to right from task view. You can even drag a thumbnail to the “new desktop” button to create and move it to a new desktop in one step.
For the keyboard inclined users, you’ll appreciate some of these shortcut combos to accelerate your virtual desktop experience.

• WIN + CTRL + LEFT/RIGHT: Switch to previous or next desktop
• WIN + CTRL + D: Create a new desktop
• WIN + CTRL + F4: Close the current desktop
• WIN + TAB: Launch task view

" 
Let's see how you benefit from these multitaksing features in Windows 10 in the comments section.

All queries can be posted in the comment section below.Feel free to contact whenever you like!.
 

WINDOWS 10 FEVER : Gestures that make you efficient!

The Win10 fever is already spreading with a very fast pace.Make sure you know the best of features to use win10 to the fullest.

Here,today we discuss some gestures that can be very useful if you are running windows 10 on your laptop:

One thing to keep in mind is that not all the gestures work on all laptops! You need to have precision touchpad for all of these to work;however some of them may work!

open start and type mouse and select the mouse and touchpad options and there you go:

See if your PC has a precision touchpad or not!

 

•  Zoom in : Keep two fingers on the touchpad and drag them away from each other
• Zoom out: Keep two fingers separated by a distance on the touchpad and drag them towards each other.
• Scroll: Keep two fingers on the touchpad and drag them in the desired direction.
• Switch apps: Put three fingers on the touchpad and slide them left or right to switch between open apps.
• Task view: Slide up with three fingers to get into the task view.
• Show desktop: Slide down with three fingers to show the desktop
• Cortana: Tap with three fingers to open Cortana.
• Action Center: Tap with four fingers to open action center. 

Although you can customize some of the above gestures in the mouse and touchpad settings.

Comment which gestures are you gonna use in your day to day works the most! For me its gonna be the three finger swipe gestures.

THE WINDOWS 10 FEVER : Start Screen

START SCREEN

The Win10 start screen with cortana underneath

Just a glance on the start screen gives you the feel about the changes done to the start screen.

Lets see the changes made by the Redmont giant in detail:

• The size : The start screen in windows 10 is a fusion of the start screen found on windows 7&8. In windows 7 we had all the shortcuts,the jump lists and other stuff! That same stuff can be found on the windows 10 start screen.Coming to the windows 8 part of the start screen we still have those live tiles that show vital info. at a glance.All in all the start screen addresses to all those who complained about the full screen start screen of Windows 8 which was focused on the touch devices.Though Microsoft has still given an option to have the full start screen.

•  Live Tiles : The live tiles in windows 10 are pretty much same as that in windows 8.1 but still there are a few changes worth noting:   

Firstly,immediately on opening the start screen you can see   

the changed of live tiles.Who doesn't likes a great UI?

 

Secondly,you get that option of resizing the tiles as in windows 8.1 in upto four options provided i.e small,medium,large and wide.

• Most Used : The addition of this feature quickly shows you a list of most used apps and also show a small arrow to the right that shows you the webpages or files or the things which you have recently done using that app.

Below the Most used apps list you get some blank space that gets filled as soon as you install a new app.

 

Going further down there are four standard options File explorer,settings,Power and All apps buttons.

 

The list of all apps is now vertically scrollable similar to the windows phone version as opposed to the horizontal scrolling in the windows 8.1.

So what do you think of the new Start screen in Windows 10. Head onto the comments section and share your thoughts. Comment your queries,if any.