"Hidden" gems of VLC

Today I found out the power of the "Devices" items in the VLC application.
With that I mean the option to record:

• a videocast with the computer's camera [Video capture]
  Video effects, although can be seen on screen, are not recorded.
• the usage of some application through its window (or the whole desktop, if you like) [Screen capture]

Audio capture didn't worked for me; maybe it's a configuration thing or a conflict, since video recordings had also no audio at all.


[Article copied from a Drupal blog I used to have; now deleted]

"Bad request Error 400" for GMail on Firefox

For the last 2-3 days I had an unusual situation to deal with. Whenever I tried to visit my GMail account using Firefox, the response was:

Bad request
Error 400

 At first I checked with the other browsers (Chrome, Opera and Midori) I have installed on my system. All connected without reporting anything.
Then, my next guess was misbehaving addons, but as I tweeted:

So, what is wrong with #GMail on #Firefox today? "Bad request Error 400" (even with all addons disabled)
— A. P. Tsompanopoulos (@aptlogs) March 22, 2012

Since that approach didn't helped either, I decided to remove the GMail-related cookies. I used the "Remove cookie(s) for Site" addon and it deleted 78 cookies I had for GMail.

Unfortunately, I don't know which cookie was the "bad" one, but after deleting them I was again able to reconnect without problem.

No editor toolbar on Wordpress

Just a quick note for me and anyone else with a similar problem:

If the rich-text editor on a Wordpress blog is not displayed correctly (i.e. no visible toolbar or no access to writing area -- I recently had both symptoms) then the problem might be an incompatible library used in a plugin.

For my case, the solution of the problem was to deactivate the "Spelling & grammar" box of the JetPack plugin by selecting "Learn more" at first and then "De-activate".

Think like a virus!

Not related to L.A.M.P. technologies, but a useful quote to remember if you are a net admin:

As a network administrator, you have to think like a virus.
How can I get into a network?
Which points are the most vulnerable?
Once in, what's the easiest path to destruction?

From the "Windows sources" magazine, July 1997 issue, page 158, "NT admin> Stop network attacks" by David Chernicoff

How to hide "Mark all as read" in new Google Reader

With the new redesign of Google Reader (the Google+ look-alike), I've noticed a new annoying behavior today.
The "Mark all as read" in now a button that takes and keeps focus. This means that if you press it once with your mouse and, then, go to another group of posts and press space to view the next page, you 'll end to mark all posts in that group as read!!! [because the "Mark all as read" button has got the focus]
The easier work-around solution I've found is to hide that button and use Ctrl-A Shift-A [edited] whenever I want to use the [main] functionality. I know that by hiding all options I miss the option to mark all older than a date as read, but I can live with this instead of marking as read all posts by mistake.

Since I work with Firefox and use Stylish, this hiding is easy. Just add a new recipe, name it something like "hide mark all in GReader" and insert the following in it:

@-moz-document url-prefix(http://www.google.com/reader), url-prefix(https://www.google.com/reader), url-prefix(http://google.com/reader), url-prefix(https://google.com/reader) {
    span#mark-all-as-read-split-button { display: none !important; }
}

and enable the Stylish recipe when you want to feel safe.