Monday, May 26, 2014

How to use CapsLock to Left click and more

I wanted to be able to left-click with the keyboard and found that AutoHotKey could help me do that. Here's how to do it:

1. Download and install AutoHotKey
http://download.cnet.com/AutoHotkey/3000-2084_4-10279446.html
2. Run AutoHotkey
3. Modify AutoHotkey.ahk in notepad, adding these two lines. The second line allows you to still use capslock, but it is now mapped to Shift+CapsLock.
Capslock::LButton
+Capslock::Capslock
4. Make other desired changes or removals (see their documentation)
5. Re-run AutoHotkey
6. Make AutoHotkey run every time you start you computer by adding a shortcut to your script to the start menu startup folder, as described in the AutoHotkey FAQ:
AutoHotkey FAQ
You may also want to reference the following for more information.
MouseClick
Remapping Keys and Buttons

 Good luck!

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Edit a file on a Mac (hfs+) partition using a Ubuntu USB stick

  1. download and install the Lubuntu iso onto a USB stick (the dd command works for writing to USB).
  2. Download the hfsplus debian package onto another USB stick.
  3. Boot into lubuntu and install the hfsplus package (sudo dpkg -i <thepackage.deb>)
  4. mount your drive ( mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw /dev/sdXY /media/mntpoint )

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Simple youtube audio player with VLC

There is a lot of great music posted on YouTube. Before deciding to buy it on amazon, google play, or itunes (are there any other providers of mp3 music these days?), you probably want to play it, but the standard YouTube interface is incredibly ugly, especially when you are just trying to play the music. You can make an ascii text playlist that contains the URL to youtube videos, then fire up vlc like this:
vlc --intf rc -Vdummy <playlist_or_youtube_URL>
type 'help' to see your options. If you want global control over the player, you can set global keyboard shortcuts in Tools.