All posts by James

JavaScript

Convert LatLng to Point and Point to LatLng in Google Maps API v3

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Having googled this, I found code to go one direction, but not the other.  Here’s both.

function latLngToPoint(latLng) {
 var topRight = map.getProjection().fromLatLngToPoint(map.getBounds().getNorthEast());
 var bottomLeft = map.getProjection().fromLatLngToPoint(map.getBounds().getSouthWest());
 var scale = Math.pow(2, map.getZoom());
 var worldPoint = map.getProjection().fromLatLngToPoint(latLng);
 return new google.maps.Point((worldPoint.x - bottomLeft.x) * scale, (worldPoint.y - topRight.y) * scale);
}

function PointTolatLng(point) {
 var topRight = map.getProjection().fromLatLngToPoint(map.getBounds().getNorthEast());
 var bottomLeft = map.getProjection().fromLatLngToPoint(map.getBounds().getSouthWest());
 var scale = Math.pow(2, map.getZoom());
 return map.getProjection().fromPointToLatLng(new google.maps.Point((point.x / scale) + bottomLeft.x, (point.y / scale) + topRight.y));
}
eBay, JavaScript, jQuery, WebDev

Automate feedback in eBay

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Being lazy/efficient, I decided to script the feedback for all the junk I bought from eBay.  The following three lines will give the best feedback for all items listed in the feedback page, then you can just hit submit.  This can be entered, e.g., in Chrome developer tools console (F12, top right tab).

jQuery(":radio[value='positive']").prop('checked',true).click();
jQuery("img[alt*='Very']").click()
jQuery("input[id*='comment']").val("Great. Thanks. ")

The comment could be changed to something more descriptive.  Then I just checked through them and hit the “Leave Feedback” button.

PowerShell

PowerShell – Delete all directories with a given name recursively

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It turns out to be a bit of a pain to delete all the directories/folders with a certain name.  This’ll do it.

Get-ChildItem C:\path\to\start\directory -Include search1,search2 -Recurse -force | Remove-Item -Recurse -Force

It just gets all the child items in a directory recursively and then removes them.  The -Recurse parameter on the Remove-Item is so that the entire directory and its contents are removed.  search1 and search2 are the the names it is looking for – more or less could be included.

CentOS, Unix

Network configuration for CentOS minimal on VMware Workstation

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This was a pain.

As I didn’t want to hang around too long, I downloaded the minimal ISO for CentOS.  I attempted to create a VM, but this failed when VMware tools were installing:

Installing VMware Tools, please wait...
mount: special device /dev/hda does not exist
mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read only
/etc/rc5.d/S99local: line 25: eject: command not found
/etc/rc5.d/S99local: line 25: eject: command not found

I had to create a new VM without an OS, then mount the ISO as the CD drive, reboot and install that way.

Then I had to somehow configure the network.  I couldn’t install VMware tools because perl wasn’t installed, so I don’t know if that might have fixed it.

I ended up editing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, and I had to use VI because I couldn’t install nano…  An issue I had was that I didn’t know what the gateway was – I had NAT networking setup in VMware workstation.  There’s a handy tool to find out bundled with VMware Workstation.  It also works with VMware player, but doesn’t come with it.  I found it here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmnetcfg.exe

I selected the NAT network, then NAT settings, and this shows the gateway:

Virtual Network Editor

My /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 ended as this:

DEVICE=eth0
HWADDR=00:0C:29:FC:8F:27
NM_CONTROLLED=no
ONBOOT="yes"
IPADDR=192.168.153.20
BOOTPROTO=none
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.153.2
DNS1=8.8.8.8
DNS2=8.8.4.4
USERCTL=no
TYPE=Ethernet

The device, MAC and a few others were already set.  The DNS entires I have used are Google’s DNS servers.  The IP address I chose was a free one (all apart from .1 should be free, I think) on the network – select the DHCP settings for the network in the Virtual Network Editor to see the address range.  I also updated the file /etc/sysconfig/network to this:

NETWORKING=yes

That file didn’t need the gateway, as I read elsewhere.  I then restarted the network:

service network restart

I was then able to connect to the internet and install perl and then VMware tools.  It all turned out to be a complete waste of time, but ah well.

Vmware Workstation->VM (to the right of File, Edit, View)->Install VMware Tools…

yum install perl
mkdir /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
cd /tmp
tar -xzf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-<version>.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl
[hit enter a lot to accept all the defaults]
Wireshark

Debugging LDAP with Wireshark

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It turns out that LDAP is encrypted using Kerberos.  Wireshark can decrypt these frames.

LDAP Error

I’m on Windows, so I had to install 32bit Wireshark (64 bit doesn’t have Kerberos decryption).  You then need to generate a keytab file.  ktpass is installed on windows server 2012 (or it was on mine at least, earlier versions may require the support tools).  The following command will create the keytab file (the user I used was the user that was communicating with the LDAP server for the communication I was trying to debug).

ktpass /princ username@FQDNDOMAIN /pass user-password /crypto RC4-HMAC-NT /ptype KRB5_NT_PRINCIPAL /out file.name

You can then open the capture in Wireshark and go to Edit->preferences->Expand protocols on the left->select KRB5.  Then select your keytab file, and tick the ‘Try to decrypt Kerberos blobs’ check box.  Then all your encrypted frames should be decrypted.  If it doesn’t work, there are no error messages, it just doesn’t do anything.

I initially tried creating the keytab using ktutil on centos (from the krb5-workstation package).  This didn’t work.

PowerShell

Update last modified date to current date for all items in a directory using powershell

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The title says it all.  It’s incredibly simple:

gci | %{$_.LastWriteTime = date}

gci is shorthand for Get-ChildItem, and % is shorthand for ForEach-Object.  $_ refers to the current element being iterated over.  Date returns the current date (and time).

The script therefore gets all items (in the context of the current directory) and updates the LastWriteTime for them all to the current date.  Sorted.

Citrix

Unable to send files to local drive – Access denied

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Having just spent several hours trying to work out why I couldn’t copy files from the machine I was accessing through Citrix Receiver, I thought I’d share.

Problem:
Copying files from a remote machine to a local drive in Citrix Receiver results in a dialog titled “Destination Folder Access Denied”. The message reads “You need permission to perform this action”. This is frustrating, as it’s the only way I could get files back to my local machine, and only affected me, not my colleagues. I suspect I selected deny when a prompt appeared some time ago and also checked don’t ask again…

solution:
Navigate to the registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Citrix\ICA Client\Client Selective Trust\

There are several UID type strings. One has ‘IcaAuthorizationDecision’ appended to it, and a subkey FileSecurityPermission. Mine was this:

{93E41C6E-2091-1B9B-36BC-7CE94EDC677E}IcaAuthorizationDecision\FileSecurityPermission

Change the value of the (Default) REG_SZ to 2. Sorted. The possible values are these:
0 = No Access
1 = Read Only Access
2 = Full Access
3 = Prompt User for Access

Microsoft, SQL Server

MS SQL 2012 Fails to install – installation never goes past installing setup files

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Whilst attempting to get some software to communicate with MS SQL Server 2012, I decided to try reinstalling SQL.  I removed all the SQL components in add/remove programs and attempted a reinstall.  The installer got part way and then just gave up.

After some Googling, I found that the SQL installer leaves log files in %temp% (SqlSetup.log and SqlSetup_1.log).  SqlSetup_1.log had the following lines:

07/29/2013 12:44:41.033 Error: Failed to launch process
07/29/2013 12:44:41.033 Error: Failed to launch local ScenarioEngine.exe: 0x80070003

Nothing on the net seemed to have a solution (or I need to improve my Google skills).  I found one post about VS2010 problems which seemed vaguely related and decided to remove all the visual studio components to see if that sorted things.  It did.

A dialog from the installer and a more helpful error message would have been nice.