Audio Boost using MPlayer

I often felt pissed off when my friends used VLC and others programs for software level volume amplification, so I searched for a similar kind in mplayer and guess what! It was already there in mplayer since ages. You just need to RTFM.

Syntax :

mplayer -af volume=20:0 mediafile

Would amplify the sound by 20dB and hard-clip if the sound level is too high

Reference ( man pages of mplayer ) :

AUDIO FILTERS
Audio  filters allow you to modify the audio stream and its properties. The syntax is:

       -af <filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
              Setup a chain of audio filters.

       NOTE: To get a full list of available audio filters, see -af help.

            volume[=v[:sc]]
              Implements  software  volume control.  Use this filter with cau‐
              tion since it can reduce the signal to noise ratio of the sound.
              In  most  cases it is best to set the level for the PCM sound to
              max, leave this filter out and control the output level to  your
              speakers  with  the master volume control of the mixer.  In case
              your sound card has a digital PCM mixer  instead  of  an  analog
              one,  and you hear distortion, use the MASTER mixer instead.  If
              there is an external amplifier connected to the  computer  (this
              is  almost always the case), the noise level can be minimized by
              adjusting the master level and the volume knob on the  amplifier
              until the hissing noise in the background is gone.
              This  filter has a second feature: It measures the overall maxi‐
              mum sound level and prints out that level  when  MPlayer  exits.
              This  volume estimate can be used for setting the sound level in
              MEncoder such that the maximum dynamic range is utilized.
              NOTE: This filter is not reentrant and can therefore only be en‐
              abled once for every audio stream.
                 <v>
                      Sets  the  desired  gain  in  dB for all channels in the
                      stream from -200dB to  +60dB,  where  -200dB  mutes  the
                      sound  completely  and  +60dB equals a gain of 1000 (de‐
                      fault: 0).
                 <sc>
                      Turns soft clipping on (1) or  off  (0).   Soft-clipping
                      can  make the sound more smooth if very high volume lev‐
                      els are used.  Enable this option if the  dynamic  range
                      of the loudspeakers is very low.
                      WARNING:  This  feature creates distortion and should be
                      considered a last resort.

Enjoy your home theater ... :)

Ubuntu getting slow....

The day I installed Ubuntu and the day after few upgrades.. I noticed drastic decrease in speed. I thought the problem was with my user, so I deleted the configuration files within my ~/ folder many times but never got a preferred result. Nautilus took 10-20 sec to just open, furthermore my gnutop went indiscoverable in my Hostel's LAN Server and I was receiving error messages after login. The symptom which took me towards the solution to this problem was, I got this message everytime I used sudo :

sudo: unable to resolve host HOSTNAME

After a bit of googling I found that it was already reported : Bug #195308.

Here is the solution (if it ever happens to you):

• Open Terminal
• Edit your /etc/hosts file

  sudo vim /etc/hosts



• There replace :

  127.0.1.1 hostname.domainname

  with

  127.0.1.1 hostname

  
  Example in my case:
  Hostname : gnutop
  Domainname: workgroup


• Save and Exit

This worked for me as a charm and thought of removing Ubuntu remained a thought.. now Ubuntu is as fast as ever.

Grab your IP

Often you need to know your IP, particularly when your are connected by DCHP kinda connection. So here are some handy tips :

CLI

• Displaying the current config for all NIC's :
  

  $ ifconfig



• Displaying the current config for a particular device :
  

  $ ifconfig device

  Example:

  $ ifconfig ppp0



• For knowing your IP via which you are accessing WWW:

  $ ifconfig  | grep 'P-t-P' | cut -d: -f2 | awk {'print $1'}

  OR

  $ wget -q -O- http://www.whatismyip.com/automation/n09230945.asp

  Here we are taking the help of http://www.whatismyip.com/


• Additional Jobs:
  
  Display the kernel’s IPv4 network neighbour cache:
  

  $ arp

  
  Display the kernel’s IP routing tables

  $ route

  
  Pinging:

  $ ping IP addr

  Example:

  $ ping 192.169.25.15

There are many more tools for advanced usage like nmap and others, but these are the basics.

SOURCE

LAN Messenger

Today I was searching for a LAN messaging client on my Ubuntu box, so after a bit of googling I turned to Pidgin. I searched if it was possible to configure Pidgin as a LAN Messenger and out of my surprise it was simpler than I ever thought of. Here's how:

1> Open Pidgin

2> Then Navigate to Accounts > Manage > Add

3> Select Bonjour

4> Fill the other details as per your choice.

5> Do the same setting in other nodes and enjoying offline chat

Pidgin is a Crossplatform Mutliprotocol Instant Messaging client, so it doesn't matters if you are in Windows or Linux. The only thing that may matter is it comes preloaded in most of the present Linux Distros where as you have to install it in Windows.