Office Communicator 2007 - send message

It would have been nice if there was a command line way of sending message from office communicator. Googled and did not found anything. Finally created a fragile scritp using WSHShell . It is fragile but it works and saves time for me.

option explicit

' Global variable to hold the initials and name mapping.
' Commandline may have initials in place of the name.
dim Names
Set Names = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
Names.Add "C1", "Contact1"
Names.Add "C2", "Contact2"
Names.Add "C3", "Contact3"

' Global variable used by mySendKeys function.
dim Wsh
set Wsh = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

if (Wscript.Arguments.Count < 1) Then
    Wscript.Echo "Usage: m "
    Wscript.Quit(1)
End if

dim name
name = UCASE(Wscript.Arguments(0))
if (Names.Exists(name)) then
    name = Names.item(name)
end if

'Wscript.echo name

Wsh.Run       "communicator" ' Run communicator
Wscript.Sleep 500                     ' Give time for communicator to open.
mySendKeys    "{TAB}"           ' TAB
mySendKeys    "{DOWN}"       ' Down Arrow
mySendKeys    name                ' Search for the contact in my list.
Wscript.Sleep 500                     ' Wait for select to happen.
mySendKeys    "{ENTER}"      ' Enter
Wscript.Quit(0)                          ' Success           

Function mySendKeys(key)
    wsh.AppActivate "Office Communicator"
    wsh.SendKeys key
End Function

How to get rid of REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED message

Ever irritated by the message (see below) due to the remote host public key change (remote host was re-installed).

If you are not worried about the security try these in your ~/.ssh/config .
NOTE: This is not secure so make your call. I am working on intranet and do not worry about man in the middle attack.

Host *
   # Ignore Host ID changes.
   StrictHostKeyChecking no
   # Do not store the known hosts.
   UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
   # -X option by default.
   ForwardX11 yes

Irritating message:
~$ ssh -o "StrictHostKeyChecking no" username@host.domain
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@
@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that the RSA host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
82:e7:bc:0c:6d:cc:3c:e2:c7:de:ee:2a:b2:af:31:f9.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /home/myacct/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending key in /home/myacct/.ssh/known_hosts:5
Password authentication is disabled to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks.
Keyboard-interactive authentication is disabled to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks.
Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password).

inetwiz automation

inetwiz is a tool which I have been using in Windows XP to update the IE proxy setting.
The manual process has been a pain and I wanted to automate it badly.
Experimented with multiple tools - Registry updates, Python. A friend suggested to use VBS.
The VBS did the trick and I was able to use Wscript Run, AppActivate and sendKeys method to automate the proxy update and opening the URL in internet explorer.

Here is the script

 
option explicit
 
' Global variable used by mySendKeys function.
dim Wsh
set Wsh = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
 
if (Wscript.Arguments.Count < 2) Then
                Wscript.Echo "Usage: i /auto|/man URL"
                Wscript.Quit(1)
End if
 
'WScript.Echo (Wsh.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ProxyEnable"))
 
if (Wscript.Arguments(0) = "/man") Then
                ' VB Script does not support double equal.
                ' If Proxy is not enabled, enable it.
                if (Wsh.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ProxyEnable") = 0) Then
                                enableManProxy()
                End if
                Wsh.Run "iexplore " & Wscript.Arguments(1)
Elseif (Wscript.Arguments(0) = "/auto") Then
                ' If Auto Proxy is not enabled.
                ' VB Script does not support double equal.
                if (Wsh.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ProxyEnable") = 1) Then
                                enableAutoProxy()
                End if
                Wsh.Run "iexplore " & Wscript.Arguments(1)
Else
                Wscript.Echo "Usage: i /auto|/man URL"
End if
 
Function enableAutoProxy()
                ' Enable Automatic Proxy
                Wsh.Run "inetwiz"
                Wscript.Sleep 1000 ' Give time for application window to open.
                mySendKeys "%n"    ' Alt + n
                mySendKeys " "     ' Space
                mySendKeys "{Tab}" ' Tab
                mySendKeys " "     ' Space
                mySendKeys "{Tab}" ' Tab
                mySendKeys "{Tab}" ' Tab
                mySendKeys " "     ' Space
                mySendKeys "%n"    ' Alt + n
                mySendKeys "%o"    ' Alt + 0
                mySendKeys "%n"    ' Alt + n
                mySendKeys " "     ' Space/Finish button
End Function
 
Function enableManProxy()
                Wsh.Run "inetwiz"
                Wscript.Sleep 1000 ' Give time for application window to open.
                mySendKeys "%n"    ' Alt + n
                mySendKeys " "     ' Space
                mySendKeys "{Tab}" ' Tab
                mySendKeys " "     ' Space
                mySendKeys "{Tab}" ' Tab
                mySendKeys " "     ' Space
                mySendKeys "%n"    ' Alt + n
                mySendKeys "%n"    ' Alt + n
                mySendKeys "%n"    ' Alt + n
                mySendKeys "%o"    ' Alt + 0
                mySendKeys "%n"    ' Alt + n
                mySendKeys " "     ' Space/Finish button
End Function
 
Function mySendKeys(key)
                wsh.AppActivate "Internet Connection Wizard"
                wsh.SendKeys key
End Function

Nested screen sessions

I have been using GNU screens since few years but never thought of using nested screen SESSIONS. Nested screen sessions comes handy when you want to SSH to other server from screen WINDOWS. Here is my recipe for handling nested screen sessions.

* ssh jayrajput@serverA
* screen -e ^Ee # Change escape character from Ctrl-A to Ctrl-E. see escape function in man screen.
* screen -d -m -S serverA # Create a new detached screen session named "serverA" on serverA in detached mode.
* screen -x serverA # Attach to the "serverA" screen session.
* Ctrl-E + c # create a new screen window
* ssh jayrajput@serverB # ssh to serverB
* screen # Run screen on serverB


Use Ctrl-A as command leader in inner screen sessions .
User Ctrl-E as command leader in outer screen sessions.

Setting the hardstatus your .screenrc also comes handy

hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string "%t"

This will show the hostname in the outer screen session status. Do not know why but it does show the hostname.

Continuous Ping

ping -t


This is helpful when you do not want to open cmd window and execute ping command from the run prompt.

Read File Names from ls -l

Command to print file names from ls -l output:

ls -l | while read a b c d e f g h i ; do echo $i; done

Learn to Live

Learn to live, learn to let go & follow nature rule

I have always wondered at the almost robotic way we function. what’s the reason to continue a relationship or a venture when there is no emotion or heart in it? I see no reason to go on, if there is no emotion. One has to realise when to move on, when to let go. It’s best to live life as an honest free spirit and challenge those who infringe upon your joy. The conundrum of modern-day life has robbed us of compassion. We have been drained of love and humility. It’s good to remember that life is so easily destroyed, if we are not careful.

Dissatisfaction, sadness, hatred – these are the mind’s creations. You don’t need to serve your connection with the world, if you feel let down. To tackle that, it’s essential that you lead a normal life while trying to find out the root cause of dissatisfied mind. This approach is both realistic and practical and guarantees an answer to most of your deep-seated problems.

Being happy depends not so much on external circumstances as on your inner life. This means all your thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, emotions, desires, dreams – your entire mental and emotional scene. Happiness is about how you react inwardly to events, what you think and believe, how you feel, how problems affect you. It may sound obvious, but like many obvious things it’s something that is often forgotten when it matters most. We focus almost exclusively on or external lives, on getting and spending and having fun and then wonder why we are not happy. But it’s when our inner lives are tranquil that we are most happiest and we call this inner peace.

You can’t completely avoid problems, but you can change how you react to them by acquiring new habits that provoke peaceful inner responses. Training your inner life into different habits require learning skills of thinking, feeling and managing your beliefs and desires. These are very like the virtues many religions and philosophies advocate but if u think of them as skill rather than virtues, you benefit from an important and liberating shift. Instead of ‘ I must become a better person’ you can think ‘I would lie more happily if I work on my skills’. So the change in attitude becomes a choice, not a duty. This process is not something u can do overnight, it’s a whole new way of life but the reward is what we all want most – happiness. There are five main skills who need to cultivate.

Mindfulness:- this involves developing your ability to focus your thoughts in the present. The problem most of us have with thought is having too much of it – the working and non-stop mental chattering our minds are prone to. Mindfulness is a key in our skill because as it gets stronger, it lets you focus on your inner life and catch your habits in the act. Once you can see how u r rolled by them, the change u r seeking often happens of it’s own accord.

Compassion:- most religions rightly stress compassion. As well as being a virtue in its own right it is a practical skill that counter act negative emotions like anger and hatred, which are terrible wreckers of happiness. Tried the next time someone annoys you; put yourself what they might be thinking or feeling to behave like that. Even bad people, let alone people who just mildly annoy you, often have a mistaken view of the world which makes them do what they do.

Story skills:- these are very useful for problems with your inner belie system, as they let you stand back and explore alternative versions of reality. Believes have great power over your life because belief is something your take as fact. Start to think of your believes as stories and it is easier to accept that other things might be true as well. Even true stories only select a little bit of reality we are focusing on at the moment, no one story is the whole truth about any situation. From a different point of view we would see a different t story, sometimes a whole different world. This is not about make beliefs, its about reframing situations to look at them from a different perspective.

Letting – go techniques:- these are particularly helpful when we are unhappy not getting what we want. Generally, we are encouraged to keep wanting and to think that more will make us happier, whether its clothes or cars or even love. But wanting is a treadmill; as long as you have unsatisfied want and desires, or let go some of them. Letting-go skills also include forgiveness, which helps hugely with one of the things you think you want is revenge.

Enjoyment skills:- this last group includes skills such as patience humour and especially gratitude. You don’t have to be grateful to someone, it’s enough to cultivate gratitude or things. Our minds naturally scan the environment for dangers and resources, a useful mechanism when we were hunter-gathers. But it can make us unnecessarily pessimistic – focussing on 10% we lack rather than 90% we have cultivating enjoyment skills will help redress the balance.

Acquiring all his skills takes time and effort. The important thing is to practice them until they operate without you thinking about them. Your practice routine will be very individual because everyone needs to prioritise different skills depending on the specific issues that you are holding them back from being happy but keep the skills in mind and you will constantly find new ways to try them out.