Category: Information

How to create a python virtual environment for a project in Linux

Python interpreters can be installed globally system-wide or as a virtual environment within a project folder. The advantage of within a virtual environment is isolation of the packages from system-wide use and execution. To set up a virtual environment for a project, open a terminal window and enter the following commands: $ sudo apt-get install … Continue reading How to create a python virtual environment for a project in Linux →

The Quest for A Good IDE for Python Coding on Linux

In order to write code or learn programming or coding in Python, a good IDE was needed to take out the pain from looking up functions, keywords and more. The short list below were tried out before finally choosing one that best suited the purpose. Geany Eclipse PyCharm Spyder vscode Whilst it made sense to … Continue reading The Quest for A Good IDE for Python Coding on Linux →

Enable LinkedIn two factor authentication (2FA) with FreeOTP authenticator app

LinkedIn allows a user to enable two factor authentication (2FA) with an authenticator app. However, it displays a secret key and does not display a QR code for scanning by the FreeOTP app. To correctly use the FreeOTP app, an entry for LinkedIn has to be added manually in FreeOTP as follows:- Enter the user … Continue reading Enable LinkedIn two factor authentication (2FA) with FreeOTP authenticator app →

How to display stock prices with decimals in Gnucash

Gnucash displays stock prices within the account as 47 + 22398/55939.To display them with decimal points, from the main menu, select Edit -> Preferences -> Numbers, Date, Time and check the box that says "Force Prices to display as decimals". When you double click on the account to make entries, the stock price will be … Continue reading How to display stock prices with decimals in Gnucash →

How to sort and rename files in Python on Linux and use tesseract OCR to extract text to a file

In order to convert a series of images with text as an image in them to text files, the best tool is tesseract. It is quite old, but very reliable when it comes to looking for and extracting text from images. After saving some screen shots as jpg files, it was found their names contained … Continue reading How to sort and rename files in Python on Linux and use tesseract OCR to extract text to a file →

How to debug “There was a system error retrieving the price quotes” in Gnucash Finance::Quotes on Linux

There was a system error retrieving the price quotes. This error is a debugging nightmare as it is not specific, gives no clue as to where the error lies and there is no easy debugging mechanism to find out what went wrong. Nonetheless, all is not lost. In order to debug the problem, open a … Continue reading How to debug “There was a system error retrieving the price quotes” in Gnucash Finance::Quotes on Linux →

There’s something about data backups – what’s the big deal!

It’s been almost 12 years since using the 128 MB Transcend USB hard drive for data backups. On the other hand there’s also a 128 KB Transcend USB pen drive from 2006 that still works quite well today plus a Kingston 1 GB USB pen drive. In 12 years, storage device and storage media technology … Continue reading There’s something about data backups – what’s the big deal! →

An ode to passwords – safeguarding online accounts

Every account created (online or offline) requires additional elements to be remembered the service or the device or the website or the application; the user name or ID that is to be used to login in to it, and; the associated password. It's easy to remember sites, applications, services and associated user IDs. However, to … Continue reading An ode to passwords – safeguarding online accounts →

How to increase font size of menu items in the Cinnamon menu in Debian

After installation of Debian 12.2 Cinnamon live, it was found that the font size of menu items in the Cinnamon menu was very small as shown in the image below in the BlackMate theme. Cinnamon menu (items in small font) This is because the font size is 8.5pt within the css settings file at /usr/share/themes/BlackM*/cinnamon.css. … Continue reading How to increase font size of menu items in the Cinnamon menu in Debian →