Solved : How to redirect non-www blogger custom domain to www with SSL

If you have added a custom domain to your blogger blog you may have noticed that when you access your domain like www.example.com it works fine but if you try to access the naked domain like example.com(notice no www) it fails or gives SSL error. In this post we will show you how to fix this.

Review of 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions Certification preparation course by Scott Duffy

In our earlier post we have described steps about how you can prepare for Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions Certification. But, if you have just started your journey in Azure than it will be a good idea to start with the Azure developer certification which is 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions .
If you are an absolute beginner you can start with free Azure account.  It will help give a good understanding of Azure. But, be careful while using the resources because as we get free hand access to resources, we tend to spin up lot of instances and forget them running. This may end up with a huge bill. Best practice is that you setup a billing alert to avoid any shocks at month end.
To further hone your skills you can either go for Azure classroom training or go for online courses. The classroom training will cost you from USD 800 to USD 2000. While the online courses can cost you from USD 10 to USD 300, depending on which course you choose.
As mentioned in the last post since my experience with online courses was good as it give you good foundation, so I prefer to go the online way.
When I started my search for a suitable course I zeroed in on 70-532 or renamed AZ-203 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions Certification  course by Scott Duffy on Udemy.
Scott himself is a certified architect and got a rich industry experience. Going through the course content I found that it covered almost all exam topics. Also Scott keeps on updating the content as the syllabus changes. And if you buy from Udemy you get free life time access to the course so I went with this one.
As of Dec-18 the course contents 10 hours of video and a practice test. Also, you get lifetime free access to the course on Udemy.
It’s a good idea to follow all the labs with the instructor and once you get confidence redo the labs independently. Don’t forget to complete the practice quizzes to check your knowledge.
You can also supplement your preparation with practice Tests for 70-532 Developing MS Azure Solutions  .

Solved : How to simply install python pip on windows?

The latest version of python is shipped with pip. But, if you are using older version of python 2(<2.7.9) or python 3(<3.4) and still need pip on windows please follow the instruction below.
If pip is not installed or the path is not set correctly you will get an error like below while invoking it in windows command prompt.
pip install sklearn'pip' is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.
Here are the steps to get pip in your windows box.
  • Download get-pip.py . Copy and paste the contents of the link in a notepad and save it as get-pip.py, remember not in .txt format but .py format.
  • Next install it.
python get-pip.py
  • Find the recently installed pip.exe in your machine. It’s generally in C:\Python27\Scripts or similar folder depending on the python version you installed. You can set the path variable in windows using these instructions.
– Search for “Advanced System Settings” in your windows machine.
– Click on the tab “Advanced”. In it click on Environment Variables.
– In the new window click on System Variables.  Select “Path” and click on “Edit”.
– Click on new and enter C:\Python27\Scripts\ in the space.
– Finally click ok to all windows and re-open command prompt.
  • If you have followed the instructions correctly you will now be able to install packages using pip.
pip install sklearn
That’s all you need to install pip in windows.
Tip:- Some people make mistake of executing pip from Python interpreter and get the below error.

>>> pip install sklearn
File "<stdin>", line 1
pip install sklearn^SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>>

But, from the above tutorial you now know that pip is installed and executed from command prompt and not from the interpreter.
Hope you find this simple tutorial useful. Let us know in comment section if you face any issue.

Solved : How to check disk usage in windows like Linux

Identifying the files or directories which are hogging space in your windows machine can be very difficult specially if you have hidden files or they are in nested directories.

If you have worked on Linux you will know it has a very useful command du -sh. When i work on windows  I really miss the Linux command which is very handy.

Thankfully you can find a utility at sysinternals on microsoft site which do the same job as du command in linux.

The name of utility is simply “du” and you can download it from here .

Once you download the utility you just have unzip it and no installation needed.

After that open the command prompt as admin user and go to the directory where you have unzipped the “du” and execute it as below to find the usage of any directory.

du -l 1 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server"

It will show you usage of even the hidden files. The usage is shown in KB.

Solved : Check without telnet if port is open on remote host - Linux

Earlier many system admins were using telnet to check if a port is open on remote machine. But, because of security concerns telnet is now not recommended to be installed on most linux boxes.
But hey we still need to check the remote port. This is part of normal troubleshooting in a linux admin’s life.
So, instead of using telnet you can use  nc.  netcat or nc is a  simple tool which is generally installed by default in linux distributions or you can install it with instructions below.
Ubuntu
$ sudo apt-get update$ sudo apt-get install netcat
Redhat or CentOS
yum install nc.x86_64
Amazon Linux
 sudo yum install nc
Once you are done with installation simply run it as below:-
nc -z 100.4.78.39 22

Connection to 100.4.78.39 22 port [tcp/ldaps] succeeded!

Here we can see that port 22 is open on remote server.
Tip :- If you want to check the same from windows machine, follow this post on How to check remote port status in windows without telnet.
nc is a swiss knife kind of tool. It comes with very useful options.  You can explore the below options also.
TagDescription
4Forces nc to use IPv4 addresses only.
6Forces nc to use IPv6 addresses only.
DEnable debugging on the socket.
dDo not attempt to read from stdin.
hPrints out nc help.
i interval
Specifies a delay time interval between lines of text sent and received. Also causes a delay time between connections to multiple ports.
kForces nc to stay listening for another connection after its current connection is completed. It is an error to use this option without the –l option.
lUsed to specify that nc should listen for an incoming connection rather than initiate a connection to a remote host. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with the –p , –s , or –z options. Additionally, any timeouts specified with the –w option are ignored.
nDo not do any DNS or service lookups on any specified addresses, hostnames or ports.
p source_port
Specifies the source port nc should use, subject to privilege restrictions and availability. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with the –l option.
rSpecifies that source and/or destination ports should be chosen randomly instead of sequentially within a range or in the order that the system assigns them.
SEnables the RFC 2385 TCP MD5 signature option.
s source_ip_address
Specifies the IP of the interface which is used to send the packets. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with the –l option.
T ToS
Specifies IP Type of Service (ToS) for the connection. Valid values are the tokens “lowdelay”, “throughput”, “reliability”, or an 8-bit hexadecimal value preceded by “0x”.
tCauses nc to send RFC 854 DON’T and WON’T responses to RFC 854 DO and WILL requests. This makes it possible to use nc to script telnet sessions.
USpecifies to use Unix Domain Sockets.
uUse UDP instead of the default option of TCP.
vHave nc give more verbose output.
w timeout
If a connection and stdin are idle for more than timeout seconds, then the connection is silently closed. The –w flag has no effect on the –l option, i.e. nc will listen forever for a connection, with or without the –w flag. The default is no timeout.
X proxy_version
Requests that nc should use the specified protocol when talking to the proxy server. Supported protocols are “4” (SOCKS v.4), “5” (SOCKS v.5) and “connect” (HTTPS proxy). If the protocol is not specified, SOCKS version 5 is used.
x proxy_address[: port]
Requests that nc should connect to hostname using a proxy at proxy_address and port. If port is not specified, the well-known port for the proxy protocol is used (1080 for SOCKS, 3128 for HTTPS).
zSpecifies that nc should just scan for listening daemons, without sending any data to them. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with the –l option.