Tata aig transaction

Oracle SQL Query to print Unix Timestamp

The actual query is available in http://jehiah.cz/a/oracle-date-to-unix-timestamp , but here is a slightly modified version which strips the decimal points and prints only the elapsed seconds.
---
SELECT abs(to_number(((sysdate - to_date('01-JAN-1970','DD-MON-YYYY')) * (86400)))) as dt FROM dual;
---

New Laptop - The Essential softwares list

List of softwares that should be installed on my new windows env without further thought!

• Notepad ++ :  http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download
• 7ip :  http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
• Foxit PDF reader :  http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/
• Cygwin :  http://www.cygwin.com/install.html
• Python (Enthought distribution) :  http://www.enthought.com/products/epd_free.php
• VMWare Player :  http://www.filehippo.com/download_vmware_player/
• VLC (64 bit) :  http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/last/win64/
• Gtalk :  http://www.google.com/talk/
• Tortoise SVN :  http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads.html#
• Git -  http://git-scm.com/download/win

Ubuntu Linux - Change from GUI mode to Command line / Text mode

Simple stuff - just documenting my learnings

So here's how we change Ubuntu from its usual GUI mode to the Command line mode (black screen / text mode)

Note : If"sudo" is used before a command, then you will have to enter root password.

• Open the Terminal, and cd /etc/default
• Open the "grub" file in vi editor as root : sudo vi grub
• Change the property GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT from "quiet splash" to "text". See below
• ========
• #GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT = "quiet splash"
• GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT = "text"
• ========
• Run this command to update grub : sudo update-grub
• Reboot Ubuntu : sudo /sbin/reboot

On reboot, you should be able to see the command-line screen instead of GUI.

Automate Sphinx - Create rst files automatically from a list of topics

You have lots of topics to document using Sphinx, but bored of creating each .rst file manually? Not to worry at all. Here is a script that will just automate the file-creation task for you. Here we go:

First, download the zip or gz package from https://github.com/thyag/SphinxAutomation/downloads

And read the below to get your stuff donne : 

Create a PDF document from your Sphinx Documentation using rst2pdf

Pre-requisites & Assumptions

• You have installed Python.

• You have installed and used Sphinx documentation generator.

• You have created an HTML documentation using Sphinx

Buying books online - some how tos, tips and thoughts

• Ask in quora.com for the best books in your topic of interest
• Read the reviews about those books in amazon.com. Make sure that the rating is good, if not great. Beware of those reviews which are done by the author's buddies. Check the date of publication and the date of review to get some idea ( usually fake reviews are added immediately after publication date, and they are added in the same week or month)
• Even if a book's rating is good, read the contents and the first chapter on amazon. Make sure it captivates you. The best book still may not work for you, so watchout.
• Search for the price of the book in atleast 4 e-commerce sites. In India, I search at flipkart.com, indiaplaza.com, homeshop18.com, bookadda.com, and sapnaonline.com. Don't buy immediately. Impuse is maya. Just put the book on wishlist. Give atleast 1 week, sleep over the book, and decide if you really need the book. There are also sites like mysmartprice.com and junglee.com which do price comparisons. 
• If you really need the book, order the book based on what is priority for you - cost, delivery time,quality of service, etc.