Easily Kill Unresponsive Application Using Xkill [Linux Gyan]

<p><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/anoopengineer/SNipXowS_cI/AAAAAAAAAn0/VPX3Jaw-BII/%5BUNSET%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="max-width: 800px; float: left; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 10px;"/><p>Thanks to the multitude of beta programs released each day for Linux, one can often find certain programs becoming unresponsive mid-use. The application window stops responding, it completely refuses to close and continues to eat valuable memory and cpu cycles.</p><p>You accept the fact that any unsaved data in that application is gone and the only way to exit that hung application is to kill it.</p><p>But how?</p><p>Most people in such situation tend to close their current Gnome/KDE session by either logging out or using Ctrl + Alt + Backspace. Some tend to use the terminal, finding the PID of the unresponsive application using the <code>ps</code> command and then killing it with the <code>kill -9 pid</code> command.</p><p>But smart people tend to use this method:</p><p/><ol><li>When a program gets hung, hit Alt + F2 to bring up the Run dialog.</li><li>Type in <code>xkill</code> and hit enter.</li><li>Your mouse cursor will change into a cross or skull and bones.</li><li>If the unresponsive application is not in focus, use Alt-Tab to switch to it. Left click anywhere on the application window to kill it.</li></ol><p/><p>Know any better method than this? Share it in the comments.</p></div></p>

Thanks to the multitude of beta programs released each day for Linux, one can often find certain programs becoming unresponsive mid-use. The...

Some Methods To Crash Your Windows & Linux Machines

<p><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>There may be occasions were you want to test a new system - its integrity and ability to recover from an unforeseen crash, by deliberately thrashing it. This article explains how you can forcefully crash a Windows and Linux PC.<br/><h3>How To Crash a Windows PC?</h3><div align='left'><a href='http://lh3.ggpht.com/anoopengineer/SNHuG2rOqeI/AAAAAAAAAnY/6MnHiJLByxs/%5BUNSET%5D.png?imgmax=800'><img height="301" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/anoopengineer/SNHuG2rOqeI/AAAAAAAAAnY/6MnHiJLByxs/%5BUNSET%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="max-width: 800px; float: none;" width="400"/></a><br/></div>You may be surprised to know that Windows has a built-in self-crashing mechanism (no pun intended). Though it is quite easy to crash a Windows box whenever you doesn't want it to crash, it may be quite difficult to reproduce the scenario, when you desperately want your box crashed. So here we give you two methods to crash your Windows box. <span id='fullpost'><br/><ol><li><b>Method 1: Windows Built-in Self Crasher</b><br/>This method produces the 'awesome' BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) that you are no doubt familiar with. The PC gets locked up and the only way to recover is to reboot it. Just follow these steps:<br/><br/><ul><li>Run Regedit (Start -> Run -> regedit)</li><li>Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters</li><li>Create a new DWORD value with name <code>CrashOnCtrlScroll</code> and give it a value <code>1</code></li><li>Reboot the PC</li></ul>Now whenever you want to see the cute blue screen (and crash your system), press and hold the Ctrl key on the right side of the keyboard and hit the Scroll Lock key twice. Ahh, the joy of ecstasy!<br/></li><li><strong>Method 2: Using a Windows Fork Bomb</strong><br/>Just copy the following lines into a new text file and name it as crashme.bat. Double click on that file.<code/><br/><pre>:s<br />start %0<br />%0|%0<br />goto :s<br /></pre></li></ol><h3>How To Crash a Linux PC?</h3>Though long known for its stability, you might be surprised to know how easy it is to thrash a Linux PC.<br/>Take a terminal and enter <strong><code>:(){ :|:& };:</code></strong> <br/>Hit enter. Don't try this in a production machine. Instant crash guaranteed!. You'll have to reboot to recover.<br/><br/>Know any better ways to thrash a system. Tell us in the comments.</span></div></p>

There may be occasions were you want to test a new system - its integrity and ability to recover from an unforeseen crash, by deliberately t...

Google Chrome - HTTPS and SSL Over Proxy Issues

<p><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/anoopengineer/SM4dXUwiH2I/AAAAAAAAAnU/vpo_6NY8ecA/%5BUNSET%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="max-width: 800px; float: left; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 10px;"/>If you are a corporate user behind a proxy server and are using Google Chrome, you must be bitten by the Chrome HTTPS bug, at least once.<br />Trying to access HTTPS sites, like <a href='https://www.gmail.com'>Gmail</a> or your banking site through a proxy yields nothing but a blank page.<br />We just scanned the <a href='http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/request.py?contact_type=known_issues_2&ctx=topic'>Google Chrome known issues</a> page and saw this:<br /><blockquote>Google Chrome does not support SSL client authentication.<br />We know about this and don't currently have a fix.<br /></blockquote><br />Not very encouraging isn't it? There is no need to get discouraged, for here we give you three methods that will help you solve this issue: <span id='fullpost'><br /><h3>Method 1: Using a Google Chrome Nightly Build</h3>Though the <a href='http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/request.py?contact_type=known_issues_2&ctx=topic'>Google known issues page</a> says that they don't have a fix for this issue, this issue seems to be fixed in the Google Chrome latest daily night releases. Daily Night releases are developer releases made each day and may (will) contains bugs. I have used <a href='http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/2209/chrome-win32.zip'>this one</a> and it seems to work perfectly. Download Google chrome nightly builds <a href='http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/'>here</a>.<br /><h3>Method 2: Using the Portable version of Chrome</h3>Some people report success using the portable version of Google Chrome. Download portable version of Google Chrome <a href='http://stadt-bremerhaven.de/2008/09/03/portable-chrome-021510/'>here</a>.<br />Note: This method didn't work for us.<br /><h3>Method 3: Using a Microsoft Firewall Client</h3><br />This method is applicable only if you are using Microsoft ISA Server as your proxy server.<br />Download Microsoft Firewall Client from <a href='http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05c2c932-b15a-4990-b525-66380743da89&displaylang=en'>here</a> and install it. In the settings tab, specify the proxy ip address and enable it. In the Google Chrome proxy settings (Options -> Under The Hood -> Change proxy settings), disable any proxy configurations. <br /><br />If you had any difficulties with any of the methods mentioned above, do let us know in the comments.</span></div></p>

If you are a corporate user behind a proxy server and are using Google Chrome, you must be bitten by the Chrome HTTPS bug, at least once. Tr...