Category: Tech

  • Convert .fa FASTA file to Excel / Text Tab Delimited format

    Convert .fa FASTA file to Excel / Text Tab Delimited format

    Just recently i was requested by my friend to help convert a text document to an Excel sheet which could be understood easily. Firstly i could not directly open the file in Notepad Or Excel as it was not properly supported.

    Later when i forced it open in Notepad, it was just massive strings of text with nothing to interpret. I wanted to know what the file format is. So .fa file format is

    FASTA is a DNA and protein sequence alignment software package first described (as FASTP) by David J. Lipman and William R. Pearson in 1985.[1] Its legacy is the FASTA format which is now ubiquitous in bioinformatics.     Source: Wikipedia

    I had never encountered such file format and was excited to know something in DNA sequencing.

     

    Google is the best tool to get the directions to a solution, i searched google with keywords to convert .fa file to excel. However I realised there was ni ready tool or technique to convert such file. Yes, you could manually edit each of 1500 lines and spend 2-3 hours to get it done without being sure of the accuracy.

     

    While googling I stumbled upon a youtube video shows the same intended conversion in some Orange software. Initially i was not sure what software it is, but after switching to HD mode, i realised the software was Orange Canvas an open source data visualisation software, which you can download at http://orange.biolab.si/

     

     

    These people had created a special widget to be added with orange canvas, It would convert the data from a fasta file to a usable, easily understood form in tabbed format.

     

    Installing Orange was simple and I allowed whatever addon it asked for. Finally Orange setup was completed and the software was installed.

    Following is  a screen shot how orange installation looks.


    (more…)

  • Reset Windows 7 Admin Password and Safe mode on Asus Motherboard

    Reset Windows 7 Admin Password and Safe mode on Asus Motherboard

    Forgetting your account password is the worst thing that can ever happen to you, moreover its weird and crazy when you forget a password that you had changed in haste.

    Same happened with me, few days ago i changed my Admin account password on my Windows 7 Desktop for some…. reason and guess what. The next day, i was out of it.

    I did not remember the password as i had changed it in haste, and when i changed the password, i had created a new “Home” account for home users with no admin privilege (another blunder).

    My admin account has the essential stuff that i require to work, and i could not stay out of my admin account.

    So the options were:

    1. Format the C drive, thats the UNIVERSAL Solution to ALL windows problems.

    But i could not afford losing the data in C drive (much less data but most importantly setting up a new Win 7 machine is painfull, the softwares and all.), though my data is stored on other drives (accepted good structure to store data, in case you need to format PC anyway)

    Im a geek, but not an expert, so i reached out to Gaurav (Big Geek 😀 ),  and asked him a solution, he suggested that.
    2. I use command net user administrator /active:yes. I got this version of command from this blog. But this resulted in Permission Error as the “Home” user did not have admin privilege.

    So this option only works if you have more than 1 Admin accounts and forgot password for one.

    4. Bootup in safemode to see if i have a New “Administrator” account as we used to have in Windows XP. But this account did not exist.

    5. I called up my relative whos a System Technician, he suggested that. I reset the CMOS as it will reset the admin password requirement in Safe Mode and then try accessing “Safe Mode”. However it still did not work as i was required to enter the password and did not accept blank password.

    6. “System Restore” (hoping that you have a restore point) will not work as it will ask you for Administrator privileges.

    7. Finally, i stumbled upon a blog post, which said i can user the option “Repair your Computer” while installing Windows 7 via DVD and then use System Restore. (Pls visit the blog for detailed instructions, its really simple)

    So i followed the steps and i successfully restored the system to previous version which had earlier account and password, and YES, do remember the Old password. :D. Done.

    Regarding accessing Safe Mode on Asus motherboards, please know that you need to Restart your system and keep hitting F5 key (key differs for Intel Or Gigabyte oR other).

    You will receive the option to logon to “Windows 7” and below that will be a “Memory Diagnostic Tool”, however if you read carefully you will see “use F8 for advanced options”

    Then, you should receive the multiple options of logging into safe mode, thats it access as you wish.

    Thanks for reading.

  • Website Uptime Monitoring – Uptime Robot

    Website Uptime Monitoring – Uptime Robot

    It will obvious that you host a website on Cloud or a web host providing guarantee of 100 % uptime. You need to test it at times or to check the Downtime that your host provides, you cant do that by checking the web-page 24*7*365. As for problems, we have a solution someone has already worked upon.

    Here comes. Uptime Monitoring services,

    How does it work:

    These services, check the availability and response from the designated domain names, repeatedly within specific duration. Once it detects that a webpage is not responding it creates a log and sends notification if required.

    There are host of solutions offering Uptime monitoring service and URL Port, ping checks.

    Like:

    PingdomMon.itor.us and more can be found here at Mashable

    The best one that i have found useful is UptimeRobot, why do i love this service ?

    1. Yes, Its FREE
    2. It checks uptime every 5 minute (Really awesome considering its free)
    3. You can add multiple domains
    4. Email, SMS and Twitter DM and RSS push (i devices) notifications.

    Screen-shots here:

    Uptime Robot Dashboard
    Dashboard
    Adding a New Monitor
    Adding a New Monitor

    Official feature list:

    Monitors your websites every 5 minutes, totally free.

    Add up to 50 websites. Get alerts by e-mail, SMS, Twitter, RSS or push notifications for iPhone/iPad

    via Free Website Uptime Monitoring – Uptime Robot.

    UptimeRobot is continuously evolving and it has its own API for third party integration.

    This actually helped me monitor my host DreamHost that the uptime that they *promise* (100%) is not delivered, still what can you expect with shared hosting. Will test it sometime with an AWS instance.

  • Get your own deal site on Drupal- The beauty of OpenSource

    Snapdeal, Dealsandyou, mydala, crazeal and so on development of such websites can be a huge task and consumes significant amount of manpower and time.

     

    OpenSource softwares exists which can significantly reduce the time and cost required to get such deal site up and running. I found this project while browsing Drupal distributions called “Open Deals

    About Open Deals

    Open Deals is a Free Deals Site distribution, based on Drupal 7, Drupal Commerce and other modules.
    You can use the distribution for you or your clients and you can modify it at will.

    We hope that the distribution will be beneficial and useful for you.

    We’ll be glad to listen to your comments and feedback.

    Open Deals is a combination of Drupal Core and many Modules which in a complete sense create a ready site for Deals. Anyone, literally anyone who wishes to create his own Deal site and get it up and running in minutes. (Obviously, you should know that Drupal is and how it works)

     

    If you are new to Drupal, let me give you a brief about it:

    In simple words its a combinations of lots of PHP code woven together to create a software system. This can be used to create sites of all types, be it a blog, corporate site, e-commerce site Or anything you wish. If you wish to extend the ability, you have a list of modules choose your feature and install it. The repository has everything from Facebook buttons to complex systems. Dont like the color, layout, you have lots of themes too install one and you can have the look changed.

    The beauty of this CMS and other CMS is that you *dont* need to learn coding at All to get started and make the basic usage.

     

    Created originally by Dries Buytaert

     

  • WordPress “too many redirects” resolved

    WordPress “too many redirects” resolved

     

    This is just to note down a recent issue that I was facing with my WordPress blog.

     

    Issue: I was unable to load the Homepage, which was set to Static Page in the Reading Settings as shown below:

    redirect

     

    I tried to search over WordPress.org forums, but did not get any effective answer to my query. However, this post helped me understand what could be wrong.

    I went over to the Reading Settings in my blog and saw that the Front Page was set to a “Static  Page”. However, the front page was missing from the dropdown list. Reason: I had foolishly set it to“Draft”.

    staticpage

     

    So this caused the whole ordeal and it wasn’t any issue with Any Plugin Or the awesome CMS WordPress.

    It was finally resolved as soon as I Published the Draft FrontPage, Reading Settings were already working only the page wasn’t.

     

     

     

    What made me understand the