Hussein's Articles

TODO

An Update

2021-12-28T21:40:27-05:00

An Update

Hello there, yes I'm still here. I just wanted to talk about the stuff I've been doing recently. I've been working on digitizing older University notes to a new standardized format in LaTeX. I'm doing this so that later on my notes would be more accessible and searchable. I've noticed that it's easiest to have the weeks as the sections and have everything that happens during that week as subsections like the lectures and labs (in the order they happen).

Plus, after all this is done, I can say that this meme applies to me:

I've also been working on a more finalized version of the VCP Lighting Manual. Things like adding diagrams of what the current lighting system is, etc.

Github for Group Projects

2021-10-28T16:44:56-04:00

Github for Group Projects

Github is a very useful system for version control among the Computer Science community. The reason why is because many people can work on the same project with ease after knowing how to use it.

Making a Github Account

To get started using Github, you first have to make an account. For code-sharing platforms, it's common for people to have their names as their usernames. for example, my Github username is hussein-esmail7. When you create your account, you can skip all the personalization questions it asks, those are optional. After your account is created, you can now go to the top right corner and click the circle to get a dropdown menu, then "My Profile". As you create repositories, they will show here and in the repositories tab.

Creating a Project

A project in Github is called a repository, or "repo" for short. If you are going to work on a shared repo, give your username to the repo owner, and they will add you.

To submit a change, I find it best to have a copy of the repository downloaded on your computer. That introduces the concept of "push" and "pull" for git repositories. A git pull is when you get the latest copy of a git repository from the Github servers. A git push is when you send your local copy of the repo with your own changes to the Github servers. It's reccomended to always git pull before you git push, or else you will experience something called a merge conflict.

To operate a local copy of your repository, you need to operate the terminal. I reccomend learning from this link. One difference is that you clone a repository to your computer if it already exists. Git init is if you create a new local repository.

discordrss Documentation

2021-07-12T13:39:28-04:00

discordrss Documentation

Here it is, the documentation for the discordrss bot I made.

What is discordrss?

discordrss is a bot I made in Python that converts specified messages on Discord to RSS feeds. I made this because personally I prefer RSS feeds to checking other feed-based social media, Discord included. This is intended for those who own discord servers that have an announcements/updates/etc channel that you want people to see.

How to Get This Bot

To be able to use this bot normally, please contact me here via email to get your server whitelisted. I am hosting this bot as a Software As A Service (SAAS) for $1 CDN per month per server, or a simplified version for $10 CDN (one-time payment). If you choose to get the monthly option, I will host it on my own personal server, and all RSS files will be hosted on my website. An example URL would look like: https://husseinesmail.xyz/discord/861234793736134656/general.xml (not a valid URL, RSS file always takes the name of the channel it reads). I know the URL doesn't look nice, but there are also link-shortening services that you can put your RSS links in so other people can type it into their RSS readers more easily if that's an issue for you. You would also receive any updates that I write after I inform you when the bot would be down via email. Note that if you choose to get the one-time option, you would have to host it yourself for it to work, and you would not get any updates that I write.

Monthly Plan ($1 CDN/server/month):

New features as they come out
Hosted by yours truly (both the bot and the RSS files)

One-time Plan ($10 CDN):

You receive a Python file to run the bot
Bot would have to be repurchased to get new features
You must host the bot and the RSS files yourself

After your server is whitelisted by me, you can add the bot using this link. If you try to use it without permission, I will be notified and the bot will remove itself.

Setting Up This Bot

Here's how to set up posting using this bot:

If you haven't given me your Discord server ID, please do so because I will need this to whitelist your server on this bot. You can find it by going to "Server Settings > Widget > Server ID"
If the bot does not automatically leave after the first message it sees, you can now type ":config new" to create configuration files.
To change the RSS feed title, type ":config change defaults_rss_title" and then the new title. It will change the title of the RSS feed and will automatically update for everyone who refreshes it onwards.
If you don't want your #general channel to have an RSS feed, you can type ":config change approved_channels" and then whatever channels (as text without the '#'). For example, if you want #announcements and #updates to be RSS channels, you can type ":config change approved_channels announcements updates". Note that when you type this and there are already channels you have to keep, you have to retype them because this overwrites what was already there.
If you don't want literally everyone to be able to add to the RSS feed if they post in the approved channels, you can edit these settings: "approved_users" and "approved_roles". When changing these, both the roles and users must be tagged. If someone matches either of these, then their posts will also go to the RSS feed. If someone has an approved role but isn't in approved_users, they can post to the RSS feed.

At this point, your config file should be ready to use.

How to Post Using This Bot

To post an item to your RSS feed, you should to configure a few things (which each require their own :config lines like before). To set the title of the RSS post, you can type ":config change defaults_rss_title 'title without these quotation marks'". The way this program works, is that it always looks to the config file. If you write another post without changing the title, it uses the same title. The same goes for the post URL, which is where people can click to find out more information about what they're reading about in the RSS post. If there isn't a URL people can go to, you could put the homepage to your site or Google or something. To change the post URL before posting, you can type ":config change defaults_rss_title URL".

In short:

Change Title Before Posting: ":config change defaults_rss_title 'title without these quotation marks'"
Change URL Before Posting: ":config change defaults_rss_title URL"

Other Configurations

:help - Print the help message (which will lead you )
:config new - Create a config file for your server.
:config list - List all your config data.
:config change prefix_char {char} - Change the character
:config change emoji_to_alt {boolean} - Whether to use alt text instead of emojis in RSS posts (Recommended: true).
:config change shorten_links {boolean} - Whether to shorten links in RSS posts to the domain name but hyperlink to the full link.
:config change rss_one_per_channel {boolean} - Whether to send messages from all allowed channels to one RSS file titled rss.xml. Note that this will not affect past posts, and will change the URLs new posts go to which will affect the end-users.
:config change approved_channels {channels} - List of text channels (as text with no '#' characters) you want to be changed. Note that if rss_one_per_channel is false, it will use new files. If there are already channels that are already in your config and you want to keep in, you have to type it again in this command.
:config change approved_users {users} - List users (as tags separated by a space) you want to be able to post to RSS feed (when they post in the approved channels). Note that these users do not have to have an approved role. If there are already users that are in your config and you want to keep in, you have to type it again in this command.
:config change approved_roles {roles} - List roles (as tags separated by a space) you want to be able to post to RSS feed (when they post in the approved channels). Note that these users with any of the roles do not have to have to be one of the approved users (if they have an approved role, that is enough). If there are already roles that are in your config and you want to keep in, you have to type it again in this command.
:config change defaults_article_url {URL} - URL link that will be included in every RSS post until changed.
:config change defaults_rss_title {string} - Title of the RSS feed. This will automatically update for everyone after they refresh it themselves too.
:config change defaults_rss_post_title {string} - Title of the RSS post. This will be the title for all further posts until it is changed again. This was designed for you to change it before each post.
:hide_links {...} - If you are posting to RSS feed and this post contains links that should not be shared to the public, you can type this command and then the rest of the message and it will hide any links you write here in the RSS post.
:exclude {...} - If a user who is allowed to post to RSS feed and posts in the designated channel but does not want it to go to the RSS feed, they can type this command and then the rest of the message.

Issues or Feature Requests

For those having issues or if you have a feature request, please send me an email!

Legal

I, Hussein Esmail am not responsible for any illegal activity that may occur on the RSS feeds that are hosted by me. The responsibility would fall upon the sender of said messages and the moderators of the Discord server they originate from.

Bot Profile Picture Source

discordrss Bot

2021-07-06T16:43:11-04:00

discordrss Bot

Over the past few days, I've been working on a Discord bot. This bot can take messages from a channel and add them to an RSS feed. It's meant to be for channels that are for announcements or updates about something. I'm sort of making it because of selfish reasons :) because I prefer using RSS feeds compared to Discord announcement channels (or any feed-based social media really). This post is more of a what's-happening-in-my-life post, and later I will post an official documentation for this bot on this site.

How I Will Run It

Since you require a VPS (which I have, and also runs this site) to run a Discord bot, I might offer to host it to people for a small charge since they would also be using some of my bandwidth while the bot is reading/sending messages, and accessing the RSS files.

If anyone's wondering how much I would charge, at the moment I'm leaning towards $1/month per server, or $10/year per server. I would charge this via the Stripe platform to your payment method automatically.

I'm also making sure multiple people can use this bot at the same time, in case multiple people need me to host it for them. The way I did that is by making folders that is the server ID number, and anything that is specific to that server is stored there, like the JSON configuration file and the RSS file. Later on if people let me host the bot for them, I could have a list of all RSS feeds I'm hosting. It would be public, and I would only do it if they give consent for me to advertise it.

I Want In!

So you want this bot for your server, that's great! At the moment, you can send me an email here to get in contact with me about it. I'm not sure if I will add a more automated process (if I can). If anyone has feature requests or if you want to use this bot before it's live, let me know.

Updating Bash on Mac and Not Looking Back

2021-05-27T00:00:56-04:00

Updating Bash on Mac and Not Looking Back

Note: This article was originally only on Medium, but for simplicity I'm also including it here too. Here is the link to the Medium post.

This article is how you can update your version of Bash on the macOS terminal, and completely get rid of the old version (something other articles lack). Even in 2021, Apple is shipping computers with a version of Bash that was last updated in 2007. Don’t believe me? Type “bash --version” in terminal to see for yourself!

By upgrading bash versions, you get access to a lot of new tools if you are programming in it or using it extensively. If you don’t really use Bash, this article may not be for you, but you’re still welcome to following through on it.

First, we need to install Homebrew if you don’t have it installed already. Homebrew is the terminal package manager for macOS. Similar to apt-get or pacman on various versions of GNU/Linux distributions. You can do this by visiting https://brew.sh or by copying this line of code into your terminal (it may take a few minutes and will ask you for your password):

/bin/bash -c “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

After that’s installed, type the following line to make sure everything is working before we get started.

brew doctor

Now that everything is working, we can get started by installing the latest version of bash from the package manager

brew install bash

To verify the installation, you would see 2 paths with the following command:

which -a bash

The first one at /usr/local/bin/bash is the newly installed version, and /bin/bash is the one we want to replace one.

/usr/local/bin/bash --version

/bin/bash --version

At the moment the default bash version is still the outdated one even though “bash --version” may show the you the new version number. When you restart Terminal the old one will still engage as the default. Now we need to whitelist the new directory. For beginners who don’t know how to use vim, nano is best.

sudo nano /etc/shells

Add /usr/local/bin/bash to the top of the list of file paths so it looks similar to this:

/usr/local/bin/bash

/bin/bash

/bin/csh

/bin/ksh

/bin/sh

/bin/tcsh

/bin/zsh

Since in this tutorial we are going to completely replace the bash file, we don’t need to run the chch command we would normally need to run. chch is the terminal command to change the default shell.

Now is the time to get the new bash to replace the old bash file. First, you need to restart your computer in Reboot Mode to change some permissions. After you shut down your computer, hold down Command+R as the computer boots up again. After that’s done, go to Utilities in the menu bar, then Terminal. Type the following commands:

csrutil enable

reboot

After “reboot” is typed, you should be brought back into your computer normally again. Log in and open Terminal as you usually do. Type these commands listed below. The first one mounts the computer’s own hard drive as entirely read-write (the file we want to change is in a read-only directory). The second command renames the current (old) bash to another name so we can free up that name space. We need to use that filename specifically so that to anyone else who uses bash, it won’t affect them whatsoever. The last command copies the new bash file to the original bash path so now that one will be used.

sudo mount -uw /

sudo mv /bin/bash /bin/bash_old

sudo cp /usr/local/bin/bash /bin/bash

After this is done, everything should work. The last step is to disable csrutil again since it can be dangerous to leave it on. To do this, we need to go back into Reboot Mode. After you shut down your computer, hold down Command+R as the computer boots up again. After that’s done, go to Utilities in the menu bar, then Terminal. Type the following commands:

csrutil disable

reboot

Congratulations, you have successfully updated your bash shell to the latest version!

References:

How to get started with COBOL (on a Mac)

2021-05-26T23:59:47-04:00

How to get started with COBOL (on a Mac)

Note: This article was originally only on Medium, but for simplicity I'm also including it here too. Here is the link to the Medium post.

So you want to get started with COBOL. I wouldn’t blame you. Today with all the pandemic stuff going on, it’s good for people to keep busy. It’s also nice because there are less and less people who know COBOL, and many systems depend on it. Just a while ago basically every company is trying to get COBOL programmers (see this article from Ars Technica and this article from Joseph Steinberg, a cybersecurity advisor)

What is COBOL?

COBOL stands for Common Business-Oriented Language. It is mainly used in businesses, finance, and governments.

How to install COBOL on your Mac

Open Terminal.
If you don’t have Homebrew installed, see this link to install it: https://brew.sh
Install Gnu-cobol with this command: brew install gnu-cobol
Other places might say to install OpenCobolIde with Python, but that didn’t work out too well for me. I downloaded a specific version from this webpage. Just make sure you download a version that works with your OS. OpenCobolIde Installation Page
Install OpenCobolIde from your downloaded installer.
Now you have a working COBOL IDE on your system!

If you want to find resources where you can learn COBOL, you can look on YouTube, course websites, and looking up articles and free books online, and borrowing books from your local library.

A Random List of Random Things To Do In Quarantine

2021-05-26T23:58:20-04:00

A Random List of Random Things To Do In Quarantine

Note: This article was originally only on Medium, but for simplicity I'm also including it here too. Here is the link to the Medium post.

Welcome to Attention Grab! A game show where each bullet point in a list tries to grab the attention of the reader, and bonus points if the you actually go and do that activity! This week’s topic is: Things you can do during quarantine.

Let the show begin!

Hello! I’m the first contender! I suggest reading a book or two. You probably have more books you haven’t read than you have like me. I’d like to thank my mom, Papyrus, and my dad, Parchment.
You can learn a programming language. I recommend Python for an easy start. It’s amazing what you can do with it. Even try to automate a task you know you always do on the computer.
Take a nap. During a normal work week you probably didn’t sleep enough anyway.
Take up an online course. You can check if your local library offers access to a course website for free.
Watch a movie
Write a story. Everyone’s mind wanders at some point. Maybe take some details from dreams you may have.
Write a Medium article, like I am :)
Do some cleaning.
Learn a new language. If some of your family members’ first language isn’t English, maybe surprise them you see (or video chat) them.
Take a virtual world tour. Apparently, people have thought of everything.
Clean out your closet. I’m a big fan of minimalism and everyone probably has that one article of clothing they dread wearing. If you haven’t worn it in a year, you probably won’t ever wear it.
Do some yoga.
Make some art. Whether it’s colouring or origami, just don’t draw on the walls! Yes, I know it’s tempting, but you’ll regret it in 0.3 milliseconds.
Do a puzzle
Find some interesting podcasts
Organize a room in your house
Warn people that Zoom’s video chats aren’t always secure. The people need to know!
Play virtual games with your friends. Whether it’s Clash Royale or screen sharing Jackbox Games on Discord
Learn how to cook something new
Practice an instrument (as long as it won’t drive your neighbours mad)
Write an actual letter to someone. It’ll make someone feel happy and appreciated.
Clean out your junk drawer
Try drawing a self-portrait with nothing but a pencil, paper, and a mirror
Have you ever tried to start writing a novel but only got to the second chapter? Try turning it into a short story! It’s less commitment, and if it goes well just write another!
Try making that weird thing you saw on Pinterest
Make some TikToks the teenagers are always talking about these days
Do some workouts. Maybe pull out that dusty 2000s exercise DVD. Anybody else had those? No? Guess it’s just me.
Race some marbles! It was very under-appreciated pre-quarantine.
Watch a TV show. I recommend Mr. Robot or Gilmore Girls.
Clean out your emails
Write a newsletter email just for your friends and family.
Once a week, have a PowerPoint Party! Each time one person picks a topic and gives a presentation about it. Next week, another person.
Make a quarantine vlog.
Talk to random strangers about your interests on Reddit.
Alright everyone, we’ve reached our final 3 contestants!
Participate in Jimmy Kimmel’s #FORMALFRIDAY where people wear formal clothing and share it on Instagram.
Have a Netflix viewing party.
Watch some TED talks. I recommend ones with James Veitch if you want a laugh.

That’s our show for this week folks. Which bullet point won this week? Only you decide.

Medium Parsing

2021-05-26T23:56:30-04:00

Medium Parsing

Before I made this site, I wrote articles on Medium. To streamline things, I'm going to put everything I put there on here too. Just thought I'd let those actually reading this (if anyone is) know.

Simplicity

2021-05-14T22:13:22-04:00

Simplicity

It's nice when things are not too complex. From the watches people wear to website design to the design of smartphones to desk setups. Hello everyone, and welcome to my rant about how the complex world is too complex (or at least some parts of it).

Take websites for example. This site may look much more simpler than your average cooking recipe website, yet this one lacks a lot of sidebar elements and JavaScript. Due to this, it makes it a lot faster to load, and the file size of each page is less than what others normally on (I also try to not use too many images for the same reason). Internet companies always market 'fast speeds', but if you're trying to access a site, it's only going to be as fast as it's slowest node. And when it does load, you may be using more data than you wanted (assuming you're on a smartphone). Webpages load lots of JavaScript, ads, images, and trackers. This may not be what you want if you have a low data plan and browse the internet on your phone on a regular basis.

For smartphones, I would argue that people are asking too much of them. I view smartphones as something you can use if you don't have a computer nearby. Many months ago, I read Reddit post that talked about how people should be using their phones only as a backup device, and to occupy yourself with offline hobbies and to carry some reading material with you instead of scrolling on social media when you have a minute or two to spare.

To take that a step further, I try to keep everything I would normally do on a smartphone at the computer. Social media feeds, emails, games, all of it. Of course, some things are unavoidable like phone calls and text messages. These should still be done with a phone, don't get me wrong. But most times there isn't an option to do those things at a computer (unless you have a macOS device + an iPhone).

This argument about data usage also leads me to a very strong opinion I have about the internet: Every website should have an RSS feed. Personally, I like to keep up with a few sites that don't do RSS (but they easily could with some help and googling). It would be much easier to see those posts with my other feeds, all aggregated in my normal RSS reader.

Even though viewer metrics aren't monitored by popular applications like Google Analytics, it is useful for those that do use it (like me!).

Mirror for Reddit post

html2rss

2021-05-10T22:03:41-04:00

html2rss

What is this page?

This page is a more in-depth explanation as to why I made this repository.

Hussein, why'd you make this repository?

The first thing you need to know is that I use a terminal RSS reader called newsboat. I like it because it can be very compact and require less screen space compared to a browser window to display the same amount of information. I also like it because multiple platforms use and support RSS, like YouTube and Reddit.

In Reddit RSS feeds, tags like 'h1', 'a' (with an href), etc. in the content of the RSS post are not surrounded by brackets, but they are surrounded by escape codes for them. When this is like this, newsboat can actually detect when the 'a' has an href, and headings. When it detects links in this type of post, you can type the associated number key to open that specific URL. For example, Google will be viewed on newsboat as "Google[2]" (but underlined). This means if I pressed "2" while viewing this article, it will open Google in my default web browser.

Considering that I want these URLs to be formatted nicely, someone else probably might be able to benefit from this too, so this is why I put this on GitHub and didn't just keep it for myself. You could even write another script that processes your subscribed feeds through this or run your own feed through this before publishing. Now go! Make RSS easier to use!

Is LaTeX Better?

2021-05-09T23:00:37-04:00

Before you read this, I just want to state that this was originally written on 2021 04 29 (April 29).

What is LaTeX?

LaTeX is an open-source typesetting format/language, where each .tex file can be compiled into a PDF (or even HTML or other formats if you figure it out). It is commonly used in the Sciences and Engineering departments as the document standard.

Why is LaTeX Better?

If there are no other assets (images, videos, etc) in the LaTeX document, it is guaranteed to have a smaller file size than a Word document or a PowerPoint document (for example). The good thing about this is that if you're low on storage space, you can delete the compiled document and recompile it whenever you need it (as long as you have the .tex document it came from).
It does not require any licenses because it is open-source and anyone is free to use it however much they like.
There's no 'one' application that you need to use to make a LaTeX file. In some installations of LaTeX on Windows or macOS, there may be an included application but you don't have to use that. You could use Visual Studio Code with the LaTeX Workshop extension, vim, or even any text editor like TextEdit on macOS or Notepad on Windows. The only thing you need to do in that case is compile the document yourself in Terminal/Command prompt (if the editor you're using doesn't have that support).
It's platform-agnostic. What is "platform-agnostic"? It means it doesn't care what operating system you have, LaTeX just needs the packages you call inside of it, and the language itself installed on your computer. It even works on Linux (take that, Microsoft Office)!
Got a lot of sections that need to be numbered? LaTeX numbers them for you! Even if you add a section in the middle and need to renumber everything, LaTeX does all of it when it's compiled so you don't even see any section numbers as you're typing the document.
Equations in LaTeX are SO much easier. In LaTeX, this is what the quadratic formula looks like: $x=\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 -4ac}}{2a}$ . If course, it may be troubling to understand at first while you're writing it, but I can guarantee once you know how to use Math Mode, it will be much faster than making an equation in Microsoft Word's Equation Mode.
BibTeX can cite your references for you! You just have to make sure it has access to your .bib file and you tell it which citation format to use (MLA, APA, IEEE, etc.).

Hey Hussein, Where Can I Learn LaTeX?

YouTube Tutorial by Derek Banas
Overleaf: An Online LaTeX Editor In case you don't want to install LaTeX on your computer.
Installing LateX. Here are my recommended installers:
1. Windows (20MB)
2. macOS (4.4GB, no idea why it's that big)
3. Linux

Test

2021-05-03T02:05:39+00:00

This is a test "and some more".