/nix | Aug 29, 2010

1. Download the Linux version
2. Extract unstopcp from unstopcp.gz
3. chmod +x unstopcp or from the GUI: right click unstopcp > Properties > Permissions > check "Allow executing file as a program" > Close
4. Kubuntu users (or others running KDE) can simply double click unstopcp to launch it. GNOME users may find nothing happens after double clicking. Running unstopcp from the Terminal reveals: unstopcp: error while loading shared libraries: libqt-mt.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. libqt-mt is the Trolltech Qt library, necessary for running KDE3 apps.
5. Head to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager, do a quick search for "libqt3-mt" and install it.
6. Now GNOME users should be able to launch unstopcp successfully:
   
7. Notes:
   • Logging and auto skipping of damaged files can be enabled under the "Settings" tab.
   • Had to launch with sudo in order to copy user files from an OS X HFS+ volume (as permissions are maintained across platforms).
   • To copy directories instead of a single file, put a trailing asterisk in the Source path (see screenshot above), otherwise nothing will be copied.

/nix | Aug 24, 2010

/nix | Jul 14, 2010

/nix | Jul 09, 2010

• Mass Malware Analysis: A Do-It-Yourself Kit - "Theory, practice and a construction manual for an automated analysis station for malware using trivial and free instruments."
• Minibis - "Software and tips to easily build up an automated malware analysis station based on a concept introduced in the paper 'Mass Malware Analysis: A Do-It-Yourself Kit'".
• REMnux "is a lightweight Linux distribution for assisting malware analysts in reverse-engineering malicious software. The distribution is based on Ubuntu and is maintained by Lenny Zeltser."
• SANS Investigative Forensic Toolkit (SIFT) Workstation "is a VMware Appliance that is pre-configured with all the necessary tools to perform a detailed digital forensic examination. It is compatible with Expert Witness Format (E01), Advanced Forensic Format (AFF), and raw (dd) evidence formats. The brand new version has been completely rebuilt on an Ubuntu base with many additional tools and capabilities that can match any modern forensic tool suite."

/nix | Jul 09, 2010

/nix | Jun 13, 2010

/nix | May 18, 2010

Removing Blank Pages from a PDF

Friday, January 28 2005 @ 09:27 AM PST
Contributed by: Admin

Here is an idea for how to remove blank pages from a PDF using pdftotext and pdftk. It is based on a recent posting to comp.text.pdf.

demunn@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hello all,

> Sorry if this is a recurrent question. I'm rendering/printing an HTML
>  document from a web-based program to a pdf file. The web-based
> program has minimal features to control pagination, etc. (I know
> web-based print control is relatively primitive) and the outcome is
> unwanted blank pages in the PDF output file.

> Anyway, I'm basically looking for a program that will allow me batch 
> process a folder of PDF files and strip out the blank pages. Is there
>  any programs or utilities that will do this? Any suggestions are
> greatly appreciated

> DM

Here is one simple idea that assumes that all non-blank pages have
(extractable) text on them.

1. Use pdftotext (from the xpdf project) to convert mydoc.pdf to
mydoc.txt. Pdftotext uses the formfeed character (0x0c) to mark page breaks.

2. Scan mydoc.txt looking for pages with no text. Record these page
indexes (start counting at page 1, not zero).

3. If you find blank pages, use pdftk to remove them. Construct the
pdftk command line using the page indexes you collected in step 2. For
example, to drop page 3, say:

   pdftk mydoc.pdf cat 1-2 4-end output mydoc.noblanks.pdf

It shouldn't be too hard to write such a shell script, eh?

Sid Steward
http://www.AccessPDF.com/pdftk/

---

The Script

Using bash (via MSYS) on my Win2k machine, I have strung some commands together that identify PDF pages with no extractable text on them. I don't say "blank pages," because sometimes a non-blank PDF page has no extractable text on it.

#!/bin/sh
#
# find_textless_pdf_pages.sh
# bash script for MSYS; also requires pdftotext (xpdf);
#
# identify PDF pages that have no extractable text on them;
# linux users might need to omit the -c sed option and then
# drop the 'R' from the sed script;
#
# invoke like so:
#  find_textless_pdf_pages.sh mydoc.pdf
#
pdftotext $1 - |
tr "FRfr" "frFR" |
sed -c -n '/^FR$/{ N; /^FRnFR$/a
PageNoText
/^FRnFR$/!a
Page
D; }'

Command Breakdown

pdftotext - converts the input PDF file into text. It uses the formfeed character (f) to mark page breaks.

tr - translates characters. Sed doesn't see non-printing ASCII characters such as f or r (carriage return). So, translate R->r, F->f, and f->F, r->R.

sed - the stream editor. I discuss sed here. If it finds a line that is just "FR", then it looks ahead to see if the next line is also "FR". If it is, then it prints "PageNoText". If it isn't, then it prints "Page". Finally, it uses the D command to continue processing with just the second line of text.

I'll continue working on this script as time permits.

/nix | May 10, 2010

$ stat foo
  File: foo
  Size: 221       	Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 801h/2049d	Inode: 540949      Links: 1
Access: (0700/-rwx------)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2006-12-04 07:00:00.000000000 -1000
Modify: 2006-12-04 07:00:00.000000000 -1000
Change: 2010-05-08 10:01:29.000000000 -1000

stat also accepts wildcards: $ stat *.txt

/nix | May 08, 2010

1. If you've already clicked on the NTFS device icon within PCMan File Manager, right click the icon again and select "Unmount File System" (since Knoppix mounts the drive as read-only from the GUI).
2. Launch Terminal Emulator and run fdisk to identify the NTFS partition:
   $ sudo fdisk -l
3. Mount the device (/dev/sda1 in this example) as writable:
   $ sudo ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
4. When finished, be sure to unmount:
   $ sudo umount /mnt/sda1

/nix | May 01, 2010