Search Wikipedia Through CLI (Shell) In Linux

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Wikipedia : One of the most important web portal in  geek’s life. Whenever I need to search anything I use two things. First open up the Google and then search for the related  wikipedia page. Exploring wikipedia page using shell is possible. Interested fact is that we can do it without even opening the cli browser. We can make wikipedia text query over dns for an ip address. I learned this trick from Ajay Sharma (ajayctk@gmail.com). Thanks to him for teaching me this wonderful trick. Let’s explore how to do it 🙂

We will use ‘dig‘ utility for this purpose. Dig is more popularly known as the DNS lookup Utility. You can find more about it using  man pages. Syntax for the text based wikipedia query is : dig +short txt <keyword>.wp.dg.cx . For example if you want to look into the wikipedia page of Linux you need to type something like this : dig +short txt  linux.wp.dg.cx . Screenshot of the same is attached below :

Making A Wikipedia Query In CLI

For multiple word search having spaces in between them you can use the traditional ‘\’ operator. To grasp the wikipedia page  of  Free Software Foundation (FSF) we need to type dig +short txt  free\ software\  foundation.wp.dg.cx . 

FSF Wikipedia Search

Only problem is its quite limited. I am trying to figure out a way through which we can look up the whole page but I think this much is also quite useful as most of the times we came to know about the product by reading one or two lines only. So play with wikipedia using Shell only 🙂

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First Views On Google+

Yesterday I got the Invitation of the recently launched social networking site know as “Google+” . Its based on your day to day interaction analysis made by ex-Googler Paul Adams.  People are in high hopes that this will save them from the addiction of Facebook.  As of present it’s access is limited to few people only and it’s in testing phase. Due to excessive demand of invitations, Google has closed down the invitation part for sometime . It’s quite true because all I saw yesterday on Facebook and Twitter is “Please Invite Me to Google+”. Experts says that Google+ will get open for  public in the coming week. It’s available for Gmail users only as of now. Google+ account gets integrated with the other Google products. You can open it from various ways. Either hit the “+ANKUR” on your Google bar or login to the www.plus.google.com .

You can click on Google+ (+ANKUR)

As soon as you login you will see a very simple and attractive UI 🙂 Below is the screenshot of my plus account welcome screen.

Welcome Screen

Let’s talk about some of it features now :

1. You can easily add to contacts to the circles. Then while sharing ,you chooses the circle you want to share with. If you want to share it with all you have the public options for it. You can easily edit your circles.

2. It has got it recently launched “+1” button on very post and comment. It’s quite similar to the Facebook’s like button.

3. Notifications will appear on the top right side of the screen. You can also see it in the above screenshot.

4. Instead of wall post, you share the “Stream” with your circles.

5. It has got the “Spark” feature . It’s quite similar to the hashtag feature of the social micro blogging site Twitter. This features lacks in the Facebook. You just type your topic and sparks and all the streams related to that will appear on your screen.

6. One more good feature is you can edit your comments. Facebook needs to think about applying this feature as soon as possible 🙂

Spark Feature

Overall I think Google+ is great in the privacy field. Moreover sharing the post with the people you want to is one of its major strength.  There is also a data liberation option in your Google+  settings through which you can download all of  your  uploaded data.  I am still searching about it’s hangout feature and will try write about it soon 🙂 Feedbacks and Comments are welcome 😀 Oh!!!! I forgot to tell you one important thing i.e. Google+ is for 18+ only 😦

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Hungry Snake Now in Softpedia’s database of software programs for Mac OS

Few days back I released my game named as “Hungry Snake” on Google Code  http://code.google.com/p/hungry-snakes/ . Today I got an email from the Softpedia team that they have added my game under the category of Mac Os applications Category. They  tested the game in their software labs and certified it as 100 % free which means  it does not contain any form of malware, including but not limited to: spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors. The Game is published under the GPL license. You can run it on any platform. At the time of the writing download count in total (Google Code + Softpedia) is about 250. I can feel the power of open source. Thanks to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds .

Game Download Links – http://code.google.com/p/hungry-snakes/downloads/list
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Games/Hungry-Snake.shtml

Softpedia Certificate Link –  http://mac.softpedia.com/progClean/Hungry-Snake-Clean-98721.html

 

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3 Level Snake Game Made By Me Using Pygame API

Few weeks back I made out the basic of the snake game in python and released it on the Web under the file name “hungry.py”. Now I  have Upgraded it into a 3 Level Game. I test it on windows  and its working completely fine over there too. Download the “Game.Zip” file to play all the three levels and “hungry.py” to play the basic version. Releasing this under GPLv3 :):) Try it out and feedback would be gr8. Here’s the download link http://code.google.com/p/hungry-snakes/downloads/list...

Thanks

Ankur Aggarwal

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