To bulk delete comments, we are going to use phpmyadmin. Most hosting panels have /phpmyadmin active on your account.

Log into phpmyadmin and click on your database on the LEFT, then wp_comments or whatever database prefix you are using.

Then head to Search

Scroll down to comment_content and set the Operator column to %LIKE%, which matched wildcard anything before or after your term.

For this example, we are going to use the word sex:

You will receive a valid SQL query that we are going to reuse.

All you need to do is replace SELECT * with DELETE FROM

WARNING: If you have any of the terms elsewhere in your comments database, they will be deleted.

Don’t do this if you don’t know what you are doing.

Now, get your Comment Blacklist ready.

Open Text Mechanic here so we can prefix and suffix our list: https://textmechanic.com/text-tools/basic-text-tools/add-prefixsuffix-into-line/

Paste your comment spam blacklist at the top.

Add the Prefix as DELETE FROM…..%

And the Suffix as %’;

Don’t forget the ; at the end as we are using multiple lines

Then in phpmyadmin paste your list of SQL deletions into the SQL section and press SIMULATE QUERY

Anti-warning: since this is our actual “comment blacklist” already from the WordPress comments section, these comments would not have passed the filter anyway.

Simulate Query will show you what will be deleted when you press Go.

If all looks good, close the simulated query window and hit GO to permanently delete comments on your WordPress database that match your blacklist.

My comment database went from 6000 to 1500!

My comment blacklist can be downloaded here.

After updating to the rolling release of Arch from a few days before, my desktop began to pixelate.

The new AMD Ryzen with Radeon graphics laptops, particularly the Ideapad & Thinkpads, have a problem with the Xfce window manager compositor.

Does your screen look like this?

I tried to record the blur but it didn’t show the issue in the recording.

The problem is with the Xfce4 Window Manager.

Solution: Go to Window Manager Tweaks and disable Window Compositing.

Uncheck the display compositing box.

If you re-check the box, it may make your screen go blank. This happened to me. Simply reboot.

This problem is very common, and occurs on fresh installs.

See the following posts about it:

https://forum.manjaro.org/t/graphical-glitches-artifacts-after-update-to-xfce-4-14/99049/16

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=248543

https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=13233

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1859321#p1859321

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=248840

Until the bug is fixed, simply disable the compositor.

I will update this post once the compositor for xfce4 window manager is fixed.

Here are instructions to install the DigiDoc4 software for Estonian E-residents on Arch Linux.

ccid is required to use your card reader. If you have an ACS card reader, you need acsccid too

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# ccid required, acsccid if you have an ACS card reader, and pcsc-tools just to check if its working

sudo pacman -S ccid acsccid pcsc-tools

Install opensc from git because opensc in the main Arch repo does not yet contain drivers for EstEID 2018+.

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yay opensc-git

After installing opensc-git from git, start pcscd as a service

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# start pcscd service

sudo pcscd

# insert card reader and run a scan from pcsc-tools

pcsc_scan

We are using opensc-git instead of opensc. Since opensc is a required dependency of DigiDoc4 in the AUR, you first need to edit the PKGBUILD and remove opensc entry and then run the yay install.

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# this will download the PKGBUILD of qdigidoc4 so we can delete opensc from it

yay -G qdigidoc4



# remove the opensc dependency with vi/nano

cd qdigidoc4

vim PKGBUILD

Once you have removed opensc from the dependencies,

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# make qdigidoc4 from the AUR without opensc as a dependency. We are using opensc-git instead.

makepkg -si

# wait until install is finished and you should be able to run qdigidoc4 now

qdigidoc4

Insert your card reader and you should see your card details in DigiDoc4!

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# later install the token signing software

yay chrome-token-signing

modutil -dbdir sql:$HOME/.pki/nssdb -add opensc-pkcs11 -libfile onepin-opensc-pkcs11.so -mechanisms FRIENDLY

You can test if the card works at logging you into RIK.EE via the https://ariregister.rik.ee/login.py or https://ettevotjaportaal.rik.ee/

More information can be found here if this tutorial becomes out of date: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Electronic_identification#Estonia

Do you often have to open Remmina? Create a shorcut to your Remmina profile and add it as a desktop launcher, or even a keyboard shortcut.

If you installed Remmina without Snap, simply go to your Remmina config folder and choose which profile you want to open.

Your profiles are in /home/$user/.remmina/

Right click, and copy the profile you want.

The prefix what you just copied with remmina -c option.

The c means, “Connect to desktop described by file (.remmina or type supported by plugin)”

remmina -c /home/$user/.remmina/PROFILE.remmina

If you installed Remmina with Snap or Snapcraft, then your Remmina config files are located elsewhere.

First, search for your application with an application finder to get the Snap environment full path.

Right click on your entry and copy the application launcher command.

Add -c and to the end of this and get ready to add the config file that you want to open:

Open Remmina and highlight the profile you want to use.

In the bottom status bar of the window, you should see a path to .remmina file. It should be:

/home/$user/snap/remmina/current/.local/share/remmina/

Navigate to that folder and copy the profile that you want.

Environment-Path, -c, Config-File

env BAMF_DESKTOP_FILE_HINT=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/remmina_remmina.desktop /var/lib/snapd/snap/bin/remmina -c /home/$user/snap/remmina/current/.local/share/remmina/$CONFIG.remmina

The -c isn’t actually required.

When doing this, you may be asked to enter the profile password again.

This post fixes problems with Remmina Clipboard not syncing correctly between host and remote desktops and fixes copy and paste on remote desktop not working on linux.

When you highlight text and hit Ctrl+C, and then press Ctrl+P elsewhere, this is called a Clipboard Copy & Paste.

When you highlight text, and then middle click (scroll mouse 3 button) elsewhere, this is called Primary Clipboard Copy & Paste.

These two clipboards can become out of sync when using a remote desktop, especially when you alternate between pressing Ctrl+C and Right Click > Copy on the remote desktop.

There is a software package on Arch, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Manjaro, OpenSUSE, etc. called parcellite and xdotool

# debian and ubuntu users
sudo apt-get install parcellite xdotool

# arch and manjaro users
sudo pacman -S parcellite xdotool

# centos redhat or rpm users
yum install parcellite xdotool

Parcellite adds clipboard functionality.

xdotool allows you to use commands to press keys on the keyboard.

Remmina remote desktop copy paste not working

If you want to press Ctrl+C or right click copy on something on your remote desktop, then you should have Parcellite running to capture the clipboard copy event.

Above is a screenshot of the Parcellite settings.

If you tick the Use Copy box, this means Parcellite will hook into your Ctrl C Clipboard, so whenever you press Ctrl C, it will be stored in Parcellite.

When you Right Click copy on linux, this goes onto BOTH clipboards, even if they are not Syncronized because you have just copied the text by highlighting it (Primary) and also Copy by right click copying.

However, on the remote desktop, if you highlight text, nothing will happen. And when you right click copy on remote desktop it goes onto your Clipboard Selection clipboard.

Then press Ctrl + V to paste that anywhere.

Therefore, when using Remmina, tick both boxes but not the synchronize button.

When using remmina or remote desktop you need to decide to use Ctrl C all the time and uncheck synchronize clipboard, or…

When using both Right Click Copy OR Ctrl C on remmina check the synchronize keyboard button but don’t highlight stuff on your localhost. This is pretty hard to stop yourself from doing.

If you press Ctrl C on remote desktop without synchronizing the clipboards, you will be able to paste with both Ctrl V but not middle click.

If you press Ctrl C on remote desktop and have clipboards synced, you will be able to Ctrl V paste on localhost AND middle click paste. BUT if you highlight anything on your localhost it will overwrite your clipboard because you primary clipboard copied something.

If you right click copy on remote desktop without synchronizing the clipboard, you will sometimes be able to paste using Ctrl V but not using middle click. Sometimes it does Ctrl V paste, but it is delayed and laggy as it fetches the remote clipboard.

If you right click copy on remote desktop and have clipboards synced, you will be able to middle click paste but not Ctrl V paste.

This is what I have found when trying to copy and paste using Remmina and Arch Linux. Here are my settings:

This is a cool little widget to go alongside your xfce4 application toolbars.

This creates a single click WiFi-menu popup on your toolbar or can be used to run WiFi-menu on Arch startup or Xfce4 startup. Works on Debian, Mint, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Manjaro

If you have a single WiFi card, and will never plug in dongles, then you can simply add this to a xfce4 launcher or to application startup which can be found in

xfce4-session-settings

Then add this command to application auto-start:

xterm -e "sudo wifi-menu"

Done!

Arch WiFi-Menu Ricing

You can move the terminal to the top right of the screen. First check your screen resolution:

xrandr

Note down your screen resolution after “current: “

E.g. current 1920 x 1080

Decide how big you want your wifi-menu window to be, e.g 50×24

xterm -geometry 50x24+1980+0

I use 1980 as the wifi-menu won’t show up off the screen. If you have dual monitors, you will need to trial and error to get the numbers to your liking.

Then add that to the command

xterm -geometry 50x24+1980+0 -e "sudo wifi-menu" 

If you use more than one WiFi card or you use Ethernet and Wifi, you will need to specify which network connection to use in WiFi-Menu.

First, note your WiFi card using the command:

sudo ip link

This will list all your available network cards. Your laptop wifi card will be the one with wlp. Change it in the below command.

xterm -geometry 50x24+1980+0 -e "sudo wifi-menu wlpx0x0x0"

If that still doesn’t work or you have the same problem I do on new Lenovo Ideapad laptops with the Wifi driver then do the following:

Create a file somewhere on your computer and name it wifi or your wifi card .sh

touch ~/wlp2s0.sh
nano ~/wlp2s0.sh

I had a WiFi card driver problem with my laptop so my file contains this:

#!/bin/bash
ip link set wlp2s0 down
wifi-menu wlp2s

After you save the file, right click on it > properties > allow executable.

Or just:

chmod +x ~/wlp2s0.sh

Then create a xfce4 toolbar launcher with some cool wifi icon and

xterm -e "sudo ~/wlp2s0.sh

# Enjoy!

TwiML is Twilio’s amazing markup language for quickly & efficiently deploying new complex voice & SMS services.

Twilio are cloud based software providers of phone systems both landline and mobiles. They even have MMS services that I will cover in later tutorial.

Do you want to record incoming phone calls automatically on Twilio? Read ahead.

First, you need to take advantage of Twilio’s TwiML which is their own markup/scripting language. We use their markup to quickly roll out functions for Twilio’s platform to perform.

First, create a TwiML Bin by going to the menu on the left > Runtime > TwiML Bins.

A TwiML Bin is a little notepad that you can write and save your set of instructions to. Better yet, TwiML will host that file for you.

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<Response>

  <Dial record="record-from-answer">

      <Number>+1555555555</Number>

  </Dial>

</Response>

When somebody calls your TwiML number, this markup will tell TwiML to dial +155555555 and if someone answers the call, it will record the call to 155555555. This may be illegal in your country if neither party has consent of the recorded call.

Dial with the record=”record-from-answer” can also be set to record-from-ringing-dual if you want it to record before 155555555 even answers, or even if they don’t answer.