24 Dec 2016

Watch an Online Movie: (Wget -c || Deluge) && Chrome > Chromecast

For all those who are in an odd situation where:


  • They have a paid account to a Movie site (like Netflix etc.)
  • Are unable to watch movies online, just because the video-streaming is just too slow
    • Either because your convenient times are 'peak' times for the server
    • Or, you are behind a painfully bad ISP
  • And are able to download the movie, as an option.

To such customers, downloading the movie overnight (using for e.g. wget) would be a big help!

I regularly use this, to download the movie, and watch with non-tech people (my kids) who can't be explained why the movie keeps 'Buffering'!

c:\bin\wget \
  -O KD1242.mp4 \ # Output filename
  -t 0 \ # Retrying indefinitely
  -c -T 10 \ # Reconnect + Timeouts are 10 seconds
  -w 10 \ # wait 10 seconds before retrying a disconnection
"https://www.yourfavouritechannel.com/abcd/KD1242.mp4?g=1f3410635&sha1=JGgJm02BOvqgsdvC32BcUg"

Windows binaries for GPL'ed GNU software (such as Wget) are heaven sent here:



And if you need a Big-TV experience (for e.g. if you have a Chromecast), you could stitch things together by using the Google Cast extension for your Chrome Browser, and open up "c:\" on the browser to play the movie directly in the browser (since VLC stream is still in Beta):


If by chance you're downloading videos via torrents (For e.g. NASA videos), here are my GPL recommendations for Windows:

  • Deluge: If you haven't seen this, you should really replace your uTorrent etc. clients with this one
  • Use the Streaming Extension (Github Link)
  • Copy the URL that the Extension provides + Paste to Chrome
  • Cast your tab to your Chromecast + Enjoy!


Have Fun!

9 Dec 2016

Custom pg_dumpall now works with AWS Redshift

While trying to work with AWS Redshift, it was interesting to see pg_dumpall failing to dump databases in my cluster! 

Delving further, for obvious reasons a managed service like this hides some global-information, which pg_dump(all) needs ... and no, this post is NOT about circumventing that.

This branch, gives a 'near' workaround for those who are okay with being able to extract all databases + (almost*) all Global information (Users etc.) in a single command. 


There are caveats though:

  • Redshift doesn't support COPY TO, so the best workaround is using INSERT. Painful, but works.
  • Barring passwords, all Globals can be dumped. The script just resets all users to be password-less, but that's better than having to do 'CREATE USER ... ' commands for your users by hand!

For some people, these caveats are going to be okay, considering that they get a scriptable way of taking a dump of all databases at one go, along with User information. 

If you're interested in a similar hack for AWS Postgres, you're in luck!

Down the line, I'll try to push this to the core, but for now, this works!

Go Play :) !!

Patched pg_dumpall works with AWS RDS Postgres

UPDATE: This patch is now a part of Native Postgres!! Read more here.

While trying to work with AWS RDS Postgres, it was interesting to see pg_dumpall failing to dump databases at all!

Delving further, for obvious reasons a managed service like this hides some global-information, which pg_dump(all) needs ... and no, this post is NOT about circumventing that.

This branch, gives a 'near' workaround for those who are okay with being able to extract all databases + (almost*) all Global information (Users etc.) in a single command. The *only* Global that can't be dumped are the User-Passwords, which for some people is okay, considering that they still get a scriptable way of taking a dump of all databases at one go, along with all User information. 

Note: For those keen to know, the script just resets all users to be password-less, but that's better than having to do 'CREATE USER ... ' commands for your users by hand!

Down the line, I'll try to push this to the core, but for now, this works!

UPDATE: This patch is now a part of Native Postgres!! Read more here.

Go Play :) !!

Find Database DNS / Endpoint via SQL

How to get Database identifier using SQL Often there is a need for client programs to find "where am I logged into?". This blog po...