jeltsch's blog

Deleting files with "illegal characters"

In the cross-platform environment of our university, at least three different OS connect to the smb shared group directories. Apparently Macs are able to save files with characters that are not allowed on other platforms and which cannot be easily deleted. Recently we had several files which ended with a '.' (dot) or a ' ' (space), and we were not able to remove them via the GUI. In Windows 7, I managed via the command line with:
delete "file." or
delete "file "

Windows changes my computers clock

If I am not mistaken, Windows is the only OS, that uses local time for the system clock (instead of UTC). This means that in multiple boot configurations, every restart of the system into Windows will screw up the system time. In order to reset it (in Ubuntu 16.04), use
sudo timedatectl set-timezone Etc/UTC

Accessing shared folders in VirtualBox (Linux guest)

Transferring files from the host to the guest OS and vice-versa doesn't work out-of-the-box when you install VirtualBox from the Ubuntu repositories and download an Ubuntu VirtualBox image (e.g. from http://www.osboxes.org/virtualbox-images). After installing the guest additions, drag-and-drop didn't seem to work for me and I needed to set up a "Shared Folder". After setting it up via the GUI, it doesn't automatically appear on the guest desktop. You need to mount it:

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