Generate a Random Character String in Excel

You may find yourself faced with a need to generate a ton of random strings of characters.
For example, you may have a list of usernames that need passwords – you could be lazy and say everyone’s password is password, but I will assume you know better than that!

Generate Random Number String

To generate a random number string in Excel, simply use a formula like this:

=RANDBETWEEN(0,9)

This will randomly display a number between 0 and 9 each time the page is refreshed. Read More

Computer shutdown (remote)

Shutdown Command Examples

To bring this all together, let’s go over a few examples. First, let’s say that you are connected to your office PC via Remote Desktop and you want to reboot it immediately. You know that no one else is using it and all of your documents and data are saved. While in the Remote Desktop session, launch Command Prompt on your office PC and type the following command:

shutdown -r -f -t 0

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Using inotify-tools to watch a directory and take action

The inotify-tools can be used to watch a directory or file for activity and take an action when a file is changed, added, edited or simply read. You can find a workaround (or call it solution) for the absence of the inotify-tools in the repositories here.
Sometimes, for various reasons, a directory needs to be watched for new files, file changes, etc. When a change occurs, a certain action should be taken, like copying the files elsewhere or send an email with to notify someone of the changes. There are a lot of such imaginable scenarios to think of. Read More

CentOS 7 Kickstart Syntax Reference

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 offers a way to partially or fully automate the installation process using a Kickstart file. Kickstart files contain answers to all questions normally asked by the installation program, such as what time zone do you want the system to use, how should the drives be partitioned or which packages should be installed. Providing a prepared Kickstart file at the beginning of the installation therefore allows you to perform the entire installation (or parts of it) automatically, without need for any intervention from the user. This is especially useful when deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a large number of systems at once. Read More