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How to set the correct Android *.apk MIME Type for Apache Webserver

Android application uses *.apk file as its installation package. It is a variant of the Java JAR file format (which in turn a Zip 2.0 file). Usually the *.apk file is obtained from Android Marketplace, the official channel for getting Android application. However there are some vendors or carriers that allow *.apk file to be downloaded from 3rd-party websites.

Those who elect to upload the *.apk files on their own webserver can add the official Android APK MIME Type to their Apache Web server config file:

Option 1: edit mime.types (for those who have root access)
1. First edit the mime.types file – sudo nano /etc/apache2/mime.types
2. Then add this at the end of the file – application/vnd.android.package-archive
3. Reload the server configuration – “sudo service apache2 reload”
Option 2: edit .htaccess file (for shared server or user who do not have root access)
1. Edit .htaccess
2. Add this line – AddType application/vnd.android.package-archive

This will register the appropriate MIME type for the *.apk file so that both the server and mobile application can handle.

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How to extract Audio from Youtube Flash Video (FLV) in Ubuntu Linux

First you need youtube-dl tool or ‘cclive’ to download the Youtube .FLV file.

Then, download the Youtube stream.
python youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lee7a55401e

Alternatively, you can use ‘cclive’ to download the youtube stream.
cclive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lee7a55401e

After that, use ffmpeg to extract the audio and encode it to MP3
ffmpeg -i lee7a55401e.flv vn -acodec libmp3lame -ab 128000 -ar 44100 lee7a55401e.mp3

Note: You need to install the restricted codecs in order to extract MP3 audio files.

Thanks Mohammad Bahathir Hashim for the tip!

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Scientist: How to attribute free software contributions in journal article, proceeding and monograph

Scientists, academicians and researchers are a group of users that benefits greatly from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS / FLOSS). Most them would use free software not only to help in preparing graph and documentation, but also as the main tool in their investigation.

Although it is not explicitly required by the software license or by software authors, the role of free software should be appropriately attributed by academicians and scientists who used them in their investigations as it would not only acknowledge the contribution of free software authors (some of them are hardworking academicians or scientists themselves), but this will also done to fulfill the academic accountability on the researchers part.

Examples on how to attribute Free Software use in Academic Paper
1. Researchers/Academician may cite the software URL and the software author in the “Literature Review/Background”, “Methods”or “Acknowledgement section” in the articles.

2. The citation should include the software release number and the URL to download the software in order to help other researchers to replicate the work (publishing paper is all about guiding others to replicate the investigation)

3. If free software being used as the main tool in the investigation, it would be helpful if the academician/researcher could explain why this particular Free Software is chosen for the research, etc in their journal article or academic papers.

For more examples: Visit the Debian Free Software Guideline, there’s a section about attributing free software in scientific and academic papers.

Give credit to Free Software! Please share this post
If you are an academician or researcher, then please share this post because it will increase awareness about the need to properly attribute free software tools, software author and their role in scientific community.

Thanks!