Reset Windows passwords with chntpw using a Linux Live USB

Have you ever forgotten your Windows login password and been locked out of your own computer?
There is a way to reset your Windows password using a Linux Live USB drive and a tool called chntpw. Here, we will show how.

Step 1: Create a Linux Live USB drive

First, you'll need to create a Linux Live USB drive. You can use any Linux distribution that includes the chntpw package. We will be using Ubuntu:

• Download the Ubuntu ISO file from the official website.
• Burn the ISO file to a USB drive using a tool like Rufus or Etcher.
• Boot your computer from the USB drive.

Step 2: Install chntpw

Once you have booted into the Linux Live USB, you'll need to install the chntpw package. To install chntpw, open a terminal and run the following command:

sudo apt install chntpw

Step 3: Mount the Windows partition

Next, you'll need to mount the Windows partition that contains the password database. In the terminal, navigate to the directory where the Windows partition is mounted. This will typically be the Windows/System32/config/ directory.

cd ~/winmount/Windows/System32/config/

Step 4: List the Windows users

Now, list the Windows users stored in the password database by running the following command:

sudo chntpw -l SAM

This will display a list of Windows users along with their corresponding User IDs (UIDs).

Step 5: Reset the Windows password

Finally, you can reset the password for a specific Windows user by running the interactive command:

sudo chntpw -i SAM

This will launch a menu where you can select the user whose password you want to reset and also unlock accounts. Follow the prompts to reset the password. Then reboot into Windows.

Sources: https://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/tutoriel/chntpw; https://ostechnix.com/reset-windows-password-with-linux-live-cd/

pandoc: quite good conversion from Latex to docx with references and preserving tikz figures

This works surprisingly well, with all the figures and even rendering the BibTex references: 

> pandoc -C -s main.tex --natbib -o main.docx 

this will produce a document with citations using the  (Author, year) format, to produce citations with a numeric format download the ieee.csl file and call:  

> pandoc -C -s main.tex --natbib --csl=ieee.csl  -o main.docx  

To preserve tikz figures a specialized tikz-to-png filter is needed.  It should be downloaded in the current directory and use the call: 

> pandoc -C -s main.tex --natbib --csl=ieee.csl  --from latex+raw_tex --lua-filter=tikz-to-png.lua -o main.docx  

Figure numbers and captions are not preserved (for obscure reasons), however  table numbering can be  preserved using the document type  -t odt+native_numbering  or  -t docx+native_numbering. 

> pandoc -C -s main.tex --natbib --csl=ieee.csl  --from latex+raw_tex --lua-filter=tikz-to-png.lua -t docx+native_numbering -o main.docx  

Cross-references to sections and figures tables can be recovered with the resolve-references filter but the final format won't be great

> pandoc -C -s main.tex --natbib --csl=ieee.csl  --from latex+raw_tex --lua-filter=tikz-to-png.lua --lua-filter=resolve-references.lua -t docx+native_numbering -o main.docx  

Sources: 
https://waterprogramming.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/converting-latex-to-ms-word-docx-almost-perfectly/
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/268196/how-to-convert-latex-to-word-using-pandoc-and-keep-citations-as-numeral

https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/431719/how-to-use-pandoc-to-derive-output-from-latex-and-tikz-to-a-docx-file

https://pandoc.org/lua-filters.html#building-images-with-tikz

https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/5474

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70087575/how-it-is-possible-to-convert-latex-document-to-word-docx-file-with-all-cross

Hide Matlab Start Bar / Busy Bar / Status Bar

Reclaim precious screen space by disappearing the "Start bar" (in older versions of Matlab) whose main purpose is saying Busy.

com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop.getInstance.getMainFrame.getStatusBar.getParent.setVisible(0);

Source: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/view_thread/152888

Two-finger scrolling in Windows laptops (also Linux)

Two-finger scrolling and two-finger tapping (right click) are the two multi-finger gestures that I use the most in Mac. I'm so habituated to them that when I use a Windows laptop becomes a frustrating experience: always reaching for the right button or the scroll area of the pad.

Turns out that Synaptics TouchPads allow multi-finger gestures, and it is just a matter of drivers to enable them (just to be clear, almost all TouchPads out there are Synaptics).
Even better, without manipulating the driver. Two-Finger-Scroll is a small application that allows to enable two and three finger gestures on the Synaptics TouchPads, and it works just fine.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/35065/how-to-enable-macbook-style-two-finger-scrolling-on-windows-laptops/

Update: multi-finger gestures also available for Linux!!  In Ubuntu/Debian just install the gpointing-device-settings package, or anything that says Synaptics.