Andy Helms shows his minimalist approach to remaking the movie posters for Star Wars Episode IV through VI. I appreciate that he didn’t bother with episodes I through III!
Sep 022010
Free Apps
Free is an amazing word! I decided to compile a list of 100+ of the very best free apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not all of the free apps listed work on all platforms…so make sure to look into it on your own. This list is broken down into 11 pages. Each page accounts for a software category. Feel free to leave additional free apps that you like in the comments!
Categories:
Jun 102010
by Tom Duffy
If you read this blog, you are no doubt familiar with my love for Linux. Most of the posts that I make regarding Linux are targeted at people who already have a knowledge of Linux and don’t need a lot of help with the basics. I thought it would be a good idea to list 10 easy tips to help you learn Linux.
1. Live CD’s/USB Drives
Many Linux distributions can be run right off of a CD or a USB thumb drive! The reason that this is my first tip is because a Live CD or USB stick allows the user to try Linux without installing it. Get a feel for it without having to partition a hard drive! I have two absolute favorite Live distros. The first one is Slax which is a modular distribution. You can actually “build” your LiveCD or USB stick with all of the applications that you want before even downloading it! Visit www.slax.org to build yours!
The second Live Distro that I absolutely love is Gentoo. Gentoo is an awesome distribution, but it takes an insane amount of patience and knowledge to install it on your system. That’s why it is great to see a LiveDVD version with KDE4 that you can run without installing. Visit www.gentoo.org to download the ISO.
2. Be Patient
I can’t stress this enough to new users of Linux! As you start diving into Linux, you will notice many things that are similar to other operating systems that you have used. However, you will also notice many things that are different. Don’t get frustrated! My general rule is this…If I don’t know how to do something, I will give myself the task of trying to figure it out on my own for a short period of time. If after 20 minutes or so I have made no progress at all, I will look into finding some documentation on the web. Google is a great place to find all kinds of Linux Documents and we will talk more about that later! Just don’t get frustrated when you try to solve a problem and you can’t figure it out. Know when to call it a night and try again the next day!
3. Google
In all of my experience with Linux, I’ve learned a few “truths”. One of those truths is that no matter how bizarre and complicated the problem I’m having with my OS, odds are, someone else has gone through the same thing! Be specific with your searches to find solutions for your problem. If you are getting an error message, you should search for that error message. If the message isn’t very specific, try putting the error message in quotes in your search and then after the quoted error type the distribution you are using and the application that is giving you the error. For example, let’s say that when running OpenOffice Write on Ubuntu 10.04 an error message pops up that says “Open Source Error! This error can be freely distributed!” In order to search for a solution, I would type this into google:
"Open Source Error! This error can be freely distributed!" Ubuntu 10.04 OpenOffice
4. Learn the Command Line!
This is where the rubber meets the road! In order to truly experience the power of Linux, you have to learn the command line. In order to learn the command line, you need to start simple. Open up a terminal and try typing “help”. Try some basic commands such as “ls” or “pwd”. You can also use the Man Pages for different applications. A “Man Page” is just an instruction manual for an application. For example, to read about how to use the curl command, open a terminal and type “man curl”. Sounds silly, right? Don’t bother typing “man woman” though…I’ve tried. There’s not an instruction manual on Earth that can explain that level of complexity!
5. Dedicate a computer to Linux
After you have become comfortable enough with Linux through LiveCD’s and some basic instruction, try installing Linux on an old computer that might be sitting around collecting dust. You’d be surprised at how much life Linux can breathe into an old computer! Try installing several distributions until you find one that you like. Going through the install process is a great learning experience in and of itself! I’d stay clear of distributions like Gentoo and Slackware at first. The best ones to start with are Ubuntu, Fedora Core, and OpenSuse.
6. Use Linux Every Day
Learning a new Operating System isn’t an overnight thing. The important thing is consistency. Try to use Linux as often as possible. At the very least, try to use Linux at least once a day.
7. Make A Problem List
As you use Linux more and more, keep a list going of little quirks and issues that keep popping up. Your list should include everything from simple annoyances to full blown errors and crashes. Don’t make this list in your head. Create a new text document dedicated to this list. Keeping the issues written down will help you to solve them later!
8. Make A Common Tasks List
If you notice that you are doing some tasks every time that you get on your Linux machine, write them down! Create another text document and dedicate it to your common tasks. If every time you fire up Linux, you open a Torrent program to seed ISO’s of Linux Distributions, write that down. If you find yourself frequently downloading a file from the same place, write that down. The purpose of keeping a list like this is to later figure out which common tasks you can simplify or even automate. Wouldn’t it be nice if every time you turned on your computer half of the things you normally do were done automatically?
9. Automate Common Tasks
Using the list from Tip Number 8, try to figure out which tasks can be automated. Do you always open the same applications when you turn your computer on? Why not have them automatically start for you at boot up? Learn everything you can about automating tasks on a timer with the crontab command. Many of the automation features of cron can be used from the GUI! If you keep at it, a lot of your tasks will be simplified or even done for you!
10. Solve The Problems in your Problem List
In Tip Number 7, I suggested making a list of annoyances, errors, and other problems that you have with Linux. Now is the time to start problem solving! Go through your list and try to pick out problems that seem like they won’t be too complicated to solve. Try to solve them on your own at first, but don’t allow yourself to get frustrated! If you are running into a wall, use Google to help you find the right solution. Solving problems is fun, but the most important thing is to never delete problems from your list after they’ve been solved! Instead, type [SOLVED] next to them. Write the solution that you used in there as well! You never know when you might come across someone having the same problem! Sharing your experience and knowledge with other users is what Linux is all about. Someone was kind enough to post the solution that you used…return the favor!
I know this list isn’t anything ground-breaking or cutting-edge, but I think it could be useful. A lot of people who want to learn Linux don’t even know where to start. I think this little list of tips is the perfect place to start!
Apr 122010
Linux is powerful. VERY powerful. The limits are unknown! What is the most effective use of this power you ask? Well, synthesizing a guitar tuner with the command line of course! Here’s how it’s done:
Step 1. Install SoX using a package manager or downloading the source here.
Step 2. Start simple. Let’s start with the following command which will give you an A:
play -n synth sine 220
To stop the tone, use your break key. Usually Ctrl – C.
Step 3. Step it up a notch. Now, let’s try a nice one liner that will give you each of the notes from the low E to the high E and then stop:
for n in E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4; do play -n synth 4 pluck $n repeat 2; done
Well, there you have it! Let me know in the comments section if you come up with any other cool uses for SoX!
Mar 282010
HTML colors are defined using hexadecimal values for the combination of Red, Green, and Blue. Here’s a helpful chart:
Mar 162010
by Tom Duffy
Has this ever happened to you? You go into your favorite cafe (with free wifi of course) and order your coffee. Then, after paying for the coffee and maybe a muffin, you sit down and open up your laptop. To your total disappointment, the wifi connection doesn’t seem to have ANY internet connectivity! BLAST! What a waste of 5 bucks, right? Well, not necessarily…
At this point, you should ask yourself a few questions.
- Am I connected to the Access Point?
- Have I been assigned a private IP address?
- Can I reach the Access Point via web browser?
So, let’s assume the answer to question number 1 is YES…I am connected to the access point with a good signal! Now I need to know if I have an IP address.
In Windows, open a command prompt and type:
ipconfig /a
…In Linux or Mac, open a Terminal and type:
ifconfig
There are other ways to find your IP, but these work just fine. The private IP address will likely look something like 192.168.1.xxx.
Next, take that IP and change the last part (xxx) to 1. For example, if it was 192.168.1.193, change it to 192.168.1.1. This is the gateway address. Now, let’s try entering that gateway address into a web browser. If you are prompted for a username/password that’s good news! That means that the Access Point has port 80 open and is running a web server to allow web based configuration. Look for a model number or company name in the window asking for a password. If it’s something like WRT54G, that is a Linksys and the default username and password are both: admin.
If you can’t get in with a default username/password, you should probably just move on…unless you want to try something more advanced of course. :)
Once you ARE logged in though, you can do some things to get the free wifi working again. Release and renew the public IP…reboot the Access Point. That combination will fix a lot of connectivity issues!
Have Fun!
This looks awesome! Most “hacking” documentaries tend to bore me a bit. This one looks both informative and exciting! Here’s the teaser:
More info can be found at code2600.com
There are a lot of things to love about Linux. Security…Stability…Cost…Customization…the list could go on forever! There aren’t a lot of people that talk about the look of a Linux desktop though. When you first install your favorite distro, it usually looks a little on the bland side. KDE 4 looks really nice out of the box, but it is still a little boring for my taste. The ability to make your desktop look exactly the way you want it is truly an awesome feature of the Linux platform. My taste tends to lean towards elegant simplicity combined with powerful usability. I wanted to share these screenshots of what a Linux system can look like after a little tweaking and customizing. This system is running Ubuntu. The dock is cairo-dock. Compiz handles the 3D cube desktop.
The last screenshot shows me running a script that I wrote…It’s a bash hacking simulator game. So, don’t worry, I’m not actually trying to break into the NSA’s web server! Please feel free to comment on the screenshots!
Nov 202009
Hi Everone! I have been visiting a coffee shop a lot lately that offers free WiFi. I have been using the connection to work on various things. I wanted to make sure that my browsing had some encryption to avoid sending out plain text data, so I figured out how to route my browser traffic through an SSH connection! The method basically uses an SSH connection as a proxy for the browser.
You will need:
- An SSH server that you can log into.
- An SSH Client on the computer you are using.
- A web browser.
The first thing we will need to do is connect to the SSH server. We will be using a special command flag when logging in in order to set a port and to avoid opening up an interactive shell. The command you will run is:
ssh -ND 9999 you@example.com
Replace “you” with your login name for the server and “example.com” with the address of the server. You will notice that after you enter your password, nothing will happen. It will just sit there. That is exactly what we want. Now, minimize the SSH client or Terminal window. Next, open your browser. I will show you the settings for Firefox, but the setup is more or less the same for other browsers.
In Firefox
Open your Firefox settings. In Windows, it’s in the “Tools” menu. In Linux, it’s in the “Edit” menu. In Apple, it’s in the “Firefox” menu. Once you have the settings window open, click on the “Advanced” section and then the “Network” tab. Next, click the “Settings” button next to where it says, “Configure how Firefox connects to the internet”. Select the option that says “Manual Proxy Configuration”. The only thing we change here is the SOCKS Host and the Port. For the SOCKS Host, enter “localhost” and 9999 for the port number. It should look like this:
This is a very old method for setting up a SOCKS Proxy, but it works quite well. Please feel free to comment!
by Tom Duffy
Have you ever wanted to blur part of a video to hide someone’s identity? You know, that really cool effect from TV shows like COPS? Well, this tutorial will show you how to do that using Adobe Premiere Pro!
The technique that I will be using in this tutorial uses two video tracks and keyframes. If you are unfamiliar with using multiple video tracks or keyframes, you should probably read up about those things first.
Okay, let’s get going here. So first, you will want to drag your video clip to the timeline and create an exact copy of the clip on a seperate video track.
Now, go to your effects palette and add a blur to the top video track. Blur as much as you desire for your particular project.
Next, add a crop filter by going to Video Effects > Transform > Crop. Adjust the settings until just the face is blurred.
You can now use keyframes to move the blur wherever the face moves!
Pretty cool huh?
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