Tech Remedy

Free is an amazing word! I decided to compile a list of 100+ of the very best free applications for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not all of the 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 programs that you like in the comments!

Categories:

• Web Browsers
• Anti-Virus/Security
• Graphics/Photos
• Media Players/Converters/Streamers
• Bit Torrent Clients
• Programming/Development
• FTP/SCP/SSH
• System Tools
• Chat/Messengers/Social
• Archive Management
• Productivity

Bash scripting is one of the best ways to fully unlock the power of a unix/linux computer. Bash scripting gives you the opportunity to combine many commands into one script and even allows for some programming. Below is a collection of the very best Bash Scripting Tutorials on the net. Enjoy!

1. LinuxConfig.org Bash Script Tutorial

2. Mendel Cooper’s Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide

3. Mike G’s Bash Programming Introduction

4. Steve Parker’s Unix/Linux Shell Scripting Tutorial

5. Vivek Gite LSST

6. IBM’s Bash By Example

7. The Geek Stuff – 5 Practical Examples

8. Going Linux – Shell Scripting Tutorials

9. USALUG – Bash Script Beginner Tutorial

10. jbsnake’s Intermediate Bash Script Tutorial

11. Linux.com – Writing a Simple Bash Script

12. HypeXR’s Getting Started With Bash

13. SiteGround – Advanced Bash Loops

14. Conditions in Bash Scripting

15. Lutus’ Bash Shell Programming in Linux

16. Advanced Bash Environment Variables

17. GNU Universal Bash Reference Guide

+1: Bash Pitfalls…How NOT to write Bash Scripts

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!

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:

1

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

I would like to start by saying that I have made a lot of posts in the past that rip on Windows and M$ products. That being said, my perspective has started to change in regards to this. I personally prefer Linux and BSD over Windows or OSX (yes, I know that OSX is based on BSD), but that doesn’t make Linux and BSD BETTER. If you are a reader of my blog then you no doubt understand that I LOVE Linux and that I LOVE freedom. But what exactly is freedom? To me, freedom is the ability to make choices. If nothing were left but Linux, would we truly be free?

I feel very strongly that M$ products serve a very important role in today’s society. Businesses all over the world would stop working if they suddenly didn’t have Windows. Graphic designers who depend on Photoshop and Illustrator wouldn’t be able to do their jobs without OSX or Windows. I know that these apps can run under Wine, but let’s face it, they don’t run very well!

The role that Linux is currently playing is the right role. A combination of geeks, programmers, scientists, thrifty students, and adventurous folks all get to enjoy Linux. Do I think that Linux will one day rise above M$ in market share? Probably not. But the point is that we have a variety of choices! This is what freedom is all about. My drive in the past years has been to tell everyone I know that Linux is better. Not anymore. I feel I’m doing the Linux community a disservice by doing that. My new drive is to tell everyone I know that there are options. Choices to make. “Sure, you are using Windows now, but have you checked out Fedora?” Or the flip side of that, “Well, if you are having so much trouble playing games under Ubuntu, have you tried other distros? If you’ve tried other distros and you are still unhappy, maybe you should try Windows!”

This new mentality seems fresher to me. Gone are the days of Linux fanboy. Let’s be critical thinkers here! If everyone I know started using Linux, a LOT of them would have trouble and would be very confused. The fanboy mentality often makes the Linux community seem immature, egotistical, elitist, and annoying. As Linux users we should merely SUGGEST the option of Linux rather than “Preach the Gospel of Linux”. So let’s go out there and raise awareness of the choices that we have in this technological society! Open mindedness is essential to any campaign to raise awareness. And here’s an idea…Let’s learn everything we can about Windows so that when we come across someone who’s struggling with Linux, we can offer the choice of Windows!

“There is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt to investigation.”

-Herbert Spencer