Linux keyboard shortcuts you should know about

Summary of most useful keyboard shortcuts. Take a printout for handy quick reference.

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HOWTO: Five steps to a more secure SSH

If you are running Linux, chances are you are running SSH. Here are five easy things you can do to lock down your server and make SSH more secure. Includes disabling root logins, using keys to login, automatically blocking hosts who are attempting dictionary attacks, and more.

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Data visualization tools for Linux

Applications for graphical visualization of data on Linux
® are varied, from simple 2-D plots to 3-D surfaces, scientific graphics programming, and graphical simulation.There are many open source possibilities, including gnuplot, GNU Octave, Scilab, MayaVi, Maxima, and others.

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Ubuntu Linux 6.10 - Edgy Eft Released

Ubuntu Linux 6.10 - Edgy Eft Released:

The desktop version introduces a host of new features, an improved interface and a wide variety of new applications and desktop tools making Ubuntu 6.10 flexible and user-friendly. Enhancements include:

• Tomboy, an easy-to-use and efficient note-taking tool

• F-Spot, a photo management tool that enables tagging, photo editing and automatic uploading to on-line web management sites such as Flickr

• GNOME 2.16, which in addition to new features such as enhanced power management, makes the GNOME desktop more secure, faster and more stable

• Upstart, a replacement start-up manager offering a cleaner design, eye-catching effects and a substantially faster boot time

• The latest Firefox web browser, which offers inline spell check support in web forms, easy recovery of crashed sessions, built-in phishing detectors, enhanced search engine management with built in OpenSearch support, and better support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds

• Proactive security features, preventing many common security vulnerabilities even before they are discovered

• Evolution 2.8.0, which brings new features such as vertical message panes

Download here...

Throw away your TV

I recently came across this site called "Throw away your TV". It has tons of funny videos as well as educational ones.

One feature I liked was, when I am watching something, if I go to a different browser tab, it actually detects it and stops playing the video, only to continue after I go back to it.

Have Your Lost USB Drive Ask For Help

It's like a digital luggage tag for your USB drive that pops up a message [via autorun] to notify the user that it's a lost drive.

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AutoIt Automation Tool

In the previous article about lost USB devices, author talks about AutoIt. I checked it out and it seems like a nice automation tool for Windows that can . There is also an informative Wikipedia article about it.

Below is from their home page:

AutoIt v3 is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting. It uses a combination of simulated keystrokes, mouse movement and window/control manipulation in order to automate tasks in a way not possible or reliable with other languages (e.g. VBScript and SendKeys).

AutoIt is also very small, self-contained and will run on 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003 out of the box with no annoying "runtimes" required! You can even make compiled executable scripts that can run without AutoIt being installed!

Imperial History of Middle East

Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history? Pretty much everyone. Egyptians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Greeks, Persians, Europeans...the list goes on. Who will control the Middle East today? That is a much bigger question.

See 5000 years of history in 90 seconds flash animation at http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html.

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 7 Final

The official download on Microsoft's own page and not on some blogs or Yahoo. Some improvements over IE6 includes: New Interface, RSS Feeds, Phishing Filter, Protected Mode, Tabbed Browsing, and PNG support among many others.
Get IE7 here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx

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Colbert Roasts President Bush - 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner

An excerpt from the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner. Comedian Stephen Colbert (one of my favorites) made humorous remarks about various current events and the relationship between the press and the White House. He also presented a video of a mock press conference which ended in a chase scene featuring long-time correspondent Helen Thomas.

Top Five Wired Nations

IBM has a short list of countries hat are leaders in the wired revolution. The U.S. makes the list, barely.

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Its confirmed. Google buys youtube for $1.6 billion

Google Inc. said Monday it's buying No. 1 Internet video sharing Web site YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion in stock. The deal is regarded as a largely defensive one that leapfrogs Google into a leading role in a burgeoning Internet marketplace

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Kick Ass Classical - Classical Music's Top 100 Greatest Hits

Kick Ass Classical - Classical Music's Top 100 Greatest Hits You can listen to them for a few seconds on the side. And believe me, a few secons is all you need to remember the tunes anyway

Windows Vista RC2 available

Microsoft Windows Vista RC2 is now available for download

Dive Into Python: Free eBook

Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers. You can buy a printed copy, read it online, or download it in a variety of formats. It is also available in multiple languages. Recommended eBook for anyone who wants to seriously learn Python. The main site also provides some good Python related websites.

From comments, there is a link to 17 Free Python Books:
http://freecomputerbooks.com/langPythonBooksIndex.html
Include this one (Dive Into Python)

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Accessing Ubuntu from Windows with FreeNX

[ORIGINAL POST - 06/02/2006]
My coworker, Andy Mei mentioned FreeNX to me. I checked out the Ubuntu Forums on FreeNX and FreeNX Wiki page. It's a two-part (client/server) software...

To install FreeNX on my ubuntu dapper,

First I added the following line to my /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://free.linux.hp.com/~brett/seveas/freenx dapper-seveas freenx
you can try other repositories.

If you do not want to get gpg errors, import them:

• sudo gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 1135D466
• sudo gpg --export --armor 1135D466 | sudo apt-key add -

Then I,

• fired up Snaptic Package Manager,
• clicked reload to get updared package list from the newly added repository
• then searched for freenx
• marked it and clicked apply

To make installation simple, I did not enable ssh. Then, I went to NoMachine's website & downloaded NX Windows Client.

Result is a very fast & easy connection from Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux (see screenshot above).

Ahh, don't try to be smart and install it from cmd line `sudo apt-get install freenx`. I know people who did and suffered ;-)

[UPDATE - 09/29/2006]
OK, I take that back! I now have a beta version of Ubuntu Edgy Eft (Knot 3) running on my linux box and I installed it from command line:

sudo apt-get install freenx

I chose No machine keys during the set up and it works just fine!

[UPDATE - 10/02/2006]
I downloaded the new NxClient (2.1.0-6) from NoMachine.com. It failed to connect to my Ubuntu

NX> 704 Session cache: unix-gnome
NX> 707 SSL tunneling: 0
/usr/lib/nx/nxserver: line 891: 27507 Terminated              
( sleep $AGENT_STARTUP_TIMEOUT; exit 1 )
NX> 105 NX> 504 Session startup failed.
NX> 1004 Error: nxagent failed to start with: Unrecognized option: 1
NX> 1001 Bye.

Apparently, it needs a compatible client/server installation...

Useful Free Windows Programs Under 2MB

Over 20 free windows applications under 2mb, courteously of revision3 forum member, lordfoul. Definately a list to look into. Applications range from miscellaneous software, command utilities, system performance tools, and more.

I also liked the followings not yet in the list but mentioned in the comments:
- Taskbar Shuffle (left-click and drag the programs/buttons on your Windows taskbar to rearrange them)

- Power Menu (adds "Always On Top", "Minimize To Tray", "Priority" and "Transparency" sub menus to all top level system menus)

Also check out www.tinyapps.org!

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