Showing headlines posted by tuxchick

Having some scripting skills opens up a whole new world of creativity and time-saving hacks. In Linux, UNIX, Free/Open/Net/BSD, and other UNIX-type operating systems the command shell and scripting tools are fundamental parts of the operating system. Learning how to write your own simple scripts isn't that hard, especially when you have a great teacher. Here is a handy reference of some of the excellent howtos by Akkana Peck and Juliet Kemp on LinuxPlanet.

In parts one and two we learned the basics of writing our own custom Gimp plugins, and learned that it's simple and very useful. Today we'll put it all together in a more complex plugin for creating fancy 3D text effects, to make text look more rounded and three-dimensional.

I had to read this story Lenovo analyst: Linux on netbooks is doomed" several times because I couldn't quite believe what I was reading. Was this really Lenovo's Worldwide Competitive Analyst saying things like "You have to know how to decompile codes and upload data"?

This has nothing to do with Linux, or with computers, or with anything electronic. It's a gorgeous spring day. Go outside and play. If you can't go outside and play, here is the next best thing--- piccies of cute critters outside! Baby foals! Puppies! (Though the photos were edited in Digikam)

My monitor gave up the ghost in the middle of the workday, naturally when I had deadlines and a half-dozens things to do right now. It turned out to be a fried video card, and I took the long way to figure it out, but I was able to keep working until I had time to troubleshoot and fix it, thanks to Linux's easy remote networking.

Today my computer broke. Which is not a showstopping catastrophe because I have computers all over the place. Kind of like the Mad Tea Party-- no need to wash the crockery, just move to a new place setting. But eventually you run out of clean place settings, and eventually I'll run out of computers, so I suppose I better fix it.

The anti-Linux propaganda du jour, being dutifully parroted by "news" publications everywhere, is that Windows now owns 96% of the netbook market, and that Linux netbooks are returned four times more than windows netbooks. Both are untrue and have been debunked repeatedly. Yet they persist-- why?

A consequence of Linux's amazing growth is a growing new user population that is not accustomed to having any power. Folks, you have the power-- you don't have to sit around all sad because Linux is missing an application or feature that you need. What you do is roll up your sleeves and help make it happen, because that is how Linux works, and that is what makes Linux--and all Free and Open Source software-- so good.

Opinions on whether Mono is dangerous, and on whether it should be avoided or accepted fly thick and fast. If you're bored with the whole deal feel free to go read something else, but I suspect that the controversy is going to grow as more Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, ship with Mono applications by default. Here are some comments collected from here and there that I thought represented the major points in the endless Mono debates, and that are understandable to non-coders. I'm not a developer so I could be totally off the rails here, but these made a lot of sense to me and seem to clarify the issues.

The short story: a little pricier than other brands, but a good sturdy satisfying machine with a choice of operating systems. Eric Grevstad gives an informative, detailed review.

"Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries"-- sounds promising, right? In the New York Times, no less, so it should be good. Well, no, I was rather disappointed at yet another security analysis that left out vital information-- which operating systems and applications were vulnerable. If it were Linux or Mac do you think they would be so tight-lipped? Why is the Dalai Lama running Windows?

In Part 1 we learned about the not very well-known Adobe Flash cookies, how to find them on your Linux system, and how to use Adobe's Web-based Flash cookie manager. Today Carla Schroder is going to show us how to deal with Flash cookies using ordinary Linux commands, which unlike the Adobe manager are nice and fast and don't require an Internet connection. (This one's for you, Colonel!)

I know this won't get the pageviews that a good rant will, so I guess you could say the rants subsidize the positive articles. At any rate this is not about me, but about two genuine community-driven Linux projects that aim to help children learn about tech, and to engage them in high tech in a good way, rather than trying to turn them into good little compliant button-pushers: the Helios Project and the Qimo 4 Kids project.

Flash cookies are the secret nasties of using the Flash player on any platform, and most computer users don't even know they exist. Like HTTP cookies, it is rather naive to assume that they are always used for our benefit. In this two-part series, Carla Schroder shows the Adobe way and then the Linux way of managing Flash cookies.

"Tux Fleets of USB Keys to Boldly Go Where No Windows Has Gone Before", by Hung Chao-Kuei, is an excellent read all full of good insights, like "Microsoft is afraid of Linux-bootable usb keys" and "We shouldn't really care about what MS thinks. We should just mind our own business and boldly go where no windows has gone before." Wise advice! It is an excellent article and an enjoyable read.

One of the strangest mind-benders these days is hearing Linux users going all Barbie and vowing "I will never touch the command line! You'll pry my GUI from my cold dead hands!" Where are these strange people coming from? Why are they using Linux if they don't want to learn anything new?

Inside of CUPS are several different groups of drivers: Foomatic, Gutenprint, and vendor-supplied drivers. This is why so many printers have several different driver options when you install a new printer. Unlike Windows, in Linux it is trivially easy to test the different drivers to see which one you like best-- in the CUPS Web interface, just select "Modify printer" to run through the installer again. You won't have to reboot or watch it gag and crash; it just works. Many printing problems are cured by using a different driver.

This happy meeting of GNU and Linux is why Richard Stallman insists that the proper name is GNU/Linux, rather than plain old Linux. Another popular debating point is "Linux is a kernel, not an operating system!" What would FOSS be without arguments?

Computers are not intuitive. Computers are abstract, and trying to tie abstract concepts like directories, files, and interfaces to paper folders and files, and physical desktops creates more confusion. I prefer a direct approach: show me. Which "Ubuntu For Non-Geeks, 3rd Edition: A Pain-Free, Project-Based, Get-Things-Done Guidebook" does in a most excellent fashion.

FOSS is all about giving power and control to individuals. It embraces all of the important freedoms-- the freedom to create, share, invent, collaborate, learn, and change, all without penalties or artificial barriers.