Updated for Watchtower Library 2008

Install latest wine.

sudo apt-get install wine

As of this writing, I’m using Wine version 1.0.1

1. Pop in the CDROM and double click on Setup.exe icon when the Nautilus window pops up.

2. Run the install as normal. When finished, there should be two icons on your desktop. You can delete the ugly Watchtower Library XXXX.lnk icon. Keep the colorful one.

Your done!

Updated for Watchtower Library 2007

Install latest wine.

sudo apt-get install wine

As of this writing, I’m using Wine version 0.9.46

1. start from scratch (remove ~/.wine directory)

2. run winecfg. Chose “Windwows XP” as windows version. Close app.

3. Pop in the CDROM and double click on Setup.exe icon when the Nautilus window pops up.

4. Run the install as normal. When finished, there should be two icons on your desktop. You can delete the ugly Watchtower Library XXXX.lnk icon. Keep the colorful one.

At this point you could just launch Watchtower Library and it will work. However, if you want the tooltips to work (the floating yellow boxes) you will need to tell wine to use a version of comctl32.dll from an existing Windows installation. Keep going if you want the tooltip functionality, otherwise your done!

5. Copy comctl32.dll from a Windows XP (license is needed for this)
(Note: The comctl32.dll from Windows 2000 works even better.)

cp comctl32.dll ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/

Newer versions of wine include a file called ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winsxs/manifests/x86_microsoft.windows.
common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.0.0_none_deadbeef.manifest. This file prevents the comctl32.dll that you just copied from loading. I just rename the file to something else like this:

mv ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winsxs/manifests/x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.0.0_none_deadbeef.manifest ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winsxs/manifests/x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.0.0_none_deadbeef.manifest.bad

6. Run winecfg again.

7. On the “Applications” tab Click “Add Application” and browse to “Program Files\Watchtower\Watchtower Library XXXX\E” and double click on WTLibrary.exe.

8. With WTLibrary.exe highlighted on the “Applications” tab, click on the “Libraries” tab. In the “New Override for Library” box select “comctl32″. In the “Existing Overrides” box select “comctl32″ and click on the edit button. Select “Native then builtin”. Press “OK” until the winecfg box goes away.

9. The “M” and “*” marginal reference special characters do not display in the tooltips. To get this functionality you need to copy these files to the ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/fonts directory. These are fonts released under the GPL (see font information in the ttfs; the fontforge originals are found in the sources subdirectory).

10. Launch Watchtower Library. Everything should be working except that some of the icons will now have a black background. This is an issue with the comctl32.dll. Experiment with other comctl32.dll files from other versions of Windows. If you find one that works better let me know.

Ubuntu 8.10, named Intrepid Ibex, is scheduled for release next week, so we figured it’s time to run down the checklist of improvements, fixes, and enhancements since Hardy Heron came out earlier this year.

Everything you Need to Know about Ubuntu 8.10 - Intrepid Ibex | Maximum PC.

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop and Server. Codenamed “Intrepid Ibex”, 8.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

The final version of Ubuntu 8.10 is expected to be released in October 2008.

Read more »

I recently setup an Ubuntu desktop at a community center. They had a donated Canon MF4150 multifunction laser printer, scanner, and FAX that they wanted to use as the printer. (I just needed to get the printer portion working; not the scanner or FAX.)

Ubuntu 8.04 did not have a driver for the MF4150. Canon makes a driver for Debian/Ubuntu but does not offer it via their USA web site. However, if you go to their Australian web site you can download the driver. Their are two .deb files in the tar file that you download. Install both of them. You should now have the MF4100 Series driver listed when you go to install printers.

This got the printer working but the scanner still did not work.

Ok after digging around for a while, I’ve managed to get my scanner to work when connected to USB.
Read more »

Here’s a nice little program to setup rsync jobs using a GUI. It is also available from the Ubuntu software repository.

Grsync is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for rsync, the commandline directory synchronization tool. It makes use of the GTK libraries and is released under the GPL license, so it is opensource. It doesn’t support all of rsync features, but can be effectively used to synchronize local directories and supports remote targets in a limited way (read: manual). For example some people use grsync to synchronize their music collection with removable devices or to backup personal files to a networked drive.

OPByte Software: Grsync rsync GUI interface frontend.

Here are the packages from Ubuntu’s repositories that I like to install on my Ubuntu box:

sudo apt-get install amarok audacity beagle beagle-backend-evolution build-essential compizconfig-settings-manager cream exiv2 fdupes festival festvox-kallpc16k gnome-commander gnome-ppp gnucash gparted grsync hplip-gui imagemagick jpilot jpilot-plugins k3b lame libimage-exiftool-perl libk3b2-extracodecs libmp3lame0 libsox-fmt-all libvcdinfo0 libxine1-ffmpeg lm-sensors mail-notification mailutils msttcorefonts nautilus-actions nautilus-gksu nautilus-open-terminal ntfsprogs openssh-server pdfedit sensors-applet secpanel smbfs sox sshmenu-gnome ssmtp thunderbird thunderbird-beagle thunderbird-gnome-support ubuntu-restricted-extras vlc wine wipe

acidrip emerald libvlc0 mozilla-plugin-gnash pitivi seahorse

sudo apt-get install acidrip amarok audacity beagle beagle-backend-evolution build-essential compizconfig-settings-manager cream emerald exiv2 fdupes festival festvox-kallpc16k gnome-commander gnome-ppp gnucash gparted grsync hplip-gui imagemagick jpilot jpilot-plugins k3b lame libimage-exiftool-perl libk3b2-extracodecs liblame0 libsox-fmt-all libvcdinfo0 libvlc0 lm-sensors mail-notification mailutils mozilla-plugin-gnash msttcorefonts nautilus-actions nautilus-gksu nautilus-open-terminal ntfsprogs openssh-server pdfedit pitivi seahorse sensors-applet secpanel smbfs sox sshmenu-gnome ssmtp thunderbird thunderbird-gnome-support ubuntu-restricted-extras vlc wine wipe

http://earth.google.com/
http://picasa.google.com/linux/
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
http://www.aczoom.com/tools/cdinsert/#download
   then build http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtkcdlabel/
http://kornelix.squarespace.com/fotox/

Applications/Accessories/Terminal
Applications/Internet/Pidgin
Applications/Internet/Thunderbird
Applications/Office/GnuCash
Applications/Office/Jpilot
Applications/Office/OpenOffice.org Word Processor
Applications/Sound & Video/Amarok
Custom Launcher: secpanel
Hardware Sensors Applet
System Monitor Applet
Weather Applet

Here is a great article from Linux Journal.

If you have multiple computers on your desktop there are a number of scenarios for using them:

* The brute force way: get a big desk and a swivel chair and spin back and forth between keyboards/mice
* Use VNC or rdesktop to control secondary computers from your primary computer. The main problem with this is that you lose all the screen real estate on your secondary computers and end up with their desktops showing in a window on your primary computer.
* Get a KVM to allow you to switch one keyboard/mouse between multiple computers.
The normal usage of a KVM is to switch your monitor as well as your keyboard and mouse, but that’s not required. KVM’s often seem like a great solution for many peripheral sharing problems, but they’re a bit of a hit-or-miss. They often have switching problems, system boot problems, video quality problems, and if you use multiple monitors a KVM to switch multiple monitors between systems gets pretty expensive.
* Use x2x, the solution we’ll examine here, to share the keyboard and mouse between systems.

There are two ways to run x2x on Linux, the easiest is to use ssh with X forwarding enabled and ssh from the primary system to the secondary system and run x2x on the secondary system:

primary $ ssh -X secondary x2x -east -to :0

The -X option tells ssh to enable X forwarding. The “x2x …” tells ssh to run x2x on the remote system (secondary) rather than running the shell. The “-east” option tells x2x where one system is relative to the other: to the east or west (-west).

The primary system is the system whose keyboard and mouse you are actually using. The secondary system is the one that is going to share the primary system’s keyboard and mouse.

Now, if you move the mouse on the primary system over to the edge where the secondary system is the mouse pointer should move from the primary screen to the secondary screen and from now on any mouse movement should be passed to the secondary system and anything you type on the keyboard should be sent to the secondary system. If this doesn’t work try moving the mouse to the other side of the screen, if that works then restart the command using “-west” rather than “-east”.

The other method of running x2x on a Linux system is to run it directly on the primary system and tell it to connect to the X server on the secondary system:

primary $ x2x -to secondary:0.0 -east

The reason this is not the easy method is that you also need to enable remote X access on the secondary system using xhost:

secondary $ xhost primary

and you also need to open TCP port 6000 on both systems. The easiest way of doing this is going to depend on your distro.

The main advantage of the second method is that copy/paste will now work between systems.

Getting x2x to work on a Windoze system takes a bit more work, mostly because first you have to install Cygwin. Although, if you’re a Linux fan you should already have it installed, it’s the only way to make Windoze bearable. When you’re installing Cygwin make sure x2x is selected in the list of available packages.

Using x2x with Cygwin has a couple of restrictions/problems:

* You can’t use the ssh connection method.
* You have to use the Windoze system as the primary system (i.e. you have to use the keyboard and mouse on the Windoze system).
* If you have multiple displays on your Windoze system you’ll probably experience mouse problems when you return the mouse from a secondary display. The only workaround is to move the mouse very very slowly when you’re about to move off a secondary display onto the primary display.

When using x2x on Windoze run the following command from a shell prompt:

windoze $ x2x -fromwin -to secondary:0.0 -east

Generally speaking x2x works very well both on Linux and on Windoze. Every once in a while you may get a bit of mouse flakiness when you move a window on a secondary display. Also once in a while, when using the shift key you may get the unshifted character on the secondary system if you type too fast. But in most instances you won’t notice any difference between typing/mousing on the primary system and on the secondary system.

p.s. If you have a problem where you get a “>” when you type “< " you need to find a newer version of x2x. This is long-standing bug that was recently fixed.

Optimize remote X sessions with NX. NX will also let you run remote X sessions from a Windows machine.

Next Generation Remote Display

NX is an exciting new technology for remote display. It provides near local speed application responsiveness over high latency, low bandwidth links. The core libraries for NX are provided by NoMachine under the GPL. FreeNX is a GPL implementation of the NX Server.

FreeNX - the free NX.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUWMdgN51oQ

This is a slick little perl script to move sites from a Windows web server to a Unix web server.

When websites are built on computers running Microsoft Windows, the case of file and directory names is often ignored. Other “widowsizms” are also introduced such as ending files with .htm instead of .html. This causes BIG problems if the site is served under unix.

nodoze is a “quick and dirty” Perl program to repair these websites so that they will work properly on a unix server.

nodoze - prepares websites built using Microsoft Windows for unix servers

J-Pilot is a desktop organizer application for PalmOS devices

J-Pilot version 1.6.0 released.
The major improvements are Contacts, and Memos support.
As usual, many many bug fixes and improvements, see the ChangeLog for details.

2008-07-17 update:
This version has a bug that prevents the –enable-alarm-shell-danger configuration flag from working. To workaround the problem try the following steps:

1 run ./configure with whatever options you normally include
2 edit the generated file "config.h"
> Search for ENABLE_ALARM_SHELL_DANGER
> Change the commented line to read '#define ENABLE_ALARM_SHELL_DANGER 1'
> Save and close the file
3 run make normally

Here is a great little gnome panel applet for organizing all your ssh sessions.
Ubuntu — Details of package sshmenu-gnome in hardy

sshmenu-gnome puts all your most frequently used SSH connections on a menu in your GNOME panel. Click on a host name to open a new gnome-terminal window with an ssh connection to the selected host. Set up options for port forwarding, etc. using the preferences dialog.

Here is a nice site that will give you an overview of sshmenu.

Sweeten your Vim with Cream | Linux Magazine

There has to be some way to ease users into Vim, some way to leverage the power of Vim while accommodating, or even overcoming, the steep learning curve. Fortunately, there is a solution: Cream.

I was looking for a small, lite weight software based phone for my Windows laptop that would connect back to my Asterisk PBX using the IAX protocol. iaxLite is perfect and works great. I haven’t tried sipLite (same phone but uses theSIP protocol) yet. Well worth a look if you are using Windows.
Soft Phone : iaxTalk.com !, VOIP::Asterisk::Phone::ATA::USB

iaxLite is a IAX2 softphone. sipLite is a SIP softphone

Desktop Linux for the masses. Who needs Windows anymore?
Hands on with Ubuntu 8.04 :: Linux Format :: The website of the UKs best-selling Linux magazine

Yes, the Hardy Heron is here This is the new Long Term Support LTS release of Ubuntu, and is possibly the most eagerly anticipated distro of all time. Read on for our hands-on look at the new features, with screenshots galore…

Garmin: POI Loader

Import customized points of interest created by others with the help of Garmin’s new POI Loader software. In today’s fast-paced world, points of interest are ever-changing. With the help of POI Loader, you can now add your favorite new restaurant, or that supermarket having the grand opening, as points of interest (POIs) to your compatible Garmin GPS. The possibilities are endless — upload safety cameras or school zones, and you will receive a warning if you are traveling too fast. In addition, an optional proximity-alert feature notifies you of upcoming custom POIs. Our free, new POI Loader software lets you personalize your GPS, giving you the freedom and flexibility to literally go anywhere.

Do you like to play games on your computer? Linux has a never ending supply. Check out this site.
The Linux Game Tome

There are two candidates for this; FlyBack and TimeVault. Check them out:

flyback - Google Code

Apple’s Time Machine is a great feature in their OS, and Linux has almost all of the required technology already built in to recreate it. This is a simple GUI to make it easy to use.

Website: http://flyback-project.org/

TimeVault - Ubuntu Wiki

TimeVault is a simple front-end for making snapshots of a set of directories. Snapshots are a copy of a directory structure or file at a certain point in time. Restore functionality is integrated into Nautilus - previous versions of a file or directory that has a snapshot can be accessed by examining the properties and selecting the ‘Previous Versions’ tab.

Snapshots are protected from accidental deletion or modification since they are read-only by default. The super-user can delete intermediate snapshots to save space, but files and directories that existed before or after the deletion will still be accessible.

Website: https://launchpad.net/timevault

Tweaking Hidden Ubuntu Settings With Ubuntu Tweak | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials

Ubuntu Tweak is a tool that lets you change hidden Ubuntu settings, for example: hide or change the splash screen, show or hide the Computer, Home, Trash, and Network icons, change Metacity, Nautilus, power management, and security settings, etc. Currently Ubuntu Tweak is available only for the Ubuntu GNOME desktop, i.e., it will not work on Kubuntu or Xubuntu. This short guide shows how to install and use Ubuntu Tweak.

I’ve been looking high and low for a good Linux photo program that can stitch together photos to make a panorama image. On the Windows side I had Photostitch which came with my Canon camera. It was quick and easy to use. Now we have Fotox on the Linux side which is even easier to use. I download the source code and typed ‘build’ to make it. Done. Not only does it create panoramas but you can also do many other edits to your photos. Look at the list below.

fotox - kornelix

Fotox is a free open-source Linux program for improving image files made with a digital camera.

The following functions are provided:

* Show thumbnails of image files in a directory, navigate, choose files to view or edit.
* Adjust overexposed or underexposed areas to improve visibility of detail
(change brightness independently for different brightness levels).
* Reduce fog or haze by removing “whiteness” and intensifying colors.
* High dynamic range (HDR) photography: combine an underexposed and overexposed image to improve details visible in both bright and dark areas. Automatic image alignment.
* Photo stitching or panorama: stitch two or more images together to make an ultra-wide image.
Simple image alignment and brightness / color matching.
* Crop an image (choose the area of interest and cut-off the margins).
* Rotate an image by any angle (level a tilted image, or turn in 90 degree steps).
* Resize an image, with convenience buttons for 2/3, 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 size.
* Red-eye removal.

Here is a great little program to create CD/DVD inserts for jewel cases and to create CD/DVD envelopes. You will need to compile it from source code but it works great. There is also an online version of cdlabelgen here.

gtkcdlabel

gtkcdlabel is a GUI frontend to cdlabelgen which is a program that can generate a variety of CD tray covers. The code is based on gcombust and gcdlabelgen.

Do you want software packages for your Ubuntu but they are not listed in Synaptic and you don’t want to build them from source code? Well check out this site.
GetDeb - Ubuntu Software Portal - More applications, easy to install
I’m currently trying out ManDVD to create a DVD for my parents.

I’m an avid reader of Linux Format Magazine. They recently published a set of tutorials on programming with Mono. Mono is an open source programming platform based on Microsoft’s .NET. It’s easy to install in Ubuntu too.

I recently posted about a PDF Typewriter for Linux using flpsed. That still works great if all you need is a typewriter. But if you need to do full PDF editing, then you will want to install this package. PDF Editor. It is now in the Ubuntu repositories so you can install it with this command on Ubuntu Hardy:

sudo apt-get install pdfedit

Free editor for manipulating PDF documents. GUI version commandline interface.
Scripting is used to a great extent in editor and almost anything can be scripted, it is possible to create own scripts or plugins.
Target platform are operating systems of Unix type (Linux, BSD, …), we are using C , XPDF, QT3 and QSA.

Have you ever needed to fill out a PDF form? You could print out the form, roll it into a typewriter (do they still make those things?), and fill out the form. Now you have to FAX it or scan it back into the computer. However, there is a better way! Just type on top of the PDF form using flpsed then print it out to a printer or export it as another PDF. Here’s how to install the software on your Ubuntu desktop:

sudo apt-get install flpsed

Now from a terminal type (or create a launcher):

flpsed

Click on File/Import PDF.
Open your PDF form.
Click on the form and start typing.
When you are done, click on File/Print or File/Export PDF.

Happy flpseding!

Ubuntu Linux Vs. Windows Vista: The Battle For Your Desktop

To be honest, there’s a lot about Ubuntu that impresses me. The out-of-the-box software available with the OS is well-chosen, and the Ubuntu community folks have made a good effort to support the vast majority of the things people do with their PCs. The fact that Ubuntu is free is of course another big motivator, especially if you’ve already blown your budget for a PC on hardware alone.

But there’s at least as much about Ubuntu that I find disheartening or frustrating. There are still too many places where you have to drop to a command line and type in a fairly unintuitive set of commands to get something done, or edit a config file, or — worst of all — download and compile source code. For a beginner, this last is the kiss of death, because if compiling code fails, a beginner will almost certainly have no idea what to do next.

Automatix is the quick and easy way to get all the needed software for your Ubuntu desktop.

Home of Automatix

Automatix2 is a free graphical package manager for the installation, uninstallation and configuration of the most commonly requested applications in Debian based Linux operating systems. Currently supported are Ubuntu 7.04, 6.10, 6.06, Debian Etch and Mepis 6.

Here is a link which explains how to upgrade your 6.10 (Edgy Eft) release to 7.04 (Feisty Fawn).
Upgrading your existing Ubuntu installation | Ubuntu

Upgrading to Ubuntu 7.04

A friend of mine has several NTFS partions on his Ubuntu box (two internal hard drives and one external firewire hard drive). Linux can easily mount an NTFS partition but it mounts it as read only. Until now, enabling read write on an NTFS partition was very risky. Now there is a stable driver available. We enabled this on his box and all three drives are working perfectly with full read write ability.

NTFS-3G: Stable Read/Write NTFS Driver

The NTFS-3G driver is an open source, freely available read/write NTFS driver for Linux and other operating systems. It provides safe and fast handling of the Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 and Windows Vista file systems. Most POSIX file system operations are supported, with the exception of full file ownership and access right support.

The driver is in STABLE status.

This new operating system looks familiar. If anyone has given this OS a try let us know what the experience was like.

ReactOS Homepage - Frontpage

ReactOS® is an advanced free open source operating system providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows® XP compatible operating system. ReactOS aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers meant for NT and XP operating systems, by using a similar architecture and providing a complete and equivalent public interface.

I just installed this today on my Ubuntu desktop. I have one word for this: Sweet. Gotta love the icon too.
-joel

Here is how you can run Internet Explorer on your Linux machine. This is handy if you access IE Only web sites.

Installation:Ubuntu - IEs4Linux

IEs4Linux is the simpler way to have Microsoft Internet Explorer running on Linux (or any OS running Wine).

No clicks needed. No boring setup processes. No Wine complications. Just one easy script and you’ll get three IE versions to test your Sites. And it’s free and open source.

If you have a USB thumb drive you may be interested in this site. You can run all of these programs directly from the thumb drive without leaving a foot print on the host computer.

PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives | Your Digital Life, Anywhere™

Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.

Run a guest operating system on a virtual computer running on your desktop. This product is similar to vmware but its open source.
VirtualBox

New Jan 15, 2007
VirtualBox goes open source!
InnoTek today has released its leading virtualization product as open source and launched virtualbox.org as the online community to further develop the product.

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows and Linux 32-bit hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

Linux.com | How to get a Windows tax refund

If you buy a computer, you often pay for Microsoft Windows even if you didn’t ask for it and aren’t going to use it. This article shows you how to return your unused Windows license and get your money back, freeing yourself from the Windows tax.

I recently purchased a new laptop computer from Dell. As a GNU/Linux user and believer in Free Software, I knew from the start that I wasn’t going to run Microsoft Windows. Unfortunately, Dell didn’t offer this laptop with Ubuntu or a no-OS option, so I tried getting my Windows refund from Dell after the purchase. After working with customer service, I received a refund of $52.50. In the course of getting my refund, I found some techniques worked better than others. By knowing what works, you may be able to get your refund quickly and easily.

This app is very cool. You will never lose any documents again.
Main Page - Beagle

Beagle is a search tool that ransacks your personal information space to find whatever you’re looking for.

This is a nice replacement for PuTTY if you are coming over from Windows to Linux (*BSD). The PuTTY port for XWindows is ugly. You can run PuTTY in the Wine emulator but its a bit crude. SecPanel is a perfect fit for Xwindows.
SecPanel - SSH GUI for Unix

SecPanel serves as a GUI for managing and running SSH (Secure Shell) and SCP (Secure Copy) connections.

LinuxDevCenter.com — Clever Tricks with MythTV

MythTV is one open source answer to TiVo. Its creator started the project because he thought that the TiVo was cheap enough, but having to sign up for subscriptions was a pain. MythTV allows you to record and play TV and skip ads; and with plugins, retrieve TV schedules, play DVDs, emulate a Nintendo, check weather forecasts, play Linux Games, read RSS feeds, play music, and more.

UPDATE: There is a bug in older versions of jpilot that cause the Palm to reset on HotSync after modifying a Keyring entry in jpilot. The newest version fixes the problem but … entries modified in jpilot need to be deleted and recreated. See the notes in this bug report.

Keyring for Palm OS: introduction

Keyring for PalmOS lets you securely store secret information on your PalmOS (PalmPilot, Visor, WorkPad) handheld computer. Many people use Keyring for PalmOS to store

* Computer account passwords
* Credit card numbers
* Confidential memos or diary entries
* GnuPG or PGP passphrases
* SKey one-time-pads
* Phone banking keywords

Other features include:

* Secure triple-DES encryption using a 112-bit key derived from the password
* Open Source Software: no back doors, no license fees
* English, Catalan, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian (Bokmål and nynorsk), Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, and Swedish localized versions
* Export records to the Memo Pad
* Generate random new passwords

If you use jpilot with jpilot-plugins you can view and edit keyring records on your *nix box.
There is also a READ-ONLY windows conduit for gnukeyring here:
A JAVA editor that will work in windows can be found here:

There’s a debate as to whether Linux users need to run antivirus programs or not. Regardless of the debate, my favorite windows anti-virus program is now available for Linux free of charge if your are a home user.
Free avast! Linux Home Edition - avast! 4 for Linux Edition

Features overview
Antivirus kernel Automatic updates
User Interface Virus Chest
Command line scanner Internationalization

8 Absolutely Cool, Totally Free Utilities

I’m always amazed by the productivity burst that results from having the right tool for the job—in terms of both the amount of time it takes to do that job and the breadth and accuracy of the data I obtain while performing it. Over the past few years, I’ve amassed a collection of great utilities that I rely on every day. These tools make my job easier, give me faster and more accurate results, and make my clients happy. I carry the utilities on a portable USB drive so that I always have them ready at a moment’s notice. And the best part about my toolkit is that all its tools were 100 percent free. For information about how to locate and download each tool, see the Learning Path.

FileZilla
OpenSSH
WinDump
Ngrep
Ethereal
BareTail
NeWT
Winfingerprint

X10, a company that specializes in home automation has a little device which connects to the serial port on your computer for controling device modules through software. The company only offers a Windows version. However, BottleRocket is a command line interface, running under Linux, for the X10 Firecracker.

Ubuntu has BottleRocket listed in the package manager. After installing, you can find the command line app under /usr/bin/br and the GUI under /usr/bin/rocket_launcher.

NOTE: The symlink that the installer creates (/dev/firecracker -> /dev/ttyS0) will be removed after you reboot. This is because Ubuntu is using ‘udev’. To make the symlink permenant, you need to add the following entry to the end of “/etc/udev/rules.d/60-symlinks.rules”:

# Create /dev/firecracker symlink for X10 Firecracker
KERNEL=="ttyS0",                        SYMLINK+="firecracker"

BottleRocket Home Page

# What is BottleRocket?
BottleRocket is a command-line interface for Unix systems to use the FireCracker kit. It is easy to use, has all of the major (non-gui) functionality of the Windows interface, is easy to call from scripts and the backend code is made to be easily linked into other programs.
# What platforms does BottleRocket run on?
BottleRocket has been developed primarily on Linux, but has been verified to work with FreeBSD and NetBSD. It also works with Digital Unix (4.0D tested, although not extensively); it should be quite easy to port to other systems (if anything need be done at all), although may require a number of changes to work on anything other than an Intel 80×86-based machine (due primarily to timing issues). One person is reportedly even working on a Palm Pilot port.

So far, this ROM replacement has been getting great reviews. One feature that really interests me is adding the Drive mode. This maps the PALM TX as a drive letter on Windows XP.

1src Forums - CUSTOM TX ROM - works

Here is a custom rom for your TX
removed are: Addit, the “jake coco” video from media, launcher backrounds
added are: netfront, filez,drive move,voice memo, better sample backgrounds

If you own a Palm TX you may be frustrated that the “Home” icon is not displayed at the bottom of the screen (where the time and wifi buttons are located). You have to either press the physical “Home” button, or restore the graffiti area and press the “Home” icon, and then minimize the graffiti area again.

This simple little (free) application replaces the seldom used “Find” icon with a “Home” icon. Very cool!

mobile-stream.com

Free utility - home button for palm T|X.

Hot Recorder for Music
Hor Recorder for Music converts songs you’ve purchased on iTunes into MP3 or WAV files, so you can play them on any MP3 player. Click the options menu, choose Preferences, and pick which format you wish to use (MP3 or WAV). If you choose MP3, you’ll also need to decide on a bit rate. Lastingly, assign a file extension (e.g. MP3) and click the Save button.

Drag the tunes you wish to convert from the left window to the riht and click the Convert button. The conversion occurs in real time, meaning a five-minute song takes five munutes to convert - so you should avoid running any math intensive software at the same time.

Replay Music

Replay Music is a unique streaming music recorder that captures MP3 files from any streaming source. Every song is saved on your PC as a high quality MP3 file, automatically tagged with the artist, song title, album and genre, and perfectly separated into individual tracks. You can even burn songs directly to CDs, or copy them to your iPod or MP3 Player. Plus, it’s incredibly easy to use. What a great way to discover new music!

A native linux version of Google Earth is now available.

Google Earth - Home

Want to know more about a specific location? Dive right in — Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.

If you are going to get your feet wet with Linux, I highly recommend the free Ubuntu distribution. It is easy to install and has a slick user interface. Once you have it installed, go visit the Unofficial Ubuntu Starter Guide.

Lunapark6 has a good review of the new version of Ubuntu which shipped today.

Lunapark6 » Archive » Ubuntu Dapper Review

I would enthusiastically say that Dapper is amazing! Without a doubt, I can say positively that this is the best Linux distro I have ever used. From the simplicity of having to download just one cd iso image for installation, to having the option to have the installation discs mailed to you at no cost, and to the beauty and speed of the apt-get system, as well as a promised 5 year support cycle, and the best community forum for the times when you are stumped on a problem, makes Ubuntu Dapper the best Linux operating system I have used to date.

Google has ported Picasa over to Linux.

Picasa

Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your computer. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.

TUX magazine calls F-Spot “A personal photo management application for the GNOME desktop that could be the best program of its kind for any platform,but it’s available only for Linux.”

Main Page - F-Spot

F-Spot is a full-featured personal photo management application for the GNOME desktop. F-Spot is free, open source software.

Here is a good easy to use project manager app for Linux.

Planner - Imendio Developer Pages

Planner is a project managment tool for the Gnome desktop, for planning, scheduling and tracking projects. The project is run by Imendio, who develops the software in cooperation with the Planner community.

In theory, you should be able to run Windows inside a virtual machine from your Linux desktop. If anybody gets this working I would be interested in how you do it.

Computer Laboratory - Xen virtual machine monitor

Xen is a virtual machine monitor for x86 that supports execution of multiple guest operating systems with unprecedented levels of performance and resource isolation. Xen is Open Source software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. We have a fully functional ports of Linux 2.4 and 2.6 running over Xen, and regularly use it for running demanding applications like MySQL, Apache and PostgreSQL. Any Linux distribution (RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake) should run unmodified over the ported OS.

In addition to Linux, members of Xen’s user community have contributed or are working on ports to other operating systems such as NetBSD (Christian Limpach), FreeBSD (Kip Macy) and Plan 9 (Ron Minnich). A port of Windows XP was developed for an earlier version of Xen, but is not available for release due to licence restrictions.

I had a good report from Mark Kenyon on this package. He is using it on his Ubuntu server for shut-in recordings of talks at his father’s Kingdom Hall. Thanks for the tip Mark.

GNUMP3d [GNU MP3/Media Streamer] - About GNUMP3d - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation(FSF)

GNUMP3d is a streaming server for MP3s, OGG vorbis files, movies and other media formats.

It is designed to be:

* Small, stable, portable, self-contained, and secure.
* Simple to install, configure, and use.
* Portable across different varieties of Unix, the GNU Operating System, and Microsoft Windows platforms.

pssh is a free, open-source SSH 2 client for Palm OS 5.

pssh: SSH 2 for Palm OS 5

Features

* SSH 2 protocol using 3DES or AES-128 ciphers
* Fast authentication and encryption using ARM-native code
* Support for public-key authentication and host key verification
* High quality VT100/VT220/xterm terminal emulator
* Up to 80 x 53 character display on 320×320 screen
* Support for large screens with virtual Graffiti areas
* Customizable font colors and sizes
* Full-size on-screen keyboard
* Palm 5-Way Navigator acts as CTRL/ESC key and arrow keys
* Thumb wheel press acts as CTRL/ESC key
* Complete source code distributed under BSD- and MIT-style licenses

Now you can have your desktop at home or work on your Palm!

PalmVNC 2.0

VNC is a family of servers and clients that provide remote access to your Windows, Mac, or Unix/Linux workstation over any TCP/IP connection such as an Internet connection, LAN connection, BlueTooth or WiFi connection. (For more information on VNC, see the VNC homepage)

PalmVNC is the VNC client for the Palm OS® platform. It was originally written by Vladimir Minenko, providing black-and-white access to your PC from the original Palm Pilot devices. Harakan Software later took over the development of the program, to exploit the functionality of newer Palm models such as the Palm IIIc and Palm V series. (For more information, see the PalmVNC homepage). The latest version release by Harakan software was 1.40.

AutoIt v3 - Automate and Script Windows Tasks - For Free!

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!

This software runs on Windows, Gentoo Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Fedora Core 2 & 3, BeOS, and OS/2. It allows you to run old DOS based programs and games.

DOSBox

DOSBox emulates an Intel x86 PC, complete with sound, graphics, mouse, modem, etc., necessary for running many old DOS games that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux and FreeBSD. However, it is not restricted to running only games. In theory, any DOS application should run in DOSBox, but the emphasis has been on getting DOS games to run smoothly, which means that communication, networking and printer support are still in early developement.

Explore2fs HomePage

Have you ever downloaded a whole lot of files under Linux, but when you boot back into Windows you realise that you forgot to copy them onto your NT Drive? Well I did, so I wrote an explorer like program that will allow you to save files from any ext2 or ext3 partition.

Zfone

Quoting Phil Zimmermann -
14 Mar 2006 - I’ve just released Zfone, a new product that takes a new approach to make a secure telephone for the Internet.

I think it’s better than the other approaches to secure VoIP, because it achieves security without reliance on a PKI, key certification, trust models, certificate authorities, or key management complexity that bedevils the email encryption world. It also does not rely on SIP signaling for the key management, and in fact does not rely on any servers at all. It performs its key agreements and key management in a purely peer-to-peer manner over the RTP packet stream. It interoperates with any standard SIP phone, but naturally only encrypts the call if you are calling another Zfone client. This new protocol has been submitted to the IETF as a proposal for a public standard, to enable interoperability of SIP endpoints from different vendors.

This is an excellent, free, boot manager for loading multiple operating systems on your compuer.
GAG, the Graphical Boot Manager

GAG (initials, in spanish, of Graphical Boot Manager) is a Boot Manager program. It’s loaded when the computer is turned on and allows you to choose the operating system you want to use.

My Windows XP SP2 home computer’s clock started gaining about 10 seconds per minute. I have yet to find out why. I synchronize time with an Internet clock when on-line, but when I’m off line the clock free-wheels out of control. This was seriously affecting my TV recording software making me miss the last several minutes of the program. Until I find the root cause, I’m running this nifty little utility which synchronizes your Windows clock with your BIOS’ Real Time Clock. I’m resyncing ever minute. So far my TV recording is staying on schedule. Now to figure out why this all happened in the first place …
ClockMon™ — Windows RTC monitoring and synchronization utility

You see, the Windows operating system clock starts out with the same value as the Real Time Clock whenever you reboot your computer, but from then on, it is updated completely independently of the RTC via periodic clock interrupts. Thus, over time (i.e. as the system runs), it is possible for the Windows operating system clock to get out of sync with the actual hardware RTC clock (i.e. the actual “wall clock” time).