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
Camera Hacks: Turn Your Point-and-Shoot into a Super-Camera
If youre using a consumer grade point-and-shoot Canon digital camera, youve got hardware in hand that can support advanced features way beyond what shipped in the box. With the help of a free, open source project called CHDK, you can get features like RAW shooting mode, live RGB histograms, motion-detection, time-lapse, and even games on your existing camera. Lets transform your point-and-shoot into a super camera just by adding a little special sauce to its firmware.
Here are the packages from Ubuntu’s repositories that I like to install on my Ubuntu box:
Gutsy
sudo apt-get install acidrip amarok audacity brasero build-essential compizconfig-settings-manager emerald exiv2 festival festvox-kallpc16k gnome-commander gnome-ppp gnucash gparted hplip-gui imagemagick jpilot jpilot-plugins k3b lame libimage-exiftool-perl libk3b2-mp3 liblame0 libvcdinfo0 libvlc0 lm-sensors mail-notification mailutils mozilla-plugin-gnash msttcorefonts nautilus-actions nautilus-gksu nautilus-open-terminal ntfsprogs openssh-server pitivi seahorse sensors-applet secpanel smbfs sox ssmtp thunderbird thunderbird-gnome-support ubuntu-restricted-extras vlc wine wipeHardy
sudo apt-get install acidrip amarok audacity beagle beagle-backend-evolution build-essential compizconfig-settings-manager emerald exiv2 fdupes festival festvox-kallpc16k gnome-commander gnome-ppp gnucash gparted 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 pitivi seahorse sensors-applet secpanel smbfs sox ssmtp thunderbird thunderbird-gnome-support ubuntu-restricted-extras vlc wine wipehttp://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/Gnome-Commander
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 AppletUpdated for Ubuntu Hardy 8.04
This one is really simple once you know what to do. I installed the beta copy of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) on my Acer 3624 laptop which has a builtin wireless lan adapter. The wireless lan would not work. Looking through /var/log/syslog showed that the firmware was not loading. I did a little research and found that the bcm code for the wireless chipset can not be redistributed on the Ubuntu CD which is why it does not work out of the box. However, if you run the following command from the terminal it will download the code for you.
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutterReboot the laptop. Now when you click on the network icon (next to the clock) you should see a list of available wifi access points. You should also see that the amber wifi light is illuminated on the front of your laptop.
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…
Here is a good article on processes and signals on a Unix/Linux system. This also shows why sending a ‘kill -9′ to terminate a normal process is a bad idea. It doesn’t give the process a chance to clean up after itself.
Wizard Boot Camp, Part Five: Control Processes Using Signals | Linux Magazine
This month we’ll dig into process control: signals sent to processes and how a shell handles processes, including some details on job control.
TheGoldFish.net Blog » Blog Archive » DUNDi Tutorial for Asterisk@Home
Confused by DUNDi? Yeah, so was I. It took me a few weeks of kicking my Asterisk box, but I finally got it working. Here’s a step by step tutorial on how to get DUNDi working with Asterisk@Home. This tutorial was written using an Asterisk@Home 2.5 system with FreePBX 2.1, but should work from Asterisk@Home 2.0 onward.
The Wetware Crisis: the Dead Sea effect : Bruce F. Webster
Many large corporate/government IT shops — and not a few small ones — work like the Dead Sea. New hires are brought in as management deems it necessary. Their qualifications talent, education, professionalism, experience, skills — TEPES will tend to vary quite a bit, depending upon current needs, employee departure, the personnel budget, and the general hiring ability of those doing the hiring. All things being equal, the general competency of the IT department should have roughly the same distribution as the incoming hires.
But in my experience, that’s not what happens. Instead, what happens is that the more talented and effective IT engineers are the ones most likely to leave — to evaporate, if you will. They are the ones least likely to put up with the frequent stupidities and workplace problems that plague large organizations; they are also the ones most likely to have other opportunities that they can readily move to.
What tends to remain behind is the ‘residue’ — the least talented and effective IT engineers. They tend to be grateful they have a job and make fewer demands on management; even if they find the workplace unpleasant, they are the least likely to be able to find a job elsewhere. They tend to entrench themselves, becoming maintenance experts on critical systems, assuming responsibilities that no one else wants so that the organization can’t afford to let them go.
I’m painting with pretty broad strokes here, yet I’ve seen this same effect taking place in different companies and different IT shops. Large companies tend to lose the really talented IT engineers and hold onto the less talented ones, when they should been actively seeking to do just the opposite. And the effect tends to be self-reinforcing: the worse an IT shop becomes, the harder it is to get really talented and effective IT engineers to join it and the harder it is to retain them if they do. It can reach a point that the really good talent only comes in as entry-level personnel who don’t know any better — but once they do wise up, they’re gone.
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
Do you learn better by watching something rather than reading? If so, then maybe this site is for you. They provide many HOWTO videos for Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Screencasts
There are two candidates for this; FlyBack and TimeVault. Check them out:
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 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 use AcidRip to convert my DVDs for use on my Palm TX. AcidRip is a Gtk::Perl application for ripping and encoding DVD’s. It neatly wraps MPlayer and MEncoder, which I think is pretty handy, seeing as MPlayer is by far the best bit of video playing kit around for Linux. As well as creating a simple Graphical Interface for those scared of getting down and dirty with MEncoders command line interface, It also automates the process in a number of ways:
Homepage: http://untrepid.com/acidrip/
You can easily install it in Ubuntu like this:
sudo apt-get install acidripI use TCPMP on my Palm to play video files.
Widgets are now part of WordPress core since version 2.2. You can proceed straight to the WordPress Widgets Blog to find some widgets to try out for your WordPress blog.
TippingPoint | DVLabs | PWN to OWN: Final Day and another winner
So at the end of the last day of the contest, only the Sony VAIO laptop running Ubuntu was left standing.
A good source for free maps for your Garmin GPS can be found at http://mapcenter2.cgpsmapper.com/ Download anyone of the pre-compiled binary maps. These maps will have an .img extension.
Your Gutsy box should automatically see your Garmin when you connect it via a USB cable. A new USB drive will appear on your desktop. Open it. You should see a ‘Garmin” directory.
Rename your downloaded map file to GMAPSUPP.IMG and copy to your Garmin directory.
Unmount your Garmin and power it back on. Once loaded go to the settings tab on the Nuvi and choose Map and then MAP INFO.
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I successfully got my Garmin GPS connected by using Virtualbox. It took a while because Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon removed support for /proc/bus/usb which Virtualbox depends upon. I got USB support working by tweaking a script and adding a couple of groups. Follow these steps and Virtualbox will be installed with USB support in no time.
NOTE: Please be aware that smbfs is deprecated in favor of cifs. CIFS Extensions for UNIX is a small set of additions to the SMB protocol which allows the transfer of UNIX style metadata. The specification can be found here. Existing smbfs mounts can easily be converted by changing ’smbfs’ to ‘cifs’ in your /etc/fstab file..
This document provides help on mounting smbfs shares permanently. These can be shares on a Windows computer or on a Linux/UNIX server running Samba.
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This is a How-To for setting up a Hamachi virtual private network on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy).
Hamachi is a zero-config VPN client for Windows and Linux (currently Beta for Mac). It allows you to, very easily, create a virtual private network that can be logged into and accessed for all over the net. It does this by creating IP tunnels to each VPN client, making them directly accessable to all the other clients on the VPN. Hamachi also encrypts the connections it creates to allow for secure access.
/*
TOP SECRET Microsoft(c) Project: Longhorn(TM) SP1
Estimated release date: 2008
*/
#include "win95.h"
#include "win98.h"
#include "leopard.h"
char chew_up_some_ram[10000000];
void main() {
while (!CRASHED) {
if (first_time_install) {
make_10_gigabyte_swapfile();
do_nothing_loop();
search_and_destroy(FIREFOX | OPENOFFICEORG | ANYTHING_GOOGLE);
hang_system;
}
if (still_not_crashed) {
basically_run_windows_xp();
do_nothing_loop();
}
}
if (!DX10GPU()) {
set_graphics(aero, very_slow);
set_mouse(reaction, sometimes);
}
// printf("Welcome to Windows 2000");
// printf("Welcome to Windows XP");
printf("Welcome to Windows Vista");
while (something) {
sleep(10);
get_user_input();
sleep(10);
act_on_user_input();
sleep(10);
flicker_led_promisingly(hard_disk);
}
create_general_protection_fault();
}I rented a Disney DVD the other day, popped it into my Linux box to watch it, but could not get the DVD to play. I had previously installed all of the restricted drivers which allowed other DVDs to play, but this one just would not play in anything. Here is a quick HOWTO to get your box to play just about any DVD.
This will add the Medibuntu repository to your repository lists
In a terminal type:
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/gutsy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.listThen you have to add the GPG Key to authentic the packages
In a terminal type:
wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -Now update your system to load the Medibuntu repository into your apt-get sources
sudo apt-get updateDownload the DVDs playback packages
In a terminal type:
sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 libdvdread3Enjoy!
Arduino is cool. It’s cool because it’s a tiny device - about three inches by two inches - that comes with a USB port and a programmable chip. It’s cool because you can program it using a very simple programming language known as Wiring. But most of all, it’s cool because the entire reference design for the hardware is available under a Creative Commons license, so you’re free to build your own if you want to.
Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer. It’s an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board.
Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP.) The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased preassembled; the open-source IDE can be downloaded for free.
The Arduino programming language is an implementation of Wiring, a similar physical computing platform, which is based on the Processing multimedia programming environment.
The Arduino Diecimila is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega168. It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.
Here’s a copy of an old item that I’ve kept around for a couple decades… I hope you’ll enjoy it
7.3 Safety Factors
The output of any calculation is only as good as its input. With good data, simple calculations can yield accurate answers that are sometimes quite useful. Don Knuth once wrote a disk sorting package, only to find that it took twice the time predicted by his calculations. Diligent checking uncovered the flaw: due to a software bug, the system’s one-year-old disks had run at only half their advertised speed for their entire lives. When the bug was fixed, Knuth’s sorting package behaved as predicted and every other disk-bound program also ran faster.
Often, though, sloppy input is enough to get into the right ballpark. (The estimation quiz in Appendix 2 may help you to judge the quality of your guesses.) If you guess about twenty percent here and fifty percent there and still find that a design is a hundred times above or below specification, additional accuracy isn’t needed. But before placing too much confidence in a twenty percent margin of error, consider Vic Vyssotsky’s* advice from a talk he has given on several occasions.
“Most of you”, says Vyssotsky, “probably recall pictures of ‘Galloping Gertie’, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge which tore itself apart in a windstorm in 1940. Well, suspension bridges had been ripping themselves apart that way for eighty years or so before Galloping Gertie. It’s an aerodynamic lift phenomenon, and to do a proper engineering calculation of the forces, which involve drastic nonlinearities, you have to use the mathematics and concepts of Kolmogorov to model the eddy spectrum. Nobody really knew how to do this correctly in detail until the 1950’s or thereabouts. So, why hasn’t the Brooklyn Bridge torn itself apart, like Galloping Gertie?
“It’s because John Roebling had sense enough to know what he didn’t know. His notes and letters on the design of the Brooklyn Bridge still exist, and they are a fascinating example of a good engineer recognizing the limits of his knowledge. He knew about aerodynamic lift on suspension bridges; he had watched it. And he knew he didn’t know enough to model it. So he designed the stiffness of the truss on the Brooklyn Bridge roadway to be six times what a normal calculation based on known static and dynamic loads would have called for. And, he specified a network of diagonal stays running down to the roadway, to stiffen the entire bridge structure. Go look at those sometime; they’re almost unique.
“When Roebling was asked whether his proposed bridge wouldn’t collapse like so many others, he said, ‘No, because I designed it six times as strong as it needs to be, to prevent that from happening.’
“Roebling was a good engineer, and he built a good bridge, by employing a huge safety factor to compensate for his ignorance. Do we do that? I submit to you that in calculating performance of our real-time software systems we ought to derate them by a factor of two, or four, or six, to compensate for our ignorance. In making reliability/availability commitments, we ought to stay back from the objectives we think we can meet by a factor of ten, to compensate for our ignorance. In estimating size and cost and schedule, we should be conservative by a factor of two or four to compensate for our ignorance. We should design the way John Roebling did, and not the way his contemporaries did — so far as I know, none of the suspension bridges built by Roebling’s contemporaries in the United States still stands, and a quarter of all the bridges of any type built in the U.S. in the 1870’s collapsed within ten years of their construction.
“Are we engineers, like John Roebling? I wonder.”
(Section 7.3 of Programming Pearls by Jon Bently)
—–
*Victor A. (Vic) Vyssotsky, worked as a mathematician and computer scientist at Bell Labs and later as the Director of the Cambridge Research Laboratory of the Digital Equipment Corporation. Vic is credited as one of the originators of Core Wars in August 1961 (thought it was called Darwin at the time), which many years later unfortunately indirectly led to computer viruses. Vic was a member of the Triumvirate that managed the creation of MULTICS, a precursor to UNIX and LINUX. Vic coined the term ‘process’ for MULTICS.
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 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.
USB Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon install | USB Pen Drive Linux
This tutorial enables you to install, boot and run Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) from a USB flash drive.
Updated for Watchtower Library 2007
Install latest wine.
sudo apt-get install wineAs 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.bad6. 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.
Remember the old days of RAM disks? Well. Linux has them too! If you’ve never tried them, a RAM disk is a virtual file system that runs entirely from your PC’s main memory, which means it’s lightning fast to read and write anything you want. How much space you choose to allocate to your RAM disk is down to how much RAM you have and how much you plan to use it - if you have 1GB of RAM, you can easily spare 64MB for a ramdisk; if you have 2GB you can probably spare 256MB, and if your are fortunate enough to have 4GB then you can easily stretch your RAM disk legs with 1GB. Here’s how to setup a 64MB disk - just change the 65536 for the size you want:
sudo mkfs -t ext3 -q /dev/ram1 65536
sudo mkdir -p /ramdisk
sudo mount /dev/ram1 /ramdisk -o defaults,rwRemember: If your PC gets switched off accidentally it all gets wiped!
If you want your disks to run at their full potential, make sure and enable the noatime option in /etc/fstab.
Every time your disk does a read (eg reading a file), it also does a write, to store the information pertaining to when the file was last read. This process is incredibly slow, and you can get a sizable speed boost - usually around 10 percent - with just one simple tweak.
Switch to root, then open up /etc/fstab in your favorite text editor. Look for where your root file system is, and make sure that it uses defaults,noatime for its settings, then save, reboot and let your poor overworked PC perform to its full potential.
Nautilus (file manager in Ubuntu linux) has a surprising amount of power with its extensions, but none are installed by default leaving it looking somewhat bare. That’s easily fixed, though, particularly if you’re using Ubuntu - just apt-get the nautilus-gksu and nautilus-open-terminal extensions, restart Nautilus, enjoy the upgrade.
sudo apt-get install nautilus-gksu nautilus-open-terminalThis will give you a right click option to open a terminal, and if you right click on a file there is an option to open it as an administrator.
APT is a front end for the Debian and Ubuntu package manager. If you have used debian for any length of time you probably have run the command ‘apt-get install somepackage’ to install some package. If that is all you have used apt for then look at this list for some of the other things you can do with apt.
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A=Alfa N=November
B=Bravo O=Oscar
C=Charlie P=Papa
D=Delta Q=Quebec
E=Echo R=Romeo
F=Foxtrot S=Sierra
G=Golf T=Tango
H=Hotel U=Uniform
I=India V=Victor
J=Juliett W=Whiskey
K=Kilo X=X-ray
L=Lima Y=Yankee
M=Mike Z=ZuluDS-0, DS-1, T1, DS-3, T3, STS-1, OC-1, STS-3, OC-3, OC-12, OC-48
| Bandwidth | Async. | Sync. | Elec. | Opt. | Payload | |
| DS-0 | 64Kbps | X | X | |||
| DS-1 | 1.544Mbps | X | X | 24 X DS-0s | ||
| SDS-3 | 44.7Mbps | X | X | 28 X DS-1s | ||
| STS-1 | 51.84Mbps | X | X | 1 X DS-3 | ||
| OC-1 | 51.84Mbps | X | X | 1 X DS-3 | ||
| STS-3 | 155.520Mbps | X | X | 3 X DS-3s | ||
| OC-3 | 155.520Mbps | X | X | 3 X DS-3s | ||
| STS-12 | 622.08Mbps | X | X | 12 X DS-3s | ||
| OC-12 | 622Mbps | X | X | 12 X DS-3s | ||
| OC-48 | 2488.32Mbps | X | X | 48 X DS-3s |
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 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.
A while back I documented how to setup OpenVPN on windows. I recently found another way that is easier to do. Choose your poison.
The OpenVPN web site is here:
http://www.openvpn.org
and the Windows 2000/XP GUI can be found here.
http://openvpn.se/
If you are talking Windows, you can use the GUI, and a lot is done for you:
#
# server config for web2 server
#
dev tun
dev-node VPN-1
proto udp
ifconfig 192.168.3.1 192.168.3.2
secret key.txt
comp-lzo
keepalive 10 60
ping-timer-rem
persist-tun
persist-key
verb 46. If you are setting up a CLIENT, copy the key.txt file to the …OpenVPN/config directory on that machine and create another text file, called ‘client.vpn’ with the following complementary setup:
#
# client config for web2 server
#
dev tun
dev-node VPN-1
proto udp
remote <ip address of server>
ifconfig 192.168.3.2 192.168.3.1
secret key.txt
comp-lzo
keepalive 10 60
ping-timer-rem
persist-tun
persist-key
verb 4As long as your ’server’ is at a static IP address (or if you use a DynDNS account) and your firewalls (if any) will pass port 1194 to that machine, you are all ready to go; you can open the link from the server end by right-clicking on the OpenVPN GUI icon in the system tray and choosing the ’server’ configuration and ‘Connect’. Then do the same thing with the client machine, with the ‘client’ configuration file. The first time you use this on an XP SP2 machine, Windows Firewall will pop up and ask you if it’s okay to let OpenVPN do its thing. Different but same general idea for other firewall software/hardware.
Test this in a LAN environment where you know the IP address of the two machines in question and have control over the firewall issues. Also, the docs on both sites above are excellent, as well as the stuff that comes with the OpenVPN package.
To route all your internet traffic (from e-mail and from my web browser) through that home machine when connecting to the internet from a wifi hot spot location, just add the ‘push “redirect-gateway def1″‘ option to the OpenVPN server configuration and set it (the server) to use the BRIDGING mode.
If you run an Asterisk PBX you can easily perform ENUM lookups to make direct peer-to-peer calls with other ENUM users. The way this works is a user dials a public telephone number (i.e. 1-718-555-1234). Your Asterisk box queries one or more e164 name servers for that number. If the number is listed, the lookup will return the dial string to connect directly over the Internet instead of going through the Public Switched Telephone Network. Can you say free? If the number is not listed, then go and process the call as usual with your telephone carrier.
Put these lines into your enum.conf file:
search => e164.org
search => e164.arpaHere are the ENUM lines I insert in my extensions.conf just before my standard call to my telephone carrier.
This is for Asterisk version 1.4
[macro-dial_inet]
;
; Send call to selected Internet providers
; ${ARG1} - What to dial
;
exten => s,1,noop(macro-dial_inet)
;--- ENUM ---
;try enum first since it's free
exten => s,n,NoOp(Doing Enum lookup)
exten => s,n,Set(registrars=e164.arpa-e164.org-e164.info-enum.org-e164.televomWFWB6RW"&Vv7G&'2F6V&6W&PЦWFV2&Vv6WB&Vv7G&#G5UB&Vv7G&'2ҐЦWFV26WB&Vv7G&'3G5UB&Vv7G&'2"җҐЦWFV26WB&F634Ԕ"6RW"&F62F6V&6W&RR4Ԕ"Ԕԃ3#2ЦWFV2&F6WB&F6G5UB&F62ҐЦWFV26WB&F63G5UB&F62"җҐЦWFV26WBVV$sG$sҐЦWFV2WV4bEG$s7#%6WBVV$sG$s7ҐЦWFV26WB6VCGTTUGVV$sG&F6^},c,,${registrar})})
exten => s,n,Set(counter=0)
exten => s,n(resultloop),GotoIf($[$["x${counter}"="x"]|$["${counter}" >= "${count}"]]?resultend)
exten => s,n,Set(counter=$[${counter}+1])
exten => s,n,Set(ENUM=${ENUMLOOKUP(+${enumARG1},${protocol},,${counter},${registrar})})
exten => s,n,GotoIf($["${LEN(${ENUM})}" = "0" ]?continue)
exten => s,n,Set(DIALSTR=${protocomGTTҐЦWFV2FGD5E'#ЦWFV2vFbEE"GD5DEU7#$4Td%E"GD5DEU7#$4tU5D%6FVSwWЦWFV26FVRvF&W7VFЦWFV2&W7VFVBvFbE"G&F67#"%&VvVC&FЦWFV2&VvVBvFbE"G&Vv7G&'7#"%fF&Vv&VvЦWFV2ↆwWFfVBGVRFGD5DEU7ҐЦWFV2ĆwW ЦWFV2fF&VvfVBVVVG'У4DTRtDDTUR4%$U"У6FSThat’s all you need to check for and use ENUM records. Now you might want to return the favor by listing your own telephone number(s) in one of the e164 databases. If you are not a telephone carrier then the easiest way is to create an account on www.e164.org. Then add this to your iax.conf file so that anonymous connections can be made to your Asterisk PBX.
[guest]
type=user
context=anonymousThen in your extensions.conf file, add an [anonymous] context that allows connections to your receptionist. Here is an example:
[anonymous]
exten => _X.,1,Dial(SIP/0) ;send the call to the receptionist
exten => _X.,n,HangupFirst, you need to install ndiswrapper.
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9Locate the USB55N5x.inf and USB55N51.sys files on the D-Link CDROM and change to that directory on the CD. If you don’t have the CD, you can download the drives from here. Install the Windows driver with
sudo ndiswrapper -i USB55N5x.infYour version numbers may be different from mine. Adjust the above command accordingly.
This installs the .inf file and required .sys files. Now see if the installation of the Windows driver is “valid” with
ndiswrapper -lThis should report
"driver present, hardware present"if the driver is installed and if the USB WiFi device is plugged in. If the device is not plugged in then it should report
"driver present"Now load the ndiswrapper module with
sudo modprobe ndiswrapperIf everything worked properly, this should initialize the ‘wlan0′ wireless device, which can be configured with System/Administration/Networking or with wireless tools, such as ‘iwconfig’, ‘wpa_supplicant’ etc. Gutsy has a nice wifi interface that appears on your Gnome panel where you can select which network to connect to.
If you prefer a different GUI wireless manager then install one or all of these tools like this:
sudo apt-get install wlassistant
sudo apt-get install wifi-radarwlassistant is a KDE application.
To get Ubuntu to load this driver every time you boot the computer, you need to add this line to /etc/modules:
ndiswrapperThe default configuration for using MySQL for Asterisk CDR records does not allow storing values in the userfield field. The userfield field
appears in the MySQL table and the dialplan functions for setting userfield values work correctly, however, the CDR is written without the userfield.
To enable writing of userfield values to the CDR table in MySQL add the following line to /etc/asterisk/cdr_mysql.conf file:
userfield=1Asterisk will need to be restarted for this configuration change to take effect.
[ed] Thanks for the tip Seth
I’ve been playing a bit with iSCSI. Here is a site for Alpine Linux that I found useful. Although the site is dedicated to Alpine, I applied the principles to an Ubuntu box and got it working.
At work we use the apt-cacher program to cache our access to the Ubuntu repositories. However, if you have a laptop with some free space, it comes in handy to have the repository locally for when you’re not connected to the net. Here is a debmirror command to create a local mirror of the gutsy repository to /media/disk/gutsy/
(If you have any errors, you may need to update your libcompress-zlib-perl package. One of the versions made for gutsy broke this package for use with debmirror.)
In the command below, ubuntu-apt resolves to the IP address of the machine running my apt-cacher program. 3142 is the port that apt-cacher is listening on. Gutsy is the version being mirrored.
debmirror --nosource -m --passive --host=us.archive.ubuntu.com --root=ubuntu/ --method=http --dist=gutsy,gutsy-security,gutsy-updates --section=main,restricted,universe,multiverse --arch=i386,amd64 /media/disk/gutsy/ --proxy=http://ubuntu-apt:3142/ --ignore-release-gpg --ignore-small-errorsPolycom SIP phones have three volume settings; speaker phone, handset, and headset. Some countries have laws requiring that the handset and headset volume settings be reset after each call. Therefore, Polycom only enables the persistent volume setting on the speaker phone. To change this, open up the sip.cfg file on your configuration server and change these three settings to your liking. 0 disables persistence, and 1 enables it. Afterward, reboot your phone to pickup the new settings.
<volume
voice.volume.persist.handset="0"
voice.volume.persist.headset="0"
voice.volume.persist.handsfree="1"
/>I recently got an internal SATA drive and put it in an USB 2.0 enclosure so that I could cart around some portable data. I wanted the drive to be NTFS so that I could have one really large partition that can be read by just about any computer (linux or windows). Here is how I did it on my Ubuntu Gutsy box:
sudo apt-get install gparted ntfsprogsPlug in your drive and start gparted as root.
sudo gpartedMy drive connected as /dev/sde. So click the drop down box in the upper right and select your new drive. Click the new button and select ntfs. That’s it.
The Ubuntu team is excited to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software that the open source and free software communities have to offer. This is Ubuntu 7.10, which brings a host of excellent new features. You may also like to view the Ubuntu desktop screenshot tour.
HOWTO Guide located here.
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Use the ’shred’ command to securely delete files from the command line like this:
shred -z -u filenameHere is an easy way to securely delete files and folders from within the Ubuntu Nautilus file manager. You first need to download and install two packages; wipe and nautilus-actions like this from a terminal prompt:
sudo apt-get install wipe nautilus-actionsYou should now have a “Wipe Selected” option when you right click on a file, folder, or selected files/folders in the Nautilus file manager. Be careful since files that are wiped are not recoverable in any way.
Updated 2007/10/25:
I just upgraded to Ubuntu Gutsy. This post in the ubuntu forums has a little script that will download and install everything you need to get unichrome video driver running on your VIA graphics chip.
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Ubuntu (Gutsy) makes it easy to install the MP3 drivers native apps. However, if you installed Amarok, then the drivers are not installed. Amarok uses different libraries for MP3 playback. To get them installed just run this command at a shell prompt:
sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpegSomeone over on the linixformat forums asked this question (below). The forums suggest using the time tool in gThumb. That’s an excellent find. (That’s gold Jerry, gold.) However, the linuxformat magazine had a good reply to this question that is not on the forum. Keep reading for their suggestion.
View topic - Photo Collection :: Linux Format :: The website of the UKs best-selling Linux magazine
I’ve got a photo collection that has got out of hand - several Gigs worth. I need to organize them so I can get a good backup.
Does anybody know of a program that will rename a file based on the EXIF date of the image and change the Modified Date of the file to the same EXIF date? My last attempt at a backup before I wiped my PC last - managed to set all the file dates to when the DVD was burned Sad
Also - Ive managed to get myself several duplicate images spread across my entire collection yep, I really messed up each with different filenames. Any idea how I could sort them maybe with EXIF data again without having to look at a few thousand photos?
If it helps - Im using FC6 64bit and Im not scared of the command line.
Thanks in advance,
NiceBloke
An easy way to make your code (or preformatted text) stand out is to add an entry to your style.css cascading style sheet for your current theme. On this site you will notice little blue boxes wherever I have inserted code or shell commands. To do this, add the <pre> and <code> tags around the text you want highlighted. Don’t forget to close the tags after your text with </code> and </pre> tags. For example:
<pre><code>
some text here
< /code>< /pre>Note: I had to insert a space in the code and pre closing tags above to make them appear. In your code the spaces should not be there.
Now edit your /wordpress/wp-content/themes/mytheme/style.css and add a pre section to wherever your theme styles the post. On my theme it is under the .post section. So my style.css looks like this:
.post pre {
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
background-color: #F9FBFC;
border: 1px solid #C3CED9;
padding: 8px;
margin-bottom: 5px;
width: 400px;
overflow: auto;
text-align: left;
}To clean things up further, download the Code Auto Escape plugin. This will make sure wordpress does not step on your code.
Ubuntu version 7.10 (Gutsy) comes with CompizFusion 3D graphics. The settings can be controlled from the /System/Preferences/Appearance menu. There is a tab labeled Visual Effects with three settings, None, Normal, Extra. Click on Extra to get the wobbly windows. This is great and all but there is soooooo much more. You can enable so much eye candy by installing the Compiz Congiguration Setttings Manager that you will get nauseous! Here’s how to do it:
In a terminal type:
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager emerald subversionYou should now have another option on the Visual Effects tab labeled Custom. (There is also a new menu option on the /System/Preferences menu called Advance Desktop Effects Settings). Launch this and be prepared to loose several hours of your life tweaking these settings. Most of the items have an Action tab that will display what keystrokes / mouse buttons will activate the item.
Here are a list of items that I tweaked in the CompizConfig Settings Manager:
Now take them for a test drive:
Having fun yet?
The apt-get install line above should have also installed the emerald window manger. You can get these for emerald by installing the .deb package for feisty. Get it here Go into the Advance Desktop Settings, click on Effects, Window Decorator. In the Command field type:
emerald --replaceYou can now select themes in Emerald and have the Window Decorator reload them.
On my Gutsy install I noticed that the default theme, Beryl Red, was not listed in Emerald’s theme chooser. So once you choose another theme you can’t go back to Beryl Red. I’ve archived the Beryl Red theme for Emerald here. Just unpack it in your .emerald/themes directory which is in your home directory.
The HP DX 2250 has a low end ATI Radeon Express 200 graphics chip. This presents a problem when trying to run 3D graphic programs likes the built-in desktop effects on Ubuntu Gutsy. (Note: Compiz & Beryl have merged back together into CompizFusion which comes enabled by default with Gutsy.)
Enable the Restricted Driver for ATI
Go to System/Administration/Restricted Drivers Manager and click on enable.
Reboot.
Check ATI Driver
In a terminal type:
fglrxinfoYou should see this ouputed on your terminal window:
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon Xpress Series
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6473 (8.37.6)Install Xgl
In a terminal type:
sudo apt-get install xserver-xgl compizconfig-settings-managerNow You Just have to Log off and back on.
Click on the System/Preferences/Appearance menu.
Click on the Visual Effects tab.
Click on Extra:
Enjoy.
Now if you want to tweak the living daylights out of everything, click on the System/Preferences/Advanced Desktop Effects Settings.
Seahorse is a good front-end to GPG that’s integrated into Gedit through a plugin enabling you to create GPG-signed messages directly within Gedit. Seahorse is also integrated into Nautilus, which means you can encrypt, decrypt or sign files by right-clicking on them and entering your passphrase. There is also a Gnome Panel launcher that makes it easy to encrypt, decrypt, and sign the clipboard.
To install it on Ubuntu Linux type the following at the command line (or use synaptic package manager):
sudo apt-get install seahorseHere is an easy way to upgrade your Wordpress installations.
Installing/Updating WordPress with Subversion « WordPress Codex
New Install
To install a fresh copy of WordPress, type the following at your command prompt, starting from the directory above where you want to install WordPress. These commands will create a directory “blog” for your blog, and then check out (Subversion command “co”), or extract from the repository, the stable version of WordPress you have chosen. Do not type the “$” characters — they are just indications of the command prompt. Here are the commands (assuming the version you want is 2.3):
Prerequisites: add universe and multiverse repositories.
Open a terminal window and type in:
sudo apt-get install gnome-pppAfter that you can find GNOME PPP in the Gnome menu under Applications -> Internet.
Would you like to know the temperature of your CPU? How about the speed of your fans? Is your hard drive ready to fail? It easy. On an Ubuntu Linux system do this:
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I don’t like the way that a user can set call forward information for other users on the system. A rogue user could redirect someone else’s calls to his/her extension. I also didn’t like having two access codes to enable and disable call forward data. To “fix” this I disabled all call forward feature codes except for *52, *72, and *90 and placed the following in my extensions_custom.conf. These contexts in _custom are caught first in the dialplan before the built-in call forward contexts. Dial the code once and you will be prompted for the extension to forward to. Dial the code again and the forward is deactivated.
Do you have a Palm PDA and want to try installing Linux? Check out this site.
* Download complete package (for example “Palm TX (all)”) for you Palm.
* Unpack it in root directory of your card.
* Backup your Palm.
* Run Cocoboot and tap on Boot.
* Enjoy 
Help My Mail Server Is Being DoSsed
The recent flood of spam, viruses and trojaned Windows machines has brought a dramatic increase in attacks on e-mail servers, including but not limited to denial-of-service DoS attacks, distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks, Joe Jobs, dictionary attacks, slamming, and other assorted nuisances. This document describes some sendmail facilities–many of them new in version 8.13–that can help foil these attacks.
From within a BASH script I needed to determine the date from one month ago. I new there had to be an easy way to do this. This web site, Simple date and time calulation in BASH - The UNIX Forums, had the answer plus several other goodies.
# Other standard goodies from GNU date not too well documented in the man pages
# assign a value to the variable dte for the examples below
dte="2006-10-01 06:55:55"
echo $dte
# add 2 days, one hour and 5 sec to any date
date --date "$dte 2 days 1 hour 5 sec"
# substract from any date
date --date "$dte 3 days 5 hours 10 sec ago"
date --date "$dte -3 days -5 hours -10 sec"
# or any mix of /-. What will be the date in 3 months less 5 days
date --date "now 3 months -5 days"
# time conversions into ISO-8601 format RFC-3339 internet recommended format
date --date "sun oct 1 5:45:02PM" %FT%T%z
date --iso-8601=seconds --date "sun oct 1 5:45:02PM"
date --iso-8601=minutes
# time conversions into RFC-822 format
date --rfc-822 --date "sun oct 1 5:45:02PM"The HP DX 2250 has a low end ATI Radeon Express 200 graphics chip. This presents a problem when trying to run 3D graphic programs likes Beryl. I found a web site that shows how to get Beryl running on a Radeon Express 200. The trick is to use an older version of Beryl.
This is the guide everyone has been waiting for, enjoy. The trick is that you have to force bery-core to use 0.2.0~0beryl1 because latter versions don’t work with Xgl. This not only works for the Dell Inspiron 1501 but works for any computer running an ATI card using Xgl.