Category: software

Link: Creating SD Card Images For Raspberry Pi in Mac

The Raspberry Pi is a new breed of cheap, single use computers that were just made for making projects. People routinely build them into standalone devices or use them to control other devices. They are almost like a disposable computer.

In fact, Pi is a small but capable Linux computer, making it an easy transition from the Mac’s UNIX from a programming and command line stance. Running software is mostly a simple matter of obtaining SD card images from around the web and burning them to SD cards.

The biggest problem you face is that the SD cards need to be in a specific format, a boot sector that is visible in FAT32 and the body of the disk which is in the Linux format. This is not something which is easy to do on the Mac without specific knowledge software to do the low level image burn that we need.

In this article, we show you what software to use for this job on the Mac and how to burn SD card images.

Full article here:
Creating SD Card Images For Raspberry Pi in Mac (Make Tech Easier)

Link: How to use FFMpeg to do simple audio conversion

Here’s a simple FFmpeg how to that will cover just a portion of the framework’s abilities. We will see how you can use the terminal to perform simple conversions of various audio file types including all popular and widely available formats. Using FFmpeg right from the terminal makes it better for performance compared to downloading and installing a GUI tool for FFmpeg, and can also offer more precise settings for the advanced users.

Full article here:
How to use FFMpeg to do simple audio conversion (Howtoforge)
Related: Combine Audio and Video with ffmpeg (David Walsh)

Link: OpenVPN-Setup: Shell script to set up Raspberry Pi (TM) as an OpenVPN server

About

Shell script to set up Raspberry Pi (TM) as a VPN server using the free, open-source OpenVPN software. Includes templates of the necessary configuration files for easy editing, as well as a script for easily generating client .ovpn profiles after setting up the server. Based on the ReadWrite tutorial ‘Building A Raspberry Pi VPN’ by Lauren Orsini (see sources 1 and 2 at the bottom of this Readme).

To follow this guide, you will need to have a Raspberry Pi Model B or later (so long as it has an ethernet port), an SD or microSD card (depending on the model) with Raspbian installed, a power adapter appropriate to the power needs of your model, and an ethernet cable to connect your Pi to your router or gateway. You will also need to setup your Pi with a static IP address (see either source 3 or 4) and have your router forward port 1194 (varies by model & manufacturer; consult your router manufacturer’s documentation to do this). You should also find your Pi’s local IP address on your network and the public IP address of your network and write them down before beginning. Enabling SSH on your Pi is also highly recommended, so that you can run a very compact headless server without a monitor or keyboard and be able to access it even more conveniently (This is also covered by source 4). And last but not least, be sure to change your user password from the default.

Full documentation and download here:
OpenVPN-Setup (GitHub)
Discussion in this Reddit thread

Link: The 3 Best (New) Email Clients for Mac OS X You Should Check Out Today

Email clients come in all forms of size and functionality. But only a few have the necessary features that ease user interaction while providing an easy to use interface to manage, categorize and control all incoming and outgoing emails. Support for the major email providers is also crucial for success and widespread adoption among users.

The recent rise in the number of feature rich email clients for Mac allows users to select the best among clients that suit their taste and requirements. These competitors have not only gained widespread adoption due to their feature-rich interface, they are now on the verge of challenging the already established Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook.

So here we have we have compiled the top 3 email clients for Mac OS that not just feature rich but are also highly customizable to suit each user’s needs.

Full article here:
The 3 Best (New) Email Clients for Mac OS X You Should Check Out Today (TechNorms)

Link: How to Control Multimedia Content with Gestures on Your Mac

Technology has grown really fast in the past few decades and we have all seen a lot of new technology coming to the market in the past few years. From pressing keys to typing words to speaking and having your machine recognize your voice, everything is now possible.

One new technology is gestures. A gesture is what allows you to use your body-parts to control your machine. For instance, you can just wave your hand at your machine and it will respond. Most of the time, the gestures are used while playing multimedia content. If you are a Mac user you have a cool app called ControlAir that lets you control the multimedia content on your Mac using gestures.

Full article here:
How to Control Multimedia Content with Gestures on Your Mac (Make Tech Easier)

Link: Stay Focused And Boost Your Productivity With Ambient Noise Player

ANoise, or Ambient Noise, is a simple yet very convenient application developed by Costales (who’s also behind Folder Color), for playing ambient noise with a click, useful for helping you stay focused, boost your productivity or, why not, fall asleep listening to the sound of waves or rain.

Full article here:
Stay Focused And Boost Your Productivity With Ambient Noise Player (Web Upd8)

Link: Create an Apple ID without using a Credit Card

Some apps, Google Earth for example, are available as free downloads in the iTunes Apps store but you need a UK or US based Apple ID to install them on to your iPad or Phone. Similarly, some iBooks and podcasts have geo restrictions and may only be available to iTunes users who are logged in with an Apple ID for one of the available countries.

The workaround is simple…..

Full article here:
Create an Apple ID without using a Credit Card (Digital Inspiration)

Link: How to access Gmail from the command line on Linux with Alpine

If you are a command-line lover, I am sure that you welcome with open arms any tool that allows you to perform at least one of your daily tasks using that powerful work environment, e.g., from scheduling appointments and managing finances to accessing Facebook and Twitter.

In this post I will show you yet another pretty neat use case of Linux command-line: accessing Google’s Gmail service. To do so, we are going to use Alpine, a versatile ncurses-based, command-line email client (not to be confused with Alpine Linux). We will configure Gmail’s IMAP and SMTP settings in Alpine to receive and send email messages via Google mail servers in a terminal environment. At the end of this tutorial, you will realize that it will only take a few minimum steps to use any other mail servers in Alpine.

Granted there are already outstanding GUI-based email clients such as Thunderbird, Evolution or even web interface. So why would anyone be interested in using a command-line email client to access Gmail? The answer is simple. You need to get something done quickly and want to avoid using system resources unnecessarily. Or you are accessing a minimal headless server that does not have the X server installed. Or the X server on your desktop crashed, and you need to send emails urgently before fixing it. In all these situations Alpine can come in handy and get you going in no time.

Some of us older folks may remember that one of the first command-line based email programs was named Pine.  Wonder if the creators of this program had that one in mind when they chose the name?

Full article here:
How to access Gmail from the command line on Linux with Alpine (Xmodulo)

Link: A List Of Free And Open Source Control Panels

To manage your businesses and your websites remotely you need to use control panel. With such tool you will have the possibility to manage all your web services under the same location which is very fantastic. Without control panel, you will need to install or compile specific tools such as: Php, MySQL and others on your host server which is not usually recommended with normal people. Since they need to have technical knowledge. With control panel, no expert knowledge of server administration is needed, just install it and benefit of its features. These web based control panels offers you the possibility also to manage your emails accounts, FTP accounts, disk space, bandwidth and many others.

The most known and powerful control panels are cPanel and Plesk. Unfortunately they are paid softwares and a monthly fee will be demanded to install them on the suitable server. But don’t worry, there are other alternative open source control panels available for every one with the same features and no fees are required. You will discover those tools in our article then later you can give us your attitudes.

Full article here:
A List Of Free And Open Source Control Panels (Unixmen)