Month: April 2014

Link: Best Alternative App Stores for Linux

The concept of app stores, though popularized by Apple, followed by Android, has been around for a long time. In fact, Linuxians know that it was in the penguinian world of software that the concept of app store basically originated. A software housing a collection of apps stored in a convenient location was something Linux users have loved and still love.

…..

That said, if you are an Ubuntu user, you probably must have gotten tired of using Ubuntu Software Center already. It’s clean, sleek, and does what it says on the tin; however, as a FOSS enthusiast you might be looking for something different. If that’s the case, then we have for you a list of alternative app stores for Linux that will help you get the software you need instantly.

Full article here:
Best Alternative App Stores for Linux (TechSource)

Got an older Sony Walkman mp3/video player that occasionally locks you out? Here’s a possible quick fix

We’re talking the newer technology Walkmans here, that play music from internal memory as opposed to an old-school cassette player (for those old enough to remember those). The specific problem is that you are out somewhere with your Walkman and you turn it on and attempt to play something, and are greeted by this message:

There is a possibility that the connection has been canceled during transfer. Please connect to compliant software or device and transfer data again.

But you don’t have the device’s USB cable with you, and maybe no computer to plug it into.

Resist the urge to hurl the thing into the nearest deep lake (we’ve been there) and try this first. Put it into test mode, then exit test mode without changing anything. It should rebuild the library, which is the same thing it does after you connect it to a computer and then disconnect it again.

And how do you put it into test mode? Well, you have to bring up the Service Menu to do that, and the instructions for doing that for a few models can be found here:

Sony NWZ-E430, NWZ-E350, NWZ-E460 Service Menu (Averbouch.biz)

This page also covers a couple of different models:

Sony Walkman Service Menu Access (Update 2012) (The Walkman Blog)

If neither of those pages covers your model, try the instructions for a model in the same series (for example, the NWZ-E350 instructions work with a NWZ-E354), or go to your favorite search engine and search on your Walkman model number and the words “Service Menu”.

Take heed of the warnings on these pages about how if you screw this up, you could brick your Walkman. Even so, if you’re seriously considering throwing the thing across a parking lot, you might want to take a few deep breaths and try this first. No guarantees, but it might work.

You may want to print out the pages and carry them with you (in your car or wherever) since you probably won’t be near a computer when you need them, and unless you have a photographic memory you probably won’t remember the button sequence. If you’re young enough to be able to easily memorize things like that, chances are you’re now using your smart phone as your music/video player, but some folks don’t have/use that newer technology yet! 🙂

Links: The DIY home VPN experiment series

Part One: Introduction

It’s been a while since my last blog entry, and I’ve decided to catch you up on some of the projects that I’ve been working on in my home lab. This next series of posts is going to revolve around the do-it-yourself home VPN.

What is a VPN, or virtual private network?

“A VPN is a communications environment in which access is controlled to permit peer connections only within a defined community of interest, and is constructed though some form of partitioning of a common underlying communications medium, where this underlying communications medium provides services to the network on a nonexclusive basis [1].”

In essence, a VPN is private and controlled network communication over a non-private medium – the Internet.

Full articles here (source: empiric virtualization):
Introduction.
Generating a PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) for my OpenVPN.
My Virtualized OpenVPN Server.
Deploying OpenVPN using CentOS on a Raspberry Pi.

Link: Command Line Tools to Monitor Linux Performance

It’s really very tough job for every System or Network administrator to monitor and debug Linux System Performance problems every day. After being a Linux Administrator for 5 years in IT industry, I came to know that how hard is to monitor and keep systems up and running. For this reason, we’ve compiled the list of Top 15 frequently used command line monitoring tools that might be useful for every Linux/Unix System Administrator. These commands are available under all flavors of Linux and can be useful to monitor and find the actual causes of performance problem. This list of commands shown here are very enough for you to pick the one that is suitable for your monitoring scenario.

Full article here:
Command Line Tools to Monitor Linux Performance (KBTechWorld)

Link: The Best Online Tools To Know Everything About a Website

How do I contact the owner of a website? Where is a particular website hosted? What other websites are hosted on that same server ? Is the site using WordPress or the Drupal platform? What ad networks are they using to monetize a site? Is the site accessible from China?

Here are some of the most useful online tools that will help you know each and every detail of any website. Let’s get started.

Full article here:
The Best Online Tools To Know Everything About a Website (Digital Inspiration)

Link: Alternative to WordPress: 5 Great CMS You Might Not Have Heard of Before

WordPress may be the most popular CMS (content management system) in the web; it is definitely not the only one around. There are many other CMS that are equally powerful as WordPress. Here are five alternatives for you.

Full article here:
Alternative to WordPress: 5 Great CMS You Might Not Have Heard of Before (Make Tech Easier)
Related:
10 Free CMS alternatives to wordpress that you might not know about (Smashing Hub)

Link: Linux alias command explained with examples

Today we will see how to set alias in Linux/Unix and save the time while typing. Hope this alias will save you number of hours. This will greatly help you to concentrate on your learning rather than just entering commands. We have to spend as less time as possible in typing and use that time for some meaningful stuff. Below are some things which we will learn today.

What is an alias?

What are advantages of alias?

For which commands we have to use alias?

How to define an alias?

How to define an alias permanently?

How to use an alias?

How to view set alias in Linux machine?

How to unset an alias?

Alias command with examples

Advanced alias? Then use functions.

Full article here:
Linux alias command explained with examples (The Linux Juggernaut)
Related:
30 Handy Bash Shell Aliases For Linux / Unix / Mac OS X (Cloud Computing)

Link: How To Install & Configure BIND9 on Raspbian Wheezy

About BIND9

BIND is the most widely used DNS system on the internet, on Unix like operating systems its the de facto standard. Originally written by four graduate students at the Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), the name originates as an acronym from Berkeley Internet Name Domain, reflecting the application’s use within UCB. BIND 9 was released in September 2000.

Raspbian is an unofficial port of Debian wheezy armhf with compilation settings adjusted to produce code that uses “hardware floating point”, the “hard float” ABI and will run on the Raspberry Pi.

Full article here:
How To Install & Configure BIND9 on Raspbian Wheezy (Sam Culley)

Link: Raspi EDLC UPS – A short-duration uninterruptible power supply using supercapacitors for the Raspberry Pi

For the Rundbuntplasma I wanted that the main power supply (a big 20A/5V supply) could be hard disconnected (aka operating the main power switch in our hacker space) from mains and the Raspberry will still shutdown nicely automatically. The idea is to buffer the 5V for the Raspberry using two big Supercapacitors (EDLCs) with 50F each from Nesscap. The circuit was designed to be as simple as possible, the drawback is that the capacity is not used efficiently and has only enough time for a proper short shutdown (about 30 seconds). Another drawback is that the power supply comes up slowly at startup (takes about 10 seconds before Raspberry starts booting) and also powers the Raspberry for quite a long time after the shutdown so the system must be unplugged for about 10min before it will boot up again. But there main advantage over batteries is the lifetime of supercaapacitors: They can be charged and discharged completely a few 100.000 times and are quick to charge – after ~2min they carry enough charge for proper shutdown.
So no worry of proper shutdown anymore – just unplug it or operate the main power switch and the Raspberry will detect it and shutdowns nicely while the supercapacitors provide the power for this time.

PLEASE NOTE: This article is mostly in English, but the site it is on is a German site. Therefore, the schematic diagram on the page is in a European format that may not be familiar to North American readers. However, it is simple enough that anyone that knows how to read a schematic diagram should have no problem with it. The only thing that confused us a little was the use of designations such as 1.5R and 100R on the resistors. As best we can determine, R is used in place of Ω (ohms) in Europe, but you may want to verify that with another source (and please leave a comment if we’re wrong on that point!). We are only providing a link to this article and it should be noted that we have neither built nor tested this device, therefore should you decide to build one of these, you do so at your own risk, and we will NOT be responsible for any damage or injury that may result.

Full article here:
Raspi EDLC UPS (Ăśber Hackerspace Ffm)