Linux

First, a little background.  In Unix, compressing (making something smaller) and archiving (combining many things into one) are two different functions. Also, a .tgz file is the same as a .tar.gz file, and a .tbz is the same as a .tar.bz2 file. Archiving: Question: How do I untar foo.tar? Answer: tar x -f foo.tar  (x is for extract, f is for filename) (more…)
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What Is Crontab ? A crontab is a simple text file that holds a list of commands that are to be run at specified times. These commands, and their related run times, are controlled by the cron daemon and are executed in the system’s background. More information can be found by viewing the crontab’s man page. We will run through a simple crontab example later. How Does It Work ? The system maintains a crontab for each user on the system. In order to edit or create a crontab, you must use the text editor that is specified by your system. The vi text editor is the default text editor on a Mandrake 10.0 Official system. This text editor must be opened with the command crontab using the -e option. To create a crontab open a term and type: crontab -e The vi text editor will open with a blank window
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As many of you know, I’ve now been a part of Google+(Google Plus) since they day they launched(June 29th).  I’ve learned quite a bit since being there and messing around with it and interacting with other users. Tonight(July 6th) Google opened up the gates for us to invite our friends for a while and it seems that a lot of them don’t know any of the nice little tips and tricks that Google+(Google Plus) has.  So, I’ve decided to write a few things up so I can post a URL for my friends and new people to view and read to hopefully grasp things a bit quicker.  This is just the first of what will probably be many more posts to come. (more…)
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Despite the advancements in interoperability between file systems, and the availability of file sharing services nowadays, hosting your own FTP server still offers advantages. FTP is easy to set up and use, and any files transferred via FTP stay securely within your network. With ProFTPD server, you can allow users to share files, and even allow people outside the corporate firewall to send files to you, easily and securely. As an FTP server, ProFTPD offers several advantages. For starters it’s controlled by a single configuration file. If you have configured an Apache web server (and what admin hasn’t) you’ll be at home with ProFTPD’s configuration file. It’s also lightweight and modular, meaning you can add extensions to it, for example to encrypt file transfers, or hook it up with a directory server. The server is available in the official software repositories of all major distributions,
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Well I managed to get an invite to the new http://plus.google.com yesterday and so far I’m really enjoying it.  If you don’t know what it is, click on the link I just linked to and check it out.  It’s Google’s latest attempt at social networking.  And to be honest, I think this one might actually be successful. What I really like about it is the Circles.  Circles allows you to group people in certain categories.  Then when you want to post something to Google+, you can select which of your Circles sees what you posted.  Instead of everyone you are friends with seeing it.  It’s a very nice feature. (more…)
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For those that have been invited to try out Google’s Beta Music service and own an iPad/iPhone and can’t seem to get it to work on your device, here’s a little trick you can use to make it work. Google Music loads well, but after clicking the “play” button nothing happens. Here’s a trick to make Google Music work every time: start playing a song, pause and play again. It’s unfortunate that you have to use a workaround, but Google Music doesn’t officially support Safari for iOS. The system requirements page says that it only supports “Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 7 and above” and that you need Adobe Flash. It’s interesting that this trick lets you play music on more than one device simultaneously. For example, I was able to play music on my iPad and iPhone at the same
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Enable Google Toolbar in Firefox 5 If you’ve installed Firefox 5 and noticed that Google Toolbar wasn’t updated to support the new Firefox release, there’s a simple way to enable the extension: install the Add-on Compatibility Reporter. “After installing the Add-on Compatibility Reporter, your incompatible extensions will become enabled for you to test whether they still work with the version of Firefox or Thunderbird that you’re using.” This should only be a temporary solution until Google Toolbar and other extensions update their compatibility list. Google Toolbar 7 works well in Firefox 5, especially considering that the new Firefox version didn’t make too many important extension-related changes. Firefox’s faster release cycle, inspired by Google Chrome, has an important downside: extension developers need to update their extensions more frequently and update the list of Firefox versions that are supported. Mozilla alleviated this problem by automatically marking almost 4,000 extensions as compatible
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It was just the other day the suggestion was made that Linux is best-suited for bachelors. That assertion set off quite a little storm of controversy, as alert readers may recall, both here on these virtual pages and elsewhere throughout the blogosphere. The latest match to be tossed onto this tinderbox of a topic? A post over on LXer provocatively titled, “Anyone can use the Linux operating system.” Ninety percent of today’s Linux distributions “can be easily used by just about anyone when properly configured and presented with a couple minutes of explanation to the new user,” wrote Thoughts on Technology blogger and Bodhi Linux lead developer Jeff Hoogland in his post on the site. (more…)
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Every so occasionally a process or two (I’m looking at you, apache) gets a little out of hand and swallows up a crapload of RAM.  Well, those of us on a budget rent servers with very little available memory and running out of it can quickly bring your server to a halt.  Throw this little script into a 15 minute cronjob and you’ll get emailed when your server starts using more than 20% of its swap. #!/bin/sh free -m | grep Swap | while read output; do swap=$(echo $output | awk '{print $2}' ) used=$(echo $output | awk '{ print $3 }' ) freed=$(echo $output | awk '{ print $4 }' ) echo "Swap : $swap" echo "Used : $used" echo "Free : $freed" usep=`expr $used \* 100 / $swap` echo $usep if [ $usep -ge 20 ]; then echo "Swap Usage Alert Total Swap: \"$swap\" Used: \"$used ($usep%)\" Free: \"$freed\" on $(hostname) as on $(date)" | mail -s "Alert: Swap Usage space $usep%"
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I’ve been using the internet now for about 12 years I’d say.  And prior to that during the Commodore 64/128 days I was on BBS’s(Bulletin Board Systems) all over the world.  From day one practically I have used the username/nick Hawkwind.  It’s become a part of me….well actually, it *is* me!  So over the years many hundreds, if not thousands, of people have asked me where I get my nick from.  This is going to explain it all.   I started using computers back in 1983/1984 when the Commodore 64 was out and very very popular.  In September of 1985, I was at a friends house when his mother came home from work and handed him a computer game she had bought him.  It was entitled Ultima IV: Quest Of The Avatar.  I knew nothing about it, but he had played Ultima III: Exodus and was so excited
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