Linux Hack3r

Forget IP Addresses! Use /etc/hosts!

Matt — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:13:36 +0000

After realizing the endless possibilities of having a Linux server in my home, I quickly set one up (using Ubuntu Server Edition). Now I have a server with SSH, HTTP, FTP, and NFS setup in my basement. I love using all these features, but I can’t stress enough that typing the internal IP address of the server (192.168.1.250) got old very fast. So I found a quick and easy solution: /etc/hosts

Simply open /etc/hosts in your favorite text editor (you’ll need root priviliges), go to the bottom line, and follow this format:

192.168.1.250 Server

The first option is the IP address of whatever you’d like to add a name to, and the second option is the name. So after saving this file, I can now type Server instead of 192.168.1.250 anytime I’d like to access my server. So now I can SSH into my server by typing “ssh Server”. Have an HTTP server setup? Open Firefox and simply type “Server” in the address bar! How simple is that?

Google Picasa’s Lesser Known Features

Matt — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:54:46 +0000

Google’s Picasa, now at version 2.7, has really matured in the past few months. The last time I tried it, it was still in its infancy, very slow, buggy, and was yet to be perfected. I tried it again over the weekend, and was simply stunned. Not only does it display images very smoothly and flawlessly, it is also packed with eye candy and extra features. So here it is, a list of Picasa’s lesser known features.

Create Video (Create–>Movie)

Simply select the photos you’d like, click (Create–>Movie), and then follow the simple prompts. Before long, you’ll have yourself a nice AVI file like the one below.

Create Collage (Create–>Picture Collage)

Once again, simply select the desired photos, click (Create–>Picture Collage), and select the desired effect. Within seconds you’ll have a collage simular to the one below.

Export HTML Gallery (Folder–>Export as HTML Page)

After taking several hundred photos, who really wants to manually create thumbnails of larger images, and then create an HTML page with the thumbnails linking to the larger images? Picasa makes this easy for you. Simply select the folder you want, click (Folder–>Export as HTML Page), then select a template, resolution, title, and destination. Within a few momments, you’ll have a full fledged HTML photo gallery. For an example gallery, click here.

Create A Gift CD (Folder–>Create a Gift CD)

Remember all those times that after burning a CD full of vacation pictures for family, you have to instruct over the phone how they can view the photos on the CD? With Picasa, simply select the folder you want to share, click(Folder–>Create a Gift CD), and Picasa will burn a CD with an autorunner, that way when your computer naive relatives insert the CD into their computer, the images will automatically pop up with different albums and slideshows. This slideshow also works perfect in Wine in a Linux environent, minus the autorun feature.

Backup Pictures (Tools–>Backup Pictures)

After taking hundreds if not thousands of photos on vacation, the worst thing that can happen to them is for them to be lost. No matter how many hard drives you keep the pictures mirrored on, you need an off site backup as well. Picasa makes this extremely easy, and only costs the price of a CD. Whatever your usual method of burning photos to CD’s is, Picasa will top it. Not only does it do the basic burning of the CD, it also keeps a record of which images have been backed up. Go on vacation, backup those photos. Christmas (hundreds of photos later) comes and goes, and you click the (Tools–>Backup Pictures) button again, and it knows you’ve already backed up your vacation photos, so it only burns the photos you haven’t backed up. For anyone that takes plenty of photos, this will save you hours every month.

“Save” Album Art In Amarok!!!

Matt — Sun, 25 May 2008 01:08:05 +0000

Simply put, Amarok is the greatest piece of software ever. The only improvement for it I could think of would be for it to actually cook your breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Now, remember that one feature of Amarok titled Cover Manager? Although using this method is extremely fast, easy, and convenient, there was one problem with it I found. As I am constantly installing different distro’s, especially new one’s that come out, I find myself having to constantly update the cover art for all my albums. One solution would be to embed the images into the mp3’s, however I hate doing this because I feel that this may cause corruption in the mp3’s if the images are too big. Today I was fooling around with Suse 10.3, and I realized that if you place a jpg in the folder containing the album, Amarok will recognize it as the cover. So as long as you have Amarok managing your library of music, simply download the album jpg’s from wherever you’d like, and place them in the specific folders. After placing jpg’s in the folders, simply call Amarok to update your collection. Now as long as you keep your music directory intact, next time you decide to try a new distro, your album artwork will already be there!

x360mediaserve - Stream Music To Your 360 In Linux

Matt — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:27:44 +0000

Remember that time you threw your controller at your Xbox 360 when you tried streaming music to your Xbox, only to learn once again that Microsoft hates Linux? Now, with x360mediaserve, you can easily stream thousands of songs from your Linux box straight to your 360! I’ve simplified installing and setting up x360mediaserve into three easy steps! Note that for the server to work, you need java, lame,faad,flac and sox already installed.

1) INSTALLATION

I’ve written a script to download the tar.gz, extract it, and then delete the tar.gz. I’ve also provided you with a simple command that will download, run, and then delete the script itself. To install, all you have to do is paste this into a terminal:

wget http://linuxhack3r.com/Downloads/Scripts/x360.sh && bash x360.sh && rm x360.sh

2) STARTING THE SERVER

Using the following command, you can start the server by pasting it into a terminal, adding it to your menu, or even adding it to your services (so it starts everytime you boot).

cd Programs/x360mediaserve-0.0.2/ && ./start

3) CONFIGURE THE SERVER

Don’t worry, this part is as easy as the rest of this tutorial. After the media server is running, click on the link below:

http://127.0.0.1:7000/configure

Using this simple configuration tool, you’ll need to type in the exact path to your music directory. Friendly name is the name that’ll show up on your Xbox when you go to browse your music. Everything else you don’t need to mess with, but hey, it’s your computer.

Apturl in Ubuntu

Matt — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:33:23 +0000

Imagine the next time you are trying reading a great list of Ubuntu programs. One of them catches your eye, and you want to try it. Instead of either using Add/Remove or opening a terminal to install the program, you simply click a link. A message box pops up asking you if you want to install the program, and then you enter your password. Before you could have found the program in Add/Remove, the program is installed! With Apturl, this is now a reality.

You must first install Apturl. To do this, simply run this in terminal:

sudo apt-get install apturl

After Apturl is installed, you’ll need to restart your current web browser. Now if you would like to test Apturl, you’ll need an link won’t you? For details of the program, click “Gnome-Main-Menu”. To actually install the program, click “Install”.

Gnome-Main-Menu:Install

Hopefully that worked! Now before everyone starts complaining of how “insecure” this is, consider this. All that is really being done is apt-get is being told what program to install. So a “malicious” blogger can’t install “harmful” software because it isn’t in your repositories. Apturl only works with programs in your repositories. If apt-get can’t install it, neither can Apturl! You can’t run commands using Apturl, so no worries of automatic disk formatting!

What if you would like to use this on your blog? It is very simple to do. For example, for the above install link, I’ve simply created a hyperlink to:

apt:gnome-main-menu

Measure Pixels With Kruler

Matt — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:09:28 +0000

As a web developer, measuring pixels and colors is important. Fortunately, Kruler handles both of these wonderfully. Not only does it have 4 different sizes, you can also change the orientation of the ruler. The ruler itself is even customizable, allowing you to change it’s color and font. Furthermore, as I stated above, Kruler allows you to determine colors. I now know that one of the colors in my wallpaper is #18488A.

Combining Files With Cat

Matt — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:05:36 +0000

Cat is one of the wonderful programs that makes Linux awesome. Imagine you have multiple files you would like to combine. Cat lets you do this. I’ve recently been using it for MP3’s. First use a tool such as EasyTag to remove ALL ID3 tags from the MP3’s first. As long as there are not tags in the MP3’s, this will work perfect. After combining, you can then add whatever tags you would like. Then simply run a command such as this:

cat ./Music/Artist/*.mp3 ./Desktop/Output.mp3

Not only can Cat combine MP3’s, it combines ANY file you throw at it. Not that these files will always work, but it will combine them. As long as you follow the following format, it’ll combine them.

cat /path/to/1stfile /path/to/2ndfile /path/to/outputfile

DVD Playback In One Easy Step

Matt — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:27:09 +0000

Although many distros are now becoming very user friendly, most don’t include commercial DVD playback. Most distros don’t even include commercial DVD playback in their repos. The “hidden” thing you need is libdvdcss2. Medibuntu provides you with this file. Taken directly from Medibuntu, you can simply download the appropriate file (according to architecture), and install it. Instead of using Medibuntu’s repos (which messes with other things as well), just install the right deb file. After installing the right deb file, simply use your favorite media player. Kaffeine, Totem, and VLC will all work perfectly.

i386.deb amd64.deb powerpc.deb

KDE-Improve Your Lock Screen Button!

Matt — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 14:36:15 +0000

Most Linux users will probably admit to having a “Lock Screen” button. Why? Because it is very useful to be able to slide your pointer to the top right of your screen and click a button before stepping out of the room for a few moments. Although both KDE and Gnome have an “applet” for locking the screen, creating a custom one will be more efficient. Even when you lock the screen, the monitor still stays on, and probably will for at least a few hours. By creating your own button, you can turn off your monitor and lock the screen at the exact same time! Right click one of your panels, click on Add Application to Panel–>Add Non-KDE Application. Add whatever Button title, Icon, and Description, but for the Executable, place this:

sleep 1 && xset dpms force off && kdesktop_lock -forcelock

KDE4 Wallpaper and Icons Download

Matt — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:23:37 +0000

KDE4 is simply beautiful. Combining a new icon-set (Oxygen) with well designed backgrounds, KDE4 is much more visually appealing than KDE3. Recently released, KDE4 still needs time to develop. Although it is usable, it is also suggested that you stick with your current version of KDE, at least until 4.1 is released. However, the icon-set and wallpapers are finished, one might add! Instead of having to install KDE4 and “rip” the icons and wallpapers, simply download them here.

KDE4 Wallpapers KDE4 Oxygen Icons