Google Chrome is out and it's only currently available on Windows. However not one to be peturbed by the tiresome differences between Windows and Linux I've got it installed on Wine 1.1.4. thanks to this page. The only issue at the moment is that it won't load https...
Open Source Apps
OCR – Tesseract
Just made a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to use Tesseract OCR. Here is a sample: "|I11;XII;"1n -¤:2;;2:¤ LIEEEEEEE.-::2;;;: nz ’‘·* *--2.. ::2;;: "=I;;;. :1:;*-- ::2;£2|a:‘¤I;;;.XXi.X ·¤:;1;;¤· X;|:;t1X '!EEEXI|· XXXIIEX--EXIIXX-.:21:;. -·¤a.;¤¤a..a··...
Shrink a Windows XP NTFS Partition to half size and Install Linux while keeping the Windows Boot Menu
Disclaimer: This procedure can render your computer unbootable and corrupt your data if you do it wrong. Perform a backup prior to doing it and verify you can read the backup. Don't attempt it on a critical laptop. I am in no way responsible if you attempt this and...
IPTraf – Looking at it as it happens
When looking at traffic flowing in and out of your gateway Linux boxes you can use a variety of tools. tcpdump is handy For example if I wanted to know what traffic is flowing from my ppp0 interface to a remote host without resolving the names I would say. tcpdump -i...
Headless does not mean you can’t use the GUI
The Problem: So you have a firewall / server box that you don't want to run X on but you would rather forgo the pleasure of editing all the config files by hand. What to do? A resolution: Use ssh X forwarding to bring those remote GUI programs to your local...
FWBuilder error sudo: sorry, you must have a tty to run sudo
If you use fwbuilder to compile and install your firewall rules you may have come accross "sudo: sorry, you must have a tty to run sudo" This is caused by a setting in the /etc/sudoers file "Defaults requiretty" As root run visudo and comment out that line with a hash...
Setting up an Xvnc Server for remote logins
Those of us Windows admins that like the mstsc /v:hostname option of connecting to our Windows Boxes may also want a "feel at home" approach for Linux. I personally like to be able to use vncviewer ip_address:port to connect and get a complete Linux Desktop. The...
Gallery 2 – Returning to Secure Permissions
When you perform a module update with Gallery 2 it recommends changing the permissions of the modules and themes directories to rwxrwxrwx or 777: cd $gallery_web_root # on Fedora this is probably /usr/share/gallery2 chmod -R 777 modules/ themes/ To get back to a...
My notes on using gimpsvn.sh to install Gimp 2.5.x
I wanted to try and install the latest version of the GIMP So I googled and found this blog with a nice gimp svn download and installation script named gimpsvn.sh cd ~/gimp-build My notes: Do make a directory such as gimp-build and cd into it mkdir ~/gimp-build cd...
Opening WPS files on Windows and Linux without Microsoft Office
Microsoft Works (wps) Documents aren't recognized by the native OpenOffice.org version of OpenOffice. Update: Ubuntu has a libwps package that provides the functions to convert wps files and the Ubuntu version of OpenOffice will open a WPS natively (thanks to Andrew...
wxWidgets using wxPerl and wxGlade
When it comes to getting user input and performing an action in a Windows environment there are several convenient options: You can purchase a Microsoft development environment for several thousand dollars such as Visual Studio (or whatever is the latest name for it)....
Adding an Insert Picture from File Button to the Standard Toolbar in OpenOffice
I create a few how-to and step by step manuals for my users at work which include multiple screen shots. I do this using OpenOffice which has a handy export to PDF feature. However when trying to insert screen shots into a document it becomes very laborious to do...
How to extract Icons from Windows executeables in Linux
I have installed a small app using Wine under Ubuntu 8.04 however the desktop launcher icon isn't the correct one for the application. Windows frequently stores application icons in the programs exe file. So to fix my launcher icon I need to extract the icon from the...
Saying “I Love You” Remotely with Festival
It's simple: Login remotely to your Linux based home computer via ssh. Create a text file with the contents you want to say in it. vi ilu.txt Lisa, I love you. :wq Then run festival with the following arguments festival --tts ilu.txt If all runs well your computer...
Thunderbird Address Book Synchronization using SyncKolab
I use Mozilla Thunderbird for accessing my home email from work, which I connect to using ssh tunneling. For Calendaring support I have the Thunderbird plugin Lightning. My email account is hosted on an IMAP server. My problem was how to keep my Thunderbird address...
Putty GTK2
PuTTY is an excellent Telnet and SSH client for Windows and Unix. I have used it for all my IT Career to access my Home and Work Linux boxes. I now exclusively use Linux at home, but found the GTK1.2 PuTTY client to be a bit aged. However, while not listed as a...
Reading a Paradox DB Under Windows using XAMPP
If you want to do this get an old version of XAMPP Update: New versions of XAMPP for Windows don't have the PHP paradox module. The latest I could find that contained the necessary php/ext/php_paradox.dll file was XAMPP for Windows 1.7.0 Windows (XP) provides a...
QCAD uses /etc/printcap which doesn’t have correct printer entries
Just thought I would share my experiences with a printing problem I was having. QCAD (at least some versions) seems to look at /etc/printcap to populate the printing dialog box. I have had an issue where the wrong printer was being listed in the print dialog (one that...