Nov 4
How-To Guides David
command line, editing, file, id3, id3 mass tagger, linux, mp3, mp3tag, music, podcast, tag, windows
MP3 tag editing
If you download many podcasts, you’ll often find that some of them aren’t tagged properly, and so don’t show up in your MP3 player where they should. There are two ways you can deal with this. First is the manual method with a graphical application. My recommendation goes to MP3TAG. It is a highly flexible system which can handle all the tag fields you’d need to handle, including cover art. It can also fill in tag information from systematically named files, and vice versa, as well as pulling tag data from Amazon and the CD internet database. When I was organising my 1,800+ MP3 collection, I was able to tag and rename every file with a ridiculous amount of ease.
Manual tag editing is all well and good for occasional jobs, but when you need see to podcasts that your computer gets every week, it can get repeative and time consuming. Therefore you need an automated method. The best way to automate a task is to find a command line tool for which you can write a script and execute on your operating system’s scheduler.
This is were ID3 Mass Tagger comes in. This is a really handy little utility, pointed out to me by fellow blogger, Pokeh. Fortunately the author makes versions of this for most operating systems. I run a script on my Ubuntu laptop for synchronising my podcasts with my mobile phone, and I’ve been able to incorporate this into that script to correct all my genre tags.
MP3Tag in action
References:
Oct 26
Reviews David
9.10, cannonical, cd, distribution, download, gnome, installer, karmic, koala, linux, live, livecd, open, operating, source, system, ubuntu
As the winter draws in, it’s time for wrap up warm with some open source goodness, as the October 29th release date of Ubuntu‘s latest version, Karmic Koala, draws near. So, let’s take a look at what’s new!
Running the installer from the Live CD is the same user-friendly set up that Ubuntu always has. Although in addition to drive encryption that came in with the last version, there is now an added option to format your hard drive with the new Ext4 file system, a new version of Linux’s native file format.
Once the installer gets running, you get to watch a presentation of screens telling you all the key features of the operating system. This something Windows has had for years, and is a great idea to educate new users on just what they can do with Ubuntu.
Ubuntu's new informative installer
Once you’re into the Ubuntu desktop, everything will be familiar if you’ve used previous versions. Although, you can see straight away a fresh set of icons have been used, and the default wallpaper is much brighter than previous versions.
Browsing the applications and system menus gives you a view of the key new features to Karmic.
The default IM application has been switched from the long-standing Pidgin, to a new but very similar application called Empathy. I expect few users will really notice the difference here.
Ubuntu's new IM client, Empathy
In the applications menu, you will find the “Ubuntu Software Center”. Desktop Linux distributions have long had software to deliver applications to you. Ubuntu’s has been the “Synaptic Package Manager”. Although Software Centre gives you a far more user friendly interface. The distinction of having a single section named “Free software” hints at Cannonical’s long term goals of being able to deliver commercial software to the Ubuntu desktop. This is a boon for developers. Until now, Linux’s repository method of delivering software has been a mixed blessing for them. The aspiration of new developers is to get their work into as many repositories as possible. However, commercial developers have shied away from this because Linux repositories have offered little opportunity for generating an income.
The Ubuntu Software Center
Confusingly, there is another existing application called “Add/Remove Applications” alongside the Synaptic Package Manager in the System/Administration menu. This appears to offer the same software set as Synatpic does, although again with a better user interface, including popularity ratings.
Ubuntu's Add/Remove Applications window
Finally, we have the addition of “Ubuntu One”, Cannonical’s other embryonic software as a service. Ubuntu One is a Dropbox like service (utilising Amazon S3), available to all Ubuntu users. For free, everyone gets 2GB of storage, but this can be expanded to 50GB for $10 (US) a month, although I couldn’t find where you are meant to authenticate your account. You can also access your files via the web and share specific files and folders with specific individuals. The eventual aim is that you will be able to synchronise all of your application settings across multiple Ubuntu computers. This is a promising service, but from my own research I have yet to find any information about privacy and encryption, which are essential to me for any on-line storage service. On the other hand, the Cannonical deserve kudos for finding innovative ways to generate more income from their desktop operating system.
Ubuntu's "Ubuntu One" cloud storage running.
You can find more screen shots at my Ubuntu 9.10 Flickr gallery.
If all of this has caught your interest, then go Get Ubuntu!
Oct 21
Mobile News David
bluetooth, free, linux, mobile, nokia, open, phone, s60, series 60, source, symbian, ubuntu, unix, usb
S60 & Linux
I have had another article published on AllAboutSymbian.com. This time I wrote about how to maintain connectivity between your phone and computer after switching from Windows to Linux.
This is based on my own experience after switching exclusively to Ubuntu Linux, and having spent time working out how to still support my mobile phone.
Topics covered include: how to back up files, transfer photos, synchronise your music and connect to the internet via your phone.
If you’d like to read it, here’s the link:
Oct 14
Editorial David
3d, 7, boot, desktop effects, floss, linux, operating system, reliability, service pack, speed, time, ubuntu, vista, windows
- Reliability.
Of course Ubuntu can go wrong but only when I mess with it. Meanwhile, Windows seems to go wrong all on its own with no help from me!
- Settings are easier to find.
Everything you could need to alter is either available through the “System” menu, or right clicking a particular object. Windows requires you to drill through multiple layers of menus.
- Boot speed.
Compared to Windows, the boot time of Ubuntu is stunning. See for yourself.
- Disk space.
Ubuntu takes at most a quarter of the disk space that Vista and Windows 7 takes. That means you have more drive space to use for your own files.
- Operation speed.
Windows soon slows down, Ubuntu doesn’t seem to ever slow down. Everything works as quickly as it did yesterday.
- Applications are easier to install.
In Ubuntu, you have the “Synaptic Package Manager” which gives you a point and click interface to choose applications to install – think of it like an App Store. Unlike Windows, where you have to hunt the internet for a .exe to download, then run it yourself. In Ubuntu, it’s an all in one operation.
Desktop effects.
Thanks to a system called Compiz, Ubuntu has more snazzy desktop effects than Windows or Mac OSX have ever had. You can set up the combination that is perfectly useful to you.- Regular releases.
With Ubuntu, you have the equivalent of a service pack every six months. Between those releases, on average, you’ll get bug and security fixes every week.
- The command line.
This is a controversial one as I wouldn’t suggest novice users jump right into using the command line (but I would encourage you to learn!). Although, I like how I can achieve – with a single line of code – something that would take a few minutes of point and click work. Windows has a command line, but it’s just not as useful.
- No DRM, i.e. no Windows Genuine Advantage.
Because Ubuntu is free there’s no nasty DRM to get in your way when you’re installing the system, either on your own computer, or taking your Ubuntu CD to your friend’s computer.
Get Ubuntu!
Oct 5
How-To Guides David
address, bash, blog, change, changing, directory, dynamic, file, folder, hosted, htaccess, ip, linux, mac, osx, page, password, php, protect, restrict, script, secure, security, unix, weblog, wordpress, wp-admin
Wordpress
If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, I hope that you are thinking about security. The best thing you can do is to use the automatic updates so you always have the current version of WordPress.
One of the most pernicious hacks someone can do to your blog is to access to your wp-admin folder. This folder contains the back-end PHP pages of your site where you control everything and write your posts.
Via your web-host’s control panel you might be able to password protect this directory, although that could still be brute forced. An alternative method, which is well documented (see reference links below), is to create a “.htaccess” file in your wp-admin directory, with which you can limit access to a specific set of IP addresses. E.g. your home IP address and your work IP address. See the references below for links on how to write this.
This method is perfect for locking down and restricting who can access your admin pages without having to go through any sort of manual authentication. I held off doing this for a long time because my ISP assigns dynamic IP addresses, and my Netgear router needs frequent reboots. So my IP address changes a lot, so I’d keep getting locked out of my own blog!
To get around this, I thought of a script I could write to keep my wp-admin’s .htaccess file automatically updated! You could even use this if you took your laptop away from home and connected on another network, as your laptop will have your ssh keys installed. Try to stickto using a secure VPN though, just on principal 
Sorry, it’s a bash script, so if you use Windows you’ll be stuck unless you install the cygwin environment and PuTTY. If you use a Mac, I’m sure you can switch on the bash shell.
Without further ado, here’s the script:
Note: make sure you have cURL installed first.
#! /bin/bash
# Auto-update .htaccess in http://your-blog/wp-admin/
# Run this from cron on a short interval.
# This will grab your IP address, and then rewrite the
# .htaccess file and use scp to upload to your server.
#
# David.R.Gilson 3rd October 2009
# http://www.davidgilson.co.uk
# I distrobute this under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.
# http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
cd ~
# Grab your external IP address.
ip="$(curl www.whatismyip.org)"
ip="$(curl -s checkip.dyndns.org|sed -e 's/.*Current IP Address: //' -e 's/<.*$//')"
# Write the file.
echo "AuthUserFile /dev/null" > htacc.txt
echo "AuthGroupFile /dev/null" >> htacc.txt
echo -e "AuthName \042Limit wp-admin access\042" >> htacc.txt
echo "AuthType Basic" >> htacc.txt
echo "<LIMIT GET>" >> htacc.txt
echo "order deny,allow" >> htacc.txt
echo "deny from all" >> htacc.txt
echo "# Whitelist home router" >> htacc.txt
echo "allow from "$ip >> htacc.txt
echo "</LIMIT>" >> htacc.txt
# Copy to server
scp htacc.txt [YOUR SSH LOGIN HERE]:"~/www/wp-admin/.htaccess"
# Clean up
rm htacc.txt
Once you’ve pasted all that into a file (I named mine htaccessupdate.sh), remember to make it executable by typing chmod +x htaccessupdate.sh.
References
ip=”$(curl -s checkip.dyndns.org|sed -e ‘s/.*Current IP Address: //’ -e ‘s/<.*$//’)”
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