David.R.Gilson

David’s links of the week June 18th through July 1st:

• Is Mozilla Firefox Safe? Add-Ons That Improve Privacy and Security – While some of us have been lured over to Google Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox remains the favorite browser here at MUO, and I’m willing to wager that it does so because of near-limitless customization options. We’re also very security-minded as well, so we’ve compiled a brief list of security-conscious Firefox extensions which are compatible with each other. In fact, I can safely say that these are three of the top four extensions under “Security and Privacy” on Mozilla’s Add-Ons site (number four being Xmarks, for reasons uncertain, since it’s a bookmark manager).
• Gmail Account as Archive/backup – EmailDiscussions.com – A guide how to set up GMail as a back up email storage systme.
• btnx Manual – btnx, a.k.a. Button Extension, is a program that enables you to route mouse button events as keyboard combinations and command executions. btnx-config is a GUI to used to detect your mouse and its buttons, and then edit the btnx configuration file.
• http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imapsync/README – imapsync – IMAP synchronisation, sync, copy or migration tool. Synchronise mailboxes between two imap servers. Good at IMAP migration. More than 32 different IMAP server softwares supported with success.
• MailServer – Community Ubuntu Documentation – Setting up an email server is a difficult process involving a number of different programs, each of which needs to be properly configured. The best approach is to install and configure each individual component one by one, ensuring that each one works, and gradually build your mail server.
• Dovecot – Community Ubuntu Documentation – Dovecot is a Mail Delivery Agent, written with security primarily in mind. It supports the major mailbox formats: mbox or Maildir. It is a simple and easy to install MDA. This guide explains how to set it up as an IMAP or POP3 server. For alternate IMAP/POP3 servers see Courier or Cyrus.
• Postfix – Community Ubuntu Documentation – Postfix is the default Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) for Ubuntu. It is in Ubuntu#039;s main repository, which means that it receives security updates. This guide explains how to install and configure postfix and set it up as an SMTP server using a secure connection.
• How To Make A Budget And Wipe Out Debt With Quicken Online – I admit that I tend to overcomplicate the whole “budget” thing. It drives my wife crazy. My Excel budget spreadsheet includes all sources of income, utilities, expenses, mortgage, credit card debt, as well as an array of sheets and charts that estimates debt payoff out to the next five years. In all honesty, the spreadsheet is probably one of the most confusing documents I’ve ever created, and attempting to keep it updated is a complete nightmare.
• 10 Great Apps to Convert Audio Video Files in Linux – With the different audio and video formats available, there is often the need to inter convert amongst them – sometimes for quality and sometimes for compatibility. Here are some of the better software, that you can use to achieve the inter conversions on your Linux box.
• YouTube – d3o Rocks – Liquid body armour
• A ‘time bomb’ for world wheat crop – Los Angeles Times – The Ug99 fungus, called stem rust, could wipe out more than 80% of the world#039;s wheat as it spreads from Africa, scientists fear. The race is on to breed resistant plants before it reaches the U.S.
• The Sean Kennedy TV Show – The Sean Kennedy TV Show was borne from Sean Kennedy#039;s almost five years of radio DJ experience at the time and various video projects. Every Monday night at 8PM PT/11PM ET Sean Kennedy spoke to a live studio audience and the Internet, broadcasting LIVE on RantTV. The show ran for twenty episodes with the help of a large crew of volunteers, Sean Kennedy and Cimmerian all being run ragged arranging bands and guests every week. The show was aired live from Endoplasmic Studios – Unit A – 6011 196A Street, Langley, BC, Canada

Since I began using Ubuntu I have been taking great joy in automating the download of back up copies of the data I have stored on-line, e.g. the database and files for this very website. However, there is one back up job that has refused to be automated – backing up my e-mail. So this post isn’t going to be my usual how to type of post, it’s going to be outlining what I want to do, the problems that have stopped me getting there.

To start with, all of my e-mail is up in the cloud, because I use IMAP. I don’t want to change this, because with POP I would have to have all my e-mail only on my home computer. That’s no good for me trying to find something in my e-mail on my phone or the web when I’m away from home. Although, I trust no server, so I want to know that if my IMAP server goes boom for whatever reason, it’s okay because I have a copy of all my data at home ready to be uploaded to another server.

My favourite IMAP supporting E-Mail client is Thunderbird (because it’s open source and cross platform). Thunderbird has off-line storage for IMAP, which is great. All I have to do to get an up-to-date copy of my e-mail is load up Thunderbird and tell it to go into off-line mode. It will then download any messages it doesn’t have, and also delete any messages I’ve deleted on the server.

This is great, although there’s two problems. Firstly, there’s no way to automate this. Secondly, if for whatever reason you loose all the e-mail on your server, you can’t use your local copies to synchronise back to the server, using Thunderbird. Instead, Thunderbird only synchronises server to client. So if there’s nothing on the server, it’ll wipe your off-line copies.

Thunderbird does support upload of messages to IMAP servers, so I had thought that when needed to do an emergency restore of my e-mail, I could simply use my file manager, navigate to my Thunderbird profile, and copy my IMAP mail files, to Thunderbird’s “local folder” store. Although, for some reason Thunderbird can’t read these properly, and you see that after doing this, the message count is wrong (and some strange malformed messages appear), so this method will cause the loss of some messages.

I had to think of something else.

IMAPSize

If you Google around for “IMAP backup”, you will invariably come across the Windows application “IMAPSize”. This is a great program that I have used before. I even discovered that IMAPSize supports command line options, and if you can run something by command line, you can set up a schedule for automation! I should add here that I’m in Linux so I had to use IMAPSize through WINE, and I found that IMAPSize was very slow to download messages, and this might have been because of using it through WINE, I don’t know.

Performance aside, I hit a short coming of IMAPSize. While it does indeed perform incremental back up of your e-mail, it doesn’t actually remove local messages that have been removed on the server. I verified this by creating test messages, running IMAPSize backup, then going back to the server to delete and expunge them (just to be sure), then re-running the IMAPSize backup. After checking, I could see that the deleted messages were still in my local backup.

So, this is where I am, I am stuck manually backing up my e-mail every few days, by means of having Thunderbird perform the local synchronisation I require (i.e. matching all changes on the server). Then the only progress I made was that I now know that I have IMAPSize to upload/restore the messages that Thunderbird downloads.

Although, this is a two app solution that I have to do through the graphical user interface. If only IMAPSize would remove messages that are not present on server, and if I could get it to play nicely with Linux’s cron scheduler, I would be happy.

It’s amazing to me that there isn’t a command line program that does what I’m looking for. I’ve asked a lot of people, who know far more about such things than I do, but everyone seems to say the same thing to me, “Don’t know of one but it’d sure be useful“.

So, if you know of something that’ll do what I’m looking for, please let me know in the comments.

David’s links of the week May 5th through June 14th:

• Top 10 Most Effective Job Search Websites – With the world economic climate still painfully low, more folks are losing their jobs than ever before. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. unemployment rate hit over 9 percent in May 2009. France unemployment jumped to 8.2 percent, Germany was at 7.6 percent in January, and the UK was at 6.77 percent in March. It’s imperative that job seekers have all of the tools at their disposal to find new work. High unemployment rates don’t necessarily mean that there’s no work, it often means that the fields where there are available jobs are changing. For this reason, I’d like to offer a list of the top 10 most effective job search websites to help MakeUseOf readers land that new dream job as quickly as possible.
• How to backup your MySQL tables and data every night using a bash script and cron – base64.co.uk

  software development tutorials and code snippets covering : Apache, PHP, Perl, MySQL amp; classic Visual Basic 6.
  How to backup your MySQL tables and data every night using a bash script and cron

  published : 01.Apr.2005

  I now offer an off site MySQL database backup service, if you need a reliable a backup solution for your on-line database, please take a look.

  Summary:
  This tutorial will show you how to write a simple bash shell script which will extract your database schema, compress the data and email you the backup. Utilising cron, this script can be configured to run in the early hours of the morning when your web server is least active.

  After completing your database enabled web site, you need an automated method for backing up all that valuable data. Below is a bash shell script which can be used to backup all your clients databases using a nightly cron job.

• How to Backup And Install Your Linux Applications With AptOnCD – Make Tech Easier – Everytime after you have reformatted the hard disk and reinstalled the Linux distro of your choice, the one troublesome thing that you need to do is to re-download all your applications and restore all the settings. This is made worst when your wireless connection just don’t work with the newly installed distro. How are you going to download all your applications when you can’t even connect to the Internet?
• 10 Windows Command Line Tips You Should Check Out – Linux geeks are proud of their command line prowess and generally have some tricks up their sleeves. While the Windows command line is not considered as powerful as a Linux’s, here are some Windows command line tips and tricks not everyone might know about.
• Save money on your Mobile Phone bill – Save money on your mobile bills when calling 0800 and other non-geographical numbers

  Most mobile phone providers in the UK still charge their customers for calls to 0800, 0808 and 0500 numbers, and normally at higher rates than they charge for calling a land line, but there is a way around this. Mobile Fun recently stumbled upon 0800Buster. They operate a service that lets you call these numbers using your mobiles inclusive minutes, by providing you with a UK land line number to dial instead.

• How to Get a Quake-style Drop-down Terminal in Linux – Make Tech Easier – A lot of games out there have some form of command prompt, often just for entering cheat codes. You know the type – you hit some function key and a bar drops down from the top of the screen letting you enter commands or codes or whatever else. Well some clever folks have taken that design and applied it to the command prompt in your Linux desktop. You can get a fully featured, skinnable terminal with split-screen views and all at the touch of a button. Yakuake is just such a program. It’s been around for a few years but has remained below the radar for most Linux users.
• Web life: Phun – physicsworld.com – Phun is a free, downloadable physics-simulation programme that bills itself as a “2D physics sandbox”. The programme’s limitless virtual space allows users to construct simple (and not-so-simple) machines out of levers, gears, motors and as many different shapes as they care to draw, then set them in motion. The results can be educational, bizarre or downright hilarious, depending on what you choose to do, but thanks to a sophisticated simulation engine, they will always be physically realistic — unless you decide to turn off friction and gravity.
• The unique universe – physicsworld.com – Many cosmological theories not only see our universe as one of many but also claim that time does not exist. Lee Smolin argues against the timeless multiverse
• Make Tech Easier – How To Compress A Video File with Virtualdub – Anyone who has played around with any kind of video knows how huge uncompressed video files can be. The huge size of video files is what has led to the proliferation of video compression algorithms like DivX, Xvid, MP4 etc, but how exactly do you compress an uncompressed video to one of these formats, to save space and maintain your sanity ?
• Make Tech Easier – Ubuntu: How to Mount iso, Bin And Cue Files Directly From Nautilus – We have covered the easy way to mount iso images in Windows. This time round, we are going to cover the easy way to mount an iso, bin or cue file in Ubuntu without having to hit the terminal every time.

  With the use of fuesiso and nautilus-actions, we can easily create an option in Nautilus to mount the CD images right from the context menu (mouse right click).

• Make Tech Easier – Mastering the Bash History – The Bourne Again Shell, better known as bash, is the default for most Linux distributions. It’s extremely powerful as far as command shells go, and holds all kinds of nifty tricks for those willing to learn. One of the best features is, in my opinion, the command history system.

  There are many options to use with the bash history, some of them I use nearly every time I open a command shell. Today I’ll be covering some of the most useful aspects of the history, but I certainly won’t be able to cover them all.

• Make Tech Easier – Gaming In Linux (Ubuntu) – Gaming in Linux is always a big issue. Many gamers are not willing to migrate to Linux (though they are not happy with Windows) because they are worried about the lack of support for gaming. This is really a big myth, since there are really plenty of great games in Linux.

  In case you are wondering what choices of game you have in Linux (Ubuntu), here are my top 10 list.

• Make Tech Easier – Things You Need To Know To Become An Apt Guru – Quite possibly the most distinguishing feature of Debian-based Linux distributions (such as Ubuntu, Mepis, Knoppix, etc) is their package system – APT. Also known as the Advanced Package Tool, APT was first introduced in Debian 2.1 in 1999. APT is not so much a specific program as it is a collection of separate, related packages.

  With APT, Linux gained the ability to install and manage software packages in a much simpler and more efficient way than was previously possible. Before its introduction, most software had to be installed either by manually compiling the source code, or using individual packages with no automatic dependency handling (such as RPM files). This could mean hours of “dependency hell” even to install a fairly trivial program.

• Make Tech Easier – The Ultimate Guide To Manage Your Audio/Video Files In Linux – Have you ever come across a situation where you wanted to convert a video from one format to another in your Linux machine and you have absolutely no idea how to do it? What about playing DVD on Ubuntu or rip your favorite VCD to mpeg file?

  Below, I have come up with a great list of software that you can use to handle your video/audio files in Linux. All the software listed are compatible with any of the Linux distros out there. The installation instructions and screenshots are based on Ubuntu, so if you are on a different distro, you will have to change the command accordingly.

• Make Tech Easier – How To Control Your CPU Frequency In Ubuntu – Needless to say, conserving your battery power is the most important task when you are on the move with your laptop. Other than disabling all unused programs by shutting down them during the startup, one of the great way to save battery power is to reduce the running frequency of your CPU. The slower frequency the CPU runs, the less power it consumes.

  In your Ubuntu, you can easily switch your CPU frequency via the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor Gnome-applets.

• Using Spotify Links In Linux – The Atheist Blogger – I’ve yet to officially start my tutorials on Linux, but I’ve been playing around with Spotify recently and I’ve been annoyed by the problem of getting Spotify playlists to load from my web browser directly into Spotify. For those who don’t know about Spotify, I suggest you read my previous post, and if you still want invites, I am getting them on a daily basis, so please apply. Spotify playlists can be shared easily in the form of a link, and there have been several websites set up to publish these links. The problem of using these links in Linux consists of two issues:
• [Jaunty] synaptics driver needs to be updated to work with devices known as "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad" and "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" starting with 2.6.28 series kernels – solved my non working touchpad by doing in terminal:

  modprobe -r psmouse
  modprobe psmouse proto=imps

  at this time the touchpad should be working

  and add: options psmouse proto=imps
  to: gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options

  best of luck.

• Quick and dirty guide to rsync | The Sillican Files – rsync is a software application for Unix systems which synchronizes files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer using delta encoding when appropriate. (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Since this is supposed to be a quick tutorial, we’ll skip the formal lecture and get on with some usage examples.
• How To Build a Social Networking Site using Wordpress | MakeUseOf.com – To create a social networking site, you can either register a free account with a ahird party social networks provider or install open source software on your server and be your own administrator. There are pros and cons in these two methods. The first method allows you to handle your social networks without any technical knowledge, but you risk losing all your data when the third party site close down. The latter requires you to have certain technical knowledge, but you get full control over every single detail in your site.
• Make Tech Easier – Useful Firefox Shortcut Keys (and Cheatsheet Download) – I like using the keyboard as much as possible because it makes me feel more productive. In my opinion, moving your hand over to the mouse is unnecessary the majority of the time because most applications provide very convenient keyboard shortcuts. Today we will discuss the most useful Firefox keyboard shortcuts that will allow you to navigate the Internet faster, thus getting more work (or play) done.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been posting so much lately as my life has taken a less technology orientated direction, thus less to write about. However, there is one significant tech related thing I’ve been doing which is worth writing about now – that being I finally switched from Windows to a Linux based operating system, “Ubuntu 9.04“! This isn’t going to be a technical or in-depth review. This is a very brief user experience report of Ubuntu 9.04 aimed at non-technical users – because it’s all you non-geeky people who I want to start using this operating system!!! The geeks are already there.

My reason for using Linux is that it is “open source” software. What does this mean? Well, it basically means anyone, subject to a peer review type system, is free to contribute and to distribute this software. Unlike proprietary software like Windows or OSX, where if you try to modify that software, the company that makes it could take you to court!

I’ve been using it for a whole month now and I haven’t looked back, yet. Due to having a custom Windows rescue partition boot loader I didn’t dare risk it getting over written with Ubuntu’s boot loader (“GRUB”), I decided to install Ubuntu via “Wubi”. This was a straight forward and painless process. The difference with Wubi, is that instead of partitioning your drive, a large file is created in your Windows drive that the computer sees as a drive in its own right. When you boot up your computer you get an option of booting Windows or Ubuntu.

The environment you get in Ubuntu is called “GNOME”. If you’re used to Windows, it won’t be too confusing to you. Instead of one bar at the bottom, by default you get two, one at the top and one at the bottom. You get menu’s and equivalents of “quick launch” icons and the system tray at the top, and then application tabs on the bottom bar. The good thing about open source based software is freedom, and it’s the same here. The desktop environment I’ve outlined here is totally customisable, you could move things around so that it’s more Windows like, or something completely different.

Unlike Windows, Ubuntu comes pre-installed with applications that you are actually going to be familiar with and will want to use on a daily basis. Although adding and removing software I personally find a lot easier in Ubuntu than in Windows. In Ubuntu there is an applications called the “Synaptic Package Manager” where you can simply point and click at software in an on-line catalogue. There’s no more of this Windows style searching the web for an installation .exe file and running the install. Everything is automated for you in Ubuntu. If you’re a little more adventurous you can use this same automated system via the “Terminal” which is a way of controlling your system by typing in text commands (not everyone’s cup of tea).

I’ve tried Ubuntu several times in the past, but not all of the hardware in my laptop was supported, most notably my webcam. This time my webcam works! Getting to grips with Ubuntu 9.04 wasn’t without little hitches. I found that their default media player somehow broke the function of the volume keys on my laptop, the only fix I had was to change file associations so that application doesn’t get used. Also, the touchpad didn’t work, until I Googled around and found a single text command to type into the terminal that fixed it.

There’s a whole lot of other features new to Ubuntu 9.04 which are well covered elsewhere. I haven’t mentioned them here because I simply haven’t had to use them yet.

If you’re in the Windows or Mac world and like the 3D desktop effects that Vista, Windows 7 and OSX have, then you won’t be disappointed with Ubuntu. When you initially turn on desktop effects you are asked to give your permission for Ubuntu to install drivers for your video card, once this is done it sets up your desktop effects. The desktop effects software is called “Compiz” and you can optionally install the Compiz Settings Manager to get greater control of how your effects work. I’m still fine tuning my settings to get more productivity, but less pointless distraction (and you can easily go from one extreme to the other!). Once you do have your desktop effects set up, I promise you, what you get is far more impressive than anything Microsoft or Apple can give you, and remember, this doesn’t cost you a penny.

I’ve even got a few indispensable Windows applications running in Linux thanks to the WINE application (think of it as an adapter for running Windows software in Linux). One exception is my current favourite computer game, Team Fortress 2. I can play it, but it’s not completely stable and performance isn’t really satisfactory, even with all settings turned down. I’m working on this, but gaming isn’t my top priority.

If you’re not a techie, but you’re still reading this, then well done, and I’d like to encourage you further to try out Ubuntu by pointing out that I’ve had my mother using this too, and she didn’t even notice the difference from Windows XP – she’s just doing her web browsing and e-mail as normal. So if that’s all you do on your computer – take the plunge, go open source and enjoy the freedom.

David’s links of the week March 30th through April 28th:

• Download the Smart Installer Pack – Welcome to the Frontpage – What Smart Installer Pack actually does is incorporate a handful of software* usually installed on new computers, reinstalled operating systems, etc.

  So, SIP was made just to eliminate all the searching around for nothing, waiting, downloading (which can take up a lot of time) and only then installing.

  Now, all you have to do is download this Smart Installer Pack and click on the preferred icons – you can choose which software to install (see screen shots).

• Use Smart Installer Pack to Install All Needed Software at Once | MakeUseOf.com – Some time back we looked at how you can create a custom Windows XP CD so that you can include all you favorite software on the CD that would install automatically. If that was too much for you, here is a simpler way. Try out the Smart Installer Pack.

  While the Smart Installer Pack (sip) might not offer the same amount of customization as offered by the method we demonstrated, it certainly gets the job done quickly and provides you with some pretty nifty applications.

  So if you reinstalled the Operating System or other wise looking for some handy applications for your needs all you need to do is to download and run the Smart Installer Pack

• How to format external hard drive to FAT32 in Windows – Trying to format a large external USB or Firewire hard drive to the FAT32 file system? Can’t do it? Only see an option for formatting the drive using the NTFS file format? Well if you answered yes any of those questions, then you’re at the right place.

  I was recently trying to format my 1 TB MyBook external hard drive in Windows XP to FAT32 instead of the overly forced-upon NTFS format. Why? Well because I needed to connect it to a NAS device and the NTFS permissions were causing the NAS not to be able to access the drive. Simple solution is to use FAT32, no security, no problems. Though it’s sometimes useful to format a USB drive in NTFS format.

• Make Tech Easier – 10 Useful Ubuntu-related Sites You Should Bookmark –
• 5 Easy-to-use Freeware Video Converters | MakeUseOf.com – Our lives have turned into a big media center. Each of us likely have our own set of desktops, laptops, mobile phones, portable media players, handheld consoles, and MP3 players. The many video formats needed to run our gadgets just add more stress to our already media-entangled lives.

  With so many video formats and too little time to organize our video files, we need an easy-to-use and intuitive video converter that handles all our video files on the go. Let us look at 5 of the best freeware video converters that will keep your video collection a little less insane. For converting other files, you can choose an online file converter that were covered earlier.

• Make Tech Easier – 9 Things You Need To Do/Install After Installing Ubuntu 9.04 – After you have downloaded and installed Ubuntu 9.04, what is next thing you should do?

  Getting Ubuntu onto your hard disk is only the first step. It is still in the raw and unpolished state. To get the best out of it, you really need to configure and customize it to suit your needs. In part 3 of the series, I am going to go through the important things that you need to do after you have got Jaunty up and running.

• Creating Bootable Vista / Windows 7 USB Flash Drive at Kevin’s Blog – It surprised me to find that there are very few dead-simple guides to creating a bootable USB thumb/pen/flash drive for a Vista and/or Windows 7 installation. I cobbled together the following from VistaPCGuy and another source I don’t remember right now.

  This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.

• How To Scan and Fax Documents Online for Free | MakeUseOf.com – Popular in the 1980’s, faxes are still around in many organizations and are the fastest and most reliable way to communicate via physical media. To give an example, PayPal requires you to verify your identity by sending a fax with copies of bank statement and government ID if it can’t process your card automatically.

  In these kinds of situations, sending a fax for free as quickly as possible would certainly be useful. In this article, we’re taking a look at 4 websites that let you send fax online and come with a free or trial version.

• 10 Youtube URL Tricks You Should Know About | MakeUseOf.com – Youtube – You know that site with videos and all. Yeah! It turns out that its quite popular and you happen to visit and use it quite often. Instead of just searching and playing here are some top Youtube URL tricks that you should know about:
• 3 Easy Ways To Send a Complete Web Page via Email | MakeUseOf.com – There are two ways to send a webpage to someone. The most common and the most followed is to copy paste the webpage link in the email. The second is to send the entire web page via email, that is include it within the body of the email.
• Check If Your ISP Throttling Your BitTorrent Downloads | MakeUseOf.com – So the cat’s been out of the bag for a while now that ISP’s are throttling or in some cases even blocking your BitTorrent downloads or seeding.

  Comcast came out and admitted to it’s practices in the United States last year. You can read about it here on wired. Since then there has been lot’s of speculation on if other ISP’s are doing the same thing…

• 6 Cool Websites To Unleash The Mad Scientist Within You – Were you the type of kid that would get in trouble because you were always blowing something up or mixing things together that shouldn’t be mixed? Do you now have a boring 9 to 5 job that makes you yearn for those free days in your childhood when all things were possible? If you answered yes to those questions, then this post is for you. I will show you six cool web sites that you can use to unleash the mad scientist within and try fun science experiments at home.
• 5 Dead-Easy Websites to Share Files Without Signing Up | MakeUseOf.com – Sharing or sending files via eMail is very inconvenient. First of all some files are simply too big to be eMailed. Secondly, when the recipient downloads mail they cannot control when to download the file and for the time it takes until the eMail is transferred they are stuck. And last but not least, someone downloading mail at work may find that some file types are blocked by default, thus they may never even receive the file.
• How To Find Unprotected Website Directories Get “Interesting” Files | MakeUseOf.com – With all the risks involved in using file sharing networks, browsing unprotected website directories is probably a lot easier and safer. Only when you start doing that do you realise half the stuff that people keep in their website folders (Sports Illustrated magazines!)

  Then you start to realise how silly they are for not password protecting those folders and leaving them wide open for the whole world to walk in an

• Phoenix Guardian HEPA System – The Phoenix Guardian HEPA System was the first portable air scrubbing device designed exclusively for the restoration industry. The Guardian can perform several critical air quality remediation functions simultaneously.
• Make Tech Easier – Making Full Use of the Super (Windows) Key in Gnome – I use a lot of different computers. Many of those computers are on different operating systems, or desktop environments. Just when I find myself growing accustomed to a particular way of doing things, I find myself on a different system with a different way of doing things. Key combinations are some of the most common distinctions between platforms, so I try to set each system up to recognize the key combos I need. Normally, that’s not a big problem. You just go into the keyboard settings for that environment and set it the way you like, right? Well not always.
• Feeling Depressed? Here’s The Top 5 Good News Websites | MakeUseOf.com – If you are like me, then you are sick and tired of all the negative news being thrown at you by the mainstream media outlets. Pick any major online news outlet and you will find the majority of items are about the ever sinking economy, Iraq or someone’s unfortunate death.

  Some might argue that reading about people who have it worse can make you feel better about yourself, but I really do not think that is true.

• Make Tech Easier – How To Configure A Firewall In Linux Using Firestarter – Long back, when I was running a Windows only PC, a firewall utility was always among the first software that I used to install on a newly formatted machine. Along with an Antivirus, a firewall used to be considered a must for any Windows installation that was in any way connected to the outside world.

  Of course, times have changed now. I use Linux almost exclusively and rarely see the Windows login prompt. Most Linux distributions are far more secure than Windows, out of the box, but the threat is still there and having a good firewall protecting your computer is still a good idea.

  Almost all Linux distributions comes bundled with a firewall software known as iptables, which is a command line based software for configuring Firewall rules for all network traffic to and from the Linux kernel.

• XMind – Social Brainstorming and Mind Mapping – XMind, combined with online sharing service, provides a revolutionary way to enable both team brainstorming and personal mind mapping. With this major upgrade, we bring Web 2.0 concepts on community sharing into a popular desktop application. New Gantt view allows project managers to easily track project tasks and schedules. You#039;ll find many more useful and time-saving functions in XMind product family.
• Hive Five: Five Best Mind Mapping Applications – Mind mapping is a great way to add structure to brainstorming sessions and visualize your ideas. Check out the applications your fellow readers use to do their best brainstorming.

  Earlier this week we asked you to share which mind mapping application helped you brainstorm most effectively. The votes are in and we#039;re back to share the results and arm you with the tools to make your next think tank meeting that much more productive.

• The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security – There#039;s lots of innovation going on in security – we#039;re inundated with a steady stream of new stuff and it all sounds like it works just great. Every couple of months I#039;m invited to a new computer security conference, or I#039;m asked to write a foreword for a new computer security book. And, thanks to the fact that it#039;s a topic of public concern and a quot;safe issuequot; for politicians, we can expect a flood of computer security-related legislation from lawmakers. So: computer security is definitely still a quot;hot topic.quot; But why are we spending all this time and money and still having problems?
• Add Your Twitter Blog to Technorati Directory – You can consider adding your Twitter account to the Technorati Blog directory for the following reasons:

  1. You can associate relevant Technorati tags to your Twitter profile and this could give you extra exposure via the popular Technorati blog directory (see tags).

  2. With Technorati, you can automatically track other blog posts that are linking to your tweets.

  3. Your Twitter account will also show up in your Technorati profile page just like your other regular blogs thus increasing visibility.

David’s links of the week January 25th through January 30th:

• Q and A: Mercury in energy-saving light bulbs – Old-fashioned tungsten light bulbs are due to be phased out in Australia, the UK, and the US over the next five years, and the spotlight has fallen on their low-energy replacements. The new light bulbs contain mercury, which has triggered a rash of concerned media stories – but is there any fact behind the fear? Chemistry World investigates.
• What else does Spotify need to succeed? – Brief review of Spotify, the new internet jukebox application. Also a list of suggestions for how they should innovate with their product.
• Ubuntu: Ubuntu Pocket Guide Available as a Free Download – In the midst of the current financial crunch, the popular, free Linux distribution Ubuntu has never looked more attractive. If you#039;ve considered switching, a free copy of the Ubuntu Pocket Guide is the perfect place to start.

  Written by Keir Thomas, author of Ubuntu Kung Fu, Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference covers all the beginner-to-expert knowledge you#039;ll need to make the move to Ubuntu.

• Kevin Rose: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers – This guest post is written by Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg and the cofounder of Revision3 and Pownce. Kevin, who has over 88,000 followers on Twitter (making him the second most followed after President Obama), also “bloggs” at kevinrose.com. He is an investor in Twitter.
• Set up WiFi on your Series 60 smartphone – A guide showing you how to set up WiFi on your series 60 smartphone; avoiding all those expensive data charges
• Top 50 Linux Alternatives to Popular Apps – LaptopLogic.com – Linux is quickly gaining popularity, but there are still many users afraid to convert as they are not familiar with the applications. Today our Linux guru Blair Mathis is back to introduce fifty of the most popular applications on this OS

David’s links of the week January 17th through January 23rd:

• Atoms teleport information over long distance – physicsworld.com – Physicists have teleported quantum information between two atoms separated by a significant distance, for the first time. Until now this feat had only been achieved between photons, and between two nearby atoms through the intermediary action of a third. According to researchers, this advance could be a significant milestone in the quest for a workable quantum computer.
• Tip of the week – 23rd January 2009 – Windows:
  Are you bored of the taskbar? Then try these two tips:

  1) Autohide – You may only need the taskbar sometimes so the rest of the time, why don’t you get rid of it! If you right-click your taskbar and select Properties, you’ll see that the second tick-box down says “Auto-hide the taskbar“. If you check this the taskbar will slide off your screen. When you need to see it, move your mouse to the bottom of of the screen and it will reveal itself again.

  2) Move it around! – Did you know that the task bar can live on the other three sides of your screen? Just right-click and click the “Lock the taskbar” line so that it no longer has a tick next to it. Next, drag any empty part of the taskbar to the side of the screen you want it to be. Once you’re happy, you can “lock” the taskbar into play by repeat the first part of this tip.

• get_iplayer | Linuxcentre – This tool allows you to download or stream any iPlayer programme from the BBC in H.264 (Quicktime/mp4) format, any BBC radio programmes in MP3 or RealAudio format (optionally converted to wav or mp3) and all BBC podcasts in MP3/AAC format. It even downloads the BBC subtitles where available. It also has support for downloading ITV TV programmes.A major new feature adds PVR-like capabilities (like Sky+ / TiVo / Series-Link); You can save lists of programme searches which are automatically downloaded when they become available.

  The H.264 feeds from the BBC are higher quality than in the Flash iPlayer (normal quality) or the Wii. See the beebhack wiki for a comparison. They are intended for the Apple iPhone and are consequently made difficult to download for any other OS. The same goes for the iPhone MP3 radio streams. Although there is now a new feature which allows downloading fo the flash based content.

• 10 Cool Linux Apps You Maybe Didn’t Know About | MakeUseOf.com -
• Movie Review: BLAST The Movie – A review of quot;BLAST The Moviequot;, a documentary about a graduate project to fly a telescope to the edge of our atmosphere on a balloon to peer into the earliest galaxy formation in the universe.
• Our world may be a giant hologram – space – 15 January 2009 – New Scientist -
• Tip of the week – 16th January 2009 – In windows, if you plan to do some work “under the hood” or are trying to fix a problem, make sure you manually save a restore point.
• 12 Useful Web Tools for Designers – Six Revisions – When it comes to design, there’s a plethora of free web-based tools to help you accomplish tasks such as color palette selection, creating unique fonts, editing images, and testing typography.In this article, you’ll find a bunch of handy online utilities for designers.
• Starship size comparison – size comparison of all the starship we#039;ve ever seen!
• Encrypt Your Files In Linux With eCryptfs – Mark has previously described how you can use TrueCrypt to encrypt your sensitive data. While that is a great encryption software, it requires you to pre-allocate a fixed size to the container before you can store confidential data to it. If you are using only 10% of the allocated space, the remaining 90% of the space goes to waste. If you are looking for a more dynamic solution to encrypt files in Linux, eCryptfs might be the solution for you.eCryptfs is a stacked cryptographic filesystem embedded within the Linux kernel (versions 2.6.19 and later). Being a stacked filesystem, it can easily encrypt and decrypt the files on your Linux PC as they are written to or read from the hard disk.

  The greatest advantage of eCryptfs is that all encryption is made at the single-file level. This means that you don’t have to create a fixed size container to hold your files.

David’s links of the week November 13th through December 1st:

• Socialthing! – See everything that#039;s going on with your friends in all the sites you use, easily figure out where you#039;re missing connections with your friends, interact with multiple sites at once, and more!

  Socialthing! makes it easy to see all the things your friends are doing. It#039;s a news feed for every site that you use in one place.

  It#039;s a place to see quot;what#039;s upquot; in your digital life, and figure out where to go to from there…

• Date Smart with intellectConnect – Are you a bookworm? Do you love museums? Maybe you#039;re seeking intelligent conversation.
  Whether you#039;re looking for a smart soul mate or friends who share common interests,
  our service will help you find them. intellectConnect. It#039;s a meeting of the minds.
• freesound :: home page – The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focusses only on sound, not songs. This is what sets freesound apart from other splendid libraries like ccMixter. New to this site? Read the What is Freesound page to learn more!
• The world’s best free web based email | Welcome to Zenbe –
• Explore Space Right From Your Computer With Celestia –
• Howto: Fresh Ubuntu Install Without Losing Your Current Settings – A clean install or an upgrade? That’s a question that keeps tossed around every new Ubuntu release. Common wisdom would suggest that a clean install would probably be better, however the inconvenience of losing current installed apps and configuration makes most of us shy away from this path. But what if I told you that you could have the good of both worlds? A fresh install and keeping your apps and configuration intact?
• WordPress Optimization Guide – This WordPress optimization guide is a collection of useful tips and tutorials on how to speed up your WordPress site.

  If you ever experienced slow WordPress admin panel, “MySQL server has gone away” message, pages taking forever to load or you want to prepare your site for a major increase in traffic (for example Digg front page) this is the guide for you.

David’s links of the week November 4th through November 10th:

• jRin.net ” Dell XPS M1330 Review (Videos Pics) -
• The Ubuntu Upgrade Guide – The next release of Ubuntu (8.10 Intrepid Ibex) is just round the corner. So it’s time again to upgrade the Ubuntu release that you are using and a good time to consider trying out Ubuntu if you have never done so before.Let’s take a look at some of the options you have and then we will have a brief look at what the new things are and the anticipated additions to Ubuntu Intrepid as well as where we can find them.
• Add Me Button from Retaggr – The universal button to show where you live on the web. * A Portal to All Your Profiles
  * View Example Portal Page
  * Easy url : http://clicktoadd.me/yourname
  * 170+ Sites Supported
  * 1-Click Connect where Possible
  * For Websites, Blogs, and MySpace
  * Removes Clutter

  * The Add Me Button is Part of Retaggr
  * Retaggr is the Web 2.0 Business Card
  * Consolidate Your Online Presence
  * Rich, Interactive, Portable
  * Email Signature Included
  * View More Features
  * Free

• Recover Deleted Files From Your Linux System – Recovering deleted/lost files on a Windows system is easy to do as there are plenty of software (both paid and free) that allows you to do so like a CSI expert. But what about Linux?Recently my Linux hard disk crashed on me and it was then that I discovered that there was a limited choice of data recovery tools that I could use on my Linux system. In my desperate attempt to revive my hard disk (and the data on it), I came across these two great pieces of software TestDisk and PhotoRec that single-handedly saved my hard disk.
• 27 Indispensable Web Design and Development Firefox Extensions : Speckyboy – Web Design, Web Development and Graphic Design Resources – A collection of extensions for your every Design and Development need, from Editing CSS and Database Management to Image Capture and Color Pickers.
• 40 Beautiful Free Icon Sets – Six Revisions – Some of the best things in life are free. When it comes to icons and icon sets, there are many talented designers and artists that choose to provide beautiful and useful icon sets for commercial and/or personal usage.In this collection, you’ll see 40 beautiful, free icon sets that you can use in a variety of ways (websites and/or your desktop). In total, you’ll find close to 3000 invidual icons showcased in this article.Note: It’s important to read the fine-print before using any icon sets; some may have restrictions for commercial use (or require that you give credit to the designer).

David’s links of the week October 29th through November 3rd:

• Mozilla Control – quot;Welcome to the Mozilla ActiveX project!This site contains information on a number of projects that allow you to use Mozilla in an ActiveX environment and vice versa:

  1. Mozilla ActiveX Control
  Embed the Mozilla browser engine (Gecko) into any ActiveX application. This control implements the same APIs as the Internet Explorer control making porting of existing applications reasonably straightforward.
  2. ActiveX Control For Plug-ins
  Embed plug-ins in any ActiveX application. This control can host most Netscape Plug-in API (LiveConnect) plug-ins, allowing them to use them in your existing ActiveX applications, including Internet Explorer.
  3. Plug-in For ActiveX controls
  Embed ActiveX controls in any NP API application. This plug-in hosts ActiveX controls allowing them to be used in browser such as Netscape 4.x/6.x, Mozilla and Opera.
  quot;

• The Call of Cthubuntu – In the dark, abysmal depths, there dwell timeless alien horrors that once roamed the void of space in the ages before the earliest building blocks of life congealed within the primordial waters of our doomed planet. From far beyond the stars, they came to this world when it was young and forged mighty edifices in the inaccessible places where nothing else could exist, there to rest in dreamful torpor for endless aeons.Though the presence of these Great Old Ones has long been obscured from humanity, we are surrounded by subtle signs and portents of the secret horrors that will one day awaken and rise from the depths to blot out our feeble existence. An artifact that prophesies their grim return has come into my possession: the dread Cthubuntu Linux distribution—an arcane relic of ineffable power that originated in a dark time beyond reckoning. The incomprehensible apparatus is an otherworldly chimaera forged by alchemical arts unknown to modern science.
• 8 Best Defragmenters To Keep Your PC Running Like New – A good defrag software that can clean your hard drives and optimize them for maximum performance is what every computer user needs. I’ve complied a list of 8 great defragmenters, most of which I have used myself, and I’m pretty happy with the outcome.
• Use BitTorrent to Upgrade to Ubuntu ‘Intrepid Ibex’ | TorrentFreak – Ubuntu, the open source GNU/Linux based operating system, is about to release its next big update – Intrepid Ibex. In the past, the update servers would crash very quickly on a big release day, making it hard for people to get the latest update. With BitTorrent, however, this can be easily avoided.
• Using Your Linux Computer As A Media Center (Part 1) – If you are a Windows or Mac user, you will be familiar with Windows Media Center or Front Row that both have the ability to turn your computer into a Media Center PC. Linux users don’t have such luck as most distros do not come with a media center application pre-installed.If you are like me who is a Linux user and owns a huge collection of music, videos and pictures, the world is not over for you yet. There are many open-source applications that you can use to turn your Linux machine into a lean, mean media center.In part one of this series, I will go through some of these free media center software that you can use in your Linux machine.