Handy Tips To Be More Productive Using GIMP

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GIMP - also known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program - is well known as an excellent graphics editor. Many people even consider it as useful as Adobe Photoshop for creating images for the web. I have been using GIMP for a long time now and have used it for such tasks as screen capturing, optimizing images, retouching photos, scaling images, special effects and so on. GIMP is available for multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Why, GIMP is even available as a portable application  which allows you to run it directly from a USB pen drive.

The following are a few handy tips which will help you be more productive in GIMP.

Damn Small Linux - DSL

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Damn Small Linux - also known as DSL - is a fully functional Desktop oriented Linux distribution which fits in a business card sized (50 MB) CD.

50 Time Saving Tips For Ubuntu Users

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If you are an avid Ubuntu Linux user and wish to be more productive in using Ubuntu, these 50 time saving tips are for you. These 50 tips range right from doing mundane tasks to doing something spectacular all the while helping you save on time.

Clipboard Managers in Linux

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A clipboard manager is a computer program that adds additional functionality to basic clipboard usage. The main tasks of a clipboard manager are as follows :

1. To store data copied to the clipboard so that it can be pasted after closing the host application of the data copied.
2. To store and retrieve multiple clips from the clip history available – any number of times.

How many Operating Systems can you name ?

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The other day when I was trying out Haiku, I had a sudden brain wave. How many operating systems - old or otherwise can I really name? And how many of these have I actually used? To tell you honestly, I could name only a few including the ones I have used. Of course, I lumped all Linux distributions as one entity.

In fact, this is the list of operating systems I could name :

Is Linux kernel getting bloated ? Linus Torvalds says Yes!

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A lot of bloat is creeping into the Linux kernel. This was the startling revelation made by none other than Linus Torvalds - Founder of the Linux kernel. He said this in his talk at LinuxCon - an event that brings together Linux gurus and open source leaders to provide collaboration and education space for all matters on Linux.

Haiku - A new Operating System inspired by BeOS

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Haiku is an open source operating system that specifically targets personal computing. It is inspired by  the now defunct BeOS and reimplements both the BeOS technologies as well as the end user experience.  Recently the Haiku team unveiled the first release candidate RC1 by releasing a liveCD of Haiku R1 Alpha1.

The Haiku R1 Alpha1 live CD ISO is only 380MB in size. Succumbing to curiosity, and because of its tiny size, I downloaded Haiku live CD and took it for a run. Simply put, I was really impressed with the user interface and the stability of the OS. I found the Haiku Desktop interface to be unique providing a radical approach to desktop computing.

Screencast - Install OpenSolaris in VirtualBox

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Installing OpenSolaris on your machine may require some gentle hand holding if you are a first time user of the operating system. More so if you are thinking of installing OpenSolaris in VirtualBox. But help is at hand. I came across an exceptionally done screencast which walks you through installing and configuring VirtualBox in Windows, and then installing OpenSolaris in VirtualBox.

Netcat, nc command

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Netcat - also known as nc is considered the Swiss army knife of system administrators. In its most basic usage, netcat acts as a simple utility which reads and writes data across network connections, using TCP or UDP transport protocols. But this simple tool finds diverse uses for system administrators (Unix & Linux alike). Hence the name Swiss army knife.

GNOME vs KDE - Income and Expenses

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Being avid users of GNOME and/or KDE, have you ever wondered how much revenue these well known open source projects generate ? If popular perception is taken into account, GNOME should generate far more revenue, in-turn more profits, than KDE. But reality is somewhat different.

The following are some nuggets of information gleaned from the quarterly reports that give a birds eye view of the income and expenses of GNOME and KDE respectively.

Scribus - Free Desktop Publishing Software

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Scribus is an open source Free DTP software in the same league as Adobe Pagemaker. Scribus is the ideal free page layout program for business, education, and small- and home-office professionals who want to create high-quality publications such as brochures and newsletters.

Some of the notable features of Scribus are as follows :

Apple - Exploring the innards of a Mac Mini

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I have always been allured by Apple products - more for their aesthetic beauty than for their function - be it iPhone, iMac,  iPod, iNano et al. Yes, Apple products usually cost the bomb to buy compared to similar products from contenders and we ordinary users may as well stay away from them if we do not want to splurge on gadgets. However, all things said and done, Apple products do appeal to most people's sense of beauty and they are getting popular as days go by.

Linux servers can now be infected - Or can they ?

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Linux gurus have always vouched on the safety and security of Linux - especially Linux running as servers. However, now after a developer named Denis Sinegubko has published his findings, they may just have to ponder over their words.

According to Denis, the Linux servers can be infected to be used in a botnet used to distribute malware.  The modus operandi of attack is as follows :

Open Solaris vs Linux - A Comparison

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OpenSolaris and Linux to a layperson can seem similar in many ways. They both use more or less the same end user applications, have similar desktops, and are open source. But scratch the surface and you find that they are entirely different products all together.
Some of the notable differences which an end user may encounter are as follows :

Comics - Learn how ZFS safeguards your data

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I am sure you have heard euologies about ZFS - the default file system on Solaris. But do you really know why ZFS is considered to be a superior file system ? If you are in doubt, never fear, Nexenta Man has come to your rescue.

Read the exploits of Nexentaman to learn how ZFS keeps your data safe.

Tornado - An open source web server, courtesy of Facebook

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Facebook has released one of its core piece of infrastructure called Tornado under an open source license.

From the Facebook announcement:

Tornado is a relatively simple, non-blocking Web server framework written in Python, designed to handle thousands of simultaneous connections, making it ideal for real-time Web services.

Apple Open Sources Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch

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Apple has again jumped on to the open source bandwagon by releasing the code for its Grand Central Dispatch technology.

Grand Central Dispatch takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central Dispatch also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems.

25 Linux Tips for Windows Users

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Are you an exclusive Microsoft Windows user who wishes to switch to Linux? Perhaps you are looking forward to embracing Linux for the following reasons -

1. Microsoft Windows is closed source and you seek an open source alternative.
2. You want to check out what the hype on Linux is all about.
3. You are fascinated by the rock solid stability and security you will get in using Linux which is lacking in Windows.
4. You seek change just like the American President Obama, albeit at a much more subdued, personal level.
   

What ever your reason for ditching Windows, there is help at hand. Techradar has published 25 Linux tips for Windows switchers which makes an interesting read.

The article starts from the basics of choosing the right Linux distribution, package management basics, and rounds off with a few tips on troubleshooting in Linux when you hit a snag.

Full RSS feeds now enabled for this blog

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I am happy to let you know that now you can read full posts directly in your RSS reader without visiting this blog. Till date, when anyone subscribed to this blog, they were provided only a teaser of the post, and to read the full post, they had to click the link and visit this blog. Now no more. You can read the full articles right in your RSS reader itself. Hope you find this new change useful.

Please let me know if you are unable to access the full posts of this blog in your RSS feeds.

Blogger finally gets the 'Read More' link as in Wordpress

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It is good news for all Blogger fans out there. Your favourite blogging platform finally gets the "Read more" link.

It had been a sticking point that a blogging platform as versatile as Blogger didn't have such a basic functionality as "Read more" which most other blogging software considered passe. But not any longer. Now you can stop using code hacks to get what you want.

Firefox Mozilla Mockups for version 4

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How would you like the next version of Mozilla Firefox UI to look ? Would you like it to have a spartan look and feel similar to Google Chrome ? Or should it be an amalgamation of all the good UI ideas found in different browsers like Opera, Internet Explorer 8.0, Safari and Google Chrome ?

Mozilla Firefox has initiated a discussion on how the UI of Firefox 4.0 should be designed. It has put together a couple of ideas as mockups.

Opera 10 - A first look at this fabulous web browser

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Opera 10 has been released. This release of Opera sports a number of alluring, new features, many of them not seen in any of its contenders. The enhancements to look out for in Opera 10 are as follows.