photo editing
I've been taking digital images for over a year (maybe), but using Gimp for many years for just about any image manipulation. It's a fantastic program... possibly the best piece of (desktop) software on Linux. Anyway the point of this entry was to point you to this page: LinuxArtist's 2d application list which has a list of several other nice image related software packages.
WRT54G
The Linksys WRT54G (and WRT54GS) make for very nice firewall since you can install any (Linux) software you wish on them. The platform consists of a MIPS processor running at 200MHz, 16M (or 24M) of RAM, and 4M (or 8M) of flash. Here are some articles: The Little Engine That Could by Robert X. Cringely Hacking the Linksys WRT54G - a slashdot article Here are more technical links: LinksysWrt54g at SeattleWireless WRT54G - LinkSys site Linux on the WRT54G
Digital Rebel
About a year ago I put my SLR away since I very much enjoyed the quick feedback of the Canon A70 digicam... what I missed was the control and lens variety that come with an SLR. I got a Canon Digital Rebel (aka EOS-300D) for birthday this year. Before I decided on it I read a plethora of reviews on line. Here are a few good ones: Digital Photography Review Digital Camera Review Steve's Digicams Imaging Resource
Open Office templates
I got frustrated with Open Office today. I was going to write a document and peeked for the first time into the templates that open office came with. Well, was I disappointed to find a whole 2 templates. :) But it turns out that my third google search found the answer; a few of them at that... GetOpenOffice.org - OpenOffice.org Templates OO Extras - Extras for OpenOffice.org OOo Docs - The OpenOffice Documentation Project
bash vi editing mode
bash comand line For a few years now I've been using vi editing mode for bash and anything that uses readline. Here is how I've set things up. In .bashrc I use the following to enable vi editing mode: set -o vi This allows me to type as usual and use ESC to get into vi command mode. Since ESC is so far away I frequently use control-[... unless I feel I need the exercise.
debian install CDs
I've just realized that I never have to burn another stinking Debian installer CD. Why bother, if I can just boot into Knoppix and run debootstrap. Just look how easy the process is: boot into knoppix. mkdir /1 mke2fs -j /dev/sda1 mount /dev/sda1 /1 debootstrap sarge /1 http://ftp.debian.org/debian Of course this will not boot, so I will have to build the kernel. But I would do that anyways right after I rebooted the first time into any install anyway.
change of jobs
I am leaving my employer of two years, SOMA Networks, for new opportunities at Fortinet. I have a lot of mixed feelings, but I recall feeling this way when I left my last job. Fortinet Technologies has recently been features in an Ottawa Citizen article. Seems like a big change to work for a company with real clients and real products. :) Here are a few resources I found useful while I was searching for work: Yahoo! Ottawa S/W Jobs teledyn Linux jobs
spamassasin extras
Here are a couple of interesting spamassasin rule sets: Jennifer's Sets Rules Du Jour Rule Sets Rules Emporium Here is some related help... "Installing and configuring Exim 4 on Debian" - Nice step by step how-to. Here is something that made a huge difference on my spam set: SURBL - Spam URI Realtime Blocklists This is similar to an RBL, but instead of looking at an email source it looks at URIs found in the email body.
cool debian tools
A few of us, Debian veterans, started naming off cool tools and tricks on IRC for the benefit of a newbie. One person suggested to put this list up somewhere... so here goes: apt-file - APT package searching utility -- command-line interface auto-apt - package search by file and on-demand package installation tool apt-show-versions - Lists available package versions with distribution cron-apt - Automatic update of packages using apt deborphan - Find orphaned libraries apt-listchanges - Display new Debian changelog entries from .deb archives apt-spy - writes a sources.list file based on bandwidth tests dpkg-repack - generates a .deb from an installed package Tools for keeners and developers:
first post!
I’ve just finished coding up this blog script. I wanted something that did not use a database backend, and most importantly could be added to from the command line. The implementation is in PHP and I add entries using vim. The PHP Manual came in very handy. B.