Backup web-sites

April 5th, 2010 No comments
  • On Ubuntu a script can be written which will use mysqldump + bash + cron + rsync
  • The data can be stored on Amazone S3 service ( command-line Amazon S3 client – command-line tool to upload, retrieve and manage data in Amazon S3 service, designed for use in scripts)

VirtualBox Virtual Appliances

April 5th, 2010 No comments

VDI images of pre-installed “Open Source” Operating System distros. Pre-installed virtualbox images ready for you to explore and play with.

  • Instantly run another operating system on your desktop in a window, on almost any computer.
  • Implement full Linux functionality on an existing Windows Desktop or server.
  • Windows XP Tutorial: 7 quick steps to using our VDI’s
  • Need a specific Application? Find an Image using the Pre-Installed Applications Index
  • A number of Virtual Machines are also available in OVF Appliance” format

How to Customize your Terminal Prompt

April 4th, 2010 No comments

Open terminal.

Type echo PS1 to get current prompt line.

Type PS1=’something’ there something is
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Unscrambling C Declarations

March 28th, 2010 No comments

Note: Based on some feedback I should clarify that this does not cover C99 syntax

Even though the C programming language has been around since the late 1960’s, many programmers still have trouble understanding how C declarations are formed. This is not unsurprising due to the complexity that can arise when mixing pointer, array and function-pointer declarations.

In this posting we shall look at some complex declarations to try and understand them by considering how they are formed. The intent is not so you can go off and write wonderfully complex declarations, but more hopefully you may actually be able to understand someone else’s code. Finally we shall look at how most complex declarations can be easily simplified.

Here I’m going to focus on object declarations/definitions rather than functions. Also, in this posting I’m not going to examine structure, union or enumeration specifies. They’ll keep for another day.

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C++ Standard (C++0x) Thread Library

March 28th, 2010 No comments

The upcoming C++ standard (C++0x) will support multithreading and concurrency both as an inherent part of the memory model, and as part of the C++ Standard Library. “Multithreading and Concurrency” (Anthony Williams):

Also Herb Sutter is a leading authority on software development. He is the best selling author of several books including Exceptional C++ and C++ Coding Standards, as well as hundreds of technical papers and articles, including “The Free Lunch Is Over” which coined the term “concurrency revolution.”

Effective Concurrency: Prefer Futures to Baked-In “Async APIs”

8 Useful and Interesting Bash Prompts

March 28th, 2010 No comments

Many people don’t think of their command prompt as a particularly useful thing, or even pay it much attention. To me, this is a bit of a shame, as a useful prompt can change the way you use the command line. Well I’ve scoured the Interwebs looking for the best, most useful, or sometimes most amusing bash prompts. Here, in no particular order, are the ones I’d be most likely to use on my computers.

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Linux on Laptops

March 28th, 2010 No comments
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How to reinstall Ubuntu over existing installation while preserving /home

March 28th, 2010 No comments

Starting in Ubuntu 8.04, ubiquity (the ubuntu system installer) allows the user to install Ubuntu while preserving the /home directory. This allows you to reset your computer to default but to keep your personal files and configuration files. The point of ubiquity-preserve-home is that it’s supposed to work smoothly behind the scenes using Ubuntu’s Installer.

If you choose not to format the partition assigned to “/”, then everything on that partition that would cause problems for an Ubuntu installation will be removed (e.g. the contents of /boot, /etc, /lib, /usr, etc.), but /home and other unknown directories that might contain data will be preserved. Doing this does not require an explicit action by the user, other than choosing manual partitioning and *not* formatting the partition assigned to “/”. This may be used as a last resort to restore Ubuntu to default at the point of installation but will preserve the /home directory.

Ubuntu wiki

Super Grub Disk

March 28th, 2010 No comments

We want Linux newbies to restore their new toy, but also help the Linux advanced user make potentially dangerous operations to the MBR in a safe way. Super Grub Disk is also a teaching tool to help you learn more about bootloaders and the booting process. After all, booting is the most important thing your computer does — without the boot process, you would not have an operating system to use!

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Miro Video Converter

March 26th, 2010 No comments

A super simple way to convert almost any video to MP4, Ogg Theora, or a specific phone or iPod.

Miro Video Converter can convert virtually any video file to MP4, Theora, or MP3 (the audio only).

100% Free and open-source.

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