Linux is one of the most flexible and useful operating systems available. One of the tools that places Linux at the top of the flexibility and usability scale is cron. The cron system allows you to automate tasks without the aid of third party software. But because few know how to use cron, it seems [...]

If you do much work at the Linux command line then you know the bash prompt can offer you a lot of information. But by default the prompt itself isn’t too useful.  What you might not know is that you can customize the bash prompt in many ways. From configuring colors to the information bash [...]

The fstab file has a very key mission for your Linux system. What it does is map devices to directories so those devices can be used. If you plug in an external drive or a device like such as an iPod you are going to have to take advantage of fstab. In this article you [...]

If you do any collaborative work you know how difficult some collaboration tools can be. With both MS Office and OpenOffice you can collaborate with notes and track changes. But what about collaborating in real time? What if you are wanting to quickly collaborate on a simple text document with multiple editors? Fortunately there is [...]

One of more frustrating aspects of some modern Linux distributions is that they do not ship with mp3 support rolled in. This is, by design, done because of licensing issues. And granted using the ogg format is a much better solution in the end (as well as a much better sounding format) but for those [...]

For those of you who like a little more power behind your tools you will certainly appreciate the Aptitude front-end for the apt package management system. Aptitude is based on the ncurses computer terminal library so you know it’s a pseudo-hybrid between console and gui. Aptitude has a powerful search system as well as an [...]

I have been working with LAMP (Linux Apache, MySQL, PHP) servers for a long time. But not matter how much experience I have with them one of the first things I, do after the LAMP installation, is to install phpMyAdmin. This tool makes database administration so much easier than the command line. And when your [...]

With the popularity of mp3 players, and the frustrations of using DRM-crippled music, it is always nice to be able to rip your own mp3 files. There are plenty of Linux tools to handle this task. But what about the mp3 collection that you want to burn onto a playable CD? Although there are many [...]

Connecting to wireless networks in Linux has, for a long time, been a nightmare. Until recently wireless was often a deal breaker in Linux (especially with laptops.) But things have changed. Now more cards than ever are supported as well as more protocols. And with the GNOME Network Manager Applet, connecting to a wireless network [...]

There are so many reasons why having a Linux distribution on a usb drive can come in handy. Fram having a “rescue” OS on your keyring to being able to install a new distribution on your EeePC, a “thumb drive” Linux has many uses. But getting Linux onto a usb drive can’t be simple. Right? [...]

Unlike Windows Vista, Windows XP does not have a built in tool to resize a partition. Because of this you have to make use of another means. One of my favorite tools for this task is the GParted Live CD. What the GParted Live CD does is boot into a very simple Linux desktop that [...]

I have had a number of requests for how to documents on dual booting Windows and Vista. Since the process for Vista and XP are different I am going to give them separate articles. I will start with dual booting Vista and Linux. This tutorial will focus on the Windows portion of the process and [...]

In my last post about everyone’s preferred music player, I mentioned that I was dying to try out the Linux player Amarok because I’d heard great things about. There’s just one problem: I’m a Windows user. Luckily, the guys at Amarok have decided to give the Windows users a taste of what this music player [...]

The Wallstreet Journal [link] is one of those online magazines that has a subscription service that protects some of its stories from being read by users that have no subscription. Only an excerpt of the story is available for free while the rest can only be read by subscribers, or so we though. Apparently though [...]

After my last post about the powers of PuTTy in conjunction with an SSH-enabled router, I started thinking about tutorials.

If you set up some kind of SSH Connection on a windows computer over the past few years, be it to connect to the university’s network or to secure a line for an insecure FTP Transfer,you have probably encountered the program PuTTy on the way to salvation. It’s easy to use, free and OSSish powerful. What many people don’t know about PuTTy though, is what other powers aside from or better in addition to SSH slumber inside the little executable.