I've recently started backing up my commercial DVD's to my hard drive, and I'm tending to use HandBrake for it. So far it produces a nice compact m4v file, but I've yet to see the fruits of my intensive labours with it. And its soooo slow!

VLC can also rip …

I've recently discovered "Revelation" http://revelation.olasagasti.info/ which is a password keeper in active development, and its been added to my startup programs. I originally docked it into the system tray with "alltray" but I was unable to use it properly then, so now it just sits in the …

Its easy to add programs to start when you start gnome from login, just run ALT+F2 and enter ......... gnome-control-center ...... and then click on 'startup applications' and then 'add'. Enter a short description of the program, and the path to its binary. Then close to bring you back to the …

To create a new backup file for burning to dvd, use this command line tool -

tar cvzf 20120115.tar.gz 20120115

which is very effective and quite quick too.

To log the output use the following command -

tar cvzf 20120116.tar.gz 20120116 >> /home/boztu/cron/log.txt 2>&1 …

To create space on my external USB hard drive for new backups, I need to delete all the August entries. This is done as follows -

ls -l /media [#to check that it is root:boztu] sudo /home/boztu/cron/permissions.sh
[#to make it root:boztu if not already so …

I've moved over to Gnome from KDE and I now prefer it and find it easy to use. As part of the move over I've changed my backup script, which is now -

USB_DIR="/media/8eef3b99-c17b-4913-ae61-d34c7fd5d459_"
 BACKUP_DIR="$USB_DIR/$(/bin/date +%Y%m%d)"
 if [ -d $USB_DIR ]; then
 [ -d $BACKUP_DIR ] || mkdir $BACKUP_DIR …

I spent a couple of hours backing up some of my cd's onto my hard drive where I can easily play them too. I used 'Sound Juicer' to do this and it more or less succeeded. But I didn't want to back them up to my external USB hard drive …

Because my external USB drive has differing paths, seemingly arbitrary, when it is plugged in I've had to change the commands for my backup.sh. It now says -

if [ -d /media/disk/ ]; then
 /usr/bin/rsync -av /home/boztu/ /media/disk/`/bin/date +%Y%m%d`/ \ >> /home/boztu/cron/backup …

I had a 96 page pdf file to convert to text, and it was named 'UK Households 2005.pdf' but pdftotext couldn't convert it at all. So I cd'd into the directory where the pdf file was located, and renamed the file as 'UKHouseholds2005.pdf', and then ran pdftotext on …

On logging into gmail yesterday morning on iceweasel I got the following message - "You are using an old version of Firefox that Gmail no longer supports. Some features may not work correctly" - are there any plans for upgrading iceweasel to get round this problem, or should I install a more …

Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, died on August 16th 1977, whilst sitting on the toilet! Regardless of where he was when he died, it was a great shame and pity that he did so. He was arguably the greatest rock and roll singer and performer that genre …

When running top from the command line, the process GTK-gnash always showed up usually with three instances of it. Killing it didn't seem to make much difference, it just reappeared again, and the killed ones became zombies. So, how to get rid of it?

The answer is to use apt-get …

Ever since I've been using debian and kde especially one thing has always bugged me, the date bars in kmail! These separate the mails into small chunks according to the day they were received, which sounds like a good idea until you see it implemented, and then you realise how …

By default under KDE, Debian 6 indexes files using nepomuk which can be suspended on the desktop, but that is only valid for one session. If you reboot then you have to suspend it again, so I've been looking for a way of turning it off completely.

And here it …

A new addition to my root.crontab is -

00 3 * * * /home/boztu/cron/cache.sh

which calls the file 'cache.sh'.

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#!/bin/bash -x
 #shell script for use with rsync in root crontab
 /usr/bin/rsync -av /var/cache/apt/archives/ /media/disk/cache/ >> /home/boztu/cron …

I've just discovered that you can kill any PID from TOP whilst its running by just entering k and then the PID number. Sweet!

I was trying to explain my system of crontabs to someone on IRC today and didn't put it over very well. So this is my attempt at improving it. I have a users.crontab and a root.crontab both in my cron folder in my home folder. The users crontab …

If you add this line to the end of your .bashrc file, you will get the date and the time showing in your prompt -

PS1="[\u:\d \t @\w]$>; "

And if you add this ... [\!] ...onto the end of that line like this;-

PS1="[\u:\d \t @\w]$ [\!]>; "

you get a …

Yesterday was spent fooling around with widgets, those mini-programs that run on the KDE desktop and its panels. To start at the beginning, for some reason I unlocked my widgets, and then lost my 'pager' of virtual desktops! Whilst attempting to get them back I deleted the panel that they …

Using the KDE 4.4.5 of Debian 6 the default menu shows as a series of opening folders of various contents, which if you're not quick enough or don't know where to look, close too quickly on you locking you out of them. I much prefer what is called …

I've just updated my entry with the linux counter http://www.counter.li.org to show that I'm now using Debian in place of Centos, and whilst I was there I noticed that I've been using linux since the 3rd November 2003! I didn't realise it was as long as …

I've been using CentOS for the last four years and got to know it quite well, but I'd become stale, it wasn't fun anymore. I needed a change, so I tried out Ubuntu, and Kubuntu as I like KDE, but neither really satisfied me. So I tried Debian 6 on …

With the new LibreOffice that came out recently, I downloaded it and opened it to my programme folder in my home directory, and then cd into the debs folder and - sudo dpkg -i *.deb - and it installed everything into the right place. Within five minutes, or thereabouts, I was running …

I've finally got Debian 6 set up the way that I want and not the way that the partition wizard wants! It wanted a / of just 350mb which was way too small for any decent work to be done on it! So, at the fourth attempt I've got it set …

I've now automated my backups with the following line in my users crontab - 00 */3 * * * /home/boztu/cron/backup.sh - which is calling the file backup.sh which consists of -

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#!/bin/bash -x
 #shell script for use with rsync in user crontab
 /usr/bin/rsync -av /home …

I've moved over from CentOS 5.6 to Debian 6 as I felt like a change and wanted to learn more, so from now on I'll be concentrating on Debian and documenting my progress with it, or not, as the case may be :)

A lot is similar but theres slight …

There are alternatives to the constant drip, drip, drip of money being used to upgrade Microsoft products to "the next best thing" and to the constant fear of viruses, malware, spam and hackers attempting to steal your identity. There is no need to pay good money for bloated Office suites …

Dubious about replacing your old familiar Microsoft Windows?

Worried that you'll be following a steep learning curve?

Then don't be.
You can make the transition gradually as I did.
All the programs that I would recommend that you use on Linux, are available for Windows.

My recommended programs are:

Email …

Firefox has an option to add a Close button to each tab; so does Konqueror but it replaces the website icon. To get the best of both worlds - a site icon that turns into a Close button when the mouse is over it - load ~/.kde/share/config/konquerorrc into kedit …

Having recently heard of this program, which is still in beta stage but perfectly usable I've found, I wanted to install it and try it out. So I downloaded the relevant package from their site, unpacked it and then navigated to its directory and then did -

sudo rpm -Uvh *.rpm …

1. No one calls an engineer to catch up. People only call engineers to ask for things. Therefore, answering the phone is always the wrong thing to do.

2. Without a doubt, whatever an engineer is currently doing is vastly more interesting than talking to you on the phone … unless it’s …