Add a PDF virtual printer to Ubuntu similar to CutePDF for Windows in 5 simple steps. The Arsgeek weblog describes how. Just install cups-pdf, then add a Postscript printer using the Gnome printing dialog.
The printer turns your current document into a PDF and places it into a folder called "PDF" in your home directory. While outlined specifically for Ubuntu, the process is extensible to any flavor of Linux.
Read More @ ArsGeek via LifeHacker
In just a short amount of time, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has bagged more than a thousand previously unknown dwarf galaxies in a giant cluster of galaxies.
Despite their diminutive sizes, dwarf galaxies play a crucial role in cosmic evolution. Astronomers think they were the first galaxies to form, and they provided the building blocks for larger galaxies. They are by far the most numerous galaxies in our Universe, and are an important tracer of the large-scale structure of the cosmos. Computer simulations of cosmic evolution suggest that high-density regions of the Universe, such as giant clusters, should contain significantly more dwarf galaxies than astronomers have observed to date.
Read More@ NASA - Home
Windows Longhorn Resurrected and Available For Download - Softpedia
Dock Any App (Linux) to the System Tray with AllTray - Lifehacker
Top 20 Free Apps to Increase Productivity - Lifehack
20 Ways to Use GMail Filters - Lifehack
In early March, the chief information officer of the Federal Aviation Administration , David Bowen, was reportedly considering forsaking Microsoft Windows and Office in favor of the Linux operating system and the Web-based Google Apps Premium office suite.
Could this be true? Might an office suite upstart topple the giant of giants? Does a Web-based suite of applications have enough punch to do the job? Perhaps. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Apps Premium does offer a strong set of collaborative word-processing and spreadsheet tools, in addition to e-mail and calendar capabilities.
"We built the [applications] from the ground up to focus on collaboration," said Mike Bradshaw, who leads Google's federal enterprise division. "They're providing a new type of functionality to the space that people have been looking for."
Read More @ TechNewsWorld
Black spots have been discovered on Mars that are so dark that nothing inside can be seen. Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting Martian life, were it to exist.
Read more @ NASA.gov
Wired News reports on how to incorporate the Ogg Vorbis file format into your music library. Why Ogg Vorbis? The Free Software Foundation explains:
The use of MP3 is restricted by patents, while Ogg Vorbis is not. Unlike MP3, there are never any licensing costs for using Ogg Vorbis, and you do not have to worry about anyone suing you for using it without a license. You might have heard about Microsoft's recent loss in a $1.5 billion suit over their use of MP3.
Read more@ LifeHacker
"We’ve all gone through that sinking feeling. You empty your Windows recycling bin, only to realize 5 seconds later that you really needed that file you’ve just wiped from your PC. There’s no robust undelete functionality built into Windows - so what choices do you have?
[One great choice would be Undelete Plus.] It has a distinct advantage in that it has a version which does not need installation. This means you can pop it onto a thumbdrive and it becomes a mobile file recovery device. Also, because it is not installed on the hard disk, you minimize the use of it, maximizing the chances of data recovery".
Read more @ FriedBeef
For some reasons, web controls are rather ugly in Firefox when it is run under Linux. (as a reminder, I am talking about running Firefox under Ubuntu Linux 7.04, Feisty Fawn and Gnome)
It is particularly the case with radio buttons. It looks like this:
Fortunately, I found a solution in ubuntuforums.org to fix this problem.
First close Firefox if it is running. Then open terminal and run this commands, one by one.
wget http://users.tkk.fi/~otsaloma/art/firefox-form-widgets.tar.gz
tar -xvzf firefox-form-widgets.tar.gz
sudo cp /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res/forms.css /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res/forms.css.bak
cat firefox-form-widgets/res/forms-extra.css | sudo tee --append /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res/forms.css > /dev/null
sudo cp -r firefox-form-widgets/res/form-widgets /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res
rm -rf firefox-form-widgets
Now start Firefox again. It should look like this now:
Read More @ OS Novice
To learn about this moon check it out@ Galileo Project: Europa
The Cassini spacecraft surveys Saturn's outstretched ring system in the infrared from a vantage point high above the planet's northern latitudes. Nearly the full expanse of the main rings is visible here -- from the C ring to the outer edge of the A ring (in the upper left corner).
Ring shadows are visible on the planet at lower left, and two large storms swirl near center.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 52 degrees above the ringplane.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 (red channel), 890 (blue channel) and 728 (green channel) nanometers. The view was acquired on April 5, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.4 million kilometers (900,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 81 kilometers (51 miles) per pixel.
Read More@http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
450w-500w PSU Battle Royal
"You guys asked, "What about regular mid-range PSUs?" So we bought five power supplies and then tested them to see if they would do what they were advertised to do. A melting fiery mess proves you get what you pay for. 5 PSU enter, 1 PSU leave".
Read more @ HardCop
MISSION NEWS
Baby Stars Hatching in Orion's Head
A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows infant stars "hatching" in the head of Orion, the famous hunter constellation visible from northern hemispheres during winter nights. Astronomers suspect that shockwaves from a 3-million-year-old explosion of a massive star may have initiated this newfound birth.
The region featured in the Spitzer image is called Barnard 30. It is located approximately 1,300 light-years away and sits on the right side of Orion's head, just north of the massive star Lambda Orionis.
This can be seen in almost any Telescope.
Read More @ NASA - Home
More with Trent Reznor from the Australian Herald Sun.
On Record Executives: "F--- you people. Stay out of my f---ing show. If you wanna come, pay the ticket like anyone else. F--- you guys". They're thieves. I don't blame people for stealing music if this is the kind of s--- that they pull off".
Read the whole thing @ News.com.au
I'm in the process of converting every app I use to an open source version. The main idea being that once I convert all my most-used apps to Open Source versions, my eventual complete conversion to Linux will be that much smoother since most Open Source Apps have Linux versions available.
Hopefully, I won't have too steep of a learning curve since I'm doing it at work as well. Wish me luck. I'll let you know how it goes.
"Ubuntu comes with loads of fonts pre-installed, and if you've goosed the power of your Ubuntu install with Automatix, you've already added several more. For the casual graphic designer though, more fonts are always welcome. Ubuntu Blog has compiled an incredible roundup of easily installable and freely available fonts for Ubuntu; all of which can be downloaded and installed with just a quick cut and paste at the command line".
Read more @ DownloadSquad
"Dell runs down exactly what you're gonna get when you buy a system with Ubuntu pre-installed. In short: a subset of peripherals that have mature Linux drivers, and no proprietary audio/video formats, including WMA, WMV and Quicktime. Ooph".
Read more @ Direct2Dell via LifeHacker
"How do you avoid paying for a Final Cut or Visio license and support the open source community all at once? Find a free open source alternative to expensive commercial software at osalt.com.
Choose a commercial app (like Photoshop) and see free alternatives (like Paint.NET and Gimpshop) listed by operating system availability and user rating. Most popular commercial app lookups include Visio, Norton Ghost and Nero Burning Rom (their top OS alternatives include Dia, PartitionImage and Infrarecorder.)""We need to digg ATI some bad press. Unlike NVIDIA, they refuse to provide driver support for Linux. They can't continue to get away with this: Many Windows users are starting to want Linux compatible hardware, because they have "the switch" in mind".
Read More @ Digg
Mount any folder on your computer as a drive! The most common use for this would be to avoid having to pop a cd in every time you want to use an application that requires a disk (games like Call of Duty are notorious for this behavior). Just copy the disc to a folder on your hard drive and use Visual Subst to mount it with a drive letter. Good to go!
Download it @ NTWind.com
NASA Finds Vast Regions of West Antarctica Melted in Recent Past 05.15.07
A team of NASA and university scientists has found clear evidence that extensive areas of snow melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 in response to warm temperatures. This was the first widespread Antarctic melting ever detected with NASA's QuikScat satellite and the most significant melt observed using satellites during the past three decades. Combined, the affected regions encompassed an area as big as California. It's a fact we can't ignore.
Read More @ NASA.gov & JPL
from his website:
"As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more. [An example] that quickly comes to mind:
The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music."
Read More @ NIN.com
"... Are resumes becoming a thing of the past? Web designer Joshua Porter believes this might be true, and suggests using your blog as a better job-finding tool instead.
Basically, his premise is that your blog is a better representation of who you are then your resume is, and can give a truer picture of what your skills might really include. Conversely, however, if your blog is dedicated to your love of Knight Rider, then it's probably a good idea to separate your private and professional blogging profiles".
Authorities believe a Hong Kong man who lost his appeal today in the territory's highest court is the first in the world to be convicted of downloading pirated movies using BitTorrent file-sharing technology.
Chan Nai-ming, who used the alias 'Big Crook' on the peer-to-peer BitTorrent network, was found guilty in October 2005 of copyright infringement and attempting to distribute three Hollywood movies using the popular file-sharing software.
Read the Whole Story @ ABC.net.au
A new breed of obsessed stargazers is crisscrossing the globe to visit
legendary observatories. Destinations include remote deserts, mountaintops
-- even the South Pole.
Read More @ The Wall Street Journal
The most used and basic commands listed in a nicely formatted table which you can print out or bookmark for quick reference.
Read More @ LXPages.com
For those of us who need some extra command line help (CLI):
whatis -- Display a summary of a command (rather than the entire manual)
apropos -- Display a list of commands that pertain to (are apropos to) a keyword
whereis -- Display information about the location of a command: the executable, the source code (if any), and the man pages.
which -- Display which version of a command will execute (for when there are two, or more, commands with the same name installed on the system).
"Webapp Keyfiler keeps track of the software licenses you've bought in a secure online database. Keyfiler offers fields for the software name, company, serial number, licensor and options to store single-user or multi-user licenses. The default connection to Keyfiler is https (encrypted), which prevents sniffers from stealing your serials. However, the free version only supports up to 10 licenses. Personally I prefer a KeePass database to store my software licenses (not its intended purpose, but it works), but Keyfiler could be an easy way to, ahem, share your license info with friends and coworkers, provided you share your login".
If Microsoft actually WANTED us to not infringe their patents, they'd tell us. Since they don't, that must mean that they actually prefer the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). -- Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux
Read More @ Linux.com
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is asking Congress to make 'attempted' copyright infringement a federal crime. The text of the legislation as well as the official press-release is available online.
Read More & Get The Links @ SlashDot
Looks like it's time to go full time with Ubuntu and drop commercial software altogether. Too much corporate greed...
Within the next few weeks we should see Dell shipping Ubuntu-equipped computers to consumers. The announcement has created a lot of excitement around the internet as it is the first time that a desktop Linux distribution will be available from a manufacturer this size. Dell has fallen on tough times as of late but still has the potential to have a profound impact on Linux users and the results of this deal will be closely watched by everyone in the industry.
Read More @ XYZComputing
A pretty complete list of BitTorrent clients for Mac, Windows, Java & LINUX! Just to give you an idea, here's a quick list of just the Linux clients. I've never even heard of 90% of these!
Deluge, Yet ABC, BitTornado, BitTorrent, KTorrent, torrentflux, Hydranode, Transmission, Rufus, mldonkey, BT++, Flash! Torrent, CTorrent, BT Queue, Anatomic P2P, rtorrent, TorrentVolve
Via Slyck
Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation flavor of Ubuntu, built for the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast or professional. It is an official derivative of the Ubuntu open source operating system and comes with applications such as Ardour2, Wired, Hydrogen, Blender, Inkscape, Pitivi, and many more, as well as a beautiful dark theme.
For creative individuals out there that are sick and tired of dealing with Windows security issues, crashing, outrageously expensive software, etc etc. Looks like your day has finally come.
Via HowToForge.com
"...there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google, Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore".
Via CNN.com
Spitzer Telescope in Pasedina Calif. set It's sights on HD 189733b,the surface of a giant, gas planet.Located 60 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula. HD 189733b is the closest known transiting planet, which means that it crosses in front and behind its star when viewed from Earth. It races around its star every 2.2 days.The observations reveal that temperatures on this world are fairly even, ranging from 650 degrees Celsius (1,200 Fahrenheit) on the dark side to 930 degrees Celsius (1,700 Fahrenheit) on the sunlit side. For more
Wine is a project which aims to allow a PC with an x86 architecture processor running a Unix-like operating system and the X Window System to execute programs that were originally written for Microsoft Windows. Alternatively, those wishing to port a Windows application to a Unix-like system can compile it against the Wine libraries in the form of Winelib.
Translation: You can run your Windows programs under Linux! Legally!
Wikipedia Info | Download!
Holy Cow! I think I'm going out to buy a touch screen TONIGHT!!
My apologies for the music.
"If we kept all the computers we purchased over the past decade, the office would be impassable. Laptops and desktops, both office-owned and personal, tend to fizzle and die with their warranties. While this passing is predictable, the disposal of their bodies and inner workings provides a dilemma for many owners.
Unfortunately, you can't burn those computers and scatter their ashes over some Rocky Mountain pass. Those machines are filled with toxic chemicals, carcinogens and heavy metals that will, eventually, leech into the ground and find a way into some water source. Fortunately, you have access to several dozen creative recycling solutions for that old computer. The ten most popular solutions are listed [after the jump], along with links to resources that provide step-by-step instructions on how to conduct each process."
Via RewardPrograms.org
It's known that most spam (particularly malware such as keyloggers) originates overseas (Estonia, Moldavia, China, Poland, etc.) By blocking email from most of the undeveloped world, I've successfully reduced spam by 95 percent in the past year. In Outlook, click Actions > Junk E-Mail > Junk E-Mail Options. Click the International tab, then the Blocked Top-Level Domain List button. Now select the countries you wish to block.
Via LifeHacker
"...I’m intrigued by the prospect of a free, open operating system, one that’s available for everyone to use and modify to suit their own purposes. Rather than a monolithic operating system vendor telling me that I’m not allowed to do something, there’s an entire community of developers who are working to make whatever features I want possible! To me, that’s the essence of what computing should be about—enabling choice".
Via MaximumPC
Don't fret Torrent user's. Firefox's Foxtorrent works great on Ubuntu. Just download the Ext. from Firefox,It's that easy & best of all,It's all free.
This is a pretty good site for Astronomy pictures.It's not as good as Nasa's,but they have a much wider variety of pictures ranging from all the Messier objects to globular clusters and a great collection of galaxies.
Via Caltech.edu
Hey Hockey fan's. Ready to see Buffalo's speed against Ottawa's tough defense,this should be a pretty exiting series.We'll see.
NetVibes, the popular personalized portal, works great as an RSS reader, but if you’re using it only for this purpose, you’re missing out. With the huge number of available modules, you can use it to increase your productivity or even do serious work. Create a new tab, slap on the following Netvibes modules, and you’ve got yourself a lightweight and always available online office environment.
via Mashable
From the inventor of the Dyson Vacuum:
I made 5127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure. I’ve always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they’ve had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative…
We’re taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven’t, you need to do things the wrong way. Initiate a failure by doing something that’s very silly, unthinkable, naughty, dangerous. Watching why that fails can take you on a completely different path. It’s exciting, actually. To me, solving problems is a bit like a drug. You’re on it, and you can’t get off.
Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a few clicks. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you.
via CutlerSoftware
Simple operations performed by a hard drive with no cover, so that you can see what it looks like inside.
This experiment was performed on an old hard drive, do not try this with newer expensive hard drives, it is a bit risky.
"Since I often hear from friends and people on the Internet about things they can't do in Linux that they could on Windows, I thought I'd write up a list of things I can do in Linux that I can't do in Windows."
Via dmartin.org
Scientists have detected a stellar explosion that is the brightest and
most energetic ever recorded, and which could be the first evidence of
a new type of supernova fueled by an antimatter engine.
Via Space.com
Windows only: Freeware application Sandboxie provides a safe "sandbox"
for you to test out new software without making any permanent changes
to your system.
http://www.sandboxie.com/
Shows a popup on tabs and enables you to preview and navigate tab contents through popup. Major features are:
* Real-time preview of tab contents
* Navigate (Back/Forward/Reload/Stop) through popup
* Scroll pages or frames in preview with mouse wheel
* Click links or buttons directly in preview
For anybody out there that's trying to figure out the latest version of Ubuntu.
