No post today
May 13No post today since I’ve been spending the weekend with friends doing tech unrelated stuff. As proof : Here is little old me 40 feet off the ground doing some high-rise adventure course.
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Essential tools for a low bandwith connection.
May 12Before me the dawn rises from the dark soil and sheds its rays across the trees that stretch as far as the eye can see. The songs of birds drown out the ever present hum of society and remind me how far I am from the busy world around me. Yep, i’m up in a cabin, in the woods, with almost no internet connection at all. Whats a geek to do ? Be creative and make the most out of the tiny trickle of internet that gets through here. Time to turn your cellphone into a wifi hotspot and squeeze the most out of the trickle of bits that goes for broadband around here.
So after noticing that the signal on my cellphone had only an edge/gprs coverage, and that 4 other people in the cabin were using it as their personal hotspot too, I knew it was time to be creative. Watching hd netflix was not going to happen and even surfing standard websites with a lot of graphics was gonna be slow. The only thing that was left is to break out the “bandwith impaired emergency toolkit”
Blogging : WordPress for the iPad. A pretty simple app for some quick and dirty blogging without a lot of fancy features. So forgive me for the bad text markup. I’m kinda on dailup here. The great thing about the wordpress app os that you can do the entire post offline and sync it up when you are ready.
Issh : The command line is the way to get things done when you are on a tight pipe. Issh on the iPad is a cute little app that lets you setup multiple ssh and telnet connections your your server. With moderate bandwidth use issh is ideal to bring the power of the unix command line to your fingertips.
So, the command line apps of choice are …
Twidge : if Tweets are what you need , but you can’t afford the interface, twidge is awesome. Commands like Twidge update “hello world” let you share your greetings with the twitterverse. Punch in TWIDGE COMMANDS for a simple list of commands. Hit sudo apt-get install twidge
Irssi : Without a shadow of a doubt, my favorite IRC client. Simple, powerful, versatile AND made by a Belgian. Irssi is your link to the chatrooms of your choice. Hit sudo apt-get install irssi
Alpine : a very powerful but also slightly complex email client for any mail server of your choice. Imap, pop, whatever. Asynchronous in use it lets you compose and reply to emails offline and “burst” your communications to the cloud. ( this is in fact the way we used to do it in the days of dial-up !) Hit sudo apt-get install alpine
Mc : Instead of going cp and mv, just hit up “mc” or midnight commander to have a powerful file manager from the command line. Move copy and transfer file easily. Hit sudo apt-get install mc
Centerim : If you can’t live without your IM, Centerim is a quick command line tool to hook up your Aol, Yahoo, Msn and Jabber accounts. If you configure it right, you can hook up hour googletalk and Facebook chat from the command line. Hit sudo apt-get install centerim
Trying to surf websites with a text only browser is painful, so I will spare you a review of Lynks and the like , but with the tools mentioned above you can survive your digital drought until you find your big fat pipe again.
Do YOU have a favorite command line tool you like to share ? Drop your thoughts in a comment 🙂
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Achtung ! Wolfenstein 3D turns 20 and is free for you to play.
May 11You start noticing you are getting old when things like “20th anniversary of” start popping up all around you. And with that I don’t mean the 20th anniversary of your retarded cousin (who you thought would kill himself by endlessly going around a revolving door) but things like GAMES. Games YOU used to play when you were a kid. Games that were “adult” enough they didn’t include my little ponies and those friggin Carebears. Things like Wolfenstein 3D. Yes , you remember running round this maze in what could be described as the first first-person shooter where you could frag Nazi’s to your hearts contempt. Perhaps not very historically friendly to my German speaking neighbors who would frown at the concept of Adolf Hitler coming at you guns blazing, nor the perfect gift on your jiddish friends bar mitswa, Wolfenstein 3D was awesome to play.
it marked the beginning of Shareware where a game like this, not tied down with copy protection and drm management ( also referred to as hackerporn ) could stand the test of time by being freely distributed throughout the internet. You can still find versions of the original Wolfenstein 3D to play ( I think you need dosbox on Windows ) and you can find everything you need HERE.
But what if you own a Linux machine (or an Ubuntu machine) ? “Linux is just for nerds” you say ? Why I beg to get my luftwaffe and differ : You can fast forward fifteen years and download “Wolfenstein enemy territory” An action packed pixel free first person reincarnation of the classic Wolfenstein 3D.  Curious ? For those of you who think that Linux nerds are bearded guru’s , check out the action in Enemy territory in this little video.
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Kwtv302 : "A look at Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin".
May 11
If you are into linux but Ubuntu’s new user interface has got you puzzled or scared, this episode is for you. We take a look at the latest long term support version of Ubuntu’s latest release : Precise Pangolin. We take a quick look at the anatomy of the Unity interface, how the different parts can work for you and how to customize it to your liking.
Shownotes.
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Geek Porn : Ubuntu on a Transformer Prime.
May 10Sometimes people ask me if I watch porn sometimes. I look at them (mostly square in the face) then I slowly nod .. and grin. 🙂 This usually makes them pretty uncomfortable, so the next step to REALLY freak them out is ask if they want to see some .. some GEEK PORN that is. If they haven’t run towards the door screaming or shuffled away backwards on their but cheeks , I tend to google up a video like the one you see below. Running Ubuntu on and Asus Transformer Prime. In all it’s not THAT hard to do once you root your Android phone / tablet, but the porn part is : Making stuff do things its not supposed to do 🙂 Taking control of the technology and make it jump through hoops the way YOU want it to. I haven’t tried this myself yet, (so please : Blame the guy in the video if you brick your Droid device) but it does look like the ultimate destiny for those overpowered quad-core tablet devices whose main effort in life is to run Angry Birds. Don’t forget to wash your hands when you are done and enjoy some Geek Porn.
