Fuduntu: Lightweight Linux Distribution For Old Laptops And Netbooks
Linux is known for its stability, flexibility, security and its ability to get adopted for the purpose it is designed for. It is running in from mobile devices; smartphones (Android), tablets (Android), to Super Computers; Tianhe. It also fits well in old PC’s where no Windows support is available. That’s why you should choose Linux for your old Laptops and netbooks.
High-end Linux laptops are available in the market but for them you don’t have to care much as they, definitely, got better processors, ram and optimized Linux distribution in them. But for old hardware you need to find a Linux distribution that is made for netbooks and laptops.
As clear from the title, I’m going to share some of my views about Fuduntu; a Linux distribution made for laptops and netbooks. Fuduntu falls in-between Ubuntu and Fedora and that is how it got its name. It can be used for desktop computers but you have many other options for old desktop computer like; slackware, puppy linux, lubuntu, xubuntu etc.
Image credits: www.fuduntu.org/gallery.html
Fuduntu comes with chromium as default web browser, banshee and VLC as media players, Adobe Flash, Fluendo MP3 codec, Infinality freetype, Nautilus elementary and the most important, and one of the reasons why I’m writing about it, is Jupitor.
Jupiter is a hardware control applet designed to increase the battery life of Linux PC, help them sustain a little more. Jupiter integrates with Linux, configuring basic settings based on battery or powered connection.
Unfortunately Jupiter team has made it compatible with only Ubuntu and Fuduntu Linux distribution. If you can run it on other Linux distros then its your luck otherwise its not supported by the team.
Fuduntu needs merely 900 Mhz of processing power, 384 MB RAM and 5 GB of Hard Disk in 32 bit architecture. In 64 bit architecture it needs 1 GHz of processing, 1GB of RAM and 6 GB of Hard Disk.
This is one of the best Linux distros for netbook and laptop. Besides this you should also give a try to Lubuntu for its insanely fast desktop environment and small size. Can’t say anything about the compatibility of Lubuntu with Jupiter.
See How Websites Looks Like In Internet Explorer Using Firefox
Web designers have to optimize their web design for Internet Explorer separately making their work a little harder. Not every web designer uses Windows so it’s little harder for them to test their design on IE. Well if they use Mozilla Firefox they can install an add-on to see how a web page looks like in Internet Explorer.
IE View is a Firefox add-on that lets you see how a website looks like in Internet Explorer. This add-on is also very useful when you are visiting only-IE-compatible website thus enforcing users to switch to IE for proper loading/viewing of web page.
Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
There is a similar tool like IE Tab Classic for Google Chrome which enables you to achieve the same goal. Once you have installed the add-on you will can open the current page in IE View or a link in IE view by right-clicking on the page. IE View opens the web page in a new window which is a bit irritating however this thing can be ignored for its usefulness. Get IE View.
Quickly Switch Between Multiple Google Accounts In Google Chrome
Using and switching between multiple Google accounts can be little hard if you want to manage all of them at the same time. Google itself gives you the ability to manage multiple accounts but this thing can be risky as you have to be aware all the time which Google Account you are using. Not that not all of your Google Accounts uses same services of Google so you can be automatically switched to other Google Account.
Well here I found a solution for managing multiple Google accounts while you are using Google Chrome, yes it’s an extension. Before I continue its review I want to share some of my personal opinions. I’m not in favor of linking Google accounts. Multiple, non-linked, Google accounts makes your data more secure. If one of your account gets hacked other account will remain safe. Try to think why one of your email addresses should be confidential. Let me give you a little hint: If you keep your Gmail email address with which you login to Facebook secret, possibilities of getting hacked lessens.
Okay now to the review. Quick Login For Google Accounts is an extension for Google Chrome that let you have different Google accounts for different web pages. Once you have installed it go to its preferences by clicking its icon and then clicking on here. After this you will be taken to the page where you have to write username and password for you Google Account. In the advanced section you can even paste the link to the Google product which you want to associate with that account. For example if you want to open Gmail with a particular account then paste this in the Google URL:
mail.google.com
Now whenever you will visit mail.google.com you will be switched to that Google Account. Here is a screenshot of the preferences page:
Once you have filled it out you can see them by clicking the extension icon. Now whenever you will click on one of them. It will log you out and then log you in with that particular login credentials. Now switching between Google Accounts is just a click away. No need to logout and login manually. Before this I used to open incognito to open other Google Account but now life is easier.
Quickly Email A Web Page To Yourself with cc:to me
While surfing web we came across many cool things that we love to read again. Simple solution is to bookmark those web pages. But sometimes, like in my case, we have too many bookmarks and we just forget in which folder we bookmarked that web page. Thank God there are more cool ways to save an interesting web page. One of these ways is to quickly email that web page, or a part of it, to yourself.
CC:to me is a bookmarklet for your web browser that can quickly send the content pasted in it to your email address. You don’t have to write your email address, subject, etc. Just copy that interesting piece of writing or attractive image, click the bookmarklet, paste in it and click send. Done!
How to setup bookmarklet? Just visit the cctome.com, enter your email address and click continue. After that drag that big button to your bookmarks bar. Now visit any web page, copy the content, click the bookmarklet, paste and click send. Done. Here is a screenshot:
As you can see from the screenshot how easy it is to email a web content to yourself. I instantly got the email in my gmail inbox and here is a look of it. Besides the content it also sends the link of that web address.
I hope you liked this cool bookmarklet service by cctome.com. Don’t forget you can also use on-page share via email link, if available, to send the page to yourself or you can use an extension or add-on of your web browser to email. But these two options wouldn’t be as fast as this one.
Real-Time Encryption Of Folders In Windows With FileWall
Encryption is used everywhere to protect the data or to secretly communicate. Encrypting your folders and files have become substantial step to protect your data even if you have lost the control over the device containing your data such as smart phone, tablet computer or laptop. More and more people are becoming aware of its importance.
Well there are lots of applications out in the market to encrypt your data. Each application with its own advantages and characteristics. Today you will know about FileWall application for Windows which can encrypt your data inside an encrypted folder in real time. As you will insert a data in your folder FileWall will quickly encrypt it. FileWall uses AES-128 bit encryption algorithm by default.
Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
This kind of application is handy when you have real-time threat of getting your personal/confidential data stolen. Besides this it can encrypt and decrypt a file. Another fascinating thing I found in FileWall is that it got no interface. It just neatly embeds in your Windows operating system. You can access FileWall by right-clicking a file or folder then hovering mouser pointer over FileWall. In that menu you have options of encryption, decryption, advanced and about. It will display real-time encryption option you have right-clicked a folder.
How to encrypt a single file using FileWall? Just right-click the file, click on encrypt, enter password and verify password. How to start real-time encryption of a folder? Right-click on the file and click on Open Real-Time Encryption. Now start adding files inside folder. Once done again right-click the folder and click close real-time encryption. How to Decrypt file/folder? Right-click folder and click on decrypt, enter password and done!
I hope you would have liked the real-time encrytion feature of FileWall. Download FileWall.
Quickly Switch Between Multiple Tabs And Windows With 2D Browsing In Google Chrome
When tabs and windows start going haywire and it becomes hard to search for the desired opened tab in multiple windows then 2D browsing extension comes to rescue. It happens with every Googler. When you are in search of something and just can’t find what you are looking for then possibilities are you find yourself in a cluster of tabs and Windows. On your way to searching you opened so many tabs that now it’s more easy to shut down all and open the desired tab again.
If your condition is somewhat similar then this 2D browsing extension can help you find your desired tab. What it does is it lists the windows with the tabs present in them in another window which can be contracted horizontally to act as a sidebar. So if you have opened lots of windows with lots of tabs you can see all of them with the blink of an eye.
Just click on the desired tab and you will automatically switch to that window. This will make your life easier but it has a little disadvantage for small-display-screen users as it will eat up the display.
Map FTP Server As Local Disk Drive in Windows with FtpUse
This article will teach you how you can map FTP server as a local disk drive in Windows. We are going to use an application for this. For Windows 7 users, you must be thinking why use an app when Windows 7 itself can map a remote location as a network device. Actually some people face a problem while auto-registering an FTP account on Windows startup so they have to map the device manually. If they are consistently facing this problem then they can use this app to get rid of this problem.
FTP, File Transfer Protocol, is a best way to transfer you files between an FTP server and your PC. Not only web developers use this, many cloud services providing companies give you the ability to remotely access your files via FTP. So this tutorial can be very useful in sense that you can access your cloud folder as a local disk drive.
FtpUse is a command-line application which can map an ftp server as local drive on your Windows. All you need to do is run a couple of commands and you are done. If you want it to do automatically on every Windows logon then you can make a batch file of these commands and place it in the Startup folder. Otherwise you can just save the commands on a simple text file and copy-paste them in the command-line whenever you want to map the ftp server.
The syntax of using this application is given below.
FTPUSE devicename [ftphostname[/remotepath] [password]]
[/USER:username]
[/NOPASSIVE]
[/OWNERACCESSONLY]
[/PORT:portnumber]
[/DEBUG]
[[/DELETE]]
Here is a little description of the above commands.
devicename: The drive name on your computer where the FTP server will be mounted. It can be something like E: F: G: or Z:.
ftphostname: It’s the name of the host. for example: ftp.microsoft.com or ftp.freehostia.com.
/remotepath: Path of the folder that is to be used as the main folder for the mapped drive.
password: Password of the ftp account.
/USER:username: Replace the username with the username of the FTP account.
/DELETE: Deletes the FTP server connection.
/PORT: TCP port number here. Default: 21.
/NOPASSIVE: Establishes the connection as active mode.
/OWNERACCESSONLY: Only the launcher of application can access the mapped drive.
/DEBUG: Debug mode.
Here is an example which can help you assemble these options:
FTPUSE F: ftp.freehostia.com/folderName passwordHere /USER:usernameHere
This command will map the ftp.freehostia.com/folderName to drive F: (which can be found on My Computer) with the password passwordHere and username being usernameHere. I hope this example will be enough for you to map a remote ftp server as a local disk drive on your Windows. Download FTPUSE.
Turpial: Simple, Small and Feature-Rich Twitter Client For Linux Ubuntu
Twitter, among top social networking sites, got lots of desktop clients for Linux, Windows and MAC OS X. Some of these are all-in-one clients so you don’t need to go to Twitter but some have minimalist design, small size and compact interface. Both types of clients have competition. Here you will know about another small-sized, minimalist Twitter client.
Tweeting addiction is something like that you want to tweet every waking hour. If you are sitting in front of your Ubuntu (Linux) PC then tweeting is made more easy with Turpial. Turpial is a compact and feature-rich Twitter client that tweets, yes it sounds like a bird’s chirp, whenever your Twitter timeline gets new tweet, a notification also comes with the sound.
Turpial’s most alluring feature is its closely but neatly packed buttons and items. You wouldn’t be irritated by its UI’s cluster rather get a decent and nice look. Here is how it looks like on my Linux Mint PC.
By clicking the coat with a red tie button, at the bottom of the app, you will get these three tabs; Timeline, Replies and Direct, by clicking ID card button you have the option to edit your profile, manage favorites and do searches. You can follow people by clicking the third button and quickly tweet by pressing the forth button. Images can also be uploaded from your computer hard drive by clicking the fifth button, the site which will host your Twitter image can be changed from the preferences (the sixth button).
Turpial fits perfectly on your monitor. It doesn’t take up much space but allows you to do much more. Turpial works on Linux Mint, ArchLinux, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Debian and Fedora.
Encrypt Home Folder After Ubuntu Installation
This post is dedicated to those Ubuntu users who want their home folder encrypted but unfortunately they didn’t encrypt it while installing Ubuntu. Either they thought it is not important or for some other reason they didn’t do that.
Well no matter what the reason may be you just want to encrypt your home folder. Before I start the tutorial I would like to shower some light on the importance of encrypted home folder in your Linux system.
Encrypting your home folder is a substantial step towards your PC security especially when you have priceless information on your hard drives such as bank accounts pin, passwords, emails, confidential data etc. A non-encrypted home folder on a hard drive is accessible to anyone. Anyone can boot from a live CD and access your home folder contents, no matter how strong your password is. Your data is wide-open. In order to fix this security hole you need to encrypt your home folder with your password. An encrypted home folder is inaccessible by one who don’t know the password. This creates a security layer and your data remains protected even if you have lost your laptop.
Image: sscreations / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Now to the tutorial. Before starting encryption we need to backup the entire home directory, download some packages and then start the encryption process. To backup your entire home folder you need to run this command. This is a precautionary step to avoid data lose.
cp -R /home/username /home/backup
Replace “username” with the username of your account. This will create a copy of your whole directory outside your home directory. So we got a backup. Now install essential packages by running this command:
sudo apt-get install ecryptfs-utils
Logout of your current account and login from another account which can have super user access (administrative privileges). If there is no other account then make one. Now to the climax. Run this command to start the encryption of your home directory.
sudo ecryptfs-migrate-home –u username
Replace “username” with your username. Once this command is done then go back to the original account to continue the process. It should ask you for the password. If it doesn’t do anything than simply run this command:
ecryptfs-add-passphrase
Done. Reboot the system and enjoy your encrypted home folder. Now check is your data complete and happy. If you have made a separate account, you can delete it now. After you are sure that your data is safe, you can delete the backup by running this command.
rm -R /home/backup
Now how to see if you home folder is encrypted or not? Get a live CD and boot your system from it. Open you home folder and try to change its permissions. If you failed to do that then you are successful to encrypt.
Download Your And Your Friend’s Facebook Photo Albums With Facebook2Zip
This article will teach you how you can download your and your friend’s whole Facebook photo albums with ease. You can either download one or multiple photo albums.
Few days back I was reading somewhere on the web, “I like those days when photos were taken to keep memories, not to publish on Facebook”, no doubt this is true to some extent. Facebook albums help us remind our golden days. Many times I had visited my old Facebook wall photos to remind me of my college days. Facebook photo albums are our memories. Why shouldn’t we download them to our hard drives so we can enjoy them even when we don’t have an internet access.
Before this I’ve also written an article for batch downloading Facebook photos by using Facebook official tools. It can be found here: How to Download All The Photos on Facebook?. Article is not well written but it can also help you out.
Now to Facebook2Zip. Facebook2Zip is a web app that can batch download Facebook albums of your and your friends. Visit Facebook2Zip.com and click login with Facebook.
After that it will ask you to choose the friend. You can choose between yourself or your friend. Just type the name of your friend in the bar and it will start suggesting. Now you have chose your friend you will be able to see all the albums of him (that you normally see, note that you can’t bypass the privacy settings). Choose single album by clicking on it or multiple by pressing and holding Ctrl key and then clicking on the albums. Click download and boom! The time required depends on the number of albums and the number of photos in the albums.
