Co-worker Joost pointed me to this video of a product he had recently ordered for his Samsung NX10 Netbook : A touchscreen “upgrade” you can install by yourself. I haven’t played with it yet and he still needs to receive and install the touchscreen kit, but I did want to share this cool demo video of the product with you guys…. * Geek-Sigh : Imagine running Unity on this ! 
* Looks like you can order the kit HERE.
A quick plug for a great series of articles my good friend and co-host on the AGP podcast Kd Murray is writing up called “Ubuntu School“. With nice screenshots KD explains some of the basic concepts you come across when you are setting up your own Ubuntu (or any Linux) machine. Add users, Change passwords, Install Webmin, Add a Gui and so forth. With nicely formatted article’s KD shows you how to get it done without turning into a bearded sandal-crud picking linux hobo/guru like RMS.
Its once again time to sit back and relax and let us tell you a story. We bring you a couple of articles about the Cupertino revolution, life without and internet connection and dive back into the long forgotten blog archive to pull up a random post from 2005. Grab your favorite hot beverage, close your eyes, .. its Storytime…
Shownotes.
Post : Overconnected
Post : You can”t think different if you’ve become the establishment.
Post : Sparse sunlight and a poem over an encrypted connection.
Music by Planet Boelex : http://www.boelex.org/
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Download EpisodeFor those of you who haven’t listened to our great interview with ‘the mac mommy’ in our latest knight wise.com podcast “Macs and Mommies” you can also watch this bonus video we made of the Skype interview featured in that very podcast. (if you HAVE listened to the podcast .. you still might want to watch the video to see the lovely Melissa Davis giggle and gesticulate as she makes her point )
I recently got a question from a friend of the show that he would like to know how to print from his iPad. A fairly common question that did require some thinking on my behalf. The problem for me is : I’ve stopped ‘printing’ things out all together since we have the iPads lying around the house and seldom need to use a sheet of ground-up tree to write things down. Apps like notability let me easily take screenshots (or pictures) of documents where I digitally “scribble” on.
But for those who DO need to print for their iPads Apple has of course come up with “AirPrint” that lets you print FROM your iPad to any “AirPrint approved printers” Great when you haven”t bought a printer yet, bummer if you have. However : There is a cool solution. It does require a mac and its not free but for 19.95$ its quite a cute little app. Printopia lets you print from your iPad to any printer connected to your Mac or export to a pdf file that gets stored on your mac. You can even “print” your document or screenshot to Evernote. It gets REALY interesting if you combine this with a VPN. Out and about on the road ? Need to make a pdf of the booking you just made ? Or need to pop it off at home ? Why not use Printopia to “dump” a paper copy out of your printer while you continue on your digital voyage. Or perhaps you want to install it on one of your office machines and hook up the multifunctional printer so your co-workers can stop putting their iPad screens on the copier. 20 bucks may be a little bit on the steep side, but hey : at least you don’t need to buy a new printer.
Some Linux commands are hard to remember. Its a matter of “use daily or forget about them” or plastering your office walls with cheatcheets of your favorite terminal commands. The one I stumbled upon yesterday was in fact a little easier to remember.
Picture this : you have a home Linux server (or one at work) with several users logged in. One of the things you might want to monitor is who is doing what at this very moment. As I mentioned in a previous podcast about my home setup , I have a Linux system parked “outside” my home network to be accessed by friends and internet buddies. One of the things I do like to keep tabs on is : Who is logged in and what are they doing ? In the old days I would go ” tail -f /var/log/auth.log ” to keep track of the auth.log file that writes down all that is going down on the system. These days i just type “w”. And that’s it.
“w” gives you an overview of who is logged in and what they are doing. Its THAT simple.
If i have to reach back into my mind and pull up the first memory I have of the Spacemusic podcast, I think I go back as far as Adam Curry’s original Daily Source Code where Adam played a promo for this “ambient and electronic music podcast” that was produced by a guy with a slight Dutch accent. Now, almost 8 years later I am still a loyal listener to this fantastic Podcast. I’ve mentioned TC’s (Thats the producer) new episodes on Twitter many times over, but for those of you who love the sounds of ambient, electronic and even some Trance music : Check out the Spacemusic Podcast. The latest episode features a great mix of uptempo and chilled out music that has even prompted me to buy some albums from the artist. Worth a listen to help kickstart your day / your week or chill down after a busy day. Check out www.spacemusic.nl
No 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.
Before 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
You 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.
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.
RSS feedItunesMiroDownload EpisodeSometimes 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.
Most of your devices these days have webbased interfaces that you can easily open up with a browser. The fact that you go and sit behind a computer to do that is either to blame on the fact that you don’t own a smartphone or tablet thats hooked up to your wifi , or that you are just plain dumb. (pardon my french) . You see , these mobile gems are perfect for controlling all kinds of devices throughout the house and makes you a digital “master and commander” of your own casa. Personally I get a kick out of doing stuff on my tablet or smartphone and need to resist the urge to start drinking ‘Tea, earl grey, hot’ while calling out “make it so” to my better half. But remembering all the ip addresses of all of those devices IS pretty lame.
Once you make shortcuts and ram them into a folder it gets better, but you still need to remember logins and passwords. Not anymore though. With this smart little app will help you control devices on your network with some added spiffy features :
-Utilizes UPnP and Bonjour to find devices on your home network
-Displays detailed device information (IP address, model, vendor, type, etc.)
-Includes integrated viewer so you can quickly access device web pages within the application
-Uses default device icons in cases where the device doesn’t provide a custom icon
-View UPnP device description documents as formatted XML
So just plop it on your IOS device and control your digital ecosphere from the palm of your hand with “Mydevices” Thanx to @macmommy for the tip.
As you know we have covered OWNCLOUD in one of the recent podcasts. If the name doesn’t ring any bells : Think your own web based filestorage on your own Linux machine. Pretty straight forward to install on any Linux system and very easy to configure with its nifty web interface. In short it lets you upload, store and download files on your own Linux server using either a web interface page ( so great for people who are too lame to use ftp or sftp) or via mounting the shared volume via a webdav connection on your desktop. You can setup various accounts (and various shares) for you and your friends. Its a little bit like dropbox, but since its lacking a decent desktop client that syncs stuff back and forth, I’ll compare it to Box.net .. but on your own terms.
Owncloud does support the webdav protocol, so any webdav client on your smartphone is able to access your Owncloud share (like Webdav Navigator for IOS) but we have also found an ANDROID client to access your Owncloud server. Together with another bunch of clients for Linux and Windows this enables you to ditch the webpage interface and go “on your own-cloud” all together. Download all the official Owncloud clients HERE. And if you want to catch up on things listen to our podcast episode on Owncloud HERE.
I sometimes get the question what gear I use and how I have stuff set up at home. Thus it might be a good idea to post a pic of the “home office” as I have it setup today. Featuring 2 24 inch Dell displays hooked up to an I7 Mac Mini, an older 19 inch display hooked up to my Asus eee Linux box and the iPad as a “heads up display” screen for keeping track of it all. I should install one of these nifty programs to use one keyboard and mouse over both systems , but since the linux machine and the Mac are on two different subnets , that might not work so well.
With my iPad three on the shopping short-list, i’m once again looking at reorganizing and tweaking all of the applications that I have on there. As a great man once said : The greater your skills, the fewer tools you need. And as tempting as it may be to fill up your home screen (and those darn folders) with all kinds of tools, keeping it simple is a better way. So i’ll try to give you a rundown of the stuff I use the most.
Wunderlist : This little to do app has cross platform siblings on my iPhone, my Android phone and on both my Mac and Linux machines. Wunderlist is everywhere. I keep this little task manager as a constant weapon against procrastination AND to store random ideas i get on the road.
Evernote : Wether its taking notes, voice memo’s or pictures : Evernote is becoming my central repository. I use it as my iPads main text editor, but also to keep track of the thousand nicknacks of random info I want to keep track of. Again : The cross platformity (is that a word ? it is now !) of the app is great. When I cruise the web and find a random article I would like to use later on, I use the evernote bookmark tool to snip up the page and put it into one of my many notebooks. A very very VERY powerful little tool indeed.
Ithoughts HD : The biggest challenge with being creative is to organize it. Wether its at work or at home, I use Ithoughts HD to mind map projects, show notes and use it in meetings quite a bit too. Hook up the iPad to the beamer and you can quickly take notes of whats going down and who has to do what. Not free, but worth it.
Notability : Suggested to my by Allison Sheridan of Podfeet.com its THE app for scribbling. but instead of just sitting there and trying to write down my horrible handwriting on an iPad I use it for sketches AND for adding notes and arrows to pictures. I take pictures or screenshots with the iPad, start scribbling on them and adding notes and use the built in voice memo option to babble away what I need to get of my chest. Then I ship the whole thing in an email and the recipient has a much more clear idea of what it is I want to do.
iBooks : ‘Reading books’ is not a very productive act, of that I am aware , but using my iBooks library for storing manuals, documents for work, reference books and more is making it the ultimate portable library for me. Whitepapers, documents for trainings I take .. I just don’t believe in paper anymore and am mandatory that people send me their stuff in PDF.
In all , these things turn my iPad into a very productive environment. The thing I had to do to get it working is to tweak my thinking and my behavior in using the iPad, more then I had to tweak my tools. Many of these apps are also available for android or have great alternatives. If they aren’t enough for you try Mat Gemmell’s list who came up with a complete DIFFERENT list then mine .. maybe there is a gem there too. If you want to see what how I use an iPOD to the fullest : Check out great docucast on getting the most out of your iPod touch.
Yes, I know i’m a day late for my mandatory Star Wars post for the annual Star Wars day ( May the Fourth) but I was too busy blowing up planets and force choking my enemies. And a dude needs to take his Jedi Cloak to the dry cleaners once a year too you know. So sit back and enjoy this amazing piece of fan fiction cobbled together by some amateur Jedi’s and Sith lords. Its surprisingly well made .. and I like the bad guy a lot. He’s Evil !
This week we talk Macs and Mommies with the Charming Melissa Davis. We dive off the deep end in this 90 minute interview on technology, education and how she uses tech in her daily life AND introduces it into those of others. A delightful spontaneous interview that you will surely enjoy.
Shownotes.
RSS feed ItunesMiro Download EpisodeThe downside of having both Tech Skills and a family … is that sometimes you become the family helpdesk. Before you know it people ring you up to fix their computer, and for some (like my mum in law and my wife’s “Ubuntu” Granny) a smoothly running computer is VERY important. But sometimes when the phone rings i’m wearing my PJ’s and don’t feel like hopping in the car and driving over. Or sometimes the people I need to help out live halfway around the planet. Time for my 5 favorite tools for digital omnipresence. All I need is a computer, a fast pipe and these tools and “Killroy 2.0 is .. everywhere”
Teamviewer : When it comes to cross-platform remote control of systems over the internet, Teamviewer takes the cake. Because I love to control all kind of systems without having to bother about the OS, Teamviewer is the perfect tool for the job. On demand or unattended remote control sessions, a chatbox and file transfer. Teamviewer does it all. I install teamviewer on all the systems I manage for remote control without needing to bother with open ports or IP addresses.
Dropbox : Suprising as it might seem, I use dropbox for a lot of my remote work. The Ubuntu granny has her pictures and document folder stored on her dropbox accounts. That ensures simple but effective backups. But with access to her dropbox account I can drop or pickup files she needs. Picture from her grandchild not opening ? Strange attachment ? Dropbox is the perfect tool for remote file management.
Skype : (auto Answer) : Sometimes it helps if you can talk to the people you are helping out. I use Skype to do just that. The combination with teamviewer is excellent and it allows me to talk and type at the same time. The difference with “being there” is very slight indeed.
No-ip.org : When the ‘remote person’ has a dynamic IP address its sometimes hard to “find them back” on the internet. If you google “what is my Ip” you get just that, but to avoid that extra manual step, its nice to bind a domain name to a dynamic ip. Dyndns used to offer this service for free, but not anymore. No-Ip.org does do this and gives you a choice of several ‘client’ applications to install on the remote systems.
SSH : When it comes to remote controlling systems via the command line, sending files back and forth or even piping through X or VNC sessions , SSH is ‘tha bomb’. Versatile, secure and a great way to tunnel through the internet for remote omnipresence.
I’ve been mocked many times for keeping hold of my old childhood toys. But where most men keep their toys in a box in the basement or the garage, some of my toys are proudly on display in our living room. Yes, I am fortunate to have a wife who is not only as geeky as I am, but who also follows me when we go out Transformer hunting. Where she got ‘into’ Transformers thanks to Michael Bay, the little Takara Tin Men were my favorite childhood toy back in the 80′s. So in the big display case in our living room, these two old geezers are on display. Mirage and Jazz, discolored by age and worn by age, stand together as veterans of the great wars of Cybertron. Compared to the newest Transformers that await eagerly in the shelves of the local toy store , they look clunky and primitive .. but they are a true classic.
