BowerStudios.com

The Art of Unix is a fascinating book about programming on *nix platforms.

For some reason, I didn't run across these guys when I was looking for a laptop last year. I hope to give them a try next time I'm in the market.

Unison, Rsync, and from earlier this week: AutoMyDbBackup

Additional info on Rsync:
Wikipedia Article
Simple Tutorial

If you are going to manage photos on your hard disk without something like shotwell, f-spot, or picassa, you might want to consider a file naming scheme.

I like:
YearMonthDay_Time_Second_OriginalFilename.type
which looks like:
20110211_1939_IMG_0757.JPG
from my Canon.

So, how do we get photos named as such? Here are two methods: Looking at Exif data when available, or rearranging what the camera manufacturer has named the photo.

Here is a script for canon digital cameras. It looks at the Exif data provided by the camera - just make sure your cameras date is actually set.

Here is a script for a Droid X - written in groovy. It simply rearranges the structure of the filename already present.

I would love to add a line this script to add a line of exif data to the photo... maybe another time.

My process (use case):
Drop new photos in a new directory.
Add this script to the directory.
Run the script.
Review photos (ensure nothing went wrong) and manually sort movie files.
Copy newly renamed files to their permanent location.

Backups made easy:

AutoPgSQLBackup
AutoMySQLBackup

Easy enough to configure.
Looks great on the file system.
Makes me happy.

Installing Postgres is a little more than apt-get install postgres

Follow the Ubuntu Community Guide

From: WatchingTheNet.com

sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal
killall nautilus

aka: Open Command Window Here

Giving Fedora 15 a whirl since it includes Gnome3 already. Ubuntu is heading a different direction with Unity.

Some Required Links:
Additional Software Repositories to enable.
To get my Broadcom wireless card to work.
Headphones on Dell laptops

Useful packages: libreoffice, gimp, dia, calibre, java, unison, git, subversion, pgadmin, postgresql-server, postgresql-client, httpd, gparted, dconf-editor, freemind, gstreamer-ffmpeg, alacarte, lynx, filezilla, thunderbird, vim, p7zip, nmap, nautilus-open-terminal, pwgen, gconf-editor, VirtualBox, gnome-tweak-tool
Another useful package has "ugly" in the name, just search for it in the package manager.

Additional apps to install:
Dropbox
Truecrypt

Configuration:
Java Virtual Machine Environment Variables
Enable Delete Button
Show Date in Gnome3

Todo:
copy postgres databases

From User "subverted" on DevShed:
a nifty little script for replacing a string over multiple files in a directory:

#!/bin/bash
szAnswer1=$(zenity --entry --text "Enter word to replace:");
szAnswer2=$(zenity --entry --text "Enter word that replaces:");
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i "s/$szAnswer1/$szAnswer2/g"

I just pasted this into a file named zenityReplace.sh in /usr/local/bin

I used it to globally rename the packages for a project.

I'm switching to LibreOffice from OpenOffice as it seems most of the developers of OpenOffice have done the same. I installed with this helpful guide from txwikinger. Initial impression... This is a surprisingly fast startup for a Java App!