Install Linux inside Windows using VirtualBox
I made a video tutorial on how to make a Linux virtual machine on Windows using Virtual Box. Take a look...
2009
My informative shell prompt
The Bash shell prompt in your Terminal is very highly customizable and can display a wide variety of useful information. This is what my prompt looks like and how to create it.
[09:10:11] user@host ~/Desktop +
mdadm GUI - A graphical interface to Linux software RAID via Webmin
Anybody who cares about their data understands, that data "is not safe, unless it exists in at least two copies". This redundancy can be achieved by keeping various backups, but it's clear that the only backup scheme which works is the "set it and forget it" kind. If you are technical enough to build your own NAS, or if you run Linux on your desktop, you probably know about RAID, fake RAID, and software RAID. Using RAID makes your backup strategy completely transparent and your data safe and happy.
Tweaking the Dock in OS X
The Dock in OS X has quite a few hidden features, which are not accessible through its simple System Preferences panel. Here are some of them.
Cirkus Redux
As I was standing in that office, I could barely stop myself from a burst of laughter. I managed to contain myself and turn the laugh into a big smile as I approached the lady with whom I was going to talk. But inside I was roaring with laughter at the serious lady behind her little desk, with the little stacks of papers arranged neatly and her little coffee mug, her telephone, the guard standing watch by the door, the signs on the walls, the whole shebang.
MAC address spoofing on OS X
Sometimes you need to connect to a network, which is designed to only allow connections from certain network interface cards, filtered by their MAC address. This filtering can be avoided by changing or spoofing your computer's MAC.
sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr 00:00:00:00:00:00 # <- the new MAC address
sudo ifconfig en0 down
sudo ifconfig en0 up
Your original Media Access Control address will be restored after a reboot.
Show hidden files in the Finder
It's sometimes necessary to view and manipulate files hidden in your system. Unfortunately the Mac OS X file browser, the Finder, does not display these files by default and has no easy way to access this option. This simple hack allows you to choose whether hidden files are displayed or not.
Using APT from the command line
Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) has been ported over to Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions. There are many useful graphical user interfaces to the system such as Synaptic, but sometimes it's faster or easier to use it from the command line. Here's how.
Browsers 2009: Now for Windows
This is a continuation of the Browsers 2009 post with results for Windows browsers. This time there are 2 arguable winners, but one clear loser.