Hi, this is Yuen Hoe here, and I’m supposed to be kicking off this new monthly desktop screeny thing. So the basic idea is simple, every month we’ll be having a Linux box over to powder up and pose for the printscreen. We’ll click a couple of shots, then upload and flash them here in what would hopefully be a showcase of glamour. Presumably this would serve on the one hand to give fellow Linux users tips and inspirations with regards to customizing your own box, and on the other to make you infidelic non-Linuxers drool in uncontrollable envy educate the masses that modern Linux can be as polished as any other graphical OS - because we all know that people only care about looks a pretty and refined GUI goes a long way

So without further ado…

It so happened that this period sees me in “let’s make things look Vista-ish!” mood, so purists will have to bear with me I am pretty happy with the extent to which I was able to reproduce Aero-Vista’s glassy feel though, especially considering the fact that both my Compiz reflection and blur plugins refuse to work.

And since nobody told me that it’s supposed be a ONE screenshot post, I’m gonna flaunt a good deal moar - after all, you can never do a Linux desktop justice with only one screeny.

More screenies after the cut. Warning : they’re huge!
Read the rest…

The IBM developerWorks articles are a great resource for anyone who’s into the world of development. We saw some recently that dealt with tips and tricks for working on the command line. For us Linux users, while we may like our fancy desktops and graphical effects, courtesy of the CompizFusion project, the command line is always available when we need that raw power and flexibility.

The first article, Learn 10 good UNIX usage habits , we learn how to define an entire directory tree using a single-line command , how to execute one command only if another one succeeds , and how to properly use grep .

In the second, Learn 10 more good UNIX usage habits , we learn about file name , and command history expansion, directory navigation using pushd and popd , and also the handy utilities of curl and awk , along with a quick primer on regular expressions .

And yes, while the article does say "UNIX" instead of "Linux", most of the tips are usable on both platforms, since the utilities involved are common between the two. The articles also do take note when certain tips are shell specific, such as the file-name completion tip in the second article. The default shell in most Linux distributions is bash , so unless you’ve specifically changed your default shell, following the instructions for bash should keep you safe.

And if you haven’t already gotten your hands dirty with the command line (Konsole, for KDE users, and GNOME Terminal for, well, the GNOME people), here’s your chance to dive in with these handy tips.

Ever wondered about the geographical popularity of Linux in a Windows dominated world?

Data (by popular search terms) from Google collated by Royal Pingdom reveals that Linux is more popular in the East and developing countries (probably due to cost?). Surprisingly, the United States isn’t top 5 for any of the 8 distributions researched.

How about Singapore?

Well, according to Google statistics, search terms from Singapore involving Linux have sadly been declining since 2004 (which has also been true for many other countries).

Read more about it from Royal Pingdom.

When you visit a web page, you might expect that the code and images from the page will make their journey through the tubes unmolested and unaltered, but according to security researchers, you would also be wrong 1.3 percent of the time.

Quoting from a recent article on Ars.Technica, researchers have found that up to 1.3% of web pages are altered in transit between the server and the requesting client. Not all the modifications are malicious though, the article notes. Some ISPs modify the page either by removing extra white space in the page, or further compressing images, thereby reducing bandwidth used and decreasing wait times. Alternatively, some service providers take the opportunity to serve ads instead.

In 2007 (I think), some folks from the University of Washington and the International Computer Science Institute put up a page to test if pages loaded from various domains were edited while passing through through the ‘tubes. Enter the UW CSE and ICSI Web Integrity Checker.

Here’s quoting their results so far:

• 50,171 unique IP addresses visited the page.
• 657 IP addresses reported modified pages (1.3%).
• 70% of the modifications where caused by client-side proxy software, such as ad blockers and popup blockers.
• 46 IP addresses reported changes that were caused by an ISP, such as injected advertisements and modifications to reduce network traffic.
• 125 IP addresses were using proxies that caused them to be vulnerable to cross site scripting attacks.
• 3 IP addresses were affected by adware or worms.

I’m curious as to how this test would fare in Singapore. Are our local providers editing the pages we request on the fly? So here’s what, just for fun,

1. Perform the test by visiting the page
2. Then, visit this page on the linuxNUS Opensource Wiki to record your results

Let us know how it went!

You know, you hear a lot about “open source” these days, and if you’ve ever wondered how the Open Source community in Singapore is doing, here’s a handy tip, check out Planet LUGS.

Planet LUGS is an aggregation of a number of blogs from members in Singapore’s Open Source scene. Ranging from professionals in certain large companies, to your average student on the street, Planet LUGS collects their voices and brings them to you in one nice, easy read.

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Planet LUGS is powered by the Planet aggregator.

Wee~

It’s been a busy week with midterms and all, hope everybody’s been doing well?

We’re pleased to announce our first social meetup session next Tuesday, 9 Oct, at 6pm , at the linuxNUS Clubroom at SoC #03-19.

Do feel free to come by, after all, the Clubroom is where it all happens for linuxNUS! As members, you’ll also have access to the linuxNUS Library, a collection of technical manuals contributed by members of our community. There is also spare hardware on which you can use to test various software packages if you so wish.

Hope to see you there on Tuesday!

Cheers
linuxNUS Coreteam

You sure?

We like strategy games..


ChanServ MODE +o rey
rey KICK elfgoh - rey
<rey> so fun
<ramkumar> lol
<rey> long time nv hijack irc channel liao
<tianyao> OMG ./KICKTOTHEMOON elfgoh


… and counting games..


<elfgoh> 1
<elfgoh> 01
<elfgoh> 010
<elfgoh> 1010
<elfgoh> 10101


So do join us on #linuxNUS on irc.freenode.net if you want to be in on the action =)

Was just checking out our Google Analytics stats the other day and found a very interesting trend. Second to Singapore (of course), the highest number of incoming visitors to our Opensource Wiki are from…. USA!

The proof (darker areas show higher hits)

So anyway, just a big wave to our friends from the US! =D

It’s 2 more weeks to the exams, and everyone is furiously mugging (I hope…). Good luck everyone! May everyone pass with flying colours!

In other news, the room (SOC1-03-19) is still spewing coffee to keep late-night muggers and too-early larks awake. You can come join us too. =)