Tag Archives: Linux

GrooveDown vs. GrooveOff: my personal experience using Grooveshark

Grooveshark is an online music service, very well-known and common especially in Europe. The quality of its mp3, offered just for listening is higher than what you find on YouTube and some programs were developed to allow listeners to search and listen songs without visiting the Grooveshark website. Some of these software let you save sample of songs for a later listening but this habit doesn’t complain with the copyright laws in many countries so we discourage this kind of practice.

Today we would like to just endorse the ability of a single developer (www.caleta.fm) who was able to modify one of these programs, GrooveDown, and adapt it to the new website requisites.

This developer, using wireshark, was able to identify the misconfiguration between GrooveDown and the Grooveshark’s server and to positively update the data (client version and password) exchanged.

More in general I think that GrooveDown is the best client to listen to Grooveshark also because it is more powerful, fast and easy to use than its competitors. In particular, during some tests I did, I was positively impressed by the results I obtained using GrooveDown because I received better and more complete search results than using, for example, GrooveOff which is too a good software but, for my personal experience, gave back less impressive results.

Last but not least I want to underline that the caleta.fm development of GrooveDown is really stable and it was developed in two different versions just to be used with Java6 or Java7 platform. Recommended!

Once again about cookies, supercookies and Flash cookies… How to better protect Firefox, your Linux OS and.. you!

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In a previous post I already suggested to use HTTPS Everywhere and HTTPS Finder to better protect your privacy on the web. Today I would like to focus your attention on the privacy risks caused by cookies.

Some of them can track your internet activity also when you have logged off from the websites that created them. In few words, some cookies can actively support the creation of a quite punctual profile of your interests and share these information with third parties without you know if your data will be anonymised and correctly stored.

Internet tracking is actual and silent and antivirus software are not the best solution to manage them because every day new types of apparently harmless cookies and supercookies are created and spread into our computers. Cookies usually don’t directly affect your internet browsing but they are a real risk if you want to protect your privacy. A good VPN service (e.g. one that does not link your payment to your “new” assigned VPN IP) could be the best solution but flash cookies, evercookies (a particular type of zombie cookies which are able to geometrically clone themselves outside the original folder where they were stored) could reveal your IP and your habits, just after you disconnect your OS from the VPN shield.

To improve your privacy you can start to combine your VPN with some particular Firefox add-on as Self-Destructing Cookies (for the regular cookies) and BetterPrivacy which has been developed to “search and destroy” Flash cookies.

To improve your privacy, never forget that you can tune your Firefox Privacy settings also using Secure Sanitizer which wipe the browser cache in a stronger way than Firefox itself.

Last but not least, don’t forget to “waste” some minutes of your time and use BleachBit after every internet session or every time you shutdown your computer. Better to be slow than sorry!

How to manually mount USB drives on Ubuntu

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The first time I had this kind of problem was when I was trying to create a bootable USB drive and a pop-up windows appeared informing me that “you must first mount USB drive /dev/sdc1 to a mount-point. Most distributions will do this automatically after you remove and reinsert the USB drive”. I had never had this matter on Linux because, normally, all the USB drives are immediately recognized and mounted but there is always a first time….

After some googling I discovered that a specific program dconf-editor could help me to check the Linux settings and to consequentlyresolve the situation.

First of all you need to install dconf-editor on your Linux so you have to open a Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

After the installation you launch dconf-editor (for MATE environment it’s into the System Tool menu) and navigate it to media-handling:

org –> gnome –> desktop –> media-handling

Now you have to be sure that commands automount and automount-open are both flagged.

If you discover that they are already flagged, its necessary to manually create a mount point using the Terminal.

Open a Terminal and type:

df -H

to see the mounted disks. If you are not able to find the USB drive that you want to mount then type:

sudo fdisk -l

and you’ll see all disks (mounted/unmounted).

Now you are able to know the right drive identity (e.g. sdb1, sdc1, sdd1) that your OS assigned to that specific drive. Memorize it and start to create the mount point:

sudo mkdir /media/newusb

where “newusb” is the mount point name you want to assign to your USB drive.

Then type:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/newusb

where “sdb1” is the drive identity we found before and “newusb” the mount-point name you choose.

That’s it, now your USB drive has a mounting point and you can use it (in my case I was able to create a bootable USB drive usiing Unetbootin)

You can find some extra useful tips about mounting USB drives at the Ubuntu community.

Bodhi: a less known but powerful Linux distribution

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If you are looking for a light Linux OS for your computer you can test Bodhi Linux. This specific Linux version, based on Ubuntu, utilizes the enlightenment graphical interface. For this reason Bodhi is particularly indicated also to give new life to computers with no updated hardware.

The graphical interface is really “zen” or rather clean, easy to navigate but complete. We tested the 32 bit version and it was a smooth experience also if we used a single core pc with 2 GB of RAM.

Before testing Bodhi you have to keep in mind that this Linux OS is really user oriented. It means it has just some few pre-installed programs and so you are free to customize it as you prefer. Last thing to remember is that Bodhi is a semi-rolling distribution ans so it will be updated in occasion of Ubuntu Long Term Releases (LTS). Try it, it is worth a chance!

Get power on pdf files and modify them on the fly with pdfmod (PDF Mod) and PDF Editor on Ubuntu

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Since its invention, the pdf format has been the most versatile standard to share documents with a fixed layout. Everyday we share, read and create a lot of pdf files but sometimes we would like to modify them to create “new” personalized version more suitable to our needs.

For example, sometimes you need to extrapolate just a page from a pdf files or you want just to create different versions of the same file with few variations for your colleagues. For all these purpose pdfmod is the right solution for you.

Pdfmod has not been developed for some years because the versions we were able to find for Linux were the 2011 ones but, for what we know and tested, it still runs on all main platforms as Linux, Windows and OSX. Pdfmod is a little bit different from other similar programs because it allows you just to modify the pdf file changing pages order, deleting pages or adding new pages from other pdf files. It also allows you to change some main metadata (title, author, keywords and subjest) of your pdf file in just few clicks and, of course, you can save the modified copy of the original pdf file.

These features could be basic for more sophisticated people but I can assure you that, if you have the need to do this kind of work different times in a week, pdfmod is the software you will use more often. Installation on Ubuntu is very simple, you just have to open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pdfmod-team/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install pdfmod

and you will find a new PDF Mod launcher into the Accessories menu.

To get complete power on your pdf files we suggest pdfedit (PDF Editor) which allows you to “break” protected pdf files and modify them. To install pdfedit, use Synaptics Package Manager or the Ubuntu Software Center.

Don’t forget, when you use pdfedit you just have to open the “target” pdf file, save it using the Flatten feature you find into the Tool menu and open again the “new” file to modify it without any restriction.

Easy to install and simple to use, in few words the above described programs worth a try!

Remastersys: the easy tool to backup your PC or to create a personalized Linux (Debian – Ubuntu) distribution

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Everyday we improve the OS we usually use adapting it to our specific needs. Consequently, we are worried about major OS upgrades between one version to another because we know that bugs could affect our installation and indirectly corrupt our saved data. Usually backup software are the right solution for data but, if something goes wrong, we have to reinstall all our OS and reconfigure it. Better, we have to spend many hours to download and configure all the single software we had installed into our original OS.

This is always but annoying and time-wasting. To avoid this specific problem we can decide to install Remastersys on our Linux distribution and use it regularly. Remastersys is very simple to install. For example, if you use Ubuntu, you have just to download its pgp key and save it into the Home folder then you can go to Synaptic Package Manager –> Other Software –> Add and enter the apt line specific for your Ubuntu version:

deb http://www.remastersys.com/ubuntu precise main

deb http://www.remastersys.com/ubuntu quantal main

if you use quantal.

On Synaptic Package Manger go to Edit and click on Reload Package Information then look for remastersys. Now you have Remastersys launcher under System –> Administration.

Remastersys has a very intuitive menu and you will be able to powerfully use it after just few tests. Please, remember to set-up Remastersys using its Customize –> Configure menu and you avoid any beginner mistake. If your iso will be bigger than 4GB, and you want to save it in to a FAT disk, you have to back-up documents, pictures, videos, etc.. separately because FAT formatted disks don’t allow files bigger than 4GB.

Important, if you are creating a ISO to distribute it to friends, don’t forget to not include personal folders, documents or your sensible data. Enjoy it and, if you want to share with us your personal Debian – Ubuntu distribution, add the specific download link into a comment to this post!

Repair GRUB on IBM Thinkpad – The best Linux solution

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When you decide to add another OS to the usual OS on your PC you can potentially damage your grub package. The Grub (GNU GRand Unified Bootloader) is the “soul” of you hardware, the program which allows your PC to find the OS during the boot-up.

Today we will not discuss about the old and new malware that are able to influence the GRUB but we will focus our attention on how repairing your computer when you see grub rescue> on your black screen…

The first solution you can find on internet is a detailed command solution but it was unfortunately usefulness in my case because my PC was not able to correctly accept the insmod command. Consequently I decided to use a portable rescue CD-USB to fix the matter.

Normally, if you use an Ubuntu derived OS, you can use Boot-Repair and it will semi-automatically fix your Grub problem in just few minutes. In any case, it is moderately easy but you have to be 100% sure about what HD partition you want to repair. As usual, this wasn’t my case. I had to find something more generic -in term of serviced OS- but effective.

At the end I bumped into the Boot Repair Disk. I had just to burn the free iso on a RW DVD and I could start to test it on my “out of service” laptop. The Boot Repair live CD is a wonderful tool! As soon as you boot up the live CD, Boot Repair guides you to the best possible solution. You have just to follow the suggestion on the screen and, in few minutes, the Boot Repair Disk is able to fix the Grub and to perfectly restore your computer.

Easy, Fast, Effective!!

Quotation Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night hacking (and/or conversations with God). Matt Welsh

How to fix monitor problems (bugs?) on Ubuntu 12.04 and later versions – Linux

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Starting from Ubuntu 12.04 we observed different graphics problems with “old” computers. When I say “old” I don’t mean obsolete hardware but PC with not more than three years of usage.

Many problems were especially noticed in systems with dual monitors or involving laptops. In few words, Ubuntu was not able to keep and memorize the correct video settings and it was necessary to set-up monitors configuration almost each time you logged on your OS. If you have the same problem and you are surfing the net to fix this “bug” don’t forget to search for solutions strictly connected to the laptop or graphic card you are really using. In fact in our experience there are more than few solutions possible and what it’s resolving for some hardware could become a real mess for different (but similar) machines.

The risk of damaging Ubuntu graphical interface while you try to fix the laptop – dual monitors problem is high. Or it has been in our experience because after some tests we were just able to use Ubuntu through the old line way in its safe mode boot. In any way, in our experience (IBM Thinkpad T43 and a HP L1950g monitor using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with MATE as graphical interface) we solved all the matter just using Terminal and typing:

 sudo apt-get update

and

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

We are not able to explain why it works but it really fixed the bug. Probably, in one of the previous update one or more libraries conflicted with Ubuntu 12.04 configuration generating all the mess we fought against during the past months.

So, if you want to test our solution on your PC, do it at your risk, and type:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xubuntu-desktop

sudo apt-get install --reinstall kubuntu-desktop

sudo apt-get install --reinstall lubuntu-desktop

If you want to reinstall all (k)ubuntu-desktop dependencies:

sudo apt-cache depends ubuntu-desktop | awk -F ":" '{print $2}' | sed '/^$/d' | xargs sudo apt-get install --reinstall --install-recommends --yes

Don’t forget to choose your favourite k-x-l-u-buntu-desktop when you type all the above code in just one line and !

Good luck!…. and touch wood while you fix this really annoying bug…..

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Model B is interesting if you need a cheap PC that is able to run Linux (Debian GNU/Linux, Raspbian OS, Fedora, Arch Linux ARM, RISC OS, FreeBSD, Plan 9). When Model B will be upgraded to 1 GB RAM, we will have one of the most competitive computers for standard office tasks… ASFEE6HEF2PT