Tag Archives: Software

How to obtain a free digital signing service for your personal documents

Sooner or later you need to digitally sign a document. If you have never done it before it’s only a matter of time, you will need a digital signing service sooner than you can imagine. The problem is represented to be ready without being obliged to spend money for it.

You will find different offers online and many trusty companies will try to convince you that their offer its the best but many of them limit your possibility to freely sign documents when you really need.

During my tests I tried a bunch of them and, for my experience, just few worth any attention.

In particular I was positively impressed by hellosign and Adobe Echo Sign. They are both interesting but hellosign offers something more. I mean you have not to spend a cent for both but Abobe limits the number of documents you can free sign to just 5 documents each month. If you are not used to digitally sign your docs this limitation doesn’t represent a problem but, trust me, when you will begin you soon need more than 5 free signatures a month.

HelloSign also allows you to upload an image file with your handwritten (and, of course, scanned) signature or create a new one choosing between some different fonts. You have no limits for signing documents but you can send only three signature requests a month (enough for my present necessities). Moreover, you can browse into the hellosign Documents folder and find all the  documents you have signed before.

On the other hand, Adobe Echo Sign request more personal information when you sign-up for the service and, as we already underlined, it limits your experience to just 5 activities a month.

Try them and let us know if you have already found a better, free, online service to digitally sign your documents. Good luck!  AddThis

Video – Linux Wifi Mac address spoofing by peruzfinest08

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Open Source tools and applications for web developers

Several open source tools have evolved in the past and have become popular with the developers too.  These tools have gained popularity not only because they come free but because of the ease to work with and the features.  First let us see some code editors:

Aptana:  It is a free, JavaScript focused development environment, cross-platform and open source for building Ajax applications.  It supports HTML, JavaScript, CSS languages, FTP/SFTP and has a powerful JavaScript debugger that can help in troubleshooting your code.

Eclipse :  It is an open source software framework written mainly in Java.  It is an integrated development environment consisting Java development toolkit (JDK) and compiler (ECJ) for developing applications in Java.  Developers can extend its capabilities by installing plug-ins such as development toolkits for other programming languages written specifically for eclipse software framework.  Language packs for over a dozen languages are available.

JEdit : It is a programmer’s text editor which has many hundreds of man-hours of development behind it. It is a java-based solution  and a cross-platform product  which can work on many operating systems like Windows, VMS, UNIX,  OX/2 and Mac OS X.

NVU : It is a web authoring system for Linux desktop users, Macintosh users as well as for Microsoft windows and  is a competitor for similar products like Dreamweaver and Frontpage.  Nvu actually means new view and makes managing a website very easy.  Now even people without knowledge of HTML or technical expertise can create web pages and manage a website.

Quanta Plus : It is a web development environment with a lot of features and is highly stable.   Quanta has a vision of achieving maximal user extensibility through the best architectural foundations, best, efficient design and natural use of code.

We shall see other tools in other posts. AddThis mp3 link

How to protect your profile and emails on Thunderbird 3 (Ubuntu and Windows instructions)

On Thunderbird, the only way to be 99% sure nobody will read your emails is to save your profile on an encrypted folder (or disk partition) using e.g. TrueCrypt but if you are not concerned that you are under surveillance, you can simply use a quick and useful trick that allows Thunderbird to ask for the Master password every time you launch it.

In Ubuntu you have to follow two different steps. First of all, go to Edit —> Preferences —> Security —> Passwords and create your Master Password. Secondly, go to Edit —> Preferences —> Advanced —> Config Editor (click on “I’ll be careful, I promise”). Then in the filter bar, type password and change the parameter for mail.password_protect_local_cache to True. The next time you will launch Thunderbird nothing will be displayed (old and new emails) before you insert the correct Master Password.

If you are using Thunderbird on Windows you have to modify mail.password_protect_local_cache going to Tools —> Options —> Advanced —> Config Editor (click on “I’ll be careful, I promise”). Then, as for Ubuntu, in the filter bar type password and change the parameter for mail.password_protect_local_cache to True. AddThis mp3 link

How to uninstall software on Ubuntu

UbuntuInstalling software on Ubuntu is really easy but sometimes we can have problems to uninstall it if we have not used the Package Manager (Synaptic till Ubuntu 9.04 and later through the Software Center) or a .deb package. To fastly uninstall all the software you do not need or you are not fond of, you can type in the Terminal:

sudo dpkg -r your_file

An alternative and powerful way is typing:

sudo apt-get remove your_file

(where your_file it is the name of the software you want to remove)

or, if you want to completely cancel also the configuration files:

sudo apt-get --purge remove your_file

If you want to check what software is installed on you Ubuntu you can use:

dpkg --list

and you will obtain a complete list of software and a very short summary for each package. AddThis mp3 link

Prey: a multiplatform, open source anti-thefth free software for laptops

What about losing your laptop? Obviously the chances to find it and have it back are very few! But there are several software you can install on your laptop to trace the ip and geo-location of te laptop and with a bit of fortune you could find it. Prey is one of these programs you can use and it is particularly interesting because it is open source and free up to three laptops. After the download of the proper version for your OS (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X or Android) you have to run it on your machine and configure it through a very simple interface (on Ubuntu: Applications —> System Tools —> Prey Configurator). Do not forget to select Enable guest account and Wifi autoconnect to improve the possibilities to trace your laptop. You are also asked to provide an email account where you will receive the geo-location reports if your laptop is stolen. When you activate your Prey account do not forget to fill in the Configuration and Modules tabs. Personally we suggest to switch to ON the following commands: Auto update, Notify new reports and all the commands contained in the left column of the Modules tab. At this point, if your laptop is missed, you have to log in your on-line Prey account and, in the Configuration tab, switch the Missing option on YES. Since this moment, Prey software on your laptop is activated and will start sending reports to your email and to your Prey webpage. Last but not least, to better protect your laptop I suggest to hide or cancel the Prey Configurator icon from the OS menu (in Ubuntu: System —> Preferences —> Main Menu —> System Tools and deselect Prey Configurator). AddThis mp3 link

CLI Companion: una ayuda concreta para utilizar la Consola añadiendo una lista automatizada de comandos

Hace unos días he encontrado esta nueva aplicación para Linux, se llama CLI Companion. Aunque Linux ha evolucionado muchísimo y hay que reconocer que ya casi no hace falta hacer uso de la Consola para ejecutar programas y tareas varias, pero también hay veces que gracias al uso de la Consola se puede solucionar pequeños problema que de otra forma seria bastante mas complicado. En esos casos CliCompanion nos hecha una mano añadiendo una lista con diferentes comandos junto a nuestro terminal. La lista de los comando no es infinita, viene con unos cuantos; para cada comando hay una referencia donde se explica la función, también es posible añadir comandos y los parámetros correspondientes. Además CliCompanion tiene un apartado de búsqueda donde es posible encontrar el comando que mas nos interese en cada momento. Desde cuando lo instalé en mi Kubuntu 10.04, tengo que confirmar que es una muy buena aplicación y puede ser instalada con lo repositorios correspondientes y tener futuras actualizaciones o directamente através el paquete .DEB. Os dejo el enlace de la Web: http://okiebuntu.homelinux.com/okwiki/clicompanion AddThis mp3 link

PPASearch: la mejor herramienta para buscar repositorios PPA en Ubuntu

Hay veces que queremos instalar alguna aplicación y no sabemos muy bien cuales son los repositorios correctos PPA de Launchpad. gracias a PPASearch esto se hace todo muy muy fácil. Lo primero que hay que hacer es instalar esta aplicación en nuestra Distro con los siguientes comandos:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wrinkliez/ppasearch
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ppasearch

Cuando ya tengamos instalada esta aplicación, podemos buscar el repositorio que mas nos interese, para hacer eso lo único será ejecutar PPASearch y el nombre del programa de lo cual buscamos el repositorio: ejemplo

ppasearch skype

Buscando por los repositorios de Skype me salieron diferentes repositorios y cada uno identificado con un numero, para instalar alguno de ellos, lo único será elegir el numero correspondiente y PPASearch se ocupará de instalar el repositorio seleccionado. ¡Muy buena herramienta!

Agradezco mucho el Blog Ubuntulife por su labor y por todas las informaciones y ayuda incluida esa entrada  http://ubuntulife.wordpress.com/ AddThis mp3 link

Rocketdock 1.3.0: a light but powerful dock for Windows 7, Vista and XP

This week, in our Freeware Page, we posted a brief review about Rocketdock, a terrific “Apple style” dock for Windows. We decided to test Rocketdock on a Windows XP and the results were positive and we did not find bugs. Rocketdock is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista and the brand new Windows 7 using just 10MB of RAM. To add a new icon it is sufficient to drag and drop it into the bar and it will be automatically added. To cut off an icon you have to drag it from the dock to an empty space on the desktop and it is immediately removed. To conclude we suggest this freeware because it is really customizable and easy to add & tune to your existing desktop. Recommended! AddThis Podcast

How to easily install programs on your Windows or Ubuntu computers: allmyapps.com

This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we have added a brief post about allmyapps.com a useful website which allow you to easily install software on Ubuntu (8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10) and Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7).  After a simple registration you can choose the free software you prefere to install and in few clicks and some minutes you are ready to use your new programs. Allmyapps.com, automatically recognizes the OS you have installed on your PC. On allmyapps we found many useful softwares and every month more programs are submitted by readers and added to the website for the installation. For Windows we also positively tested another website ninite.com where we found many free softwares ready to be dowloaded and automatically installed.  Easy to use and useful! AddThis mp3 link