Linux

Weekend picks #017

Babis Konstantinidis | October 28, 2007

Linux is definitely Getting Things Done

[1]

Getting things done fast
In theory there is nothing wrong about Getting Things Done. The only problem is that sometime the theory of GTD is just a theory and the work you have is time consuming regardless David Allen. I recently had a large number (around 500) of txt files with some URLs in them. I wanted to collect all the URLs in an Excel file. I also wanted to sort them out alphabetically and delete the duplicates. I can’t imagine how much time would take someone to open manually 500 files and copy paste the 5.000 more or less URLs in Excel. I did in less than 5 minutes. In fact the copy paste, the sorting and the removing of the duplicate URLs just took a little more than 2 or 3 seconds. The rest was just me trying to remember and searching the net for the correct syntax of two or three Linux Bash commands.

grep
grep is a Linux program for searching lines inside a text or text files.You can use it to collect lines from a txt file that match a particular pattern. All I had to do is to collect all the lines from the files that started with “http://*” (yes you can use wildcard in grep).
uniq
If you have a sorted file you can use uniq to remove the duplicate lines.
The whole script was just 5 lines. I had to use a “for” command to open the files one after the other and collect the particular lines.

[2]

Cygwin
I recently installed Kubuntu 7.10 so I did all the testing there but I could also have used my Vista installation if I had installed Cygwin
Cygwin is a Linux Like environment for Windows which gives you access to huge number of Linux tools like the ones I used. You can use it to run other Linux programs and scripts within Windows. It’s really something to open up Command Prompt and instead of “dir” to type “ls” to see the files in a directory. The current version of Cygwin runs in all versions of Windows (32 and 64bit) except Windows CE. I tested in Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit and it worked without a problem.

[3]

Exploring Flickr
I really love flickr.com. You can find my photos here. Today I came across a new web application with the name flexplore
How does it work? Well flexplore analyzes your favorites and the photos of your contacts and suggests Flickr photos that you might like. Give it a try, it really works!

Until next time... Keep on talking to your friends.

Weekend picks #016

Babis Konstantinidis | October 21, 2007

It was a very long week at work, and an very unproductive weekend…

[1]

David Allen’s Blog

David Allen is “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” according to some magazines. Business 2.0 magazine included him in the list of the “50 people who matter now”. His methology of Getting Things Done has become something like a religion for millions of people around the world. You can find his blog here with topics like “Categorizing Your Stuff Is The Path To Freedom” or “Is Thinking Interrupting Your Sleep?”

And if you are interested in what GTD is you should read here the definition by David Allen.

[2]

Apache Friends
What is the best way to start testing, or learning the fine art of building sites? Well you could buy some space in a server but wait a moment; don’t you have an old computer in the basement? Maybe you could use that old PIII as a testbed? Well yes you could use it. All you need is to download a Linux Distribution (if you are afraid of Linux, read on there is a solution for Windows also),and install on top of it, a Web Server like Apache, MySQL, PHP, and a content management system like Drupal or Joomla or… and there you are, ready to start.

What is Apache Friends? Apache friends is a nonprofit project. It was started in 2002 and its goal is to promote Apache. One of the projects that Apache friends is working is Xampp. Xampp is taking a big burden off your shoulders by combining in one, easy to install, package Apache MySQL and PHP among other useful tools. You would still have to choose a Linux Distribution like Kubuntu and you will still have to choose a CMS like Drupal but you should get you site in the air (of your local network) in a little less than hour (installing Linux included).

You can find the latest Xampp packages for Windows and Linux here.

[3]

Kubuntu
Kubuntu is the first Ubuntu derived distribution. The Kubuntu distribution is based in Ubuntu with the main difference that it uses KDE instead of Gnome. It’s the easiest way to learn about Linux. The CD is a live one, which means that you can try it without affecting your own system. Play around and if you like it just click Install. While installing you can still browse the Internet, chat with your online friends; listen to music and whatever you normally do every day with your computer. Impressive? When the installation finishes [about 10 minutes in my notebook] you will have to reboot (only once) and that’s it. You are finished.
You can find a nearby server to download it here.

Until next time... Keep on supporting Open Source