Linux Blog

Twitter & Indenti Client for KDE

choqoK is a quick and efficient micro-blogging client for the K Desktop Environment. It currently supports the Twitter.com and Identi.ca services. The name comes from an ancient Persian word that means sparrow.

Feature:
    * Supporting Twitter.com micro-blogging service.
    * Supporting Identi.ca micro-blogging service. (Using its Twitter compatible API)
    * Supporting self hosted Laconica websites. (Using its Twitter compatible API)
    * Supporting User + His/Her Friends time-lines.
    * Supporting @Reply time-lines.
    * Support for send and receive direct messages.
    * Twitpic.com integration.
    * Supporting Multiple Accounts simultaneously.
    * Supporting search APIs for all services.
    * KWallet integration.
    * Ability to make a quick tweet with global shortcuts. (Ctrl+Meta+T)
    * Ability to notify user about new statuses text, with KNotification or Libnotify.
    * Support for shortening urls with more than 30 characters.(shorten on paste)
    * Support for configuring status lists appearance.
    * and other configuration options...

Installation:
Kubuntu | Also available in official repositories
OpenSuSE
Fedora
Mandriva
Archlinux | Also available in community repository
Gentoo

HowTo create Ubuntu Bootable USB Flash Drive - uSbuntu

uSbuntu Live Creator is a free program for Microsoft Windows that will allow users to easily create a bootable USB key with Ubuntu on it.

uSbuntu Live Creator also offers an exclusive option of automatic virtualization to launch directly Ubuntu in Windows without any configuration nor installation.

Anybody can use uSbuntu Live Creator. It's really easy to use and you don't have to be a computer geek, install remotely from managed servers, or even have a CD-ROM drive!

Features of "uSbuntu Live Creator":
· Create bootable USB device from Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu
· Enable persistency of your data
· Launch Ubuntu directly in Windows with a special Portable VirtualBox
· Hide created files on the key
· Automatically configure keyboards (supports French, canadian and US keyboards)

Requirements:
· 256 MB free RAM memory
· Local admin privileges to launch VirtualBox

Improvements :
· Supports Ubuntu 9.04, Linux Mint and CrunchBang
· Creating a contextual menu to launch uSbuntu
· New language available : Italian
· Updated VirtualBox to version 2.2.0
· Great improvement of the launchers for VirtualBox
· Native creation of VMDK
· Formatting time is now adaptive
· A special crash log are created after a crash

Download uSbuntu Live Creator 1.5 for Windows and Instantly Create Ubuntu bootable USB flash drive.

step 1 : launch the uSbuntu Live Creator and choose a USB key or drive in the list
step 2 : select a ISO file or CD of Ubuntu/KubuntuXubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
step 3 : choose the size of persistency data (usually more than 250MB)
step 4 : check the options you want
step 5 : click the thunder to start the creation

Linux "VISA" Credit Card

Use your Linux VISA card for everyday purchases, just as you would any card. Each time you buy lunch, gas, a new game box, or a big screen: a portion of your “cardholder rewards” becomes a charitable donation to Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS). All at no cost to you. By combining the “rewards” from thousands of cardholders, Linux Fund has distributed over half a million dollars in grants to F/OSS projects since 1999.

Linux Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides financial and advisory support to the free and open software community. Linux Fund has given away over 3/4 million dollars to open source events and development since its founding in 1999 using funds earned by its line of rewards credit cards and direct donations.

Prior to receiving the 501(c)(3) letter, the principal funding source had been an affinity credit card program with credit cards bearing a graphic of Tux, the Linux Penguin. Visa cards are currently offered in the USA by US Bank, and a Master Card is offered in Canada by MBNA/Bank of America of Canada.

Check more at: http://www.linuxfund.org/

Optimize the disk space by removing unnecessary locale data - localepurge

The package localepurge (version 0.5.9) is just a simple script to recover disk space wasted for unneeded locale files and localized man pages (interpret - language files). After first use, it will automatically be invoked upon completion of any apt installation run.

Note: This tool is a hack which is *not* integrated with Debian based package management systems and therefore is not for the faint of heart. This program interferes with the Debian based package management and can provoke strange, but usually harmless, behavior of programs related with apt/dpkg like dpkg-repack, debsums, reportbug, etc. Responsibility for its usage and possible breakage of your system therefore lies in the sysadmin's (your) hands.

However, this very easy and simple script can and will save you a few hundred megabytes of hard drive space.

Each and every application or package that you install on your system usually contain many locales (language files) which are not the language you understand or use daily. these locales data are installed by default and can takes up hundreds of megabytes of hard drive space, depending on which application or package you install.

so why let these useless data files reside on our system? we do not need them so let's purge them:

From a terminal, type: sudo apt-get install localepurge

During the install, you will receive a prompt for your language. The language selections are in two digit codes, (for example: “en” for English.) scroll down to your language and once it's highlighted, click the “space bar” to select it. Note: You may see several entries for your language, you only need to select the top most entry.)

Once localepurge has finished installing, from the same terminal, type: sudo localepurge

It will run and inform you how much space it just saved you.

That's it, one single line to install localepurge. After the first run, it will automatically remove unnecessary locale data files whenever you install new applications or packages without your intervention.

Creating Magazines, Newspapers, Posters, Calendars and other printed publication - Scribus

Scribus is a desktop publishing (DTP) application, released under the GNU General Public License as free software. It is based on the free Qt toolkit, therefore native versions are available for Linux, Unix-like, Mac OS X, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows. It is known for its broad set of page layout features comparable to leading non-free applications such as Adobe PageMaker, PagePlus, QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign.

Scribus is designed for flexible layout and typesetting and the ability to prepare files for professional quality image setting equipment. It can also create animated and interactive PDF presentations and forms. Example uses include writing small newspapers, brochures, newsletters, posters and books.

Installation of Scribus
The installation process of Scribus depends on the distribution of Linux/Unix that you are using. This is the case just like it is for any program you may wish to install. The following are examples for how to install Scribus on various distributions:

Linux Distribution	Install Method
Debian	`apt-get install scribus` or preferably use one of the graphical front-ends such as "Synaptic" that handle "Recommends" correctly. For further information please read How to use the Scribus Debian Repository
Gentoo	`emerge scribus`
PLD	`poldek -i scribus`
RedHat/Fedora	`rpm -Uvh ./scribus-1.x.rpm`
Slackware	Install from source, until 1.2 is part of Slackware
SuSE	Use Yast2 for installation, OR, `rpm -Uvh ./scribus-1.x.rpm`
Other OS	Install Method
FreeBSD	`cd /usr/ports/print/scribus; make install`
Mac OSX	Please refer to the Cross Platform section
Windows™	Please refer to the Cross Platform section

Depending on the version of your distribution, there is the possiblity that you may need to upgrade various dependencies of Scribus and the above commands should make sure the required packages are installed.