usefulgeek

Reading the feeds today, and came across todays xkcd comic.  Very funny.

other comic

Create a tar archive
tar -c -f archive.tar *

Create a compressed archive with gzip
tar -c -z -f archive.tar.gz *

You can also condense down the commands like so..
tar -czf archive.tar.gz *

tips linux, tips

It’s that time ago.  Another AsylumLAN is set for the middle of November.   If you’re into gaming I highly recommend this event.  Details below or check out their website for more information.

• Date: Nov 15-16, 2008
• Time: Sat 10am - Sunday 4pm
• Cost: $30 pre-register, $35 walk-in
• Location: Vanderburgh Co. 4H

Registration now open at asylumlan.com

other

Working with VMware on Ubuntu 8.04 has proved to be much more trouble then in the past.  It appears, that when using VMware with a Windows guest, the CTRL, ALT and Shift keys no longer work.  It gets better though..

Google Search has offered a few solutions, mostly related to resetting keyboard layouts and such.  However, when I try and use any other key, take the ’s’ for example, Ubuntu closes the current active window, and opens the file manager.

So far, the only working solution I’ve found involves two steps.  First, restart the computer then cease using VMware to run Windows guests.

Easy enough, I suppose..

If anyone out there has a fix for this, or knows something I’m missing, please leave details in the comments.

other ubuntu, vmware

Paul Frields from Fedora posted an message to fedora-announce-list regarding a compermise of some of the Fedora systems.  If you use Fedora, it’s worth reading over and following up with.  I’m not personally a Fedora user, so I can’t provide and user commentary on this issue.

Read the orgional post here.  You can probably followup with this thread, and others from the fedora-announce-list archives

other fedora, security

Be careful when using the “I’m Feeling Lucky” search on Google. You do not get to see the result’s discription or what webpage you are about to visit and it could cause you some trouble. For example currently “zune windows theme” visits the download URL. So instead of a webpage you are instantly prompted to download a file.

tips google, im feeling lucky, search, security, spyware

New Google Insights for Search gives you a deeper analyses of keyword trends by region and time frame while also showing you what was popular and is becoming popular.

Uncategorized

From the Google Help site: “Here’s a quick list of some of our most popular tools to help refine and improve your search.” Doesn’t provide any new information, but it’s a nice refresher one basic search operators.

You can find the site here, and the rest of Googles help is here.

Uncategorized cheatsheet, google, search

According to this a mapped Windows drive is a lot faster for transferring files. Find your share under Network Places, right-click and select “Map Network Drive”.

Some other tips: put a $ at the end of your share name to hide it. Upgrade to SP3 to have multiple shares with different permissions on a folder.

tips file sharing, sp3, windows

Google added a “always use HTTPS” setting to Gmail recently.  Very nice addition.  No more adding https:// myself and even more importantly, no more forgetting to add it.

I’d recommend that anyone using Gmail enable this option.  While email is plain text over the public Ineternet and shouldn’t even remotly be treated as secure communications, it’s still nice to have your credentials private.

tips email, gmail, security