If you read this blog or the HowToGeek, you probably know how to use Linux. If so, do you know how to automate tasks using Crontab? It’s a powerful utility that lets you automatically create backups, schedule updates, synchronize files, and more.
Archive for the ‘Linux’ Category
How To Play Old Games on Windows 7 & Mac & Linux
Do you want to play old games like Doom, Dune or Duke Nukem on your modern PC & OS? An open source tool called DOSBox helps you do just that. DOSBox is a DOS-emulator which has been ported to many platforms such as Windows, BeOS, Linux, MacOS X. It supports a huge list of games and you will have them working in no time. For all gaming geeks, this is a must have. For complete information, check out the links below.
DOSBox Information Page | DOSBox Setup and Installation | DOSBox Download Page
The Geeky Command Prompt Calculator
Ever wish you could just do simple calculations from the terminal? All you need to do is add the following to your bashrc file (or run it from the terminal to test):
calc(){ awk "BEGIN{ print $* }" ;}
When you’re using it, just make sure to not add any spaces, or enclose the calculation parameters in quotes, like this:
calc "8 * 99 / 4"
Find Words That Start With a Set of Characters
Have you ever just wanted a list of words that start with a set of characters? If you’ve got a Linux box handy, you can use the "look" command to do just that. Simply type with the following syntax:
look <letters>
And it’ll show any words that start with those characters. Or you could just use Google.
Convert PNG Files to Icons With a Simple Command Line App
Ever wanted to convert a PNG file into an icon so you can use it somewhere in Windows? There’s a tiny, simple command-line application (for Windows or Linux) that can be used to convert them easily. Easy, that is, if you don’t mind a little typing. But you’re a geek, right?
Portable Ubuntu Loads Linux Inside Your Windows PC
Sick and tired of dual-booting, virtual machines and all that jazz? Well, the Portable Ubuntu project runs Linux as a Windows app—natively integrated into the rest of the OS. Internally it’s still a virtual machine, but it’s still an interesting idea.
Manage Your To-Do Items From the Shell
Some of us are command line junkies… it may not make sense, but we prefer to do everything from the shell if possible. We even know that ack is better than grep or how to kill Windows with just 3 keystrokes, after all.
Today’s fun tool is called Tofu, and it’s a dirt simple To-Do list manager implemented as a simple Perl script, meaning it will probably work for people using Windows (although you wouldn’t get colors).
ack is better than grep
If you are a command line junkie, you should think about switching from grep to ack. It can even do color-coded results if you are using it on Linux.
