Too hot? There is more than one way to cool down a PC. Air is a great insulator, so having your PC in the air (like, where it is right now) is a bad idea. Stop doing that. Instead, submerge it in oil.
Tag Archives: Computer Tricks
How to Turn Linux Calendar Output Into a Blog Post
I know all my fellow bloggers are jealous about my Linux calendar posts (like this one) and normally I don’t reveal my secrets. But this is so cool I have to share it.The Linux calendar command (in the terminal window) puts out, by default, a listing of events, etc. from today and tomorrow. The listings come from “calendar” files that come with your Linux distribution (these are also on most Unix systems). You can also make your own calendar files. (I’m working on that now.)But how do you take the output from Linux Calendar and turn it into a blog post? Continue reading How to Turn Linux Calendar Output Into a Blog Post
Kill! Kill! Kill! (A Linux tip)
Now and then a program (a “process”) will need to be killed. It got annoyingly slow, or got stuck somehow. In Windows, the final solution for killing a process is “alt-ctrl-delete” which may or may not give you the capacity to shut down a process, and if that works, it requires a lot of struggling with dialog boxes, etc. Best case scenario in Windows is that the process dies cleanly. Often, a Windows process will leave messy bits and pieces of itself behind that may affect performance or create security problems, and often, the worst case scenario happens … you’ve got to “kill” the process hard, by turning off the power or yanking the cord from the wall or throwing the computer into the nearest lake.In Linux, nothing actually goes wrong, of course. Continue reading Kill! Kill! Kill! (A Linux tip)
Do you want to be a Super Geek?
RAIDs (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive [sic] Disks) are considered pretty handy for a number of things. This is an example of productive and practical use of a RAID. Granted, this project does not have the archaic grandeur of a Floppy Disk RAID, but then again, the capacity and performance of this system are utterly superior to those of a Floppy Disk RAID. The following is meant as an instruction sheet of how to build a rock-hard USB stick RAID system and simultaneously transform from an ordinary nerd to a SUPER LINUX GURU.
Get your sticks together and go here.
Fixing Your Dictionary
Your are typing some text into your FIrefox 2.0 Browser, and you spell something terribly wrong. Like this:
I am so glad I upgreaded to Firefox 2.0, because it has a built in spell checker.
You see the error where you meant to type “upgraded.” So you right click on it to pick the correct spelling, and accidentally hit the “Add to Dictionary” menu choice, which is annoyingly placed right next to the correctly spelled word.From now on, you can never be sure if your text will be correct. Bummer.There is a way to fix this. Continue reading Fixing Your Dictionary
Form Field Woes
A form field is one of those boxes on a web page (or elsewhere) that you can fill in with information. Your web browser may try to “auto complete” an entry that you are trying to type in.For example, when I try to type my name into a box that that I’ve visited before, when I type the first letter … “G” … my browser suggests several different options, remembering the various pseudonyms I use, giving me a list like this:Greg LadenGrog StevensonGreeb Millerand so on.That’s convenient, but it can be annoying when things go wrong… Continue reading Form Field Woes
Faster Browsing II
There are a zillion ways to configure Firefox using the obscure but incredibly cool feature known of as “about:config”Try this, and don’t be frightened. Well, you should be a little frightened. Type the following into the URL box at the top of your browser:]about:configHow you’ve got a strange new window with a zillion alphabetized options. Above this is a “filter” box into which you can put a filter. For instance, you can type this into the filter:networkand you can see dozens and dozens of network related options. Keep typing so this is in the filter box:network.prefetch Continue reading Faster Browsing II
Faster Browsing I
My Firefox browser is great and generally works well, and as far as I can see it’s pretty fast. But there are a couple of ways to make it go faster that you might want to know about. Continue reading Faster Browsing I