Google: What Do You Love?

http://www.wdyl.com/# 
WDYL, short for What Do You Love, is a service from Google which lets you search the web for images, blogs, maps, news, videos and it also shows the popularity of the term you're searching for, and more.

Protecting Data Communication : Encryptyourmessages.co.uk/

Just came across this website I'd like to share with you : http://www.encryptyourmessages.co.uk/


You probably sit behind your PC, connect your machine to the Internet, open your e-mail program, start your instant messenger application, read your messages, reply to them and browse the web... But, have you ever you wondered how much data could be collected on you? This website has the purpose to inform you on the technical and practical aspect of this subject. You will also find tutorials explaining how to protect your personal data transiting on the Internet.


Some additional links worthwhile reading :
(1) http://www.rossde.com/PGP/pgp_encrypt.html
(2) http://www.youdzone.com/signature.html
(3) http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/index.htm
(4) http://www.garykessler.net/library/crypto.html

Dropbox For Linux Now Provides Debian Packages

I've been using nautilus-dropbox ( version 0.6.7-3~bpo60+1) from Backports for awhile, but it seems that the website of Dropbox provides Debian packages as well ! Just go to : https://www.dropbox.com/downloading?os=lnx and download nautilus-dropbox version 0.7.0.

See also :http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=46448

N: Ignoring File *.save In Directory '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/' As It Has An Invalid Filename Extension

Just recently apt-get update started throwing errors which read:

N: Ignoring file 'google-chrome.list.save' in directory '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/' as it has an invalid filename extension
....
....
....
N: Ignoring file 'google-musicmanager.list.save' in directory '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/' as it has an invalid filename extension

Looking inside directory  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/  I saw a number of files which ended with .save, which were not there before since my last apt-get update.
Apparently they are some sort of backup files, because the content of file foo.list.save is the same as file foo.list.

Following fix will work and next time you apt-get update these former notices won't be shown :

su -c "echo 'Dir::Ignore-Files-Silently:: \"(.save)$\";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99ignoresave" 

I recently installed software-properties-gtk and update-notifier, and I suspect one of these packages to generate these files with the .save extension.....

Manage Trash From Command Line

Deleting files with the rm command is rather dangerous because of the difficulty of recovering a mistakingly deleted file.
That's where the Trash Can comes in handy, a temporary location that allows a permanent removal at a latter time.
I'm using Gnome and the location of the Trash is :
/home/$USER/.local/share/Trash
It contains two directories : files and info. The files folder contains the files deleted and the info directory consists of meta data for each deleted file.
Showing the Trash Can icon on the Desktop is done by going to :  
Menu > Applications > System Tools > Configuration Editor.
Just check the Key name /apps/nautilus/desktop/trash_icon_visible.  

Trash-cli manages the Trash in command line which is equivalent to Trash functionalities in Nautilus file browser.

There is no package in Squeeze, but you can install package trash-cli (0.1.10.28-2) from Sid without any problem.
I've tested it by issuing the command :
list-trash to list the files in the Trash Can :
It spits out errors :

Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/list-trash", line 5, in for trashedfile in TrashDirectory.allTrashedFiles() : File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/libtrash.py", line 218, in allTrashedFiles for trashedfile in TrashDirectory.getHomeTrashDirectory().trashedFiles() : File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/libtrash.py", line 127, in trashedFiles ti.parse(open(infoFilename).read()) File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/libtrash.py", line 300, in parse raise ValueError() ValueError

Seems to be a bug :  http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org/msg882686.html
So you better go to the next page : http://code.google.com/p/trash-cli/ and download trash-cli-0.11.3-r315.tar.gz.
Extract it :  
tar xf trash-cli-0.11.3-r315.tar.gz
A directory  trash-cli-0.11.3-r315 is created with a INSTALL.txt with the instruction to install it :
Open up a terminal inside the directory and then as root :
python setup.py install 

running install
install_dir /usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/
Checking .pth file support in /usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/
....
Installing trash-list script to /usr/local/bin
Installing restore-trash script to /usr/local/bin
Installing trash-put script to /usr/local/bin
Installing volume-of script to /usr/local/bin
Installing trash-empty script to /usr/local/bin
....
Finished processing dependencies for trash-cli==0.11.3-r315

To remove file foo in the Trash Can, use  :
trash-put foo
To list all the contents of the Trash Can  :
trash-list
To restore a trashed file :
restore-trash
0 2011-10-20 23:47:05 /home/eric/Downloads/ruba 3tif.jpg
1 2011-10-20 23:47:25 /home/eric/Downloads/README.txt
2 2011-10-20 23:46:54 /home/eric/Downloads/NCw6L.jpg
What file to restore [0..2]:
To remove all trashed files :
trash-empty
To remove files that have been in the trash more than a given number of days :
trash-empty <days>

Google Shows Your IP Address

One way to find your IP address is to search for my ip using Google and click the top search result. Now it's no longer necessary to go to the first result because Google answers your questions and shows your IP. You can use: my ip, my ip address, show my ip, what is my ip and other similar queries. Or just the shortest one : ip. Works in http://www.google.com/ , https://www.google.com/ and http://www.google.co.uk/ .

AES Text Encryptor Made Easy

If you are concerned about the privacy of a message you like to send, here is an easy way to encrypt it : https://encipher.it/.
Just drag the bookmarklet to the Bookmarks bar of your browser.
I take Gmail as an example : just type your message and hit the Encipher It button. A small window will popup :

Just type in a password and hit enter. The bookmarklet uses AES symmetric encryption and PBKDF2 key generation to keep your email safe. All encoding/decoding is done locally in your browser.
After receiving the email the reader uses the same bookmarklet to decrypt the message : just hit the Encipher It button and type in the same password :

If you don't or can't use the bookmarklet just go to the website : https://encipher.it/ and use the text box to encrypt and decrypt messages.

Make sure the password is sent safely to the recipient !

The Debian Administrator's Handbook

The Debian Administrator's Handbook is the title of the translation of the French best-seller known as Cahier de l'admin Debian. Written by two Debian developers—Raphaël Hertzog and Roland Mas —it's a fantastic resource for all users of a Debian-based distribution. It's first edition in 2004 was completely sold out in barely four months. A second edition followed soon after with the addition of a few sections as suggested by the first readers of the book. Right from the third edition, Roland Mas – who had proofread the book since the beginning – joined Raphaël Hertzog.

Given that traditional editors did not want to take the risk to make this translation, the two Debian developers decided to do the translation themselves and to self-publish the result.

They have two targets :

(1) a first target (15000 EUR) that is really the strict minimum that they need to make the project happen. If they reach this target but not the second one, the book will only be available on a commercial and proprietary basis.

(2)a second target: 25000 EUR in the liberation fund : If this target is reached, the book will be published under 2 free licenses (CC-BY-SA 3.0 and GPL2+).

Read all about it : http://debian-handbook.info/

Speak it out : http://www.ulule.com/debian-handbook/promote/

Access Your Delicious Bookmarks Old Style

Delicious is a social bookmarking service for saving, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Started in 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005, Delicious has built a worldwide community of millions of users. In 2011, Delicious was acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Delicious is part of AVOS, a new Internet company based in San Mateo, California. And on September 27, 2011 their new website was launched : http://www.avos.com/new-delicious/.

After acquiring the service from Yahoo! in April, we realized that in order to keep innovating over the long term, the eight-year-old site needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. The result is a new homepage, interface and back-end architecture designed to make Delicious easier to use.

Nice said but I think the new interface sucks....and I'm not the only one : http://gigaom.com/2011/09/28/oh-delicious-where-did-it-all-go-so-wrong/.

One of my two accounts was completely lost, despite opting in to the new terms.

But luckily there is a way to have access to the old Delicious even if your account seems to be deleted !

What you need to do is to add these lines to your hosts file ( /etc/hosts ) :

98.139.50.166 www.delicious.com
76.13.6.190 secure.delicious.com
76.13.6.209 static.delicious.com

and restart your browser....

If you go to http://www.delicious.com/ you will see the old style Delicious page :

Her I could login with my lost account and export my bookmarks with all the tags and notes ( Settings > Export / Backup Bookmarks ) :

Try it while you still can....

Note : http://delicious.com/ will bring you to the new Delicious webpage....

Some nice alternatives :

Diigo : http://www.diigo.com/

Pinboard : http://pinboard.in/