computoman

Traditionally. I have avoided wireless like a ton of falling bricks.  Security requirements for wireless changes so fast that it is almost cost prohibitive to use. But so it goes. You say you will never use wireless, but you gently get attracted to using it like a drug. My first experience at using wireless was going to a retail establishment and taking advantage of their network. Then came the time I was staying at my brother's home while the AC was out, so to get internet I had to use wireless. Now with the Nexus 7 wireless has to be part of the home network. Let me digress here for a minute. How have we connected computers together in the past.  Originally people  used what is know as serial via modems (the old fashiion kind that hooked to the telephone line) or directly between two systems via serial ports. For more details see: http://www.instructables.com/id/Legacy-networking-with-linux/ . Then there was good old Laplink to transfer data between computers. Then we...

Almost but not quite.  Had to replace the ethernet cable from the bridge (aka modem) to the network router/switch.  An ethernet cable looks like a telephone cable but twice or so as big, Back to the cable.  If you moved the cable the connection would fail. Not acceptable. Fortunately, had the tools and parts to repair the situation.  Many places use wifi, but there are a lot of business establishments that do not allow wifi for security reasons.  Since most tablets require the internet to be fully useful so that turns the units into bricks per se. What do you do?  You can now get adapters to connect touchpads to a hard wired old fashion network.  Usually consists of a usb connection sometimes known as an On-The-Go or OTG cable and then attaching the ethernet adapter. Of course you still need that cable to connect to the network. Where do you get the cable? If you are at a business establishment, they probably have a spare. Looks better if you already h...

How to quickly and easily take a short film and turn it into a gif. Make or use an empty directory for the intermediate pictures. $ mkdir gifit $ cd !$ Move the movie to that directory  Create the pictures: $ ffmpeg -i PICT0220.AVI -r 1 -f image2 %05d.png The pictures should all be the same size as they came from a movie. Now let's make an  animated gif $ convert -delay 100  *.png  hand.gif Note: check the documentation for the programs to get more possibilities. Split apart a gif and reassemble at a slower speed. convert a.gif %02d.png convert -delay 6 -loop 0 *.png animation.gif ffmpeg for other platforms: http://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html ==================== Another way to make videos. # Create a directory and copy the original images there for manipulation: mkdir temp cp *.JPG temp/. # Resize the images: mogrify -resize 200x200 temp/*.JPG # Create the morph images convert temp/*.JPG -delay 10 -morp...

Convert a series of pictures into an animated gif is real easy. First you want to collect all the pictures together and order them by name in the order you want them to appear. Then let’s install some software. $  sudo apt-get install imagemagick Now we need to make sure all the pictures are the same size. $ mogrify -resize 640x480 *.png The let's make the gif. You maybe also able to do this on other platforms, but I have not tried it yet. $ convert -delay 100 *.png preg.gif View your new gif.  Great for web pages and education projects. Imagemagick for other platforms:    http://www.imagemagick.org/download/binaries/

If you are into linux, you need to stop by tllts.org. TLLTS stands for "the linux link tech show".They are a meeting place for the linux beginner and the more advanced. Like to say thank you for the unsolicited review of our site, Details follow: by eddie » Sat Sep 03, 2011 5:27 am My brother put up a website for our family. We stuck enough old stuff in it to get it going. http://www.meetdageeks.com/ eddie Posts: 974 Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:46 pm Location: here by Amosd » Fri Feb 08, 2013 3:57 am I have visited your shared website and it is pretty interesting and informational for me. I would like to say you thanks for sharing with us.

The Nexus seven is beginning to grow on me despite limitations I could easily get around with a linux box. Yes you can install linux on the touchpad, but it is still not a complete adaption last I heard. Then too, you lose the Android environment. Seems that more and more applications want you to root your system if you want to take advantage of their software. In someways that could be a deal breaker, Thought about getting a cheap tablet to experiment with that and keep the Nexus seven a bit more private. First project was to see if I could serve out a gpxe linux install from the Nexus 7.  It would be so neat to be able to start a linux install on a traditional pc from a tablet device. Already do this all the time from a regular server (see the last article). For some reason of the web servers I tried for the android they were not up to the challenge,  Disappointing, but not the end of the world. There are some plus sides to having the server, You can run html and javascript ...

Linux Mint is kind of taking of the reigns of being one of the most popular linux distros. Like installing any operating system the traditional way, you can run into roadblocks.  For example, you may not be able to burn a linux cd, the machine you want to load linux on has a broken cd/dvd rom, or a host of other reasons. What we are about to do is what is known as pxeboot networking. Another words we will use a web server to get us started with a linux install on a system. Traditionally you actually had to have several servers to do the network install. You had to modify a Dhcp (Ipaddress servers) server,  a Tftp (boot files) server, and among other systems which generally required a lot of setup and the blessing of the system administrator, I tried this with the python web server, but you have to have all the files in one directory from what I could see.  I just did not want to take the time to do it. $  python -m SimpleHTTPServer I went ahead and used the ...

Watching what is going on in your own home or even at your business is becoming more and more of a requirement for peace of mind. Schools even use them to prevent and or document cheating.  Had to set up the web cams in the testing center where I use to work just to do that. You probably do not want to spend a lot of money at first. If you have a Raspberry Pi ($35 us), Memory card ($10 us) to install Debian linux,  and a cheap web cam (under $15 us), you can set up your own system very quickly.  For more information see: http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads and http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Jack-of-all-trades/ .   It is wonderful that the Raspberry Pi (aka RPi) is supported by Debian linux. There already so much software for Debian that the Raspberry Pi can take advantage of. One such piece of software is Motion. Motion is a security cam server software than does not require a gui, That is you can run Motion without a gui installed or activ...

Want to increase the sound volume of your touch pad or the like? This is for units that have the speaker on the bottom of the unit.  Try this neat trick. Take a length of about seven inches of one inch diameter pvc pipe. Your size may vary,   Most hardware stores carry pvc pipe, but you might have to get a long piece just to make a short piece. I had about a two foot long piece already,  Cut a groove in the pipe just wide enough to insert your pad. You probably do not want it too tight. You will also need two elbows. I just used right hand elbows as they were a lot cheaper than the slight angled ones. Press the two elbows on each end. Get your music going on your touch pad and insert it. You should have more than twice the volume without using any kind of electronics with your new megaphone!!