Aug 312010
 

sorveglianzaIn these days all the new netbooks and most laptops have built-in webcam, or at least add one external costs very little, apart from the traditional use in video calls you can use our Linux box to create a monitoring device, it can be used to monitor your child while you are at another PC, or your pet while you are at work, or have a home-made video surveillance system for your  properties.

To accomplish this we will use the software Motion, the software is present in many distributions, I will give commands using my Ubuntu 10.04.

Feature that made me choose this software is the ability to remain “asleep” until it detects a noise or movement, and then activates and records, plus the ability to define custom actions when it start (send an email, an sms , Etc.).
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Aug 292010
 

Occasionally use Google Translate to make a quick translation of texts, and I must say that the web interface is functional but not so comfortable.

For example if you have a .txt file you copy and paste, then copy and paste the translated version, quite a bit uncomfortable for long texts, and so with a quick google I found this handy little python script that allows you to work from command line.
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Aug 292010
 

ImageMagick Usually when we talk about programs for editing images we think to graphic programs such as The Gimp or photoshop, but they are not the only alternative.

ImageMagick is a suite of programs that you can use from command line to change and transform images, may seem more uncomfortable but it is actually a very powerful option to process many images in a short time or include image processing programs in web or bash scripts.

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Aug 262010
 

Linux-vs-MicrosoftContinued from : Is your company afraid of Linux?

Fear #2 (Cost!): Let’s look at skill-sets first.  When you hire an employee who labels themselves a Windows Server Administrator, you are generally getting someone whose expertise on servers stops with Windows.  Yeah, sounds extremely obvious, but I am addressing an important point.  When you hire someone who labels themselves as a Linux Server Administrator, you are generally getting someone who knows both Linux and Windows server administration.  Emphasis on the word “generally” as not all windows server admins know only Windows and not all Linux admins are well rounded.

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