James'Techblog

Many things within Linux can be done via terminal shortcuts. As many of my readers, Linux enthusiasts, and even developers would know, everything within Linux has a CLI equivalent. In many of the Gtk environments at least, you can alter your defaults to other specific programs or applications by using xdg-settings. These specific settings change mime defaults in the desktop itself. With xdg you could even change theme settings within the desktop, but for today I'm only focusing on changing default applications, more specifically the browser. To change the default browser application you can go to preferred applications and change it from a drop menu there, or you could open the terminal and type: $ xdg-settings set default-web-browser $browser.desktop, changing $browser for the name of the browser you wish to use.  One more item that I often change on my systems, this is set as default in my scripts because this applications is easier for new users, I change the default text e...

Linux is more secure than Windows and this is no secret. Many websites and companies alike all use Linux for their servers. Some Linux desktops are more stable than others that is true, but Linux servers have fewer attack surfaces thanks to the headless(lack of desktop) by default set up. Linux servers are sturdy as there is no graphical interfaces or other useless software getting in the way. Linux servers are, in my opinion, far superior to Windows servers. This is much to do with the lack of graphical tools as well as how the system is laid out by default. Linux files are placed in order on the drive, whereas a Windows machine is constantly in complete chaos. Always moving files around to and fro. In Linux, the file system is structured in a much more organized fashion. Another way that Linux is more secure and better than Windows is that Linux uses separate accounts in Ubuntu by default. Manjaro is generally used in a similar way. Arch and Debian usually have it differe...

Due to the recent release of Tails 3.6 and a bit of old news making rounds again about US government involvement in the Tor project, I thought I’d explain a bit about these 4 separate topics. Each one is involved with user privacy and these are really good tools for surfing in areas where internet traffic is heavily monitored, they can also help you get around school internet walls that are blocking you from going to certain sites, be it a DNS filter or a hosts file. I’ll briefly explain what each do. EFF aka Electronic Frontier Foundation, is the foundation that is spearheading privacy and tracking protection projects of various calibre. They are activists for internet privacy who attempt to influence government decisions based on online anonymity in favor of end users and they have created and or funded multiple projects from browser extensions to descriptive articles to even the Tor project itself. Some notable extensions are Privacy Badger and HTTPSEverywhere. Th...

As I stated previously, there is no shortage in software for Linux. Each task seems to have more than one really good application. Here I will go over 10 things I can’t do without/ or software I’ve read about and really am interested in. No specific order. I will follow up with a 10 Open Source Software I Hate article later. V IVALDI: There are a few good ones out there. Anyone can see that Linux isn’t exactly as limited as it used to be in this case. However, for my own use and purpose, Vivaldi is at the top of the list of browsers. It is built on Chromium and has the same Javascript engine, what makes it different is the interface. You can do almost anything with the interface. You can stack similar tabs, you can prioritize audio across tabs, you can hibernate background tabs to spare resources, something that takes a third party extension to do on other browsers. DELUGE: I get it, I’m using Transmission right now, but Deluge is by far the best Bittorr...

In Linux, there is no shortage of tools to do any one task. There are several browsers, at least 5 or 6 good, common file managers, there are even a multitude of text editors. The same can be said about resource monitoring applications. Ncdu, much akin to running similar commands such as du by itself or even akin to Windirstat, a popular, open source application for windows, this utility can scan and display specific problem areas of disk usage in an instant. Cache, Configuration, Package cache, all will show up depending upon the directory you flag after typing Ncdu. Just running the command, ncdu, will give a basic overview of the home folder. This is useful when you forgot that you downloaded 8 different BDRIP movies and you are curious why your file manager says you’re out of space. Ncdu is more simple to read than just using du by itself, as du often gives the full directory path. It makes it difficult to see as it is finer print than what is displayed by Ncdu. Ncdu...

Task scheduling is an important and useful option built into both Windows and Linux. For a while there, if you wanted to schedule tasks in Unix, it wasn’t as easy as Windows, technically, it still isn’t, however, it has grown leaps and bounds over what it used to be. With Linux(built from similar code as Unix), you have a multitude of options, Cron and Anacron are just two such options. Today, we’ll focus mainly on these two, the similarities and differences. What makes each of them great, what might make one better than the other depending upon the individual circumstance. Task Scheduling in Windows was a difficult thing for me to learn as well, but it was pretty straight forward once I figured it out. In Linux, you have to either use the built-in Systemd or Cron/Anacron. Systemd is a really good thing to use if you are trying to be more precise with regards to timing, however, that is for a later article. Both Cron and Ananacron use the system time, but what makes these two...

As with the previous part of this topic, it’s good to do a routine clearing out of dust inside your pc. As to how often, it depends. If you ask two different people, you will get two different opinions. For some, this also depends on where you live. People living in Arizona typically have more dust in and around their homes, more cleaning is necessary and even then it still seeps into your machine. Dust and cigarette smoke are silent killers to computer hardware. Any smoke can be bad for a computer, it leaves a residue. Dust can also build up quick where there is a lot of smoke. It almost seems like the two go hand-in-hand. But What can you do to remove such crap from your fans and heat sinks? Most computer owners use cans of compressed air religiously. These cans can be bought at your local Walmart or Office Depot. Many people used to take their machines to a neighborhood computer repair shop for the same maintenance rather than doing it themselves. As with all hardware, it...