Open Source Relish

Ethereum Blockchain App Platform

2018-01-31T23:48:00.000-06:00

Ethereum, an open source public blockchain based distributed computing platform for running smart contracts. A smart contract is an application that will run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference, this is possible thanks to its' distributed nature. In other words Ethereum provides a trust-less platform where the rules are unbreakable and data is fully encrypted.

Before getting deeper into what Ethereum is, lets first address one of the problems Ethereum and other blockchain technologies are capable of solving.

Today, our personal data, passwords and financial information are all largely stored on other people's computers – in clouds and servers owned by companies like Amazon, Facebook, or Google. The credit agency Equifax was hacked recently, a hacker was able to access their server and copy off the database containing the credit history for nearly every american. Again an entire database containing every american's social security number, name, address, job, etc.etc... has been stolen and access to it is being sold online for criminals to buy.

The Equifax Data Breach: What to Do | Consumer Information

Given enough time all centralized system will be penetrated and that is a big problem, there is a single point of failure. It only takes one angry employee or that one machine that didn't get the security patch and entire systems can be compromised. With Bbockchain technology this can be prevented by removing trust from a central system or group of people and putting that trust into a system that is the combination of proven technologies applied in a new way. The particular combination of three technologies, the Internet, private key cryptography(OpenSSL and PGP) and a protocol governing incentivization (the rules in place that keep the participants honest by rewarding honesty and punishing cheaters).

There's a pretty good chance that any centralized website/application can be compromised by a hacker or government which will then gain unwelcome access to your files without your knowledge, by influencing or attacking a centralized third-party service – meaning they can steal, leak or change important information.

With centralized vs decentralized systems the difference that makes blockchain technology so useful is that it is an innovation in information registration and distribution that eliminates the need for a trusted party to facilitate the digital relationships. The work of securing digital relationships is implicit, supplied by the elegant, simple, yet robust network architecture of blockchain technology itself.

With Ethereum we have a blockchain system running apps called smart contracts, it is basically an operating system on the internet that anyone can write an application for. The centralized systems like data-centers are replaced by thousands of nodes(computers) run by volunteers from across the globe thus forming a world computer. The nodes can run modest hardware such as a decent laptop, and at the moment the primary requirements are a good internet connect some hard-drive space to operate.

Running a node is not required to be able to interact with the platform. Running a node does provide the highest level of security though, as you are able to verify transactions on the network with 100% certainty. The node software also available with a GUI application and supports generating a wallet to ether and Ethereum based tokens and browsing Ðapps (decentralized applications). A user does not get rewarded ether for running a node at the moment only miners get rewarded for their contribution to the system.

By running the Ethereum platform (a geth node) you are storing and transmitting the database of entries to other people running the software in a fashion similar to BitTorrent, in fact the creator of the BitTorrent protocol has been working on blockchain technology. The messages that are being transmitted consist of user transactions and the blocks that have been mined. Each block contains all the transactions that have been validated by miners for that blocks time period. There are currently over twenty-thousand nodes currently running globally all sharing the Ethereum blockchain, found this out by checking: ethernodes.org.

Running a node is simple and at the time of writing consumes about 70GB of storage. The a couple different implementations of the Ethereum protocol, there is a java version, c++ version and a go version. The go version is the called geth and is the recommended implementation to use. After it's installed just leave it running in the background.

To interact with the Ethereum platform install Mist which is the tool of choice to browse and use Ðapps from a PC. Can also access the Ethereum platform from the Brave web broswser and google Chrome with the plugin Meta-Mask.

It is possible to use a mobile device to interact with Ethereum with the toshi app released on android and ios. Have personally used toshi to interact with a Ðex (decentralized exchange) which is a Ðapps that let's users trade different coins and it worked pretty well, did not have any issues. These other coins are mostly going to be used to interact with the given blockchain utility that they provide.

Download the installer for the wallet or the browser Mist which includes the wallet from github.

https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases
Download toshi for Android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.toshi
Download toshi for iphones
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toshi-ethereum/id1278383455?ls=1&mt=8

Hope this is enough information to pique your interest. When time allows will be writing about more Open Source blockchain technologies.

Graphical Manager for systemd

2015-07-08T23:50:00.000-05:00

The init system systemd has been being set as the default initer for many Linux distributions including the latest releases of Ubuntu. It's a pretty powerful piece of software with lots of advantages over the previous init system before it, yet it maintains an ease of use when creating or reading it's unit files.

Systemd uses what are called unit file to handle tasks such as starting up the programs required to boot a Linux PC. The are three types of these unit files that come to mind, the 1st is the .service file that replaces custom init scripts that would reside in /etc/init.d/. The 2nd type of unit file is the .socket which replaces entries in /etc/services and the configuration files the would reside in /etc/xinet.d/ the 3rd type of unit file is the .timer file which am not sure there was an equivalent previously. The .timer file is pretty hand, for example one can be configured to back up a file ever 15 minutes, or execute a program 15 minutes after logging in.

There are really good command line utilities to browse, manage, and view the unit files, like listing out all unit files with systemctl list-units, viewing the status of a unit file with systemctl status unitfile or viewing the logs associated to certain service file with journalctl -u unitfile. These are perfect for servers but for most that use Linux as a desktop those new command could be a pain to remember, that's where the project Kcmsystemd comes in.

Systemd control module for KDE. Provides a graphical frontend for the systemd daemon, which allows for viewing and controlling systemd units, modifying configuration files, as well as as viewing logs. Kcmsystemd integrates in the System Settings dialogue in KDE.

Here is a screenshot of kcmsystemd.

This is a screenshot of the unit types it can filter for.

The menu that appears when right clicking a unit file allows for starting, stopping or restarting a unit file, and the enable disable option tell it to start at boot or not.

To get some more info about a given unit in the list just hover the mouse over the unit file to get this dialog.

The github page for the code behind this provides instructions to build the latest version, but it will require an up to date version of KDE 5. https://github.com/rthomsen/kcmsystemd

A built release can be found at http://download.kde.org/stable/systemd-kcm/

On ArchLinux and running KDE? This is already in the community repository & can be installed with:
pacman -S systemd-kcm

Retroshare - Secure File Sharing

2014-06-07T00:12:00.001-05:00

Have discovered this program when attempting to find a secure method of sharing digital art. The program is called RetroShare and looks promising. Retroshare is all about sharing and communicating with trusted Friends. This is the core design of Retroshare: a decentralised Friend-2-Friend network, which allows you to share stuff... not with the whole world... but with people you know and trust.

What’s so great about RetroShare anyways?

Retroshare is designed as a "Secure Social Network". It allows you to communicate and share with your friends. Retroshare provides Instant Messaging and Filesharing with decentralized Forums and Channels.
One big feature of Retroshare is privacy: Your stuff is only shared with your trusted friends. No data is stored in the Cloud, and all communications are encrypted. You don't have to trust a Corporation (e.g Facebook or Google) with your information.

Privacy

Retroshare creates direct SSL secured connections with friends and family. With people being as paranoid as ever with there data this is quite reassuring that your conversations are private and cannot be eavesdropped on. The decentralized design ensures that there is no central server or single company that has access to all the data.

Some people like to call Retroshare a "DarkNet". The similarities are a result of the Friend-2-Friend design rather than a deliberate aim. Actually, it is essential for Retroshare to use strong identities to authenticate your friends. They don't hide Retroshare's existence like true darknets, but instead focus on keeping communication private and and only sharing information with your friends.

Each user generates a unique password protected encryption key. There are two parts to these keys, one that the creator keeps and doesn't share and a public key which they share with their friend. The friend most also create a key and share the public key, only when both users accept each others key will there be proper communication.

Features

The list of feature is pretty long and is a true testament to the power of Open Source Software, most of the pieces that make Retroshare work are well maintained packages used throughout the tech industry gathered together to make a really nice package. The list below is a small subset

Serverless, completely decentralized
Multiple simultaneous downloads / uploads
Search Friends
Messages
Forums
Channels
Voice over IP
Instant messaging
Groupchat
GnuPG Authentication
OpenSSL Encryption
adding downloads via website links
Plugins support
UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding support
Graphical User Interface written with Qt4 toolkit
System tray integration

Other thoughts

A good barometer of an Open Source Project is the quality of its' documentation, not necessarily it's website but the instructions they provide to get it up and running and their wiki. Retroshare's wiki is pretty good and there is a good set of instructions with pictures for average computer user to follow.

The source code is openly available and runs on just about every operating system out there, Mac OS X, Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS. Can get this program installed quickly on various Linux and BSD distros through there respective packaging systems plus there is even a special RasberryPi package

On Ubuntu the package maintainers provide a PPA to get the latest most secure version.
# for RetroShare releases only
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:csoler-users/retroshare
# for RetroShare development snapshots
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:csoler-users/retroshare-snapshots
# then
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install retroshare
If you're using Unity as your desktop interface then there is a tweak to get it to appear in the systray as it disappears after closing the main window.
#Install dconf tools
sudo apt-get dconf-tools package
#then
Launch dconf-editor, go to Desktop -> Unity -> Panel, and add 'RetroShare', or 'All' to the systray-whitelist variable.

For other distro just search the repository for "Retroshare", it's available in the Arch repos, can be found in freshports for FreeBSD, opensuse has it available on there web site for one-click install packages which also has a fedora install and an xubuntu install, and last but not least there is an ebuild for Gentoo on the eigenlay overlay which can also be applied to the binary spin of Gentoo called Sabayon.

Links

Home Page
http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/index.html
Downloads
http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/downloads.html
Wiki
http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Developer Resources
http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/developers.html
Bug Tracker
http://sourceforge.net/p/retroshare/bugs/

The Dark Mod (Game)

2014-02-02T19:23:00.000-06:00

THE DARK MOD is a free, first-person stealth game inspired by the Thief series by Looking Glass Studios. It recreates the essence of the original Thief games on a more modern engine. This project is both a game and a mission-creation platform, The Dark Mod allows players and mappers alike to enjoy missions in a gothic steampunk universe.

The Dark Mod is built off the the Doom3 game engine. Doom3 is a first-person shooter from "id" software, whom also made the FPS Quake, which allot of open-source games that run on Linux are based off of. After a certain period of time the id software company re-releases their game engines as GPL open-source which allows indie developers to start making games with the engine they just can't use the same artwork.

id Software's GitHub page

Doom3 source code on GitHub

The Dark Mod was officially released on October 17th, 2009. As of October, 2013, TDM 2.0 is now completely standalone, and no longer requires Doom3 which is the game engine used to develop The Dark Mod. The newest release on January 29, 2014, TDM 2.01 has improved the graphics and physics quality.

Here is a trailer for the 2.00 release which shows some pretty cool game mechanics.

Installing The Dark Mod

Install TDM on Linux

Since there is no 64 bit version of The Dark Mod, on 64 bit systems you also need the 32 bit compatibility libraries installed. On some distributions like SuSE, these are included in the default installation, but on Kubuntu/Ubuntu you need to install the package called ia32-lib and all its dependencies.
Create a folder darkmod in your home directory.
Download the Linux version of the TDM Updater and extract it to your darkmod folder (see below for alternate download locations)
Make tdm_update.linux executable: chmod +x tdm_update.linux
Run the updater, it will connect to one of their mirrors and download the packages for you.
Start The Dark Mod using the thedarkmod.x86 binary in your darkmod folder.

Install TDM on Windows

Create a folder named “darkmod”.
Download the TDM Updater
Extract the tdm_update.exe from the downloaded ZIP and copy it into your darkmod directory.
Start the tdm_update.exe. The installer will connect to one of our download mirrors and start the download process.
Be patient and wait. The download weighs > 2 GB and will probably take a while.
After installation, you’ll find an executable TheDarkMod.exe in your darkmod folder. Use this to start The Dark Mod.

The Dark Mod download page (in case the links posted above are broken).

The Dark Mod Download Page

Check out their wiki for more information

The Dark Wiki

Clementine Music Player & ProjectM

2013-10-14T21:19:00.003-05:00

Out of all the great music players out the Clementine is a personal favorite. On Linux we have quite a few options for a top notch music player and library manager, there is Banshee which is written with mono which is a cross-platform programming language that takes minimal code changes to target multiple platforms. While Banshee used to be the default on some systems it isn't the default on many nowadays as allot of the Linux distros have have decided to shy away from packaging the mono framework with their installation. Instead you'll most likely be Rythmbox if you using a GNOME based install or Amarok if your using a KDE base install. All of the music players with the exception of Rythmbox can be installed on Winows as well. If I wasn't using Clementine I'd definitely be using Amarok, there are a ton of cool features that aren't necessary but really nice, like the wikipedia article about the track that's playing for example.

That's enough about the other players this post is about Clementine, it is fast lightweight and has a good feature list. One of the best things about clementine is the presentation. The theme matches what you color scheme of you desktop is, and that feature is part of Clementine not something that the distro maintainer had done. Had noticed after changing my desktop them and starting Clementine to see it had changed without having to tell it to do so. Not only that but the layout is nice to.

While Clementine is a good at playing music stored on the hard-drive, that's not really a compelling reason to switch music players. However if your music collection spans 300,000+ songs the way Clementine can access songs might interest you. Clementine uses a sqllite to store the music tag information, as well the playlists and known devices such as androids, ipods(only classic on Linux) and other mp3 players, it is extremely fast as well as easier to maintain the a full blown database installation. The DB is stored in the users home directory, so on Linux it would be in ~/.config/Clementine/clementine.db

Clementine also has pretty good support for all the device that someone would want to connect to it by supporting mass storage as well as MTP. It will also automatically transcode the music to a format the device can recognize.

The option menu in Clementine will let you tweak things like cross-fade, notifications, appearance, and login to your favorite online music player. I personally use Clementine strictly for listening to SomaFM Groove Salad, there is a ton of internet radio station to choose from without having to sign into on of the accounts from the options screen. A cool feature that I haven't got to use yet is controlling the player from a wiimote, which sounds really cool and would probably use the wiimote for allot more then just Clementine.

Back to the visuals Clementine looks as good as it runs, really like the slim navigation bar on the left and the analyzer on the bottom is nicer then most other players.

One thing that really sets it aside from the other music player, aside from XBMC which a whole other story is the inclusion of ProjectM which is the open source reimplementation of the famous Milkdrop in OpenGL.

This screen capture came in funny it looked fine while running though, must have been because of the terminal being on top.

The last 2 where a little better, still not the same as seeing it in motion though. Have been a fan of Milkdrop for a while and have a large collection of over 8,000 presets I'm gonna share here. Had acquired them while running XBMC on an orignal xbox (with 64MB or RAM)

To enable ProjectM just click the Tools menu at the top then select Visualizations.

What's really cool is being able to enable and disable certain presets.

Here is the Milkdrop preset pack

ProjectM MegaPack. Extract it to /usr/share/projectM/presets

Download for Linux, Mac & Windows: Clementine Download Page
Check out the Source Code For Clementine: git clone https://code.google.com/p/clementine-player/

Don't Forget the Android Remote App to Control Clementine

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.qspool.clementineremote
Clementine Remote Source Code: https://code.google.com/p/clementine-remote-android/

KDE Connect - Mobile Integration

2013-09-01T21:25:00.000-05:00

The 2013 Google Summer of Code project has allot going in the KDE desktop environment. Just look at the list of ideas here http://community.kde.org/GSoC/2013/Ideas, one that sparks particular interest to Android users is the KDE Connect project. The KDE Connect project's goal is to provide better integration with the Android platform.

Some of the features now available are:

Call & SMS Notifications
App Notification & Alerts
Battery Status Support
Clipboard Syncing
Media Player Controls
File Transfer

The project is still in a pretty early stage, supports Android 4 and greater, but support for Android 2.3 is coming. Currently KDE Connect is limited to working over WiFi only, so both devices need to be on the same network, but the developer behind the tool, Albert Vaca, says that more back-ends are planned USB cable, bluetooth, cell network, without the user (or the plugin developers) having to worry about which one is used.

There is a precompiled apk for Android avalable, it can be found on the main developer's website http://albertvaka.wordpress.com the best way to go is to compile from source to make sure your getting the latest version.

Let's install the desktop part

To get it running install these dependencies on your favorite Linux distro:
If running Debian, Ubuntu or Mint use: sudo apt-get install
On an RPM based system such as Redhat, CentOS, Fedora, or SUSE use: yum install

cmake kdebase-workspace-dev libqjson-dev git

After installing the dependencies use the terminal to make a new directory go into it, git the source, compile, then install it.

git clone git://anongit.kde.org/scratch/albertvaka/kdeconnect-kded

cd kdeconnect-kded

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ./

make

make install (On Ubuntu & Mint use: sudo make install)

After compiling & installing we need to make KDE aware of KDE Connect

!!!Important to run this as normal user, non root or sudo!!!

qdbus org.kde.kded /kded loadModule kdeconnect

kbuildsycoca4 -noincremental

now the device should be in the KDE system settings. If you installed the precompiled Android app then you're good to go.

Build the Android Side

For those that want to compile the Android apk then the first step is to get the Android SDK. Google provides a bundle that has everything needed to start build an Android app, just download, unzip and run. Can be found at: Android SDK Bundle

In the terminal make a new directory go into it and git the source.

git clone git://anongit.kde.org/scratch/albertvaka/kdeconnect-android

After using GIT to get the source, open the eclipse that came with the Android SDK bundle and import the project. Should be able to build the app without much if any modification. Good luck and have fun, remember google is your friend.

Low Ram Linux Desktop

2013-04-10T01:59:00.000-05:00

Linux is well known to run on all kinds of hardware from the oldest machines to the worlds super computers, and am always coming across friends that have older machines with only half a gig of RAM but most modern desktops recommend at least one gig of RAM. While it might not cost much to upgrade, I still think that a PC can still be comfortably usable without upgrading.

That's where Bodhi Linux comes in, it is a fast and fully functional desktop that runs on LXDE. Have done an article featuring Linux Mint running LXDE on a netbook, and Linux Mint is a really good distro they just don't have being lightweight as their main goal. Bodhi Linux is a Linux Distribution that focuses on the fast, customizable, and beautiful Enlightenment Desktop.

The minimum requirements to run Bodhi Linux are only: 300+MHz CPU, 128MB RAM, and 2.5GB hard drive space!

Not to mention it looks pretty good by default.

Watch a review of Bodhi Linux by one of the best Linux podcasts out there Jupiter Broadcasting
Linux Action Show - Bodilicious Bodhi Review

Bodhi is a semi-rolling release based off of the LTS versions of Ubuntu, so that means you'll get the latest version of GIMP or Blender without having to add PPAs. They have a pretty active community and a really awesome art section, that any geek would love at Bodhi Art Wiki

Download a copy of Bodhi Linux: Bodhi Linux

Bodhi is also availble (in alpha stage) for mobile devices. Am looking forward to trying Bodhi on a Nexus 7 tablet, the interface has been changed to work for touch devices, and looks promising.

Download Bodhi for ARM (mobile) devices: Bodhi ARMHF

Video of Bodhi Linux on a Nexus 7, by the main developer of Bohdi Linux.

Podcasts with gPodder

2013-02-13T23:37:00.000-06:00

gPodder downloads free audio and video content (podcasts) for you Listen directly on your computer or on your mobile devices. If you have an android device you can follow my guide at Android Relish on Podax Podcasting & gPodder. In the guide it mentions the gPodder.net service and Podcast Directory, the desktop and mobile version can both be synced with the free gPodder.net service. The website has been unreachable once but aside from that there isn't a better place to discover and manage good podcasts.

gPodder is available for Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, Mac OS X and mobile devices like the Nokia N810, N900 and N9. Some of the highlights are that it has support for RSS, Atom, YouTube, Soundcloud, Vimeo and XSPF feeds, as well as exporting to OPML which can then be imported on an Android device. Easily synchronize between devices with full gpodder.net API support. gPodder is also easy customization with its' choice of supporting Python as it's extension language.

Homepage: http://gpodder.org/
Download: http://gpodder.org/downloads
Documentation: http://gpodder.org/documentation
Source Code: http://gpodder.org/wiki/Git
Wiki: http://wiki.gpodder.org/

Tutorial for using the gPodder.net for syncing multiple devices.

Android Relish - Podax Podcasts & gPodder

Concrete5 a concrete CMS

2013-01-28T16:37:00.000-06:00

Heard about Concrete5 in a podcast from twit.tv called Floss Weekly [ FLOSS Weekly 239 ]. Am currently using Podax on Android to retrieve and listen to my podcasts and gPodder on my desktop to manage the shows I want. That's a hole other topic though so let's get back to how awesome Concrete5 is, and how they have successfully utilized Open Source and Creative Commons as the basis for their business model.

Concrete5 is a content management system that is free and open source, made for marketing but built for geeks. Concrete5 was designed for ease of use, for users with minimum technical skill can still make beautiful pages. It enables users to edit site content directly from the page. It provides version management for every page, similar to wiki software, so any edits can be viewed and reverted back to, also allows users to edit images through an embedded editor on the page.
Watch this introduction to concrete5 from the core team to see what it is about.

In this short 2 minute clip the concrete5 team shows just how easy it it to use. As seen in their URL bar they are running the server on their local machine, but rest assured it is pretty fast in the real world as well.

As seen in the video above concrete5 is an easy to use content management system that is friendly for designers, developers, and writers. From the start of the project the developers wanted to create something that was in middle between Wordpress and Django in terms of user-friendliness and being able to grow to large scales.

The Community

One of the most important things about concrete5 and most Open Source projects is the community, and concrete5 has a good community setup which has helped with it's adoption and business model. Users are encouraged to help the project in any way possible, such as promoting concrete5 in a blog post (like this one), helping the community, or even development work. After doing so you can submit a request for karma.

Karma

Every karma point earned during a peroid of a week will count as a single ticket to a raffle, where some randomly picked winners will get free add-ons. "Raffle... add-on's?" Your thinking... "that doesn't sound that good." Well I'd beg to differ, while there are some good free add-ons and themes, sometimes a paid add-on will be necessary or at least save lots of time, and if they can be attained by helping others, well that's just awesome. Not only that but as a freelancer having won a couple of those add-ons give us a chance to use some of those add-ons that are costly and have a better sales pitch to potential clients.

The Marketplace

The marketplace draws it all together really well. After creating an account at concrete5.org you can manage all of your concrete5 installs, as well as user permissions and licenses. What was really nice was piling a bunch of free add-ons and themes to the cart, then when done the cart didn't ask for any private information and presented me with a dropdown box to select which one of my sites running concrete5 to send the packages too.

See how to connect your concrete5 site to the community so you can easily install add-ons and themes.

concrete5's Philosophy

"We think people need to communicate better.

Deep down, we all have the same goals and dreams. The world would be a better place if everyone stopped worrying about "evil" and just started workin' it out together.

The web can help with that.

The web could be the most inexpensive and flexible communication system out there. It could be universally owned and used, and it could bring the barrier of entry down to zero for everyone.

So far it hasn't. It still takes a lot of money and technical skills to build and run a good looking website. We want to end that.

concrete5 makes it easy for anyone to build and manage a website."

concrete5's Official Youtube Playlist

Synergy - Share Your Mouse

2013-01-23T07:33:00.000-06:00

Imagine there are three computers monitors at the desk (not really hard to imagine though) and they are each running on a separate machine with different operating systems. Now picture dragging the mouse across all three seamlessly. Well stop imagining and go download Synergy.

This is a really useful Open Source project, but it's not gonna be able to replace a KVM switch (keyboard, video, mouse) because if I'm running different machines on my monitors, it is to fix another computer and don't wan't to install anything unnecessary to get it fixed. Could Picture the scenario where after getting back from work, the laptop gets setup on the desk, and then use Synergy to have the desktop mouse and keyboard to control the laptop without having to plug anything in or enable bluetooth.

Website: http://synergy-foss.org/ Download [ User Guide ]
Issue Tracker: http://synergy-foss.org/issues/
Source Code: http://synergy-foss.org/code/

VirtualBox

2013-01-20T12:22:00.001-06:00

So there is that unstable, or just released program that you have just got to try and don't got a spare machine to try it out on, or don't want to risk damaging your main system. Well why not try that program out in a VirtualBox.

VirtualBox lets users install operating systems inside their current OS. The main OS is the Host, and the other OS's are called the Guest. Users can run many systems at one time with VirtualBox, in fact allot of servers run hundreds of VirtualBox images at one time, all day everyday.

To get started using VirtualBox Windows can go to VirtualBox Downloads and install the right package for their system. Linux users can install VirtualBox-OSE (Open Source Edition) from their respective package manager.

To add the oracle maintained repository and install VirtualBox using a Debian based Linux distro (Ubuntu, Mint), copy paste this command into a terminal:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian '$(lsb_release -cs)' contrib non-free' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list" && wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.1 dkms

After installing VirtualBox you'll want to install an OS (operating system) to it. I recommend a lightweight Linux distro such as Xbuntu or Lubuntu. Download either of those ISOs and then launch VirtualBox, click new and point it to the ISO. After that it's just a matter of following all the on screen prompts to get the system up and running.

When testing out software in the VirtualBox you'll probably want to open it up to the internet. Was having an issue with this, as every time it was tested to see if it was broadcasting on the internet there was an error, which ended up being a loop back error in the router ( trying to go out to the net and back in).

What did work for me was changing the adapter setting on the machine to Bridged Adapter then go into the setting of the guest OS and change the IP to a static IP. Open up the ports on the router and the VM should be broadcasting. Again I had an issue and couldn't test that it was working from home, had to actually leave and go to another location to verify it worked (router loopback error).

It's kinda hard to remember the IP addresses, that and they are constantly changing unless it is a static IP, so to access the VM use NO-IP. They provide 3 free host names for your IP addressing needs, making it much easier to share your VM on the internet.

ownCloud - Your Own Personal Cloud

2013-01-19T17:57:00.000-06:00

There are tons of free cloud web services out there such as Google Drive, Ubuntu One, and iCloud from apple all offering 5 gigabytes of space which is perfect for keeping those really important files backed up. What about pricing though, how much is it for 50 gigabytes or 100 gigabytes?

Google Drive is asking $2.50 a month for 25 gigabytes, $5.00 a month for 100 gigabytes, and $50 a month for 1 terabyte. Ubuntu One works a little differently if you buy 1 song from the music store they give you 20 gigabytes for free for 6 months then charge you $4.00 a month. Apple's iCloud is charging $3.25 for 10 gigabytes of storage.

On top of the 3 services offered above there is another cloud service that is offering 50 gigabytes of cloud storage for free. Check out Gizmodo's article "Hands On With Kim Dotcom’s New Mega: This Service Could Dismantle Copyright Forever" In short when you use the mega service the file is encrypted from a key on the local machine before it goes to mega, which they think will keep them out of trouble by not knowing what the users upload. The service might be reachable at http://kim.com/mega but what this article is about is running your own cloud service, with your own machine or server.

While running your own cloud might not be as reliable as using one of the services mentioned above it definitely does have it's benefits. One of those benefits would be the space available to store stuff, but one of the downfalls could be a hard drive crash, especially if there isn't a RAID array in place. ownCloud has a ton of great features such as the built in support to display documents such as word or excel. Check out the full list of features at http://owncloud.org/features/.

Getting started with your own cloud can be really simple. The easiest way to get going with ownCloud is the VM image as well pre-configured USB images and Amazon EC2 images which can be downloaded at http://susestudio.com/a/TadMax/owncloud-in-a-box. For the more adventurous check out the installation page, which covers just about every major Linux distro as well as Windows and Mac.

Download: http://owncloud.org/support/install/
Installation Manual: http://doc.owncloud.org/server/4.5/admin_manual/installation.html

After the installation is finished you'll be able to access it through a desktop client, mobile device or web browser. The way the desktop client works is that it looks at a folder you pointed to on the machine and keeps it synced with the ownCloud server.

Download the Desktop Client: https://owncloud.com/overview/desktop-clients
Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.owncloud.android
iOS App: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/owncloud/id543672169?ls=1&mt=8

Real Time Strategy Game 0 AD

2013-01-13T00:05:00.000-06:00

0 A.D (pronounced “zero-ey-dee”) is a historical Real Time Strategy (RTS) game under development by Wildfire Games, a global group of volunteer game developers. As the leader of an ancient civilization, you must gather the resources you need to raise a military force and dominate your enemies. Have never played a RPG or RTS for more then 15 minutes, but look forward to getting deep into this game.

Intense Gameplay

Cross-platform: 0 A.D. is set to run on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
Unique civilizations: In 0 A.D. each civilization is unique in its appearance and gameplay, including units, structures, and technology trees.
Citizen soldiers: Some infantry and cavalry units can not only fight, but also gather resources and construct buildings, making them substantially more versatile than in typical RTS games.
Combat experience matters: The more time your citizen soldiers spend fighting your enemies, the higher they go up the ranks. With each rank, they become stronger, but they also get worse at civilian tasks.
Technology tradeoffs: Some technologies are arranged in pairs, and within each pair, you can only research one technology at most in each game. This choice is irreversible, so choose carefully!
Unit formations: Arrange your units in historical battle formations from the Phalanx to the Testudo and gain bonuses, such as increased armor. However, beware the costs that may come with them, such as lower speed! (As of August 2012, this feature has not been implemented yet.)

Realism and Authenticity

Real world map realism: Random maps are based upon real geography of the ancient world with realistic plants, animals and terrain.
Authentic historical details: Designs of units, buildings and technologies all reflect the hallmarks of each civilization. We even give them names in the original ancient Greek, Latin, Punic, Celtic, etc.
Lifelike naval warfare: Ships will be on a much larger and more lifelike scale than seen in other games. They will move more realistically and even be able to ram other ships. (As of August 2012, this feature has not been implemented yet.)

Create Your Own Worlds

Powerful map editor: Draw landscapes with a palette of hundreds of terrains, build majestic cities and set the position of the sun in the Atlas Editor, your tool to design intricately detailed maps in 0 A.D.
Excellent moddability: From new computer opponent behaviors to extra civilizations, easily create your own modifications (mods) of 0 A.D. by editing game files, all freely available in standard, open formats.

0 AD is free of charge

0 A.D. is completely downloadable at no cost and will always be. No “freemium” model, no in-game advertising, no catch. This is the iron-clad guarantee the 0 A.D. developers.

Although you might find some people selling copies of 0 A.D. on physical media, remember, you will always have the option to download 0 A.D. gratis on the internet.

Visit the 0 AD homepage http://play0ad.com/

Download 0 AD http://play0ad.com/download/

3d Android Dev with jMonkeyEngine SDK

2012-12-06T08:28:00.001-06:00

The jMonkeyEngine SDK is a custom environment built on-top of netbeans for developing with the jMonkeyEngine library. The jME3 SDK provides you with unique plugins for creating jMonkeyEngine 3 game content. You can download and install the jMonkeyEngine SDK as a ready-to-use complete game development environment, rather than using a generic Java IDE. (What's an IDE?)

Showcase of some jMonkey Powered Games http://jmonkeyengine.com/showcase/

Lets install and setup all the software to start developing with jME3 for Android, we'll need:

The Java Development Kit JDK6 - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork
Android SDK - http://developer.android.com/sdk
jMonkeyEngine SDK - http://jmonkeyengine.org/downloads/

After installing and starting the jMonkeyEngine SDK start a new project, and make it a jME3 BasicGame, the project will have code already in place that opens a window and displays a cube in 3d space press "f6" to run the project. After seeing the cube and debug info we know that we installed everything correctly and can close that window by hitting the "esc" key and move on to getting jME3 to make Android packages. This is done by adding the Android plugin in the plugin browser. It's under "Tools > Plugins".

After installing the plugin go to the jME3 options under Tools and select the mobile tab, and point it to the Android SDK folder. Almost there getting it all set up, the last step to make a jME3 project run on an Android device, is to right-click the project that you created and select "properties". First click "Build > Compile" and deselect "Compile on Save" Now go to "Application > Android" and select "Enable Android Deployment" then give your package a proper name.

Congratulations!! It is now possible to run jMonkey Engine games on an Android device or emulator.

If there was a problem take a look in the forum for a solution, if there isn't one leave a post and someone will respond with suggestions. http://jmonkeyengine.org/forums

Documentation & Tutorials

One of the best things about the jMonkeyEngine is the community provided documents and tutorials. They have really detailed tutorials that will cover allot of questions that would arise, plus the forum members are always there to answer a question and give a helping hand.

Mozilla Launches Popcorn Maker

2012-11-20T14:24:00.000-06:00

Popcorn Maker is an HTML5 web app for combining web media with images, text, maps, and other dynamic web content. Its appearance is unique, but not unfamiliar, providing a timeline-based video editing experience for the web. Once created, Popcorn Maker hosts remixes as simple HTML pages in the cloud, which can be shared or embedded in blogs or other sites. Furthermore, every remix provides a “Remix” button, allowing anyone watching to become a creator themselves by using the current remix as a base project for their own creation. This “view source” experience for web media is a key aspect of Popcorn Maker’s goals as part of the larger Mozilla Webmaker project.

On a technical level, Popcorn Maker is the combination of a number of separate projects, each heavily influenced by the “12 factor” philosophy: a node.js-based web service called Cornfield; a JavaScript framework for creating highly-interactive web apps; and Popcorn.js, with a set of custom Popcorn.js plugins.

Watch one of the creators of Popcorn Maker explain the project

See an example in action

Make something with Popcorn Maker today: Popcorn Maker

More info about the code and development team and process

Repositories
https://github.com/mozilla/butter
https://github.com/mozilla/popcorn-js

Bug Tracker

https://webmademovies.lighthouseapp.com/projects/65733-butter/overview

Ubuntu - Mark Shuttleworth Keynote Speech

2012-11-02T00:19:00.000-05:00

Ubuntu is one of the most popular versions of Linux on desktops and laptops, and soon to be in your tv, phone, and who knows what else. Development of Ubuntu is led by Canonical, Ltd. a company owned by Ubuntu's "self-appointed benevolent dictator for life, South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. Canonical generates revenue through the sale of technical support and services related to Ubuntu, and since version 12.10, by displaying advertisements in Unity Dash, the default file manager in the standard desktop version of Ubuntu. According to Canonical, the Ubuntu project is committed to the principles of free software development; people are encouraged to use free software, improve it, and distribute it

Ubuntu is a fork of the Debian project's codebase. The original aim of the Ubuntu developers was to create an easy-to-use Linux desktop, which has led to a large user base as well as helping people new to Linux switch over. On a side note Windows users can install Ubuntu right in Windows, Ubuntu will install into Windows as an application that will give users access to all the great and Open Source Software that only runs on Linux without having to leave Windows.

Mark Shuttleworth Keynote from Ubuntu Developers Summit. Mark covers topics such as Steam coming to Linux, Ubuntu desktop for Android and What to expect on the server side.

Get Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/
Learn and Get Help With and Ubuntu: https://help.ubuntu.com/community
Develop for Ubuntu: http://developer.ubuntu.com/

FlightGear a Flight Simulator

2012-10-29T22:22:00.000-05:00

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for University research and education, for a variety of aerospace engineering and visualization work in industry, and even for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide seamless scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language, and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Have heard that with the right equipment playing the FlightGear simulator could be used as pilot hours towards a pilots license. The features available in this open source project are amazing, not to mention just the scenerey would fill more then 3 DVDs. Check out the feature list at http://www.flightgear.org/about/features/

Start downloading FlightGear for free on Windows, Mac, & Linux from http://www.flightgear.org

Watch FlightGear in action

Mixxx - DJ Software Review

2012-10-20T17:44:00.000-05:00

Mixxx has everything you need to start making DJ mixes in a tight, integrated package. Whether you're DJing your next house party, spinning at a club, or broadcasting as a radio DJ, Mixxx has what you need to do it right.

Best of all it's Open Source, free and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux!

Here is a quick 5 minute review of Mixxx by InfinityGalatic (who's been doing Linux App reviews on youtube). He is using the Ubuntu Linux Operating System which is also free and Open Source.

Links:
Download: Mixxx DJ Software http://www.mixxx.org

Download: Ubuntu Linux http://www.ubuntu.com

Old Post featuring Mixxx http://openrelish.blogspot.com/2011/10/dj-software.html

The Internet Archive Offers Over 1 Million Torrents

2012-08-13T16:52:00.000-05:00

The Internet Archive has seeded over 1,000,000 torrents of creative commons and public domain media, as well as complete websites

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". The Internet Archive permanent handles the storage of and free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public-domain books. The only problem is that it costs so much to share that infomation with direct downloads, torrents are the perfect way to share this legal content.

Torrent is a protocol for computers to communicate and share files in such a way that as a user downloads a file they share it as well. When a user has the full download they can choose to seed the torrent longer or remove it from the torrent application while keeping the downloaded data. A single torrent file can have hundreds of files in it, and users can choose to download certain files or the whole torrent.

A torrent file only works with a torrent downloading program. The Opera web browser can handle torrent files and I'd recommend using Opera, it has allot of good features and is secure. If your running a Linux operating system there is most likely a torrent application installed by default. For windows users the best torrent programs are Azureus which is open source and hosted by sourceforge.net it is also a torrent browser and media player. Utorrent also has torrent browsing capabilities but is more lightweight.

Internet Archive blog post - 1000000-torrents-of-downloadable-books-music-and-movies
Internet Archive - Torrent Hotlist
Internet Archive - Torrents Over a Million Books

Windows Desktop Customizer

2012-05-27T14:33:00.000-05:00

Have yet to cover a Windows only piece software on the blog yet, but plenty of Linux only software. With Linux there are many options for the desktop and even more options for each desktop interface, but with Windows you need third-party software to get a really customized desktop. Well that software is called Rainmeter, and is open source and free to download.

Here are a couple of example of what Rainmeter can do. All the skins are easily customized and parts from different skins can be combined, or you could make your own from scratch which is made easy by allowing the creators to focus on the look by plugging there artwork into functions that are already available.

Rainmeter is the best known and most popular desktop customization program for Windows. Enhance your Windows computer at home or work with skins; handy, compact applets that float freely on your desktop. Rainmeter skins provide you with useful information at a glance. It's easy to keep an eye on your system resources, like memory and battery power, or your online data streams, including email, RSS feeds, and weather forecasts.

Many skins are even functional: they can record your notes and to-do lists, launch your favorite applications, control your media player - all in a clean, unobtrusive interface that you can rearrange and customize to your liking.

There are thousands and thousands of skins available, crafted by a large and ever-growing community of Rainmeter users. !!! WARNING !!! Be careful where you get your skins and plugins, try to only get skins from rainmeter.net and when downloading from deviantart.com make sure the comments aren't disabled on that skin!

Rainmeter is not just an application, it is a robust toolkit. Create and modify your own skins in a simple language that's easy to learn, with the help of extensive documentation, getting started guide and skin tutorials. Skins call upon measures, a set of powerful built-in modules that do all the heavy lifting, and create interactive meters to display that information however you decide. In this way, Rainmeter brings productive innovation together with creative artistry like no other platform of its kind.

Over the last few years, a thriving community has built up around Rainmeter, as average users freely contribute their own original skins, their generous knowledge and support, and their inspirational ideas to a project whose scope and capabilities are constantly expanding.

Rainmeter is designed for YOUR system. Rainmeter uses very little CPU and RAM resources, has a tiny space footprint, and will run perfectly well on any hardware using Windows XP through Windows 8.

Rainmeter is free and open source. Rainmeter is open source software distributed free of charge under the terms of the GNU GPL v2 license. If you want to get involved, check the Developers page.

Official website http://rainmeter.net/cms
Rainmeter 101 http://rainmeter.net/cms/Rainmeter101
The source code is on Github https://github.com/rainmeter/rainmeter

OpenEMR - Electronic Medical Records

2012-05-24T12:54:00.000-05:00

Recently came across this software used to keep hospital records while browsing a site called BigThink. It is called Open-EMR (Electronic Medical Records), a 10 year old project with ~500,000 lines of code, became one of the first PHP projects to become a government certified EHR. OpenEMR is an ONC-ATB Ambulatory EHR 2011-2012 certified electronic health records and medical practice management application. It is written in php and runs on LAMP systems, most of the developers are Linux enthusiasts but the user base for the software is mainly Windows machines.

The website for the application http://www.open-emr.org/
The non-profit organization for the application http://www.oemr.org/
List of OpenEMR's features http://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/OpenEMR_Features
Online demo of the software http://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/OpenEMR_Version_4.1.0_Demo
A presentation about Open-EMR http://www.openaffairs.tv/2011/06/open-emr-presentation-and-discussion-at-portland-linux-user-group/
Download the application and or the source code http://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/OpenEMR_Downloads

Music Sites for Digital Artists

2012-05-14T09:53:00.001-05:00

Creating a multimedia piece online is relatively easy now, with the rise of Youtube videos, and sites such as Qik and Animoto, make publishing multimedia content even easier. One of the problems many digital creatives face, is music licensing. If you want to use / share someone else’s music, you have to be careful.

Regardless if you live for music or make a living off of music we can all enjoy Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world.

Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. By allowing your work to be available to millions of other creators on the web, you might be responsible for the next big thing.

Here are a couple of artists that use Creative Commons licenses

BradSucks
http://www.bradsucks.net/
Brad Sucks is the name of a one man band. All MP3′s are available for free download and can be mashed up and used in youtube videos / animations etc.

Josh Woodward
http://www.joshwoodward.com/music/
Using the same strategy as Brad Sucks, Josh Woodward offers free albums licensed under Creative Commons.

Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts
http://ghosts.nin.com/

Those are just a couple of the popular artists using the Creative Commons License, a great place to discover new artists is Jamendo. Linux users should be familiar with this site, as access to it is a feature built in more then one music application by default on the Linux desktop.
Jamendo
http://www.jamendo.com/en/

When browsing for some music to add to your collection go with Creative Commons with help from this list of music sites.

Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/audio/

CCMixter
http://ccmixter.org/
ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.

SectionZ
http://www.sectionz.com/cc.asp
An electronic music community that offers Creative Commons-licensed tracks from genres like IDM, drum ‘n’ bass, and ambient.

Audionautix
http://www.audionautix.com/html/free_music.html

FreePD
http://freepd.com/
This site currently has 19 pieces of music dedicated to the Public Domain, contributed by 1 composer.

SoundClick
http://www.soundclick.com/business/license_list.cfm
SoundClick offers a search engine interface to find creative commons mp3′s.

Magnatune
http://www.magnatune.com/

Personally a big fan of the Magnatune approach to music distribution. Their offering allows you to use music in your project, whilst it is being created, then once you create something commercial, you can move to a commercial license.

FreeSound
http://www.freesound.org/ - Freesound's focus is only on sound, not songs, which separates it from the crowd. They provide collections of sounds as w

Overview

This is only scratching the surface. There are plenty of brilliant artists out there using creative commons licensing, now at least we have some great sites emerging online to find them. If you offer you music open source, stick a link in the comments for me, and I’ll get you added in here.

Skeltrack - Control Linux with Camera and Body

2012-05-11T00:12:00.000-05:00

Skeltrack is a Free and Open Source Software library for tracking skeleton joints from depth images.

It is implemented with GLib and uses plain mathematics to detect the human skeleton and although it does not use any database, it was inspired by Andreas Baak's paper: A Data-Driven Approach for Real-Time Full Body Pose Reconstruction from a Depth Camera.

One or both hands are used control the mouse pointer, perform clicks, drag things around and simulates a pinch gesture which adjusts the zoom level. Hands can be also interpreted as if holding a steering wheel, making racing games so much fun.

Skeltrack is device independent however you can use a kinect to start with.

Visit the devs site @ http://www.joaquimrocha.com
Get the full source code @ https://github.com/joaquimrocha/Skeltrack

Django/Rails-Like Rapid Development for Ubuntu

2012-05-02T15:05:00.000-05:00

Glade + Python is about as easy as it gets for doing Linux GUI development.

With Glade you build a XML-file describing a Gnome graphical user interface using a GUI editor.
http://glade.gnome.org/

The boiler plate code for a Python GTK project would be some stuff like importing the libraries you need, loading the Glade XML file, creating the initial class for your application and then starting up the gtk.main()-style mainloop.

Once that is done then it's mearly a matter of defining class methods and assigning them to your various buttons.

This tool works perfect for the novice programmer just about anyone should be able to get from zero to 'hello world' GUI program in about 2 minutes. With full version control, build environment, and the ability to easily create installable packages.

From there on everyhing from accessing the hdd, remote file systems, dbus for system events, gstreamer transcoding/encoding/decoding, telepathy for integration into online services, and all that happy stuff is just a few edits away.

Installation

$ sudo apt-get install quickly quickly-ubuntu-template

Begin Tutorial

$ quickly tutorial ubuntu-application

Resources

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Quickly
http://developer.ubuntu.com/resources/tools/quickly/
http://blog.didrocks.fr/post/Quickly-0.4-available-in-lucid!

New To Programming? Learn Python, which is a good choice for learning programming.
http://www.learnpython.org/
http://docs.python.org/tutorial/
http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/

Old articles about Quickly
arstechnica.com - quickly-new-rails-like-rapid-development-tools-for-ubuntu -2010
zdnet.com - unchaining-the-opportunistic-programmer - 2009

Cyclos On-Line Banking System

2012-05-01T10:33:00.001-05:00

With the recent crash of the economy in Greece the people have come up with a new cashless Euro-free currency. Rawstory: Greece develops cashless, Euro-free currency in tight economy

They were able to do this with the help of Open Source Software by a group called STRO (Social TRade Organisations). STRO’s objective is to move money as a major steering mechanism in society from causing environmental abuse and preventing many poor to optimise their capacities, to become an instrument that serves a qualitative human development. The first STRO was founded in 1970 in Holland.

STRO picks up the challenge described by Bank of England’s governor Mervyn King:
“Is it possible that advances in technology will mean that (...) the world may come to resemble a pure exchange economy? Electronic transactions in real time hold out that possibility. There is no reason, in principle, why final settlements could not be carried out by the private sector without the need for clearing through the central bank. (...) There is no conceptual obstacle to the idea that two individuals engaged in a transaction could settle by a transfer of wealth from one electronic account to another in real time. (...) The same system could match demands and supplies of financial assets, determine prices and make settlements. Financial assets and real goods and services would be priced in terms of a unit of account. Final settlement could be made without any recourse to the central bank.(...) Without such a role in settlements, central banks, in their present form, would no longer exist; nor would money.”

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/04/greek-town-develops-bartering-system.html

Visit http://project.cyclos.org/ to check out all the features of this Open Source project.