Stumbled upon part 2: Linux

So, continuing my series of collections of links that I've come across while wandering the web, here are a few pages providing useful info on various Linux-related topics. (I haven't included the pages I have of GIMP tutorials, they'll come later in an art-related post. This goes the same for anything non-strictly Linux-based)

Debian Package Of The Day

A great page that lists a different Debian package every day (well, in theory). It's intention is to introduce people to some of the lesser known packages that are available for Debian (and its derivatives). They run the gambit from useful to fanciful (Thoggen is a great DVD ripping tool, whereas cowsay is just silly) and from niche to usable by all (not everyone needs a command-line calculator, but a countdown timer is always useful). Check it out and at the very least you can be amused by ASCII cows saying things...

Reconstructor

Reconstructor is a simple and easy way to create your own Ubuntu live CD without having to learn to programme and then compile it all. Say you have a friend who wants to try Linux/Ubuntu but doesn't want to install it, so you give him a live CD. Now, as great as it is, the Ubuntu live CD doesn't come with anything that exciting (I mean, can you get excited about Open Office?), so instead you put together a suite of applications on a Reconstructor CD that you think he'll like and Bob's your uncle!

Finally, a few links to help anyone who may be unfamiliar/unwilling to use the command line:

The one-page Linux manual - The most important commands you'll ever need to know on one simple page.

LinuxCommand.org - More in-depth tutorials on using the command line.

A day without X - One man's adventure spending a day not using a GUI.

TED Talks

"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader."

So, a while back, I introduced Miro (formerly Democracy player), which allows you to watch video podcasts as channels. When you first install Miro, it comes with a few subscriptions loaded by default. One of these is "TED talks", which is videos of various talks/performances given at the annual TED conference. They involve all kinds of things ranging from technology to language to music to psychology to pretty much anything you can think of that's on the cutting edge of creative and innovative thinking.

I highly recommend checking it out as there's some extremely interesting stuff on there. Even if none of the things cover your field of interest, I'm sure you'll find the talks interesting and some might even spark your interest about things you've never even thought about before (I do nothing to do with neuroscience but Vilayanur Ramachandran's talk was extremely interesting).

So, you can either get Miro or head to the TED talks site, here.

Interesting links

So, I find interesting stuff on the internet all the time thanks to things like StumbleUpon (If you don't have it already, check it out, it's a great way to kill time on the internet and I've managed to stumble on many useful resources through it) and I thought it was about time I start sharing them with the world. I've got loads stored in my bookmarks, so I'll be going through them and putting them up here. I'll try and group them into categories somewhat. For now, here's just a couple of the latest ones I've come across.

Disposable web pages

So, you want a page for something that's coming up but you won't need the site after the event. You could make an event page on Facebook or a group or something, but why not something everyone can access, rather than just those on Facebook? Why not make a disposable web page? I'm sure there's even more possible uses, so check it out!

Open Design Community

"The Open Design Community (TODC) is a group of Open Source Website Designers providing hundreds of XHTML and CSS based free web design templates available for download.

The main goal of TODC is helping to make the internet a prettier place."

HTML Playground

Or, if you don't find a template you like, you can just use HTML and build it yourself. This is a great resource for learning as it tells you exactly what HTML tags do and gives you editable examples.

That's it for now, more to come soon!