Recently in Linux/Unix Category

Yesterday out of boredom I started playing with Regex (Regular Expressions). I somehow got carried away and found that regex is actually fun once you learn it. It's like playing chess, all the strategy you have to do to match and process your text is part of winning over content.

Well, what I did is pretty little, that is converting plain urls like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF-cXjxgREQ

To

It also supports links with http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=PF-cXjxgREQ and so on. Of course youtube alone wasn't enough so I threw at it Metacafe, revver, dailymotion, vimeo support.

Of course, an issue came up with dailymotion, that is the way the "categorize", so the URL is affected and it only works with Permalinks. I'm currently working on a fix that might actually fix the redundancy of "/section/section/section/".

Try the parser, live!
Paste links like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkuLh4u0H8E
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5qbhc_99-dreams_shortfilms
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1269694/trick_shot_masters/
http://revver.com/video/1076971/sexy-fitness-break-tight-glutes/
http://vimeo.com/707539

Paste them inside the textarea :) (of course!) Anyway, this will be available under New BSD License as soon as I finish a few things.

I'm still new at regex! Can't wait to master it soon :)

I'm pretty much happy! My hard drive arrived today and got it installed. It was an easy install although I have 2GB DDR ram waiting for me in the post office, sadly I couldn't take out the rams because the section of receiving/delivering packages was closed.

Anyway, I installed openSuse. Very impressed on the install, probably the most user-friendly interface I have seen. Although I chose to use GNOME, I'm thinking of wiping it out for the heck of it and chose KDE 4.0, reasons are because the last time I used KDE (years ago) left me with such a bad experience that I never wanted to use it again. This means, after 1-3 years of not using KDE this will be my last install, if I like what I see then I'll give it a try, if not, well oh well, doesn't matter really.

Although I do miss OpenBox :)

Cheers!

Right, I'm getting a new 160GB HD SATA which I'm going to use a "Pet Drive" for testing and checking out new linux distros. Of course I don't plan to to be formatting every time there is a new distro out there or a distro I haven't used, it's kind of a waste of time if you think about it.

Anyway, thanks a darkmatter I was (forced) to decide in using openSuse. In the end I might probably install Debian Etch, although Debian 5.0 is releasing this september. I don't know why I have always liked debian...

In other news, as you notice this post is pretty much random, sorry about that I just don't have anything to talk about that requires deep content. SO! In other news, GIMP 2.6 is coming closer than anyone would have expected, they might be releasing GIMP new version this year. I haven't played much with the SVN copy so I can't really give insights of what's being changed and what's new.

Cheers!

For the time being, I think I ought to at least post once a week, I know that this blog is almost non-existence at some point. Well, never mind about that for now.

Just a few weeks back I ordered a book called "Mastering Regular Expressions" by Jeffrey E.F. Friedl, it arrived this monday and I was really excited because, as geeky/nerdy as it sounds, regular expression is not something you learn on the fly. I normally script using PHP, although I want to extend my knowledge, it's very TIME CONSUMING just having one language to learn (PHP, in this case).

I have known/used PHP for around 2-3 years. Yet, it's not enough to actually "master" it. Of course, I'm not merely talking about syntax and learn more of the functions it provides, but also learning the design patterns. (Object Oriented Programming)

Anyway, the book "Mastering Regular Expressions" is really a new experience, the book itself boosts your confidence and motivation on learning. The author maintains the context both entertaining and very well detailed on how metacharacters and regular expressions works.

I know sometimes people from other linux forums steps here by occasion, and I'm expecting something near the lines "learn python, perl, ruby(RoR)" (web side scripting). Well, it's not a matter of choosing the language sadly, right now I just want to shape up my PHP skills before taking on another language.

Besides that, I also ordered Simply Javascript. Although there is a bit of problem for the package to reach here :( damn you!

Watching turtles walking from one point to another... how fun! Alright, let me start by saying that today is the new release of Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 Long Term Support (LTS). Sadly, I don't use Ubuntu anymore but I still recommend it to new users who are just entering the linux world.

Congratulation to the Ubuntu Team and their progress so far :)

I'm back once again, yes I know I've been quite inactive and I hope to compensate it with more GIMP tutorials and more Tips and Tricks for you all. I also have a Arch Linux Review up my sleeve to post about and a few other comments and a few games that are not known due to its early stage of development.

Ubuntu is one of the most popular distros right now. Yet, it has lost its touch in matter of speed and performance for me and my machine. Now, why would I chose Zenwalk over Ubuntu? Lightweight, XFCE adaptation and friendly community.

I've been using Ubuntu for around 3-4 years, it has given me the opportunity to grow to know more about computers and Linux itself. Nonetheless, I think Ubuntu accomplished its mission to bring linux for human beings. Once a user have been with Ubuntu for a year or so, he can decide whether to stay with it or hop to another distro. In my case, I decided to go because I wanted to learn more.

It's no mystery that there are more distros out there. I encountered with Arch Linux, is it lighter than Zenwalk? Who knows, but it really didn't leave much of an impression to me. I can't say it was slow, quite an speedy one, yet for some reason I just couldn't quite fit into it.

Zenwalk ISO is around 482 Megabytes. Quite a stud to do that because it brings you a complete desktop for the average user. What does it brings? Abiword, GNU Image Manipulation Program, GQView, gFTP, Iceweasel (Firefox), Icedove (Thunderbird), Geany, Evince, Brasero, MPlayer. We have a Word Processor, an image editor, image viewer, a FTP Client, Web Browser, Mail Application, an IDE editor (which is also used to read text files and so on), PDF Reader, CD/DVD Burning Program, Video/DVD Player. It's almost as if they took their time to choose, if they did, awesome work guys.

Preferences and availability of your favorite programs is important for you and the user. I installed OpenOffice (2.4.0 which is the last stable version), Adobe Reader, Audacious, XChat. Most of them are the last version and some are the previous last version. In general, you can install packages from Slackware if you can't find yours, it's not recommended to do so but it quite works out. Not to mention that Zenwalk also have a section for users submitted packages and they give you your own section to upload your packages to make them available.

I've covered a bit on packages and the packages Zenwalk brings. Now, let's take a look at our desktop:

Multimedia

Who doesn't love music? I do! I'd also like my favorite programs to run my favorite movies and music. In this screenshot from left to right I'm running: Audacious, GNOME Mplayer, Brasero, WINE (CVS), Conky. I think everyone knows what these applications do alright. Conky is an alternative system monitor, also one of my favorites.

Word Processors

The last thing you wanted to see is OpenOffice running with Micro$oft Fonts, yet I did this to show the users that it can be done quite simple with a few commands. The launching speed takes almost 3 seconds, in my ubuntu it took around 7 seconds. Things you should know: DejaVu fonts is a derivate from Bitstream Vera Sans with a fortified unicode support. If you installed Zenwalk, don't go all crazy. I can't say Zenwalk installs a wide selection of fonts from the CD Installation, you can grab them later on.
Restricted Drivers

It's probably one of the most important things for NVIDIA users. There are NVIDIA Drivers in the restricted area, mine installed flawlessly and didn't ran into any problems. Despite that, Geany wanted to be in the screenshot to let you know how it looks.

Digital Cameras

I can't say that your camera will just work as a plug n' play. Mine didn't, yet I didn't worry much. Truth is that some cameras does plug and play in Zenwalk. As for me, Zenwalk have gphoto2 as a default package and the manual is pretty straightforward to use. You can also get gtkam, gthumb and other applications for this. They'd just work out.

Back me up with games pal

As default, there is Grsync to back up your things. Zenwalk does not install games when you do a fresh installation, which is actually a good thing if you don't care about them. Yet I grabbed a copy of Nexuiz from netpkg (the package manager of Zenwalk), Enemy Territory, old school Cube and SuperTux 2. Overall, they should keep the games away from the installations since it's just a waste of space.
Welcome to my jungle

As default, Zenwalk brings you Asunder, a CD Ripper. I inserted my Guns n' Roses CD to give it a test. Queried the CDDB. In matter of minutes I had my CD ripped out.

Image Manipulation

Yes people, you all know about this one. One of the most "underrated", "hated" and underestimated program. That is the GIMP. As a GIMP enthusiast I must start by saying that "yes, GIMP does gradient overlays, Bevel and Emboss, Inner Glow, Inner Shadow", please just look at this article. I don't have to say much on this. I've been using this tool for several months and I love it. If you are a user that just take an hour to check a program out and then bash it later, then sir, please do your homework complete.

In matters of performance and speed, Zenwalk is your next stop. I'd hope it grows as much as other distros and be well embraced by the linux users and new users. If you are still in doubt whether you should change to Zenwalk or not, give it a real try. Something I didn't like about Zenwalk is that they use LILO as the boot loader. It's just a matter of installing everything you need and be set

Do I regret moving from Ubuntu? No. I think users should explore new grounds. There is also Gentoo, Arch Linux, Damn Small Linux. It's a matter of learning, once you have everything you need in your computer, then applaud yourself for your efforts and start helping others so the movement continues.

Get Started with Zenwalk

I'm condemned to use a web service such as Google Mail. The reasons are simple, I get to have a nice spam filter that reaches the level of an enterprise edition. Of course my host is a very reputable one that offers enterprise spam filter for free, but I prefer having a back up(like, 2 GB of space?). Not many users uses the Filters options provided in Google Mail. It's not that they are not aware of it, it's just that they probably don't need it.

Not everyone likes to view their mail using web browsers, like me. I sometimes get annoyed since it takes long so I just use Evolution to get the messages. Oh, and when I mean slow, it's the seconds it takes to display all your mails. Nevertheless, it's good to have your mail offline.

Filter Manager

Let's do a filter now. Go to your Edit -> Message Filters.

Press Add, and follow the screenshot.

You will notice that you can do many things with the message, I bet you can probably make your computer explode too! Alright, no more ideas for you guys. Now, you notice that in Find items: I left it to If all criteria are met, of course that's wrong, change it to If any criteria are met because "all" criteria will only run if the match is exact, and in mailing lists, sometimes you get all kinds of CC, BCC, so it's not good to have it set to 'all'.

Applying The Filter

Note that when you create a filter in Google Mail it asks you if you want to run the filter on all the message. In Evolution, it doesn't have that automatic option that allows you, so you'll need to go to Message -> Apply Filters (CTRL + Y). NOTE: DO A SELECT ALL IN THE INBOX, THEN RUN THE APPLY FILTERS.

Evolution will start checking for the old message recipients, then start moving them to the correct folder. I think I prefer Evolution over Thunderbird, it's pretty well thought out on the features and perfect for any person (meaning, you don't need to be a geek).

Ordering

This is a really option thing to do. Ordering will probably ease your life since a mailing list tends to get a bit rowdy. This is something that Google Mail can't do, that is ordering alphabetically, by sender name. They could probably add it to the next version, I mean the jQuery Team have done it in jQuery UI (which is really nice).

I guess I still prefer Evolution over it. If you are a linux user you might want to check out Evolution, and if you aren't then try out Ubuntu Linux.