For starters – let’s clarify that headline. Linux has more than one possible shell, and scripting any of them is a subject that can easily pack a full book. What we’re going to be doing is covering the basic elements of a bash script. If you don’t know what shell you’re using, it’s probably bash. The process will be familiar to anyone who’s worked with DOS’s bat files, it’s essentially the same concept. You just put a series of commands into a text file and run it. The difference comes from the fact that bash scripts can do a LOT more than batch files. In fact, bash scripting isn’t all that far from a full-fledged language like Python. Today we’ll be covering a few basics like input, output, arguments and variables.
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The Beginner Guide to Writing Linux Shell Scripts
By | June 30, 2011 | 2 Comments
How To Schedule Microsoft Security Essential To Work At Night
By | December 18, 2010 |
While there are plenty of anti-virus suite around, Microsoft Security Essential (MSE) is fast becoming one of the most popular security suite for end-users. The main reasons for its success is because it is free, lightweight and it just works. Being developed, endorsed and maintained by Microsoft also help.
In MSE, one of the useful feature is the ability to schedule scan at ghost hour so it can keep your computer safe, yet not interfering with your work. However, in some situations, the scheduled scan might not work as intended.
In this post, we will show you how to properly setup a task in your computer. This task will wake your computer at night, carry out the routine scan and shutdown the system after it has finished its work.
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How to Display The Weather Condition As Wallpaper [Linux]
By | November 18, 2010 |
There are many ways to find out the weather condition in your city. You can go to weather.com, use weather widget or even set it on your desktop with conky. Here is yet another way that you can obtain weather information quickly: display the weather condition as a wallpaper in your desktop.
WeatherPaper is a weather based desktop wallpaper changer for Windows and Linux. It fetches the weather condition at a regular interval and display the information on your desktop as a wallpaper. It is functionality similar to the weather applet in conky (both grab the weather condition from weather.com and display the information in your desktop) except that this WeatherPaper script displays the information in the form of a wallpaper and it is customizable and visually more pleasing.
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Autokey: Make Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts In Linux
By | September 28, 2010 |
Few days ago, we discussed the usefulness of Spark and how it enables you to create custom shortcut keys in Mac. Alternatively, in Windows, we can use the popular AutoHotKey to create custom shortcuts. So what about Linux? Autokey is probably the best answer.
AutoKey is a desktop automation utility for Linux and X11. It allows you to create scripts and assign hotkeys to these scripts, allowing you to execute them on demand in whatever program you are using.
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6 More Greasemonkey Scripts for Your Browsing Enjoyment
By | June 11, 2010 |
We’ve previously covered Greasemonkey, an unbelievably useful Firefox extension that allows you to run user-created scripts that enhance what Firefox can do. Now, these scripts are no longer confined to Firefox. Chrome, Opera, and Safari also have support for user scripts, although sometimes with limitations. These scripts provide a huge range of capabilities, like revising YouTube video controls and adding email notification icons to the browser window. There are thousands of such scripts available at UserScripts.org, so we here at Make Tech Easier decided to sift through the pile and pick out some of the very best ones. Without further introduction, here are the scripts.
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25 Time Saving Bookmarklets You Will Want to Have in Your Browser
By | November 3, 2009 |
I noticed recently that many sites, applications and services are offering bookmarklets. I know I have about 40 of them, of which I use 10 very regularly.
For those of you who don’t use bookmarklets or arent quite sure what they are, here is a brief description.
What are Bookmarklets?
Bookkmarklets are a tiny java script application designed to add one click functionality to your web browser. There are hundreds of different uses, many of which save the need to run a desktop program.
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Mac: How to Create a Basic Script With Automator
By | September 3, 2009 |
If you are one of the growing number of Apple users, you have likely come across a strange looking robot guy in your Applications folder. For a long time I ignored this application. It looks pretty confusing when you open it up. All that is on the screen 3 columns; one with application names, one with actions and the last is a big blank window to drag the scripts to.
This can be very intimidating if you have absolutely no idea what yo do next. Sure you can randomly drag actions into the window then hit run to see what happens. Odds are you will get an error or nothing will happen. After a few times of trying without success, most people give up and tell people on Twitter it sucks.
The first step in the process is to decide what you want automated. The example below is very simple. Batch Image Scale is something I use all the time. I have a couple different image scale scripts for different sizes. Setting multiple versions up may take you a few extra minutes initially, but it saves a lot of time in the future.
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