gksu gedit /etc/hostname

You should see a line stating your current hostname. For eg. damien-desktop

2. Change the hostname to something you desired. Save and close the file.

3. Back in your terminal, type:

gksu gedit /etc/hosts

4. Change the line:

127.0.1.1	damien-desktop

to

127.0.1.1	your-new-hostname

Save and close the file.

Restart the computer. Your new hostname should appear in the terminal now.

sudo apt-get clean 
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade

The “clean” command did nothing.

The sudo apt-get update command came up with an error:

Reading package lists... Done
W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 16126D3A3E5C1192 Ubuntu Extras Archive Automatic Signing Key <ftpmaster@ubuntu.com>
 
W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: http://archive.canonical.com oneiric Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 40976EAF437D05B5 Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key <ftpmaster@ubuntu.com>
 
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG E0319082F37F3AB0 Launchpad fixes for aprsd
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 73AD8184264CE9C6 Launchpad PPA for Simon Schneegans
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG DFB844B8BB91632D Launchpad PPA for Weather Indicator Team
W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG C2518248EEA14886 Launchpad VLC
 
W: Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/Release  
 
W: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/Release  
 
W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/gnome3/ubuntu/dists/oneiric/Release  
 
W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Did you notice the last few lines? Those are the crucial ones and we need to focus on it. It says:

W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: http://extras.ubuntu.com oneiric Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 16126D3A3E5C1192 Ubuntu Extras Archive Automatic Signing Key <ftpmaster@ubuntu.com>

That is our culprit here: Invalid signature error BADSIG.

How to solve The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG error?

To remove the bad signature error, open the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and use the commands given below one by one:

sudo apt-get clean 
cd /var/lib/apt 
sudo mv lists lists.old 
sudo mkdir -p lists/partial 
sudo apt-get clean 
sudo apt-get update

After using these commands you should get rid of the errors and your Update Manager should be working fine.

Still got problem? Do tell me if you still facing difficulties with the BADSIG or Ubuntu Update Manger. I would like to help you out. Keep in touch by subscribing to the newsletter. Enjoy :)

Image credit: Big Stock Photo

This tutorial will discuss some of the best and most popular beginner-friendly Terminal tricks and tips to be found on the Internet.

Disclaimer

Usually it takes destructive behaviour or terrible luck to ruin your Mac’s OS X installation beyond repair, but using the Terminal could potentially bypass such safety and enable a user to cause themselves serious headaches, or even (in extreme cases) a completely ruined operating system. This is very unlikely and as long as you steer clear from “sudo” commands which require you to enter your password, you should be perfectly safe. However, I strongly advise you to back up your Mac fully and proceed at your own risk!

Some tips may only work for a particular OS, though I’ve taken care to only select Terminal commands which should mostly work on Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion.

Show Hidden Files

Though OS X doesn’t really place much emphasis on hidden files and folders, some files and folders are hidden by default. This is usually for good reason and deleting the wrong thing can cause issues, but if you wish to show the hidden files, then enter the following code:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true

To undo this command, replace true with false.

Enable 2D Dock

If you’ve ever moved your Dock to the left or right of screen (depending on which OS X version you’re running), you may have seen the 2D Dock shown above. If you’d like to enable the 2D Dock in all positions, enter the following into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

Now restart your Dock to make the changes take effect by entering

killall Dock

To put your Dock back to normal, replace the “YES”‘ in the above code to “NO” and restart the Dock once again by entering the above killall command.

Disable Dashboard

I’ve never been a big fan of the Dashboard as it’s something of a RAM hog and I like it to be completely disabled in case I accidentally launch it. If you would like to do so too, enter this into Terminal and hit return:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

Once again restart Dock to make the changes take effect.

killall Dock

To undo this command and bring back Dashboard, just change “YES” to “NO” and restart your Dock by entering the killall command once again (note: the killall command can actually be inserted into the same line of code to save time, I’m making it separate here to give you a sense of what exactly is happening).

Show The Library Folder In OS X Lion

OS X Lion comes with the Library folder hidden by default but this can make troubleshooting any issues with your Mac, deleting the cache or just plain “tinkering” very difficult. In order to bring back the Library folder permanently, enter this command into Terminal:

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

Hide Desktop Icons

A nice clean Desktop looks great but sometimes it’s not practical to keep all your files organised. If you’d like to hide all the icons on your Desktop through a Terminal command, enter the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false

Then our friend the killall command once again

killall Finder

When you wish to bring your Desktop clutter back, copy and paste the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true

Then enter the killall command.

Launch An Application

In order to launch applications from the Terminal, just follow this template, replacing Twitter with the name of whichever program you’d like to launch:

open -a Twitter

Kill A Process

If you need to quickly kill a process or application, type the following into Terminal, replacing Twitter with whichever process you’d like to kill.

killall Twitter

Open A Finder Window In Current Directory

To quickly open a Finder window in whichever directory you’re currently in, enter the following into Terminal

open .

Change Grab’s Default Image Format

OS X’s built-in screenshot utility Grab is very useful but if you’d like it to save files as JPG, enter the following into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

(note: You can also change jpg to png if preferred).

Conclusion

I hope that you’ve found some usefulness from these Terminal commands and that it encourages you to learn more about the power which can be unlocked from within the command-line. You can usually find an application which takes care of each of the commands posted above, but that’s a lot less informative and a lot less fun!

For the command-line veterans amongst our readers; if you’ve got any Terminal commands or tips which I’ve missed (and I’m sure there are several), please let us know about them in the comments below.

While Apple does release new batch of definition files in its daily updates, some users have reported that the files have not been automatically updating the way that they should. This procedure shows you how to check if your virus definition files are up to date, and if not, how you can update them manually.

Check To See if Your Malware Definition Is Up To Date

1. In the Spotlight, search for “terminal“. Open the Terminal app.

2. Copy and paste this command:

more /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/XProtect.meta.plist

4. In the code that comes up, you should see a last modification date in the code. If this date is today, you do not need to update. If it is not today, then you need to update your virus definitions manually. The date line should look like this:

How to Update You Virus Definitions

You are going to love this one because it is so simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Open your System Preferences.

2. Click on the “Security Preferences” pane.

3. Uncheck the box next to the word “Automatically update safe downloads list”.

4. Re-check the box.

There you have it. You will have your files automatically updated. You might want to double check your system with the same command to see if the file is is up to date. If you see today’s date, then you are good to go. If not, you might need to check your Mac for 1. virus that prevent the system for auto-update, 2. software defects.

There you have it, the best way to make sure that your system is up to date on the virus definitions that are available to you.

Image credit: ?rakaz

Overview

Let’s say you’re at the command line, and you’re running a long process like a kernel recompile. On some machines, that can take up to an hour. An average user might sit and wait. A clever user might background the job, or use the function keys to open a new TTY login. A screen user, however, has already thought ahead. Had screen been launched first (or automatically – more on that later) that user would just hit the proper key combo to create a new shell. And another, and another, if desired. Each one operates independently of the others and all output will remain on the appropriate screen session.

Some of you who like to use the ALT-CTRL-(F1 through F4) method may wonder how screen is any better. Several reasons actually, some of which would be:

1. Not limited to number of function keys
2. Ability to name each screen
3. Ability to detach/reattach screen sessions
4. “Status Bar” support
5. Multi-user shared screens
6. Split screens

A LOTS more.

Getting Started

As screen is included in nearly every major Linux distro, this guide will not cover installation. The simplest way to launch screen is to just open a terminal and type

screen

You might get a welcome screen, but otherwise you may not notice anything different. It just looks like a normal terminal right?

What you’re actually seeing is the default screen session, and you can think of it as a layer over your shell. Should you exit or detach the session, you’d be returned to your normal screen-less shell.

Adding and Navigating Screens

For starters, you’ll need to know one major key combo. This is the “magic” key combo that lets you access all the individual commands. What is this magical combination? Ctrl-A. For example, Ctrl-A followed by c will create a new screen. Ctrl-A and n will move to the next screen in line (if one exists). The following includes many of the most common action keys (all keys are case-sensitive):

• c – Create a new screen
• n – Move to next screen
• p – Move to previous screen
• S – Split screen into stacked regions
• | – Split to side-by-side regions (might not work on all systems)
• d – Detach screen
• A – Set screen title

Attaching/Detaching Screens

While there are many great uses for screen, this function could be called screen’s bread and butter. The ability to detach a screen, leaving it running, and pick it back up later is invaluable.

Let’s say you’re running the Minecraft server from last week, and it’s running on an old PC under your bed. Normally if you wanted to, say, enter commands at the server console, you’d have to pull out the machine, dig out a keyboard and monitor, run your commands, and push it all back. Had the server software been started in a screen session, you can just SSH into the server, re-attach the screen, and do what you need. When done, detach the screen, and the server will keep running even after you close the SSH session. Days/weeks/months later, you can log back into the server and reattach that screen to enter new commands.

.screenrc

Finally, we could not cover screen without at least a brief mention of the ~/.screenrc file. There are many many uses for this file, but as this is an introductory guide, we will not cover all possible options. Instead, we’ll just point out the well-loved hardstatus setting.

This option gives you a fantastically useful info bar that will persist across all screen sessions. Typically, it’s placed at the bottom and holds info such as time, hostname, and title/number of the current screen.

You can find example hardstatus codes all over the net with your preferred search engine, but here are a few to get you started.

#1

hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{= kG}[ %{G}%H %{g}][%= %{= kw}%?%-Lw%?%{r}(%{W}%n*%f%t%?(%u)%?%{r})%{w}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{g}][%{B} %d/%m %{W}%c %{g}]'

#2

hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string "%{+b Rk}(%{-b g}$LOGNAME@%H%{+b R}) (%{-b g}%C %a%{+b R}) %{-b g} %n %t %h"

#3

hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{= M} %H%{= G} %l %= %{= w}%-w%{+b r}%n*%t%{-b r}%{w}%+w %= %{c}%d %D %{B}%c '

Installing Bashish

Not all the links on the Bashish Download Page seem to be working, however the source tarball is working fine. Once extracted, it can be installed from the command line with

./configure && make && sudo make install

If you need details on the above steps, see How to Install Software from a Tarball in Linux.

You’ll need to restart your shell for Bashish to take effect.

Choosing Themes

Bashish comes with several themes in the base package, and you can list them with the command

bashish list

And once you’ve seen a theme you’d like to try, just enter

bashish (theme name)

There is an alternate method, which will allow you to browse the themes instead of specifying one-at-a-time, but in the tests performed for this article, the theme manager failed to apply changes to theme selection, so the above method is recommended. Should you wish to try the theme manager, it can be run with the command bashishtheme and requires the dialog program in order to run properly.

Disabling Bashish

There are some cases in which Bashish might cause problems with software run through it, so the developers have included a fairly simple way to temporarily suspend Bashish for the duration of a process. To run a command without Bashish, run it as

BASHISH_DISABLED=1 your_command

Recommended Themes

Of the themes included with Bashish, there are a few that stand out as especially cool (at least in this author’s opinion). The following themes are the ones we’d most recommend, either for usefulness or simply because of the cool factor.

The Box theme applies a border around each section of your output, marking a clear distinction between events.

The Bashish2 theme is an elegant 2-liner with some minimal information.

The default theme BlueSteel, and with good reason. It looks lovely and contains several bits of useful info.

Elite and Elite2 are favorites as well, because they pack a lot of info into a small space, and include bash history number in the top line.

The LCARS theme is clearly more about style than substance, as it’s intended to resemble the LCARS computer interface seen on several Star Trek series. It doesn’t give much in the ways of useful info, and it takes up a lot of space, but it deserves a mention.

Finally, for those who want a clear visual split between commands, but not a bunch of text in the way, we’ve got the simplistic Uberprompt.

Conclusion

If you want a fancy shell without trying to decode a line like PS1=”\[\033[35m\]\t\[\033[m\]-\[\033[36m\]\u\[\033[m\]@\[\033[32m\]\h:\[\033[33;1m\]\w\[\033[m\]\$ “ to do it, Bashish is a great way to go. There are enough built-in themes to satisfy just about anyone, and for the most part, they look great. This author will probably be using BlueSteel for quite a while.

Regardless which camp you belong, as long as you are using Linux (doesn’t matter which distro), you are sure to hit the terminal and type some commands into it at some point of time. Why not embrace it and take the opportunity to learn something new?

Here are some websites, tools and tricks that you can make use of to learn Linux command line. This is in no way a comprehensive list, but will be a good start for those who wish to get started.

Note: The “command line” stated here can refer to the bash commands you type in the terminal, or writing your own bash scripts.

Website

1. Linux Command.org

LinuxCommand.org is a site on… you guess it, Linux command. If you know absolutely nothing about the command line, this is a good starting ground. LinuxCommand is more like a school, where it teaches you from the basic, such as “what is a shell?” to simple command usage and lastly, advanced techniques like “how to write your own shell scripts“.

http://linuxcommand.org

2. CommandLineFu

There are often cases when you want to get things done on the terminal, but can’t remember the exact code. When such cases occur, a good place to check out is CommandLineFu. Just think of a social network for command line and you get CommandLineFu. CommandlineFu is the place where people share the commonly used bash code so you just have to copy/paste the code to the terminal instead of writing your own. It is also a great way to discover the infinite possibilities that you can do on the terminal.

CommandlineFu

3. ShellFu

Similar to CommandlineFu, ShellFu is also a place where you can find plenty of codes, examples and uses of the command line. What makes it different is that ShellFu is more like a blog (rather than a social network), is moderated and there is no vote up/down feature.

ShellFu

4. O’Reilly Linux Command and SS64

O’Reilly Linux Command and SS64 bash are both a good place to go if you need just a quick reference of a particular command. All the commands are sorted in alphabetical order, so you can easily find the commands you want.

O’Reilly Linux Command
SS64

Tools

5. CLI Companion

CLI Companion is a replacement for your default terminal. It is divided into two panes. The upper pane is a library of the commonly used bash command and the lower pane is the actual terminal. You can scroll through the library to find the command you want, right click on it and select “Apply”. The command will get executed in the terminal below.

In Ubuntu, you can install via the command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:clicompanion-devs/clicompanion-nightlies

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install clicompanion

6. Ebook – Bash Guide For Beginners

For beginners who like to learn bash command on the move, a good way is to download the free ebook – Bash Guide For Beginners and read it on your mobile devices. The ebook contains (almost) every single things you need to know about bash command. Even if you are experience with bash command, it never hurts to have a ebook by your side where you can refer from time to time.

Bash Guide For Beginners

Tricks

Here are some tricks that you can use to increase your productivity.

7. Bash Autocompletion

One easy way to get around bash is to use the autocompletion feature. When you are halfway through typing a command, you just have to press the “Tab” button on your keyboard and it will autocomplete your command for you. If it can’t understand your command, it will show a list of options for you to choose.

8. Creating alias

If you frequently use the same command over and over again, it is a good idea to add an alias for that command. An alias is just a short for a (long) command. You can use aliases for a variety of reasons, such as shortening a long command or making the Linux shell act more like a Windows/Mac/Solaris/BSD/Whatever shell.

Creating bash alias

9. Mastering the bash history

The bash history contains the list of the commands that you have used before. To access your bash history, the simplest way is to use the Up/Down arrow key in the terminal. More bash history tricks can be found at the link below.

Mastering bash history

10. Using of bash prompt

Bash prompt is the result that appears when you enter a bash command. Most people are using the default system setting (gray color), not knowing that they can change the prompt settings and get it to display additional information and colors.

bash prompt

As I said above, this is by no means the most comprehensive list around and I am sure there are plenty of other useful websites, tools and tricks that I have left out. Do tell us about it in the comments.

Let’s take a look at the magic that Nautilus Elementary adds to your Nautilus

Terminal in Nautilus

Most of the newbie that just started using Ubuntu (or any other Linux distro) are scared of the terminal, and the bash command. What Nautilus Elementary does is to embed a terminal right inside your Nautilus. Simply press F7 or go to View -> Embed Terminal to reveal the terminal.

When you browse any folder in Nautilus, the file path in the Nautilus terminal will automatically “cd” to the browser that you are in. You can then type the name of the script or application to run it.

You can also right click to copy/paste the commands. Furthermore, there is also a configuration option for you to customize the look and feel of the terminal. Cool!

At the moment, it doesn’t support drag and drop file to the terminal (just like in Mac). It will be great if it does, or get implemented in the future.

Clutterflow

The Clutterflow feature allows you to view your files/folders in cover flow style. You can press the left/right button on the keyboard, or the scrollwheel to navigate.

Note: For those who are using Intel hardware, you might have issue getting the clutterflow to display. Here’s what you can do to fix it:

Open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/environment

Add the following line to the end of the file

export CLUTTER_VBLANK=none

Restart your computer (or just logout and login again).

Integrate Zeitgeist as the search engine

For those who have not heard of zeitgeist, it is a service that logs the users’s activities and events (files opened, websites visites, conversations hold with other people, etc.) and provide the relevant information for third party applications. With zeitgeist, when you perform a search in Nautilus, it will display the most recent files that you have accessed (even before you have typed any search term). You can then filter from there to get the files you want.

Update: To make use of the zeitgeist search, you have to make sure that zeitgeist is installed in your Ubuntu. Optionally, you might also want to install Gnome Activity Journal.

sudo apt-get install zeitgeist gnome-activity-journal

Tweaks

Nautilus Elementary comes with several tweaks that enhances the Nautilus and turn it into a user-friendly file manager. The tweaks can be accessed from Edit -> Preferences -> Tweaks.

Things that you can tweak including:

• Enable rgba transparency
• relocate the toolbar to vertical orientation
• use breadcrumb for the file path
• show zoom slider + icons + view widget

Installation of Nautilus Elementary

Lastly, here is how you can get Nautilus Elementary to run in your system.

In a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:am-monkeyd/nautilus-elementary-ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

With all the useful enhancements Nautilus Elementary adds to your Nautilus file manager, there is really no reason why you shouldn’t install it. One thing to note, most of the features listed above are only available for Ubuntu Maverick. So if you haven’t upgrade your system, do it now for the awesomeness.

There are so many advantages which come when you jailbreak your iPhone. Some of them include the use of Twidget which enables you to view your tweets on lock screen and the use of Winterboard to let you manage the themes in your iPhone. Additionally, jailbreaking your iPhone will give you total control over your iPhone file system. However, once your iPhone is jailbroken, it will become vulnerable and less secure; you will need to take extra measure to retain its security.

One reason why the hacker was able to get into the iPhones of the victims is because they haven’t changed the default password after they had them jailbroken. Considering the fact that “alpine” is the default password of the root directory, and that the whole world knows about this, you should take some time to change it into your own password which no one knows about–except you.

Perhaps, the reason why people leave their password unchanged after jailbreaking their iPhone is because they do not know how. If you are one of them, then this would be the guide you are looking for…

Change the Root Password of your iPhone

Before anything else, I assume you had your iPhone jailbroken…

1. Open Cydia and install MobileTerminal app; you will need this to launch the Terminal app.

2. Launch the Terminal app. Key in this command:

su

Now, key in the default password:

alpine

By doing this, you will be able to log in as the “root” user. It means that you will be able to access everything inside your iPhone while using this user. Also, always remember that the passwords will not be shown/echoed on screen.

3. Once you have done all of the above, you are ready to proceed to this next step.

Key in this command:

passwd

This command will let you change the password for the “root” user.  After you key it in, you will then be prompted to type and confirm your new password.

And that’s it! I am sure you will find this tutorial easy enough to follow. But anyway, let me remind you that you also need to have a strong password; what’s the use of having a password if anyone can easily crack it, right?

Choose a Strong Password

This one may not be new to you. However, there are still people who do not know how to create a password which is harder to crack. The fact is, majority of the people use their birthdays, surnames or a combination of their first and last names plus their birthdays. Believe me, those passwords can be easily cracked even by a grade-schooler. Here is a quick guide for you to come up with a really good password;

1. Always use a combination of Numbers, Letters and Characters.
2. Capitalize some of the Letters randomly.
3. Have as many characters as possible in your password. A minimum of six characters would be good enough.
4. Never ever use your First Name, Last Name, Birthday or the names of your family and friends. More often, people know more about you than you think they do.
5. If possible, use a string of characters which you can easily type without even looking at the keyboard.
6. Do not use any actual word because crackers have dictionaries which contain millions of possible passwords that they can easily run to crack your password. Never ever use the word “password.”
7. Always find an easy way to remember your passwords. Writing them down is always the worst option you can have.
8. Above all, never ever give your password to anyone.

More often, we treat our iPhones as diaries which hold some of our personal information which we do not want to be exposed to anyone we don’t know. Therefore, making them more secure is the best thing we can do to protect our privacy. I hope this article is helpful enough. If you think I lack some important things in here, please feel free to leave comments or suggestions below. Or, if you want to get updates from this site, enter your email below.

iPhone applications can easily be backed up using iTunes, but what about the Cydia Applications? No, these ones will NOT be taken care by iTunes.

There are actually two ways to back Cydia applications.

1. AptBackup

The first one is by using AptBackup which you can also get from Cydia itself. This may be the easiest way but here’s the downside:

AptBackup makes a list of all your installed Cydia apps which you can backup through iTunes and restore it later. Now, when that list has been restored to your gadget after the upgrade, Cydia will take it as reference to automatically search and install all the apps in the list. HOWEVER, AptBackup is not really that successful in doing its job as there have been so many complaints about it. I am not discouraging you to use it, but if I were you, I will not depend solely on this method to back my apps.

2. The manual way

To be able to do this, you will need to be able to transfer files between your iPhone and computer. You can use OpenSSH or DiskAid to do that. Anyway, I have to assume that you already know how to do that. If not, read this post first so that you will know How to Copy Files To/From Your iPhone.

1. Make sure that your jailbroken iPhone has Gawk, MobileTerminal and OpenSSH installed in it. These can all be found in Cydia.

2. If you are ready, just launch the Terminal app, and carefully execute the following commands;

Type/Key in the command

su

followed by your password. Remember, your password will not be displayed. If you don’t remember changing the root password, then simply key in “alpine” (without quotes). After which, simply tap the Return Key.

Next, type this:

dpkg -l | grep ^ii | awk '{print $2}' > /var/root/cydiabkup.txt

and hit the Return Key. This command will automatically list down all your installed Cydia apps into a text file cydiabkup.txt.

The next important thing to do is to transfer cydiabkup.txt into your computer using SSH or DiskAid. This is how your text file looks like:

Once you have the cydiabkup.txt copied to your computer, you are free to do the upgrade process.

Restoring Cydia Applications

1. After you have upgraded and jailbroke your phone, reinstall OpenSSH, Gawk and MobileTerminal from Cydia. Additionally, you need to install APT 0.7 Strict which can also be found in Cydia. These packages are all required to transfer files from your computer to your iPhone.

Important Note: You need to disable the Auto-Lock first before you proceed with the rest of the steps. To do that, go to “Settings -> General -> Auto-Lock” and tap “Never.”

2. You will need to download the install-cydia-app package. After which, just unzip it, to find the install-cydia-app.sh.

3. With the use of DiskAid or SSH, transfer the file cydiabkup.txt and install-cydia-app.sh to the /var/root directory of your iPhone.

4. Launch the Terminal App to execute the following;

Type/Key in the command

su

followed by your password.

Next, type this:

sh /var/root/install-cydia-app.sh

and tap the Return Key.

After running the command, your iPhone will automatically search, download and install the apps on the list. If you see the prompt “After this operation, xxxMB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]?“, just tap the letter “Y” and Return Key. The installation time may very depending on the number of apps in the list.

Once the installation is done, just restart your iPhone and all your Cydia applications will be restored.

This process may seems geekery to most of you, but if you are able to jailbreak your iPhone, you shouldn’t have any problems getting this done too. Should you encounter any trouble and problems, don’t hesitate to leave your comments below.

Pastebin 101

For those who’ve never used pastebin, it’s a very simple service. You enter in some text, and the website saves it to its own location. That’s it. You, or anyone else who has that URL, can view the text. It’s meant to be used by programmers and such to share things like code snippets and log messages. Fortunately, it lets you choose how long your text will remain on the server. If we save our .bashrc here, we can always return to it later to get what we need. You can choose, when saving your file, how long to keep the files stored on Pastebin.com.

If you stop here and just go the normal route, your file will be given an URL like http://pastebin.com/d535effd9. That’s not so easy to remember, so we go one step further and use…

“Private” Pastebin

A clever feature to Pastebin.com is that it allows you to create your own personal subdomain on the fly. For example, instead of going to just http://pastebin.com, you use your name as a subdomain (ie http://joshprice.pastebin.com) you’ll get your own little section to leave your text. Now, the word “private” is quotes here because there’s nothing keeping anyone else from accessing that same “private” area. In fact, if you have a common name and you try the method I suggested, you may find that someone else is already placing files there. Keep toying around until you can find something unique.

As you can see, the title now shows that we’re in my own private pastebin. Once again, there is nothing stopping anyone else from accessing that location and adding/changing files, it’s just a name space you can use to access things you’ve saved.

You may notice that the “Recent Posts” section in the top-left now shows only the posts in this private space. I can go back here in a year and see all the notes I’ve saved so far (presuming I told them to live that long, and no one else has changed them).

Saving Your .bashrc

Fill up your .bashrc (or whatever else you’d like to save on pastebin) with the settings you want. If you haven’t already, create a unique private space as described in the previous section. Paste in the contents of your file, choose how long you’d like to to stay on the server, and hit Send. You’ll be taken to the URL of your text file, which you can save or send to others.

Retrieving Your .bashrc

There are a few ways you could go about putting your file back on your system once the install is complete.

Simplest - Open your private pastebin address and the post you’re looking for. Highlight all the text, open your exising .bashrc file and add the pastebin info to the end.

Command Line - From your browser, open your private pastebin address and the post you’re looking for. You’ll see a Download button in the header bar above your post. Right-click the link and choose “Copy Link Location” (or your browser’s equivalent). From the command line, enter

wget -O ~/.bashrc (pastebin link location)

to save the file from pastebin directly into the local .bashrc file, overwriting the existing contents. If you’re able to remember the URL of your file so you don’t have to open the website, this may be the fastest method, and it wouldn’t require a browser at all.

Recommended - Open your private pastebin address and the post you’re looking for. You’ll see a Download button in the header bar above your post. Instead of 826492.txt or whatever filename it gives you, save it in your home as something like bashrc-custom. You can add the line

source bashrc-custom

to the existing .bashrc file, so that you get all the shell options the distro included as well as your customizations.

And even that doesn’t stop OS X from throwing that annoying beach ball icon at you right when you’re at your most productive phase of the day?

If the answer to that is yes, read on!

Mac OS X normally is a pretty good multi tasking operating system but like all operating systems, OS X also has it’s limits and while it tries to make maximum use of the RAM and CPU power available to it (and multiple cores, if you’re using a grand central enabled application), there will always be times when you have to face the beach ball.

All current generation of Macs come with a fairly generous amount of RAM so running out of RAM is not that real a problem and if an application still needs to use more RAM than a certain threshold, the operating system’s swap and memory management routines kick in to handle that.

CPU cycles, on the other hand, are always in short supply. If you’re into any kind of multimedia creation or editing, you’d know what I mean.

So, what exactly are your options when an application you’re running starts consuming the CPU like there’s no tomorrow ?

Well, the first option is pretty straightforward. Find the errant application and close it. You can find the CPU usage of all applications by looking at the Activity Monitor.

To kill an application just select it and click the Red Quit Process button. Can’t be easier than that !

The only problem with this approach is that you lose whatever tasks you were doing in that application and there really is no way to get them back unless the application itself has a feature to save your tasks and resume.

But, it turns out that there is another way to deal with this problem.

Mac OS X provides a method by which you can “pause” an application instead of quitting it and then later when you want to get back to it, continue running the application from exactly the point where you left it.

The first thing that you’d need is the process identifier (PID) of the particular process that you want to pause. This is the number given in the first column of the Activity Monitor window. Note down this number. We’ll be using it pretty soon.

Now fire up the Terminal application (From the Applications->Utilities folder) and use the kill command as shown in the screenshot below

Most people think that the Kill command is only used to kill a process on Unix based systems. But, the fact is that this command can be used to send any OS defined signal to an application and STOP is one such signal that Mac OS X defines. What it does is that it stops (or pauses) whatever tasks the applications is performing and takes away control of the CPU from it. Your tasks are still kept in memory and are safe.

kill -STOP <PID>

You can check the status of the process in the Activity Monitor and it should be consuming 0% of the CPU now.

When you’re done with your work and want to get back to the paused process, just use the same kill command to pass another signal, CONT this time, to the process using the same PID that you used earlier.

kill -CONT <PID>

That’s it. You have successfully paused and restarted a process on Mac OS X. You can now happily continue with your work as if nothing ever happened.

I had always set a special desktop just for my terminals. Readers of some of my other articles may have noticed that when setting up virtual desktops, I always set Desktop #2 for my terminals. I typically have more than one open, so they have their own desktop workspace. I put it in between my Browser and Text workspaces because I’m frequently copy/pasting to and from those other workspaces so it makes sense to be next to each other. When a friend suggested I try Yakuake (thanks AWOL!) I was a bit reluctant, as my current setup had always worked so well. I installed it anyway, and within a week I was converted.

To see why, let’s get Yakuake installed. On Ubuntu or any other Debian-style distribution, open a regular terminal and type in:

sudo apt-get install yakuake

You could of course use whatever package installation method you prefer.

Once installed, run

yakuake &

from the command line. The “&” at the end is just a bash code to run this program in the background so you can still use your current terminal screen even while Yakuake is running.

Once it loads up you’ll be shown a notice that the program is started. You’ll also be given an option to change which key is used to make the menu appear. By default, it’s set to F12 but you can set it to whatever you’d like. Of course, it’s a good idea to pick a key you don’t normally use in other programs.

Once that’s done, hit F12 or whatever other key you specified to make the terminal appear. It should look something like this:

Pretty good, but it could be better. To improve Yakuake’s functionality, there are a few preferences we can set. To open the configuration screen, look in the bottom right corner for the button shown here:

This will open the menu where you can choose “Configure Yakuake”. There are a decent number of config options to choose from.

On the first page, the one titled Window, you can set things like the size of the Yakuake window. If you don’t use the terminal much, then it might be wise to set the width to something smaller than the default 90%. Something like 50% might be more appropriate. If, like me, you tend to use the terminal often, I’d suggest leaving the window nice and wide because (as we’ll cover in a moment) the Yakuake window can be split into panes, so you can fit 2, 4, however many terminals you like into the single Yakuake window.

The next configuration page is the Behavior config. On here, I’d suggest unchecking “Keep window open when it loses focus”. Having this unchecked will make Yakuake disappear as soon as you click away onto another program. I also tend to remove the option for “Show startup notification popup”. Otherwise you’ll get a little notice in the corner every time the program loads. Personally, I don’t see a point in that.

The final config page is the Appearance section. Everything on there is pretty self-explanatory so I won’t go into much detail on that, except to say that you can enable translucency to get a nice semi-transparent look to your Yakuake window. It requires you to be running X with compositing enabled (which should be the default on most modern setups).

The last feature I’d like to cover is one I mentioned earlier in this article, the ability to split the Yakuake window into multiple terminal sessions. That’s easily done by right-clicking the “+” icon in the bottom-left corner of the Yakuake window. You can choose how to arrange those terminals inside the window if you have a preference between, say, a horizontal split or a vertical split.

You can also left-click the “+” button to have multiple terminals in tabs instead of split screen if you want the full window space for one terminal.

Have you used Yakuake or something similar in the past? How has it worked out for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Terminator is a simple program that allows you to load multiple terminals and arrange them in grid. It is useful when you need to access to various terminals at the same time.

Some of the feature in Terminator includes:

• Arrange terminals in grid
• multiple tabs
• drag and drop reordering of terminal
• keyboard shortcuts
• config file to override gnome-terminal setting

To install terminator, you can either click here or in your terminal, type

sudo apt-get install terminator

Go to Applications -> Accessories -> Terminator

To split terminator horizontal, right click and select Split Horizontally.

Similarly, to split terminator vertically, select Split Vertically.

You can also drag and drop the terminal to rearrange them or to resize them to your liking.

Customizing the Terminator

There are many things that you can personalize in Terminator. You can set the font type, font size, background color, transparency level, background images, and many others options. You can also define custom shortcut key for easier and faster handling of the application.

Terminator with preset background

Terminator with transparent background (Click to enlarge)

Go to your Home folder. Press Ctrl + H to display the hidden files.

Click on the .config folder. If the terminator folder does not exist, create a new folder and name it terminator.

Open your text editor (gedit). Save the new file with the name config (without any extension) in the /home/.config/terminator folder.

You can find the list of customization option here. To personalize terminator, simply paste the option to the config file and set its respective value. For example, if you want to set the background to display image, paste the following code and set the respective value for each option:

background_type = image
background_image = /home/damien/wallpaper/nature.jpg

Setting custom shortcut key

The default shortcut key for Terminator follows that of the Gnome Terminal. If you want to overwrite the default setting and define your own shortcut key, insert the placeholder to the config file, follow by the respective shortcut key command. For example, to change the split horizontal shortcut key to Ctrl + Shift + H,

[KEYBINDING]
split_horiz = <Ctrl><Shift>H

[Terminator]

Open up your Finder and go to Application -> Utilities. Open the Terminal app.

Type emacs. You will see a lot of text. If you don’t understand, just ignore it.

Press the ‘escape’ button on your keyboard, follow by ‘X’.

Type ‘tetris’ (in lowercase and without the quote) and press ‘Enter’.

Use the arrow keys to move the block left/right and the arrow-up key to change shape. Space to drop the block.

Enjoy!

[via TUAW]