Author Archives: Laz

grsync – a great backup and file sync tool

by

0

grsync_maingrsync_aboutGreetings everyone, I am back with more information about backing up your files.  I know, I know, talking about backups might be boring, but one day a good backup will save your butt, I guarantee it.  Previously I posted an article extolling the virtues of rsync, a very powerful command line tool for syncing files both locally and across networks via SSH.  This is great for command line addicts like myself, and especially because you can use it in scripts such that along with shared keys and keychain it becomes a powerful tool in your arsenal of sysadmin goodies.

Now, for folks that aren’t command like geeks, or maybe just want a quick and easy way to backup some files, there is a nifty little tool called grsync.  This is (as you can probably guess from the name) a gui for the command line rsync, making it much more user friendly.  Also, it’s quite nice for pointing and clicking what you want, and then seeing what the command it will use is, a learning tool.

The home of grsync is here:

http://www.opbyte.it/grsync/

For Debian, Ubuntu users you can find it in the repositories.

64-bit Linux Running Google Gears In Firefox

by

0

Description and Problem:

Google Gears is a plug-in that extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications. There are many Web applications that currently make use of Google Gears. Some of these include Google Docs, Google Reader, MySpace, Picasa, Zoho and (the reason for this post) now even WordPress. Google Gears, or simply just Gears as it is now known, not only enables offline browsing of supported sites, but it can also greatly improve the performance of these sites and web applications like WordPress. This makes working with supported web applications much nicer.

Now, my problem (and many others of you out there) has been that I am running 64-bit Ubuntu (8.04 Hardy Heron) and Google has not made a 64-bit version of their Gears software. They cite lack of time and testing resources, but my guess is it’s not that important to them since there probably aren’t too many 64-bit users out there. Luckilly for us, Gears is an open source project. This is now a prime example of the beauty of open source software, in that some really smart people created an “unofficial” patch that allows you to install and run Gears on 64-bit Linux in Firefox. In my case it’s Ubuntu and Firefox 3.x, but I have read folk that have had success with SuSE and others as well. It only took me about five minutes once I found the patch.

Here are the steps I took to get this installed, up and running:

Grab the latest version of the Gears binary that has been patched for 64bit at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~swolchok/gears/, I used this command:

wget http://www-personal.umich.edu/~swolchok/gears/gears-linux-opt-0.4.9.0.xpi

Open Firefox and choose File->Open File and browse to where you saved the file you just downloaded. It should open an install window, you want to press the “Install Now” button to start the install.

Once the install is complete, press the “Restart Firefox” button to restart Firefox and complete the installation.

Summary:

For me, upon the initial restart, I got an error about this addon not being compatible with my architecture. Despite that it seems to work fine, and I haven’t gotten any more errors since then, so I would suggest you simply ignore that error.

Lastly, go to a site that is supported, add it to Gears and enjoy! If you have any questions or comments, post ’em below.

Nintendo DS (Lite) versus Sony PSP

by

0

OK all you gamers out there.  I am thinking of getting a toy for Christmas, for me that is, I already have stuff for the kiddies 🙂  I am thinking of getting some kind of hand held video game system, and I have it pretty much narrowed down to two options.  These options are the Nintendo DS (Lite) or the Sony PSP, are there any more nowadays?  Having said that, I guess the real question is what are your experiences with these two units, which one do you prefer?  I have read a lot about them, and it kind of seems like it’s a toss up, mostly decided by personal preference and gaming style/tastes.  I wanted to get your opinions though, so jump in the forums and share your thoughts, ideas and experiences with these cool toys.  Maybe you know of something other than one of these two that is better, I dunno.  Tell me what is on your mind, and what you think!

PowerUp Your Shell With Your Profile

by

0

How about some neat-o shell tricks for everyone to play with? I figured out some neat things the other day while trying to add some functionality to my shell, specifically through scripts or the profile.  What I found was that the magic is in the profile!

Have you ever wanted to have commands that performed certain functions from quick keystrokes rather than long command lines? Of course you have, that’s why we all set aliases in our profiles like ‘ll’ instead of ‘ls -al’ and the like.  But what if you want or need more functionality than simple command shortening? That’s what I was after, more function in a smaller form.  Some way to pass variables to aliases to get more out of them. Ah, but you can’t pass variables to aliases, so we are stuck right? Wrong, that’s where the functions come in to play.

Continue reading →

Best Backup Tool For Budding Networks

by

1

One thing I have been doing for many years now, decades even, is backing up and restoring data.  It’s easy to backup stuff at home, simply copy your valuable bits and bytes to an external hard drive or write them to a CD-R or DVD-R.  This makes backups easy, though a bit cumbersome, especially as hard drives and data requirements get bigger and bigger.  Think about all the digital content we have nowadays versus just a few years ago.  Movies, music, games and more that get purchased and downloaded right off the net mean more and more gigabytes to backup.

Screenshot of BackupPC software

Screenshot of BackupPC software

Still though, for saving the critical stuff like documents and pictures, CD’s and DVD’s are OK.  But what about when you have more than one computer?  With prices falling and computer technology getting more and more prevalent in the home, it’s not un-common for households to have at least two computers in the form of a desktop and laptop.  However, I am seeing more and more households with computers for mom and dad, the kids, grandparents and then some laptops on top of all that!  Whew!  Now we are getting into one major pile of work to try and back all that up.

In the commercial world where you are backing up a data center full of servers and/or cubes laden with workstations, you buy commercial software like Veritas Backup Exec or NetBackup or Arcserve, etc.  Throw your data onto tapes inside a robotic tape library and manage it all from one central console.  Now, that’s all well and good, but it’s very expensive and doesn’t exactly fit in the average home very well.

So, where does that leave people like me and I am sure many of you out there that still have several computers to backup?  We are caught in a kind of in between place.  Well, I am going to share some good stuff that I have found, and actually have been very impressed with. Continue reading →