RBucky » Informational

Wireshark command line video

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:24:54 +0000

Simple script to list and display images in a gallery

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:26:50 +0000

A couple of days ago I was wandering around the net looking for a simple PHP image gallery to display directory contents. I wanted something that would stand alone and have a simple user interface without much overhead. I came across a package called Qdig Administration Script. Qdig is drop dead simple. All you need to do is add images to a folder or in the main directory and it will do the work for you. See an example of the script at http://markimoore.com/bp-media/.

Qdig user interface

Qdig also comes with an administration interface where you can crate captions for the images and delete them if necessary.

As an alternative, you could always enable directory listing in Apache, but Qdig provides an excellent alternative and a nice simple UI to get the job done.

Matt Cutts speaks at Google I/O about SEO

admin — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:24:28 +0000

I was browsing through my RSS feeds today and noticed a new video from Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team. If you have an hour to watch this and you are the least bit concerned about Search Engine Optimization, then you need to sit down and take it all in. And yes, take notes.

What is the fastest browser for Linux?

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:36:13 +0000

Benchmarks using SunSpider, a Javascript rendering agent, performance benchmarks were initiated on the major browsers. The goal was to determine the quickest loading browser in Linux. Each test was performed 3 times with clean caches and no extensions.

The Results

source: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/05/what-is-fastest-browser-on-linux-opera.html

Browse Google using a Terminal interface

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:20:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to browse Google in a Terminal-like interface? Well, here is your chance. Goosh is an open-source product that emulates a Unix shell to traverse Google searches.

This shell uses the same Terminal commands that you would be happy using in Linux, but restricted to Google searches. View a list of help terms by typing “h” on the terminal interface or simply to check out your options. Visit my shell implementation by clicking the image above or visiting the link at

http://rbucky.com/shell

Understanding server load averages

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:00:16 +0000

As I add more domains to my server, I wonder about server load and how much is too much. Generally, I use htop as a system load monitor and Munin for everything else. My current server load averages 0.4 over the course of 5 minutes. The server is hardly at idle (i.e. 0.0%). When you look at load, there are usually three numbers in sequence depending on the tool you use. The first number represents a 1-minute average, second number a 5 minute average, and the third a 15 minute average. Below is a great explanation and real-world example of server load averages.

Explanation

Server Example: Xeon 3200 Series with 4GB RAM

Xeon 3200 series is quad core cpu.

1.0 on a single core cpu represents 100% utilization. Note that loads can exceed 1.0 this just means that processes have to wait longer for cpu a slice.

4.0 on quad core represents 100% utilization.

Anything under a 4.0 load average for a quad-core xeon is ok as the load is distributed over 4 cores.

Ideally, I would say that a sustained load average of 3.0 or under on your machine would be very good as I have had quad cores servers running at over 3.0 every day during peak usage — that had no perceptible slowdown.

Tools

htop – non-GUI based system monitor

Munin – comprehensive GUI charts for your system include I/O, MySQL, Apache, and other processes

mpstat – included in the sysstat apt-get package

top – non-GUI based system monitor (not as pretty as htop)

UbuntuForums post

Google’s HTTPS search portal makes analytics more challenging

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 11:42:48 +0000

By now, many of you have heard that Google has enhanced their search offerings by releasing an encrypted version of their search engine that rules the world. Webmasters or anyone who uses analytics, will likely experience a small number of mis-leading analyticsresults from Google SSL.

When you use SSL, referral information such as key words or what site you linked from are stripped from the headers . The Webmaster will not know that you came from Google (i.e. no referrers). The affect from this type of search to the consumer is that the consumer could destroy any personalized experiences from the site that they are visiting based on referrers.

Encrypted Google searches have been around for a little while. Scroogle has been offering the service for some time.

Reading:

Play Google’s PacMan and download the source code

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 04:25:43 +0000

Most everyone heard or played the PacMan game on Google’s homepage the other day. Now, you too can play PacMan at your discretion! Why wait any longer. Play PacMan at Play Google’s PacMan and download the source code http://rbucky.com/pacman

If you are the techie type, you can download the source code at pacman.zip.

Upgrade Google Chrome from beta to stable

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:49:48 +0000

Google Chrome is now out of Beta status for Linux. Unfortunately, the apt-get repository is not quite pushing the stable release as of this writing. Upgrade to the stable version of Chrome with the following Terminal commands.

sudo aptitude remove google-chrome-beta
sudo aptitude install google-chrome-stable

Edit: The later command in this string does not seem to work for all systems. In that case, simply use Ubuntu’s default browser Firefox and navigate to http://www.google.com/chrome and download the stable version for Linux.

Use Dropbox to create a public website or download location

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:21:19 +0000

Dropbox is a cross platform capable tool for syncing, storing, and accessing your data. Registration and 2GB of storage space is yours for free. If you refer others to Dropbox and they sign up for an account, you are awarded free storage space. Dropbox can help you take documents with you on the road or simply provide a place to backup your important files. Either way, it is a terrific tool anyway you look at it.

One way to utilize Dropbox to its fullest is to use your Public folder as a public website. Dropbox has a folder called “Public” that is available through the web. That means that if you place a file called tech.pdf in that Public folder, you can navigate to a web address and download that document.

Creating a website

As we just discussed, Dropbox has a public URL for your Public folder. If you are a capable and have the ability to learn simple HTML, you can publish your own website using this method. First thing to do is create a file called “index.html” in your Public folder. This file will be the home-page for your web site. Once the file is in your directory, click the downward facing arrow and find the Public URL for that link. For instance, my Public URL for the index.html in my Dropbox is http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1427883/index.html.

Since the web address is fairly ugly and difficult to relay to anyone, I suggest that you use a URL shortener and make it a bit shorter. From there, it is up to you to code your files and display the information that you want. Happy coding!