Archive for August, 2008

Freight Brokers

The company I currently work at sells and ships car parts all across the 59 states of America. That means we have a tie-up with a couple of freight companies to deliver our goods to our customers, so we do not have to worry about shipping the parts, and we all know how big some car parts are. But that is not the same with normal or small business users. Some of us have to struggle with shipment delays, damaged items during shipment and even goods not arriving to destination or gets lost along the way.

If you are looking for quality shippers for your items or cargo, you might want to try consulting with freight brokers such as www.freightbrokering.info. Freight brokers will find the right shipper for your items, and they make sure that you get only the best for your needs. They offer different types of service such as air freight services, and their brokers will give all the information you need so you will have control over your items.

Also, freight broker services will surely help your business. Are you sure you want to entrust your products to a shipping company that you do not know? Freight brokers help you with your budget without sacrificing service quality.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Ubuntu Advertisement

Enjoy this superb Ubuntu video showcasing its popular and free features ;)

Popularity: 5% [?]

Vista vs Mac vs Linux on Latest Trends

Enjoy this movie on yet again another Vista vs Mac vs Linux comparison. Enjoy ;)

Popularity: 8% [?]

What Web Hosting Provider

I have my own share of webhosting nightmares, just go through the archive section and you will see that like some other people, I was a victim of scam. It just so happen that I chose to buy a webhosting plan from a certain webhosting company and though the plans were cheap, their services were utter disaster and I was forced to cancel my subscription and move my site to another provider.

I have told my readers time and again to do a full and thorough research on web hosting company’s background before buying or entering into a contract. Reading other people’s reviews, preferably those who were customers, is highly recommended as the best reviews come to those who have experience with the service. And searching around the internet for web hosting rating is worth it. There are few web hosting directories scattered around the internet and they have user reviews of different web hosting companies today.

Web hosting tutorials are also a big plus to read on when you are searching for web hosting companies. The more you know about the hosting package you are buying, the more you are getting for your hard-earned money. Not all providers offer same kind of services so it is better to compare first and be sure that you getting mor, not less. Some offer even free SEO packages for the same price and these are sure a big plus to your budding web site. Webhostingrating.com is one of the searchable web hosting directories that features reviews and information about web hosting companies. And if you are looking for discount coupons, you might find one too.

One last feature that makes a difference is to look for web hosting awards of a particular provider. A winning company invests well in customer service and infrastructure.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Cool Ubuntu-Filipino Wallpapers

I got a few wallpapers made for Ubuntu desktops that are Filipino-inspired while I was Googling for something to blog over the weekend. Luckily, I found more than enough to compile a collection of these Filipino-made wallpapers.




Wallpapers were contributed by members of ubuntuforums.org.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tip: Device is Busy Error

Unmounting devices in Linux can be a bothersome because of the error “Device is Busy”. This particular error comes up when trying to unmount a drive or device that is being used by the filesystem:


# umount /media/WinXP
umount: /mediaWinXP: device is busy.

One workaround to this is to do a ‘lazy’ unmount:


# umount -l /media/WinXP

The switch -l disconnects the device from the filesystem even if it is being used. This works but quite messy since no further information will be given. If you want a cleaner unmount, fuser commands works well, too:


# fuser -m /dev/sdb1
/dev/sdb1: 1124
# ps axu | grep 1124
rai ... xmms

The ps command showed that xmms is the PID that uses the device /dev/sdb1. Close xmms and the drive can be unmounted safely.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Michael Phelps Wins 8th Gold Medal in Beijing Olympics

The US swimming team has made history in Olympics with Michael Phelps winning his 8th Gold Medal defeating Mark Spitz’s 7 Gold Medal record since 1972.

michael-phelps

23-year old Michael Phelps consistently performed his best during the 2008 Olympics, proven by record-breaking speed at different swimming events. Eight times a winner, Phelps finally broke Mark Spitz’s record which remained untouched until now.

mark spitz

Phelp’s winning events include:

400 m individual medley 4:03.84 World record
4 x 100 m freestyle relay 3:08.24 World record
200 m freestyle 1:42.96 World record
200 m butterfly 1:52.03 World record
4 x 200 m freestyle relay 6:58.56 World record
200 m individual medley 1:54.23 World record
100 m butterfly 50.58 Olympic record
4 x 100 m medley relay 3:29.34 World record

Congratulations to Michael Phelps!

Popularity: 8% [?]

PinoyTux Reaches 20,000 Visits!

When I started this blog, I have never imagined that I would reach a wide variety of readers from all across the world. And now, PinoyTux celebrates the day that it reaches 20,000 visits since SiteMeter was installed (April 2008).

Not only I have made PinoyTux as my online journal and blog containing my Linux tips, tricks and notes but I also made quite a few bucks from blogging reviews, advertising links and online advertisements specifically from Google Adsense. And from the additional income that I made from my online blog, I have bought a few items. But what I really want to buy is a turbocharger for my car.

A turbocharger is definitely a must-add for my brand new ride and luckily found a site called turbochargerpros.com that sells one that fits my car, among other brands for different car makes and models like audi turbocharger. Having a turbocharger in your car, if installed correctly, breathes a new life to your ride by adding more horsepower and torque and adding fuel efficiency as well. So I know that with rising gas prices, a good turbocharger is a big help

Anyway, I am glad that letting more people know about Linux and technology using my blog and I hope that I can continue providing more Linux tutorials and tips to my readers.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Tip: Hiding Files Inside An Image in Linux

I have a previous post on how to hide files inside an image file in Windows. If you have not read or watched the video yet, it is right here.

Anyway, a comment on that post gave a tip on how to do the same thing on Linux. Of course I tried it and it worked! According to Sebastian of mathemaniac.org, the concept here is really simple. An image file like JPG is read from the beginning of the file and terminated with an ‘End of Image’ marker. An archive file like ZIP has their metadata stored at the end of the file. Put them together and the image will be read as a valid image file and the appended ZIP file will be read as an archive.

Here is how to do it in Linux:

Get an image file and an archive of the files that you want to hide. In this example, I have cat beer_and_cig.jpg and hideme.zip file. The zip file contains an MP3 song that I have stored inside the archive. To create the archive-image file, run this command:

cat beer_and_cig.jpg hideme.zip > ucantseeme.jpg

What this does is the ‘cat‘ command reads the image file first, then reads the zip file and puts them together in the file named ucantseeme.jpg.

To test the integrity of the image file, try this:

# unzip -t ucantseeme.jpg
Archive: ucantseeme.jpg
warning [ucantseeme.jpg]: 4751 extra bytes at beginning or within zipfile
(attempting to process anyway)
testing: Feist - 09 - One Two Three Four.mp3 OK
No errors detected in compressed data of ucantseeme.jpg.

Notice the warning message? The test saw that there were few bytes at the beginning, which means it saw the image file first but the archive is intact and no errors were found.

Perfect!

Popularity: 100% [?]

The Internet from 1969

Here is a very old video dating back from 1969 defining how the Internet can be of use to normal households. The weird thing is that most of the things in the video are now possible.



Video from katize.com

Popularity: 5% [?]