Bulk renaming using Thunar
January 27, 2012
Thunar is a lightweight file manager that comes with Xubuntu and other Xfce-based distributions. It has several useful features not found in other popular file managers, like 'Bulk Rename'. To use this feature, select a group of files in the Thunar file pane and hit the F2 key, or choose Rename from the Edit menu. A window appears with 'before and after' views of your file names, and a drop-down list showing the renaming possibilities.
- Pirate Bay Gets Physical with 3D Designs (January 27, 2012)
- The Taxman Cometh for Kickstarter (January 26, 2012)
- Free Software Magazine will go blank on the 18th of January (January 15, 2012)
- Interview with Igor Sysoev, author of Apache's competitor NGINX (January 5, 2012)
- At last you can buy a Raspberry Pi! (January 4, 2012)
- The Bizarre Cathedral - 100 (October 13, 2011)
- Why games are NOT the key to Linux adoption (January 19, 2009)
Opinions
The Taxman Cometh for Kickstarter
January 26, 2012
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a new business model, recently acquiring financial success, must be in want of taxation. So it appears to be for Kickstarter, as I discovered, now that the first business tax filing deadlines are approaching me.
- Nielsen's report and Video on the Web (January 25, 2012)
- The MegaUpload Seizure Could Be An Opportunity (January 23, 2012)
- Why Android might just kill GNU/Linux. Quickly. (January 19, 2012)
- Free Culture Pitfall: Bait-and-Switch Free Licensing (January 13, 2012)
End users
Bulk renaming using Thunar
January 27, 2012
Thunar is a lightweight file manager that comes with Xubuntu and other Xfce-based distributions. It has several useful features not found in other popular file managers, like 'Bulk Rename'. To use this feature, select a group of files in the Thunar file pane and hit the F2 key, or choose Rename from the Edit menu. A window appears with 'before and after' views of your file names, and a drop-down list showing the renaming possibilities.
- Object and Camera Path Tracking in Blender - "Monkey See Monkey Do" (January 24, 2012)
- Backup your data in Linux with Deja Dup (January 16, 2012)
- Staying happy with Gnumeric: finding the leading apostrophe (January 15, 2012)
- Staying happy with Gnumeric: text as "text" (instead of "dates") (January 12, 2012)
Hacking
At last you can buy a Raspberry Pi!
January 4, 2012
In my recent series on Encouraging the next generation of Hackers I looked at the concept and ideas behind the (in my opinion) exciting Raspberry Pi project.
- Mounting Google Documents in GNU/Linux is just not a (real) option (January 2, 2012)
- Encouraging the next generation of hackers part 2 - Software implementation (December 27, 2011)
- Creating a Project Website for "Lunatics" with Apache, Zope, Plone, MediaWiki, Trac, Subversion, and the Cloud Too (December 22, 2011)
- Encouraging the next generation of hackers part 1 - Raspberry Pi the $25 computer (December 16, 2011)
Games
Why games are NOT the key to Linux adoption
January 19, 2009
I have a number of concerns about a recent article about games [as] the key top Linux adoption. It nearly screams for scrutiny, as a it presents opinions and broad stereotypes as fact, contradicts itself and makes conclusions that have the capacity to hurt, not help the community.
- Computer role-playing games for GNU/Linux (November 14, 2007)
- Free software games, the return (March 28, 2007)
- The free Tron Universe—Armagetron (March 26, 2007)
- Freeing an old game (March 12, 2007)
Interviews
Interview with Igor Sysoev, author of Apache's competitor NGINX
January 5, 2012
NGINX is the new start rising in the landscape of web servers. Well, it's hardly "new" -- it will soon turn 10. However, it's definitely rocking the web server world, with Netcraft showing a huge increase in usage in the last few months.
I was fortunate enough to catch up with NGINX's author, Igor Sysoev, who agreed on answering a few questions for us. So, here is a glimpse on their business model, their new 2.0 version, and more.
- Interview with Adam Green and Jonathan Gray, founders of The Public Domain Review (September 6, 2011)
- Interview: Nina Paley (author of "Sita Sings the Blues" and the two "Minute Meme" animations) (March 15, 2010)
- A talk with Brandon Whichard about Zenoss, the cloud, Amazon's EC2 and more (November 27, 2009)
- Interview with Daniel Chalef of KnowledgeTree (July 7, 2009)
Humour
- The Bizarre Cathedral - 99 (May 26, 2011)
- The Bizarre Cathedral - 98 (May 19, 2011)
- The Bizarre Cathedral - 97 (April 14, 2011)
- The Bizarre Cathedral - 96 (April 7, 2011)
Reviews
Pirate Bay Gets Physical with 3D Designs
January 27, 2012
The torrent site, Pirate Bay has introduced a new category of downloads -- for physical designs of 3D-printable objects. This is an interesting step forward for Open Hardware as this will make designs available to a broader audience. There is already a proprietary distribution channel via Shapeways, but making the designs publicly downloadable means they can be printed by local suppliers or on your own 3D printer.
- Video editing with Kdenlive: Might be the sweet spot (January 17, 2012)
- Video editing with OpenShot: Capable, but lacks some polish (January 15, 2012)
- Video editing with Blender VSE: "It's complicated" (January 13, 2012)
- Bach's Goldberg Variations commissioned for Public Domain Release (January 11, 2012)
Announcements
Free Software Magazine will go blank on the 18th of January
January 15, 2012
Free Software Magazine will shut down on January 18th to protest against SOPA. We am not sure what we will be putting on the site yet. However, the contents won't be there.
- FOSDEM 2012, Hardware Security and Cryptography, Call for Papers (January 14, 2012)
- Let us Pray: Yea Verily, Filesharing is a Religion. Official. (January 12, 2012)
- Allwinner A10: A GPL-compliant computer for $15 (January 11, 2012)
- Raspbery Pis are in the oven! (January 11, 2012)




