I’ve been using Redshift on my Linux machine for a while, and find it great. It reduces the strain on your eyes by adjusting the colour temperature of the screen depending on the time of day. A higher temperature is used during the day when there is natural light, and a lower temperature is used at night when you are using indoor lighting. Redshift calculates when to adjust the temperatures based on your co-ordinates.
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Rsync is a simple tool for synchronizing two directories while minimising data transfer by only transferring the differences.
I use the following script to automatically sync the files on my USB drive to my home directory on a remote server and then safely remove the drive. The files are transferred over SSH, and so the entire transfer is secure. I also use public key authentication to ensure I do not require a password to log into remotehost.
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To enable NetBIOS name lookup in Linux, simply edit /etc/nsswitch.conf and add wins to the hosts line.
Before:
hosts: files dns After:
hosts: files dns wins Then install the winbind package.
sudo apt-get install winbind
You should now be able to address other machines on your LAN by their hostnames.
Before:
user@host:$ ping otherhost
ping: unknown host otherhost
After:
user@host:$ ping otherhost PING otherhost (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from otherhost.
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You may have noticed that the new Arduino Uno uses the optiboot bootloader. This new bootloader brings two main advantages:
Smaller bootloader footprint - An additional 1.5kB of space for sketches. Increased bootloader baudrate - Faster sketch uploading. Fortunately for us, these bootloader improvements can be backported to the Arduino Duemilanove. If you have more than one Duemilanove to hand, then is it trivial to flash the new bootloader.
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If you have the MX5500 keyboard/mouse set, you will most likely have noticed that you cannot change the time format on the LCD from 12 hour to 24 hour. No option exists in the SetPoint software either.
You can however change the clock to 24 hour by editing some config files.
Close setpoint.exe and open C:\ProgramData\Logishrd\SetPointP\Devices\Display\400000A\MX5500.xml in a text editor with Administrator Privileges.
Edit the lines (line 145 onwards in my version of MX5500.
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When I moved my boot drive over to a 64GB SSD, I knew I was going to have to keep most of the larger files on my mechanical drive, but I didn’t really want to have some applications running from C:\Program Files and others running from E:\Program Files. I wanted to keep my new SSD setup as close to my previous mechanical primary drive setup.
My initial reaction was to try to mount the mechanical drive as a folder within the SSD drive, but this was rather limited.
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If you have ever copied data from one disk to another using dd, you will have noticed that dd has no progress bar, no ETA, no information at all until the process has completed. This can be troublesome if you are copying large partitions that are likely to take a few hours.
I found a little program called pv that solves that problem. pv allows you to see into the pipe and see what is going on with your copy process.
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One of the first things I wanted to buy when I got my Arduino board was an Ethernet shield. The ability to interface with the internet opens up a raft of possible applications for the device.
After picking my jaw up off the ground after seeing the price of the of the official Wiznet W5100 based Arduino Ethernet shield, I decided to go for the cheaper MicroChip ENC28J60 based nuelectronics Ethernet shield.
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Bittorrent is a peer to peer protocol for sharing files over the internet. Bittorrent reduces the bandwidth costs required to distribute a file over the internet by allowing users to upload to new users once they have downloaded the file. Rather than leave a computer on all the time to seed torrents, I decided to install the Transmission Bittorrent client on my Netgear WNR3500L router, and put that USB port to good use.
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I wanted to learn how to interface with I²C devices using my Arduino, so I bought a DS1307 clock and crystal kit from Earthshine Electronics. I’ve no association to them, but I’d recommend having a look at their shop. Their prices are very reasonable, unlike most Arduino component retailers.
I²C is an addressable serial interface. That means that you can communicate with many I²C devices using the same 4 pins all the time.
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