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There are many Linux applications dedicated to taking screenshots. However, you minght want to use the command line to do this, either because you want to build an automated script, or because you have a terminal screen handy.

Dropbox is a nifty little application that lets you sync and share files on the Internet and between several computers. Want to send a movie to a friend? Use Dropbox. Want to have a common folder for pictures that you and your girlfriend can update on different computers? Use Dropbox. The problem with Dropbox is that you can’t share entire folders. Only individual links. That’s where dropbox-index comes in.

All you need to record a live stream from the web is MPlayer. Use the -dumpstream argument to capture a MMS, ASF or Live WMV stream to a file called stream.dump.

The downside to eReaders is generally the small screen. You open up a PDF file and the fonts are smaller than you’d wish them to be. You can always zoom, but why not prepare your file from the beginning? If you have a CHM file and you want to convert it to a PDF to be later loaded on your eReader, try this:

When you buy an ebook using your Kindle, there’s a 99% chance it’s a DRM file. That means you won’t be able to read it anywhere else but on your Kindle. And we won’t accept that. To be able to convert that file and remove its DRM protection, you need a set of Python scripts called MobiDeDRM.

Say you just bought an Amazon Kindle or a Barnes and Noble Nook. You want to convert your eBook collection to .EPUB or .MOBI format. For this, install Calibre. The application not only provides you with a graphical way to manage your eBook collection, but also comes with a set of useful command-line tools. One of these is ebook-convert. This tool can help you convert between tens of standard formats like EPUB, FB2, LIT, LRF, MOBI, OEB, PDB, PDF, PML, RB, RTF, TCR, TXT, HTML and more. Even CBR and CBZ (comic book formats) are supported.

To convert video files to a resolution that is adequate for a PocketPC’s screen, use mencoder. mencoder input.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=200:abitrate=48 -vop scale=320:240 -oac copy -o output.avi This will transform a typical 700MB AVI file into a ~200MB size file with a 320×240 pixel resolution.

If you want your most-used applications already opened when you boot up into your Ubuntu box, all you have to do is go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications and in the Options tab check the box next to “Automatically remember running applications when logging out“.

You can search Google.com from the Linux command line without using a CLI web browser like lynx or Elinks. All you need is the curl and html2text packages installed. Then you issue the following command: curl -A Mozilla http://www.google.com/search?q=Linux |html2text -width 80 where you can replace Linux with another keyword of your choice. The results will be displayed in your console application with a width of 80.

I read the latest words of our beloved Redmond executive we all like affectionately call “Steve”. From the way mr. Ballmer speaks to us you’d say there’s nothing wrong with paying for software. You’d say that the business model that Microsoft chose is the right one for every firm and company out there. What Steve failed to mention is that if every software firm and company out there would chose that particular business model, Microsoft would have been out of business. Competition is good Steve. Yes - Apple’s business model is radically different from the one Microsoft uses. And guess what? People LIKE it more. What that particular business model provides is exactly what people need. Apart from the fact that they’re using the same “push towards the consumer” tactic that Microsoft so dearly holds, Apple manages to actually deliver good stuff towards the same consumer.

You can make MPlayer play h264-encoded video files a lot faster on multicore machines if you graft some libraries from the ffmpeg-mt project into the resulting mplayer binary. We need to recompile for this. First, use Subversion to download the code for MPlayer: svn co svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/trunk mplayer Then the code for ff-mpeg svn co svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/trunk ffmpeg-mt Remove the old libavcodec, libavformat and libavutil code from MPlayer

Say you want to write a small shell script that locks up your GNOME desktop at specific intervals. What command would you use? In this case, your best bet would be gnome-screensaver-command –lock This has the same effect as you pushing the Lock Screen button in GNOME. You can forge a small shellscript and use this to lock up your desktop when someone launches an application. Or append the line at the end of the Brasero launch command, using the icon’s command line field, so that whenever someone tries to burn something without your knowledge, the screen will lock up immediately afterwards.

If you’re using SSH and you have your ports wide open to the world, your best bet would be to install fail2ban. If you’re curious though as of whom is trying to get in by bruteforcing your SSH passwords, you might get a clear view with the following command: grep “POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT” /var/log/auth.log This will verbose a list detailing each break-in attempt that has been made, with the exact date, hour, minute and second of it. It will also display the point of origin of these attempts, in a fashion similar to this one:

To check what RAM memory type yo have installed (and also see other useful information about your system), do a sudo dmidecode. Depending on the version of dmidecode you have installed and the hardware configuration you have, each hardware device will have a certain type number assigned t it. On my machine, the RAM has type 6. So to see what RAM type and speed you have, do a sudo dmidecode –type 6.

A place dedicated to the Linux user. Learn new Linux tips and tricks every day. Not only for the advanced but also for novice users who wish to learn how easy life with Linux can be and how customizable the operating system is. Learn how to change the color of your Linux prompt, set the clock from the Linux command line or minimize any GNOME application in the system tray.

Open up GMPlayer (or another MPlayer GUI) right-click on it, go to Preferences, click on the Font tab and from the Encoding list chose Slavic/Central European Languages (ISO-8859-2) for Romanian subtitles. Use Modern Greek (ISO-8859-7) for Greek subtitles. Be sure to also pick a font that contains the specific diacritic character sets (Verdana and Arial can be found in the msttfcorefonts package in most Linux distributions and proved to be almost perfect for this task). Even better, be sure you installed the mplayer-fonts package and leave the font field empty for the application to chose it’s own system font.

If you want to turn off the Recent Documents feature in Ubuntu, all you have to do is create a .gtkrc file in your home directory (if one isn’t already available): touch ~/.gtkrc-2.0 . Now paste this line in there: gtk-recent-files-max-age=0 . The next time you start Gnome and click on files, the respective files won’t appear anymore in Places > Recent Documents. To limit the number of files that appear in Recent Documents, use gtk-recent-files-limit=3 instead (replace 3 with the number of files you wish to show).

OpenTyrian is a project aimed at bringing the Tyrian game to other platforms. Since the source code was released and the official Tyrian data files made available in 2004, the game started to show up from Linux to iPhones. Here’s how to compile the source from scratch so you can get OpenTyrian running in Ubuntu Jaunty

The game has all the elements you've already encountered in other RTS titles: resource gathering, upgradable buildings, workers, warriors and an enemy to eradicate from a map of your choice. What makes Globulation 2 particularly interesting is the way you'll have to make some sort of order in the total chaos of your units.

The first thing that strikes you about Eschalon is the music. It's soothing, calm, makes you feel comfortable while playing. And play you will. Alot. This is not the kind of game you can finish in a week then move on to another turn-based game. You'll give up your social life, you'll start arguing with your girlfriend about going to sleep late and in a few more day you'll be calculating everything in turns. I swear to God I was seeing tiles on the street by the third week.