Category Archives: How-To

Encrypting text at the command line with GnuPG

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Peter

Storing GnuPG content of any kind (that is, plain text to be encrypted, encrypted text to be decrypted, even public keys from co-respondents) on disk can result in the same kind of vulnerabilities associated with storing any sensitive data on … Continue reading →

Posted in Command Line, GNU Privacy Guard, How-To, Open source applications, Open source software, Practical Cryptography, Secure computing, Security/Cryptography | Comments Off on Encrypting text at the command line with GnuPG

Managing shell command history in OS X/Linux

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Peter

One of the many benefits of using the command line shell in OS X or Linux (or any *nix or similar OS) is that the operating system keeps a history of all the commands you use, storing them in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Command Line, computer science, Editors, How-To, Linux Tech Talk, Open source software, Programmer's Tools, Secure computing, Security/Cryptography, Ubuntu Linux, Utilities | 1 Comment

Using diff

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Peter

diff is a *nix command that takes two files and compares them, reporting on the differences between them. For example: $ diff foo.bar foo.bar $ When the files are identical, no output is generated (as in this case, comparing a … Continue reading →

Posted in Command Line, computer science, How-To, Open source software, Practical Cryptography, Programmer's Tools, Secure computing, Security/Cryptography, Utilities | Comments Off on Using diff

Low-tech Magazine

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Peter

Watch the movie War Games sometime if you have any interest in seeing how things were done back before computers were everywhere. It’s a real time-capsule from 1983, full of modems and rotary telephones and libraries with card catalogs and … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Fun Things to Do, Good blogs to follow, How-To, Interesting Stuff | Comments Off on Low-tech Magazine

Linux Command Line Gold

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Peter on Linux

There’s nothing like a command line for when you need to get things done. Here are some resources (maybe repeats from years past?) that can give you an edge when you’re looking for a fast and efficient way to do … Continue reading →

Posted in Command Line, How-To, How-to Websites, Utilities | Comments Off on Linux Command Line Gold

Choosing an open source text editor

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Peter on Linux

For many programmers, their first “real” program was some kind of a text editor. For some, it was an exercise in a programming class, or else an exercise in creating their first real, personalized, tool that worked the way the … Continue reading →

Posted in How-To, Utilities | Comments Off on Choosing an open source text editor

My Free Logo Adventure

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Peter on Linux

It’s more than just turtles these days with heavy-duty Logo. Continue reading →

Posted in Education, How-To, Open Sauce, Open source software | Comments Off on My Free Logo Adventure

Good advice about backups

Posted on July 17, 2008 by Peter on Linux

There are many approaches to doing backups. Unfortunately, most of them are some variation of "it’s too much trouble". But even if you are doing backups, this article reminds us that Your backup is only as good as your last … Continue reading →

Posted in Backup, How-To | Comments Off on Good advice about backups

Command line-fu from Foogazi

Posted on July 7, 2008 by Peter on Linux

You only really get better at the command line by using the command line, so it might seem counter-intuitive to write about 10 Linux Commands You Probably Don’t Use. If you don’t use the command line, there’s a lot more … Continue reading →

Posted in Command Line, How-To, How-to Websites | Comments Off on Command line-fu from Foogazi

More Linux Tips from IBM

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Peter on Linux

There are good reasons so many Linux wizards like, no, LOVE the command line. If you know what you’re doing, it can be way faster and easier to use than fiddling around with mouse pointers and windows and so on. … Continue reading →

Posted in Command Line, How-To, IBM Linux Articles | Comments Off on More Linux Tips from IBM