Articles by Bill Toulas
About Bill Toulas
Over five years of experience writing about Linux and open source software on blogs and news websites. As part of the community, this is my way to give back as well as to promote what I perceive as the most amazing development in the area of software and operation systems.
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How to connect your Android device on Ubuntu Linux
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, desktop, linux, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 26 Buying a media device that needs a special driver and/or connectivity suite to navigate and update its contents is a common case nowadays, and has been ever since manufacturers decided that it would be a good idea to just limit the access that users can have on the products that they bought. This may not be a huge problem to Windows and Mac OS users who can simply download the manufacturer's suite and use it to connect to their device, but Linux is often (if not always) left unsupported in that part. The first time I encountered this problem was with the first generation of iPods and Creative Zen players that refused to show any contents on the File Manager when connected via the USB port, and then came the newest generations of Android devices which do the same. In this quick guide, we will see how we can overcome this problem, and connect our media device on our Linux system.
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Three ways to easily encrypt your data on Linux
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, desktop, linux, ubuntu •
Comments: 6 Data encryption is one very solid security measure/precaution that everyone who owns data with significant personal or objective value should perform. What data encryption does is securing your data when they fall into the wrong hands. There are many tutorials on howtoforge.com that show one way or another to decrypt your data. This one will show the most easy-to-use tools that can do the job for us. For this purpose, I will showcase the decryption of a removable media drive.
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How to track your Linux laptop
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, desktop, linux, opensuse, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 11 So, you just bought a new shiny laptop and you are uncomfortable about the possibility to see it stolen and lost forever? There are many things you can do to help you recover your laptop after such an unfortunate thing happens, and almost all of them involve some kind of tracking software. Here is a quick guide on how to set up easy to use tools that will help you locate your stolen laptop.
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How to set up torrent scheduling on Linux
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, fedora, linux, opensuse, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 3 Today we will take a look on the methods that Linux users can follow in order to set up a scheduler for their torrent downloads. This can be useful for people who want to take advantage of their computer while they are not using it, like during the nighttime for example. This way, large portions of huge files can be downloaded without delaying your work activities, or interrupting/undermining your media consumption.
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How to create an Ubuntu package from source
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: debian, ubuntu •
Comments: 2 Building from source has never been the most popular choice of the less experienced Linux users who are always in the seek for a pre-built package. This is especially the case with Ubuntu users who like convenience and GUIs over power and terminals. Unfortunately, everything in the Linux world gets first released as source, and then it gets packaged for the various distributions and architectures, meaning that you will most probably never find a package of the absolutely latest version of a software that got just released. Thankfully, building an Ubuntu package is a simple procedure that doesn't require any technical or coding knowledge at all. Here's a step by step guide on how to do it.
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How to generate a animated GIF or movie out of images on Linux
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: arch linux, centos, debian, desktop, linux, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 0 It is very unlikely for anyone nowadays not to own a device that is capable of shooting many consecutive pictures (burst mode). While this is useful for helping you take the perfect shot in sport events etc, you may want to use some of those successive frames to create a movie. Thankfully, you can do this very easily on Linux. In this tutorial, I will use five (not so closely successive) shots of my Cockatiel parrot bird trying to drink some of my coffee.
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How to safely wipe your data with Dariks Boot and Nuke bootable live CD
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: linux, security •
Comments: 3 Sometimes, we need to completely and irreversibly wipe all data contained in a disk to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. This may not be something we are doing on a day to day basis, but if you want to do it, you should do it right and ensure that the data cannot be recovered by experts. One of the many ways of doing this is through Darik's Boot and Nuke bootable live CD. This tool is made from the same team that develops the professional-grade Blancco data eraser, only it is available for free and without guarantee or support. The reason I like DBaN is because it is very simple to use and does the job fast.
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How to do batch image processing on the Linux Destop with XnConvert
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, desktop, fedora, linux, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 1 GIMP is great and I use it all the time, but when it comes to batch image processing on Linux, nothing is more handy and simple to use than XnConvert. Although not an open source software, this batch raster graphics editor comes for free without any limitations for private use, and works in all platforms and architectures. You can get it from the official website as a complementary part of XnView (it's standalone). Here comes a tutorial on how to use this simple yet powerful tool on Linux.
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Getting Started with LibreCAD
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, desktop, linux, opensuse, ubuntu •
Comments: 8 Linux isn't known for having many professional-grade linear drawing and engineering design tools. Dassault's DraftSight is the only choice in that part, but paying a few hundred bucks is maybe not the best option for everybody out there. Thankfully, the rich world of free software isn't leaving us alone in this sector either, and one of the most popular solutions to help you get your designs ready is the amazing LibreCAD. It may not be as sophisticated as other well-known tools, and it may not boast the time-saving features of commercial solutions, but it will certainly do the job in most cases. Here is a guide on how to get started with it and how to design a round flange with drill holes.
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How to get the most out of Qmmp 1.0
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: arch linux, centos, debian, desktop, linux, ubuntu •
Comments: 1 After almost eight years of development, Qmmp has reached version 1.0, so we have a good reason to celebrate with a quick guide on how to get the most out of this winamp-styled audio player for your Linux desktop. This brand new version brings a lot of goodies, but most importantly it uses the latest Qt v5. The player looks simple and it really is very simple to use, but it actually boasts quite a lot of power under the hood, so here is what we will be exploring on this article.
