tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-149967642011-11-27T16:05:39.666-08:00<p>I blog because I want to record & share my experience of installing, configuring, & using software packages. My most recent interests were <b>Free & Open Source Software</b>.</p> <p>It is a <b>journey</b>. I may revisit the same software, take detour, change route.</p> <p>I have a rather loose definition of Open. To me, it is any software that I don't need to pay up for(legally of course).</p> <p>I blog about both Linux & Windows. Current emphasis is on Debian Etch(Linux) and Win XP.</p>Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.comBlogger481100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-53712985659097041872011-09-17T18:05:00.000-07:002011-09-17T18:04:44.469-07:00

test 3-- Peter Leungpleung01@telus.net

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-3697135966635105142007-11-17T14:31:00.000-08:002007-12-09T17:43:04.317-08:00

Below is my favorite Free and Open Source Software for Small and Medium Businesses (especially retail).Contact ManagementSugarCRMPBXAsterisk / TrixboxAccountingQuasarEnterprise Resource PlanningOpenBravoPoint of SaleLibrePOS (formerly TINA POS, now acquired and renamed to OpenBravo POS)Payroll/ Human Resources/ SchedulingTimeTrexWikiMediawikiSupply Chain ManagementCompiereProject

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-52918475340757443612007-10-06T11:06:00.001-07:002008-11-08T20:41:41.605-08:00

Today, I started a new blog: Linux Commando.I will blog Linux commands in the new blog. Enjoy.I will focus more on applications in this particular Open Software blog.

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-2917101983363318382007-09-29T14:50:00.000-07:002007-09-29T15:08:45.429-07:00

I bought a USB flash drive: Kingston USB 2.0 Data Traveler (2 GB). I mostly intend to use it for quickly transporting files between my home computers and computers offsite.According to the packaging, this USB flash drive is supported by Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. That is perfect becausemy home computer runs Linux, namely, Debian Etch (4.0). It has several USB 2.0 ports both on the front panel

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-62675645747485416142007-09-03T19:29:00.000-07:002007-09-03T19:51:23.945-07:00

Want to upgrade your Linux skills, but you don't want to spend tons of $$$. Of course, you can surf the Net and read the different web sites and knowledge bases about Linux. But nothing beats a good (e-) book to give you a systematic treatment on a specific topic. I found a web site, http://freebooks.homelinux.org/ that lists free e-books on Linux. There are quite a few gems on this list,

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1157841548342999922006-09-09T15:34:00.000-07:002007-09-03T19:27:24.755-07:00

I reviewed a book earlier titled "My Job Went to India." The premise is basically I.T. jobs in the West are being outsourced to the more cost-effective regions of the world such as India. According to the book, all is not LOST for the Western developers because there are certain inherent core values and competencies that our brothers in the East don't share.Two weeks later, this BBC news

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1157348318402305362006-09-05T22:25:00.000-07:002007-02-26T20:46:53.293-08:00

I have been a regular reader of slashdot (http://slashdot.org). Slashdot is arguably the premium web newscast for geeks. It features links to web page articles that are submitted by readers and hand-picked by the slashdot editors. "Being slashdotted" is a term coined to describe the effect of being featured on slashdot, specifically referring to the enormous and sudden web traffic attracted

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1157385722461508512006-09-04T08:54:00.000-07:002006-09-04T09:02:02.470-07:00

I'd highly recommend this excellent article on Linux fonts. It is a rather comprehensive treatment on how to use fonts on Linux. Some history, some theory, and some good practical how-to advice on using the Linux fonts. Enjoy!

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1157082688371360972006-08-31T20:48:00.000-07:002007-09-03T19:28:02.851-07:00

Now that I have your attention ....Actually, my job did NOT go to India. I am still happily employed by Elastic Path Software. The company and I are both doing quite well, thank you very much. The title is actually the name of a book I read recently, "My job went to India : and all I got was this lousy book. (52 ways to save your job)"It is old news that I.T. jobs have been steadily outsourced

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1142658816838373102006-03-17T21:01:00.000-08:002006-09-02T11:28:32.000-07:00

For quite some time now, if I ever needed to copy files between 2 machines, I would use ssh. A recent work-related project required that I ftp a directory of finished web pages to a web site. I summarized my experience of choosing and using a ftp client more powerful than the standard ftp command in an article I submitted to linux.com. The ftp client I used was ncftp, and my experience

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1136859612854696702006-01-19T18:19:00.000-08:002006-09-02T14:41:05.216-07:00

If you hear yourselves swearing at those darn pop-up ads that always cover the part of the browser that you want to read, swear no more. The good news is that you can get rid of that ad once and for all. First, you need to be using Firefox (or Mozilla) as your browser.Next, download this Firefox extension: AdBlock. It is a criticial part of my arsenal to fight the evil pop-up ads.In a

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1137526728499416852006-01-17T11:18:00.000-08:002006-09-02T14:50:00.306-07:00

Late last year, I was handed a gift - a Logitech Wireless USB mouse. Not quite sure why I would want to install it - I had a PS2 mouse, and was perfectly happy with that rodent. Finally, today, I decided I had to do something with it (if nothing else, just to clear some more desk space). I would install the wireless mouse on my Debian Sarge machine. Of course, the box came with a install CD

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1137268555636098942006-01-14T11:55:00.000-08:002006-01-14T14:00:12.640-08:00

More time on hand than you can kill?Look no further. Here is a list of the top 100 most-subscribed newsfeeds.Click here

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1136609018967864222006-01-06T20:36:00.000-08:002006-09-02T14:58:36.996-07:00

When it comes to protecting data on our hard drives, most of us do some sort of regular back up. What usually gets backed up? Perhaps, the important data on your disks that you can't afford to lose. That is a good starting point, but it is NOT enough. Besides the data itself, do you back up your primary partition table?The partition table is located in the disk's very first sector, known as

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1135785673119726982005-12-28T07:59:00.000-08:002005-12-28T09:24:07.983-08:00

I have been using Skype 1 for quite some time for my Voice over IP requirements. Skype 1 is supposed to work on multiple platforms (Windows & Linux). However, I mainly used it on Windows. I tried to install it on Debian Sarge (Linux)and gave up. (Skype on Linux is an OSS application, and is not ALSA-compliant yet.)I have a Skype story to tell. I was on a business trip to Manila,

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1135707386449321922005-12-27T10:10:00.000-08:002005-12-27T10:39:27.316-08:00

If you haven't heard already, Firefox 1.5 is out. So, I upgraded from 1.0 to 1.5. Overall, the upgrade was very smooth. But, you do have to be aware of the extensions. More specifically, not all 1.0 extensions will run on 1.5. In my own experience, I had 10 extensions on Firefox 1.0. Eight of them runs on 1.5 when I did the upgrade(the 2 that did not upgrade marked in Red).DOM

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1126659845956872462005-12-26T18:03:00.000-08:002005-12-27T10:09:24.593-08:00

I have always used the Red Hat Linux distribution; the last Redhat version I used being RedHat Enterprise Linux release 2.Recently, as my blog attests, I tried the ubuntu Linux LiveCD version. That was my first foray into non-RedHat Linux. The LiveCD system runs a little too slow for me to be useful in day-to-day operations. To be fair, it did warn me about performance, and my machine only

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1126146310673455542005-09-07T19:15:00.000-07:002005-09-07T19:48:09.386-07:00

Earlier, I discussed the download manager I use on Windows, namely LeechGet. Since then, I have been looking for a good Linux download manager. In my research, I came across this web page that reviews the different software out there. Not all are freeware though; some shareware. The review was done with a strong emphasis on being clean: free of adware/spyware. After all, the review was

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1125641082800211892005-09-01T22:53:00.000-07:002006-09-02T15:10:08.366-07:00

In a previous blog entry, I introduced 2 Google advanced operators, (aka hacks) site:, and inurl:I use those 2 hacks quite a bit to quickly find what I want via Google.There are 2 more hacks that may come in handy. intitle: and filetype:intitle: specifies keywords that you want included in the title of a web page.filetype: defines the specific file extension, e.g., filetype:php will only return

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1125533953221616052005-08-31T17:18:00.000-07:002005-08-31T18:51:21.470-07:00

I don't operate a wireless network. But, recently, I've taken some interest in wireless network security. After doing some research, I've compiled a list of TO-DOs for better securing a wi-fi network.If you have not done it already, change the default SSID for the wireless base stations (Access Points).Turn off auto SSID broadcast from your base stations.Make sure that WEP encryption is turned

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1125421014128303022005-08-30T09:50:00.000-07:002005-08-30T10:09:42.733-07:00

I've been booting my PC using the ubuntu LiveCD for the last couple of days. I'll spare you the pain of why, suffice to say I am experiencing a fallout from a Windows problem.My experience with ubuntu during this trying time is that it did what I wanted to do. I used it check my webmail, and access the Web using Firefox. I was able to access my NTFS files (albeit read-only, but this is a more

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1125360627524486942005-08-29T17:10:00.000-07:002005-08-29T20:01:16.783-07:00

A highly touted feature of the Firefox browsing is tabbed browsing. Basically, tabs allow you to open multiple web pages, each in a different tab. All these web pages are live. You can achieve all this of course with multiple browser windows. But the effort to manage these windows can be painful.If you are a novice Firefox user, you may wonder where you can find these tabs. When you have

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1125171681818230182005-08-27T12:37:00.000-07:002005-08-27T12:41:21.826-07:00

You probably won't find the word podcasting in your printed dictionary. It is a word made up of 2 words iPod and broadcasting (not that you can find IPod in your printed dictionary either).It is simply the syndicated broadcasting of MP3 files over the web. Think of RSS feeds except substitute text with audio files. Instead of reading about say your commentator on Open Source Software, you will

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1125075290509465782005-08-26T09:53:00.000-07:002006-09-02T17:29:39.590-07:00

A few days ago, I mentioned an advanced Google search operator site: as in site:softwarejourney.blogspot.com. You use the site: operator to match against the domain and the host name. The site: operator does not support port numbers, e.g., www.somesite.com:8080. Also, it will not match the directory or the file name. For those kinds of searches, you need another operator/hack, inurl:.The inurl:

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124986747090697972005-08-25T09:03:00.000-07:002005-08-25T11:32:55.010-07:00

Folks, it has been over 1 month since I started this blog. It is time to take a step back and evaluate the experience: my blog and my blog host (blogspot).According to industry studies, the majority of surveyed blogs are temporarily or permanently abandoned: 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months. Of the active ones, fewer than 50,000 were updated daily. This blog is one of

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124906734975937912005-08-24T11:04:00.000-07:002006-09-02T16:57:37.173-07:00

Do you know what ports on your computer are open and listening? An open port means an outside process can potentially connect to your computer through that port.Many operating systems, by default, try to be as user ready as they possibly can when first installed. Inadvertently, they make it hacker friendly as well. Having more ports open than you need is one example. Windows, especially the

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124769648217300122005-08-23T00:00:00.000-07:002006-09-02T17:07:51.653-07:00

Now that I had had this blog (http://softwarejourney.blogspot.com/) for a few weeks, I wondered if Google, the all-knowing web genie, had any knowledge of my humble existence. For your information, blogger.com, the host of my blog, is owned by Google (So, you would think that it was a given).There are several ways to find out. The obvious is to go to Google, and type in some hopefully unique

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124672058313670822005-08-22T00:00:00.000-07:002006-09-02T16:51:23.216-07:00

GEEK Alert: All browsers I've ever used let you examine the source HTML code of a web page. With Firefox, there is a neat, little feature. You can view the source code for a specific region on a web page. Just choose your mouse to select a region that can include graphics. Then, right click and select View Selection Source from the menu. The HTML code that corresponds to the selected region

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124670060811175272005-08-21T17:20:00.000-07:002005-08-21T17:21:00.816-07:00

For longest time, I have been happily using mapquest to find driving instructions and map information. Lately, there has been a lot of buzz about Google Maps because of the reputed innovation in web interaction design. So, I figure that I should take a peek.GEEK Alert: Google Maps is an application that uses a set of technologies known as AJAX. AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML,

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124459131525407472005-08-19T06:41:00.000-07:002005-08-19T06:45:31.533-07:00

In an earlier article, we discussed one way to tell if a web page has a corresponding newsfeed. Namely, look for a RSS/atom/XML icon to appear on the web page. If Firefox is your browser, then there is an additional way. A lightning icon will appear in the status bar at the lower right corner if the web page has a RSS or atom feed. Clicking the icon will automatically add this web page to the

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124376591626976792005-08-18T07:47:00.000-07:002005-08-18T07:52:15.230-07:00

As I am using more and more open source software, I found it harder and harder to keep up-to-date with each project. How do I efficiently find out if a package has a newer release? I have been trying to visit the project web sites once in a while. This method is neither systematic nor labour saving.The job of keeping up has been made easier for many software packages by the use of feeds.

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124292286013917572005-08-17T08:21:00.000-07:002006-09-02T17:17:05.483-07:00

Up till now, Windows Explorer was my main (and only) tool for finding information about the contents of a hard drive. It served me reasonably well except in a few situations.One situation is tallying the total size of a folder. The Windows Explorer on Win 2000 can quite handily tell you the size of a partition, and of an individual file. However, when it comes to folders, the size that it

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124216575096770252005-08-16T11:21:00.000-07:002005-08-16T11:22:55.103-07:00

Recently, I came across a web page that lists the Linux equivalents of various Windows software. It caught my eye because the web master had taken the time to categorize the software, such as Networking, Desktop. Better, the list seemed to be maintained over time. For those Linux users among us, you will find a source of open software. For Windows users, you may find that some of the Linux

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124067551197822432005-08-15T13:49:00.000-07:002006-09-02T17:24:17.656-07:00

I managed to upload all my digital photographs from my digital camera to my PC. So, all 200+ photos (jpg files) are now sitting in some folder somewhere. So, what next?The first thing I wanted to do was to look at each picture, and then decide what to do with it.As a Windows user, I just double clicked the first image file. Depending on what program the jpg file extension was associated with,

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1124061213168489412005-08-14T16:13:00.000-07:002005-08-14T16:13:33.173-07:00

How do I know if a web site has a feed or not that my news aggregator (BottomFeeder) can use? Usually, the web page that has a feed available will have an small icon labeled with one of RSS/RSS 1/RSS 2/Atom/XML. RSS and Atom are 2 different XML-based newsfeed formats. Alternatively, you may just see a link labeled something like Feed/Newsfeed/Sitefeed (this blog has a sitefeed link).If you

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123916795260641422005-08-13T00:05:00.000-07:002005-08-13T00:06:35.266-07:00

I get my daily dose of news from Google News Canada. I go to the google news website every time (sometimes multiple times a day, depending on how much time I have).On Aug 10, 2005, google announced the availability of newsfeeds. The feeds are available in either rss or atom format. Promptly, I added the Canadian newsfeed to My Subscription List in my BottomFeeder. Worked like a charm.

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123860241314461682005-08-12T08:19:00.000-07:002005-08-12T13:04:52.713-07:00

Often, I use my Firefox browser to search for some word or phrase on a web page. The keyboard shortcut is Control-F (same as IE).Firefox opens a flat, narrow Find bar at the bottom of the browser window. This is a great improvement over IE which opens a Find window which obstructs the contents of the browser.Clara Y in her comment on an earlier Firefox blog entry raised a good issue with

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123692847892517462005-08-11T07:47:00.000-07:002006-09-02T16:44:17.356-07:00

Most security-conscious web sites provide a md5 checksum file for each downloadable file. Occasionally, you may also see a SHA1 checksum file (for the really paranoid).SHA 1 stands for Secure Hash Algorithm 1. It is a newer, and safer hashing algorithm than md5. (For the geeks among us, md5 is 128-bit; sha1, 160-bit.)Again, for Linux users, to compute a sha1 checksum for a file, enter sha1sum

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123658474685005312005-08-10T00:18:00.000-07:002006-09-02T16:34:54.073-07:00

So you finally decide to download some open-source software, say gimp2, from some web site. You now notice that the file you are about to download has a corresponding MD5 file (or MD5sum). The md5sum file contains some weird looking string of characters like 86e676934455864c42b42b342406c26b. So, what is this MD5 business?MD5 is a Message Digest algorithm which calculates an unique checksum (

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123552965838725462005-08-08T18:45:00.000-07:002005-08-08T19:02:45.843-07:00

While I hope to avoid spilling on the philosophical or business aspects of open source in this blog (there are plenty elsewhere already), I may occasionally just point you to an excellent read.The Cathedral and the Bazaaris a most interesting read on the open source way of doing things (culture). In this collection of essays, Eric Raymond, a reputed open source guru, contrasted what he called

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123399178075778062005-08-07T00:16:00.000-07:002005-08-07T00:27:32.816-07:00

firefox has a built-in, default download manager. It is good forsmall downloads. If you download something big (like the586MB ubuntu iso CD image), then you really need a third-partydownload manager/accelerator. I don't wish anyone torepeat the same experience I had the other day when after an overnight download, it crashed at 90% complete. Below, I review 2 download managers. These 2

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123356074897024892005-08-06T12:16:00.000-07:002005-08-06T14:19:32.570-07:00

Firefox is a cool web browser. It has been my main browser since release 1.0 (latest 1.0.6).Different people switch to firefox for different reasons, be it better security, cross-platform support (including ubuntu Linux), custom skins, the "cool" factor, etc. A more recent motivation is viability. If you are a Windows user, you need to ask this question: will IE 7, the upcoming version of IE,

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123285675708500702005-08-05T16:35:00.000-07:002005-08-05T16:59:34.693-07:00

If you want to keep up-to-date on Linux but you only have time to regularly monitor one web site, then I highly recommend this one:Linux Admin PortalWhile Linux is clearly its main focus, it also features articles on general computing, system administration, and software development. It has reviews, how-tos as well as news articles. I found something useful almost every time I visit that

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123171923071506792005-08-04T09:11:00.000-07:002005-08-04T09:15:47.656-07:00

Now that I had finally purchased my first digital camera, and tooksome pictures, I looked for some cool things I could do with the imagefiles. How about editing them with gimp2? If you run a recent Linux distribution (e.g., ubuntu), mostlikely, it already pre-installs GIMP for you. For the rest of us,installing GIMP 2.2.8 on Windows was fairly straight-forward. Thestuff you need to download

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123096163843323772005-08-03T11:18:00.000-07:002005-08-03T12:10:22.690-07:00

Recently, I've heard so much about ubuntu ("linux for human beings"), and Linux LiveCD. So, I decided to give it a try. Why Not? Especially, the word around was that they give out ubuntu CDs for free, and even pay for the postage.By the way, a Linux Live CD is where you can run Linux completely off a CD like a RAM DISK, without having to install anything on a hard drive.Order those free CD sets

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1123005323193464182005-08-02T10:27:00.000-07:002006-09-02T16:25:23.696-07:00

So, you just shelled out the big bucks ($) for a brand new LCD screen. You brought it home, and set it up. You recalled coming across this thing called the Dead Pixel Policy from the manufacturer (or your friend might have mentioned it to you). Most manufacturers have a warranty policy for a display that has more than a certain number (typically 0 to 8) of dead pixels.What is a dead pixel, and

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1122922545070457702005-08-01T11:49:00.000-07:002005-08-01T11:55:45.070-07:00

It just dawns on me that Bottomfeeder should feed on my own blog. First, I needed to get the newsfeed URL for my blog. I clicked on the Site Feed link, and then just copied the URL from the browser url field. Then, I fired up Bottomfeeder, and added the feed to My Subscriptions.Simple, and it works.

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14996764.post-1122870270579567102005-07-31T20:48:00.000-07:002005-08-01T20:44:23.080-07:00

I wanted to finally install an RSS viewer on my Windows desktop. After using Google to see what other people are using, I decided to give bottomfeeder a try. My requirements were pretty simple: it must work, and it must be simple. I don't subscribe to that many newsfeeds (only 4). I was attracted to it because it runs on both Linux and Windows. The fact that it was implemented using Smalltalk

Peter Leungnoreply@blogger.com0