Linux: More than 1%

We are more than 1%:

With this initiative, we intend to refute the statistics of certain press organizations that ensure that the use of GNU/Linux does not exceed 1% and has not advanced in recent years at the desktop.

If you want to help us accomplish this goal, please participate in our statistics!

Link: http://www.dudalibre.com/gnulinuxcounter?lang=en



Interestingly, from the statistics collected on the above site (as of 15 Oct 2010), there are large numbers of Linux users in Poland and Russia.

New Babbage Analytical Engine(?)

John Graham-Cumming proposes to build a working version of Babbage's Analytical Engine for public display [original article here and working project page here].

There's currently a Facebook and Twitter page, and a Pledgebank page.

Hack: prevent screensaver from crashing fullscreen games on Ubuntu (II: xscreensaver)

I realised that this doesn't work if gnome-screensaver is disabled and xscreensaver put in its place.

In that case, preventing the screensaver from starting (and locking the system) during a fullscreen game can be accomplished with the following script:

#!/bin/bash
xscreensaver-command -exit
[COMMAND TO START GAME OR PROGRAM HERE]
xscreensaver -no-splash

[Ubuntu 10.04]

Humour: Dependencies

http://xkcd.com/797/

Tip: How to backup blogger/blogspot

From meandthecomputer:

In your blog's control panel, if you look under the Settings tab, you will see Blog Tools section. Beside it you will see an option to Import Blog, Export Blog, and Delete Blog. Export Blog will allow you to save the contents of your blog in your hard disk. Import Blog will allow you to restore a previously saved copy. 

Hack: clearing out old entries from the "open with" window in Ubuntu

From OMGUbuntu:

 To clear out old entries (esp. wine) from your "open with" window, delete everything in ~/.local/share/applications

Cory Sadowski adds:

~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list is what stores certain file associations, notably the one that controls what application opens when you click a location in the Places bar. Install LXDE and suddenly find that PCManFM has taken over your Places menu? Look in mimeapps.list and introduce that jerk to your delete key.

Tip: Make sure non-Eastern non-European characters display in Linux

In order that characters used in and for transliterating non-Eastern non-European scripts/languages like Sanskrit, Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite be displayed properly in Linux, make sure to install (through the Synaptic Package Manager in Debian/Ubuntu) the ttf-ancient-fonts package.

You can test it by going to the Wikipedia page on Hittite cuneiform (there should be no little boxes in the text, but rather Hittite cuneiform characters).