While I usually write about some new Linux distribution or other tech related gadgetry, I wanted to share my love for public domain music.
Public domain music is exactly that, owned by and in purview of the public. Which means anyone can download, listen to and share this music.
While you are not likely to hear music on the local pop "top 40" station, there are some real gems in the public domain.
I personally like to listen to jazz.. (except Dixie land, not a "John Philip Sousa" type of a guy..)
But there is something for everyone in the PD (public domain) including current sounding pop, country, r&b, rock, etc.. songs if one so desires. Of coarse there is also some very old music too, and cool radio recordings of shows like "The Shadow" and "Dick Tracy".
One of my favorite songs I found in PD is a song called "This is Honkstep" by Orkestra Del Sol.
It really takes off after the tuba solo. Anyways, this is just a small taste of what you can find. Here is my compilation of favorite places to dig for buried PD treasure:
"The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format." -https://archive.org/about/
"Musopen (www.musopen.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials. We provide recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions. Put simply, our mission is to set music free." -https://musopen.org/about/
I hope you enjoy this list, there are more where that came from.
While putz-ing on Bodhi Linux, I came across one of the things that endured me to Bodhi in the first place, Terminology.
Terminology is the standard terminal emulator for Enlightenment, which is the standard desktop environment for Bodhi Linux.
What I first loved about Terminology was the icon, and then the old school feel of it that made you relive your TRS-80 or IBM mainframe terminal days. (If you are an old fart like me.)
Then, when I did a little research and found out just how many cool bells and whistles came with terminology, I loved it all the more.
This is one cool terminal emulation.
It gives you all the old school charm, but with features you just don't see on the newest terminal emulators out there. Features even the heavy weights like Terminator don't have.
Terminology is a terminal emulator for Linux/BSD/UNIX etc. systems that uses EFL and has a whole bunch of bells and whistles. Use it as your regular vt100 terminal emulator along with all the usual things like 256 color support (we attempt to emulate Xterm as closely as possible in most respects).
Of course since it uses EFL, it works in X11, under a Wayland compositor and even directly in the framebuffer on Linux. Replace your boring text-mode VT with a graphical one that requires no display system.
We have config panels (just press right mouse or hold left mouse down for about a second) and you can even customize the colors to your own liking or just use the colors specified with your theme.
Run all your regular terminal apps, like top, htop, ls, emacs, vim, mc etc. as you always have, and enjoy one of the fastest terminal emulators around in terms of it handling I/O. No waiting for scrolling any longer than the application generating the output spends. Terminology will keep scrollback in RAM, not on any file on disk to keep things a bit more secure. In addition scrollback is compressed on the fly to save space. It can even use OpenGL to render if you have configured the acceleration preferences for EFL (Elementary).
You will have a nice and unmistakable visual bell to let you know something is wrong, as well as sound to get your attention (can be turned off by muting alerts).
Terminology understands full file paths, URL links and email addresses in the terminal and will underline them on mouse-over so you can click and get more information such as gravatar information for that e-mail address, or to download the file from a URL (and if it's a video or animated gif, play it, otherwise just display it).
Don't be mystified as to what is going on while it downloads, as you'll get a nice progress bar to let you know how things are going,
And when the file is ready (instantly if local), it will display the file for you in a nice popup inside the Terminal. It saves bringing up another GUI application if all you wanted was to quickly see what was going on in that file or URL. Of course Terminology can be configured to bring up files with external application helpers.
Never again be stuck not being able to see cats do stupid things in animated gifs when you don't have your web browser available. Your terminal can give you all the fluffy fun you wanted by itself. You can even use tycat (a special cat tool that provides metadata for Terminology via escape sequences), to literally “cat” content inline in your terminal. it even remembers it in scrollback. Even if it is a video file. Scroll back and the video will play. With sound as well (and controls to seek, pause etc.).
Your image files will come up with all their glorious alpha channel goodness. Even SVG files will scale properly, PDFs and PS files will be visible and scalable. If you have libreoffice installed, you can even cat PPT, ODP, DOC and even XLS files if you want.
But don't just click on links or use “typop” to pop up files, and tycat them, but even set them as backgrounds too. “tybg” can set a background to any file you like, from a simple JPEG or PNG file through to SVG, even MP4 videos, animated gifs, even PPT files can become your terminal background if you like. Love that presentation on rising finacialization of market innovation? Never live without it again! Set it as a background and enjoy it all day, every day. In your terminal. Want to watch a video of butts drifting by in your terminal while using “tyls” to list files… along with their thumbnails? never fear! Terminology will come to your rescue. Have cats trying to jump and fail miserably by plummeting to the floor? You can have it all NOW!
Also need translucency, so you can see what is below your terminal? Fret not! Terminology has this bell and whistle also nicely stashed in its chest of visual features. Feel free to set it to 0% to make your display totally unusable as no background is then provided and you can see everything behind clearly.
Is this not enough? Never mind then, We also have Tabs. Good old-fashioned Tabs the way most people like them. Lined up along the top of your terminal showing the current title for that Tab. And fear not - your background videos will still play across all the Tabs you have. Yes - the ones in hidden Tabs will be “paused” (actually entirely evicted from memory until you come around to open up that Tab again).
But do you want something a bit funkier with Tabs? Then hit the 4 boxes at the top-right of a terminal, or hit CTRL+SHIFT+Home and go into “Tab switcher” mode. A grid of terminals much like Esposé will do will appear. You can navigate with the mouse or keyboard and select what you want. All the miniatures will be live, showing current content scrolling by or updating, and if they have a background - even a video, it will be playing. Live.
If Tabs are not enough, Terminology also offers Splits. This allows you to split the terminal into panes with a left/right half, or top/bottom half. Splits can nest, so you can split a Split again as many times as you like. They are resizable, and each Split can hold as many Tabs as you like. So slice and dice your terminal any way you like.
But don't worry, all your Splits will keep playing your videos, displaying your wallpapers and updating their content as you might expect them to.
And of course we have a large set of configuration options as well. Want something to behave a bit differently, or change look? Switch theme? Select background visually? Change font and sizing? Just right click or hold left mouse down and bring up the settings panels. Customize to your liking. Terminology will store your changes for future annoyance (unless “Temporary” is selected).
Of course if a bunch of still images is not enough for you, Below we have a video showing off more of what Terminology can do for you. It showcases most of the features, but just know that features keep being added all the time, and this may not represent everything you can do today.
See what I mean, no need to write all that myself. ;)
If you have had issues installing a newer version of wine, or need an older version of wine for another app, PlayOnLinux is a great way to install the Watchtower Library on Linux.
Before we start, I must tell you the PlayOnLinux way takes longer, and needs to download packages from the internet to accomplish it's task.
First of all is the installation of PlayOnLinux. In Ubuntu (or other Debian Linux distros) you just type sudo apt-get install playonlinux in the terminal, or look for playonlinux in synaptic or the Ubuntu Software Center.
Once that is done and you start PlayOnLinux, here is how you install the Watchtower Library:
This screen, choose "Install a program"
Wait for the load screen to end
Type in "Watchtower Library" (without the quotes)
and choose your version
Once this screen arrives, click next, and wait..
it takes a while to install.
PlayOnLinux has to install several packages,
this is the first, wine 1.7.
More wait time, extracting Wine. (Patience!)
Another package to install, wine gecko.
Now for wine mono. Keep waiting.
Nearing the end, PlayOnLinux needs to make a
virtual drive c for all of this wine goodness.
Now the screen we waited for. I personally store
the watchtower library cd files on a usb drive,
but for most people you will want to choose
"use cd-rom".
Point the program to the CD or place you have the Watchtower Library files, and the rest is just like installing it on Windows or older versions of wine.
After installation, PlayOnLinux will make a desktop icon.
If you want to have a menu entry instead, start your favorite menu editor (i.e. menulibre) and put this info into your new menu entry:
The PCMag article is very clean and tidy. It almost sensationalizes the whole affair, but PCMag did include some very, very good info. Mostly step by step actions you can take at the ATM to make sure you are not being scammed.
Consumerist shows a much dirtier, grittier truth to it all. You get to see the guts of the ATM skimmers in their wonderful article.
And Krebs on Security shows the latest in nasty behavior from these people, including a ATM lookalike shell that fits over a real ATM! Also they cover people actually hacking the ATM, and changing the software!
I want the world to know about these people so you won't be too-ken in by these crooks. Please though, if you see one, leave it be and call the cops. These people watch their equipment and will attack you.
While looking for something unique and new to monk with, I found Qwant. (https://www.qwant.com/)
The first thing I liked about it is that like DuckDuckGo.com, Qwant doesn't track you or put you in a filter bubble.
I also like that upon searching for something you get a 3 pane window, in column form.
In the first pane is a regular Google or DuckDuckGo web relevance type search.
In the second pane is any news that may be relevant to your search.
And the third pane covers social conversations that may be relevant.
Here is a screenshot of the info gathered in this three pane setup. I used the rather uninteresting search term of shoes, but you get the point. (Yes I am a white male from the middle of Wisconsin, for me shoes are uninteresting.)
Media type search results such as images and videos have a banner on the top of the three pane search area.
Here is what the Qwant team has to say about their software:
"Qwant was launched in France in February 2013 after two years of research and development. The European search engine continues to grow, innovate and the entire Qwant team is proud to present its new "Beta" version which includes:
A modern and clutter-free design
Ergonomically designed while keeping user experience in mind
New in-depth search functions
An interface adapted to mobile and tablet" -https://www.qwant.com/about
Qwant has a strange mixture of DuckDuckGo privacy sensibilities, Google search feel, and covers all the relevant fields of today's modern internet in one view.
Here is what the Qwant team has to say about their privacy philosophy:
"What is a cookie?
Cookies are the information stored by your browser, such as your session ID or your preferences.
Qwant's philosophy is based on two principles: no user tracking and no filter bubble.
We make every effort to respect the privacy of our online visitors while providing a safe environment and relevant results.
What is tracking?
Tracking is used to create a user profile, most often for commercial purposes. There are different methods of doing this, including what we call cookies. Advertising networks and other organizations seeking publicity want to collect as much user information as possible in order to provide them with targeted advertisements.
Rest assured, there's no advertising on Qwant, and we don't use those types of cookies!" -https://www.qwant.com/privacy
Yesterday I was digging for a quick and easy way to share files locally.
I found it in this wonderful utility.
HFS works beautifully on windows and rather well on Linux.
Here's what the software creator, Massimo has to say about his useful software:
"You can use HFS (HTTP File Server) to send and receive files.
It's different from classic file sharing because it uses web technology to be more compatible with today's Internet.
It also differs from classic web servers because
it's very easy to use and runs "right out-of-the box".
Access your remote files, over the network.
It has been successfully tested with Wine under Linux." -http://www.rejetto.com/hfs
What I like about it most is, it's a single self contained executable that does not need to be installed.
In other words, it's a portable use as you need http file server. Just beautiful.
The steps for using it are very easy. 1, you choose a file or folder to share. 2, you get the local ip address. Share the address with the person you want to share the file or folder contents with, and whalla, your running a file server.
While checking out StumbleUpon I ran into this very cool representation of our galaxy. The truth is it's a very small portion of our galaxy, but it's still very impressive just the same.
Here's what the creators of 100,000 Stars has to say for themselves:
"100,000 Stars is an interactive visualization of the stellar neighborhood created for the Google Chrome web browser. It shows the location of 119,617 nearby stars derived from multiple sources, including the 1989 Hipparcos mission. Zooming in reveals 87 individually identified stars and our solar system. The galaxy view is an artist's rendition based on NGC 1232, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way.
Programmed by some space enthusiasts at Google.
Music by Sam Hulick, whose work you may have heard in the video game, Mass Effect. The track is titled “In a Strange Land” and is used with his permission.
Galaxy images provided by Wikipedia and ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5m/R.Gendler and A. Hornstrup.
Star renderings derived from Wikipedia
Sun images courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.
Star data provided by:
HYG Database, by Astronomy Nexus
Gliese/Jahreiß Catalog, by Dr. Wilhelm Gliese and Dr. Hartmut Jahreiss
Bright Star Catalog (5th edition), by Dr. E. Dorrit Hoffleit and Dr. Wayne H. Warren Jr, and the Department of Astronomy at Yale University
I ran this on Chrome and Firefox. It was slower on Firefox, but considering this visualization is a "Chrome Expirement" it's not shocking Chrome handled it better.
In either case though, If you love astronomy like I do, it's worth a look.
