theopensourcedude

Sunday, April 21, 2013

What is PHP ?

PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.(recursive acronym) also it is called personal home page.

PHP is a server scripting language, and is a powerful tool for making dynamic and interactive web pages.

It is also used as a general purpose programming language.PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly.

PHP is now installed on more than 244 million websites and 2.1 million web servers. Originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995, the reference implementation of PHP is now produced by The PHP Group.

PHP code is interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module which generates the resulting web page: PHP commands can be embedded directly into an HTML source document rather than calling an external file to process data. It has also evolved to include a command-line interface capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications.

PHP is free software released under the PHP License, which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL) due to restrictions on the usage of the term PHP. PHP can be deployed on most web servers and also as a standalone shell on almost every operating system and platform, free of charge.

It was originally conceived as a set of macros to help coders maintain personal home pages, and its name grew from its purpose. Since then, PHP's capabilities have been extended, taking it beyond a set of utilities to a full-featured programming language,

PHP includes free and open source libraries with the core build. PHP is a fundamentally Internet-aware system with modules built in for accessing File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers, many database servers, embedded SQL libraries such as embedded PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server and SQLite, LDAP servers, and others. Many functions familiar to C programmers such as those in the stdio family are available in the standard PHP build

An example program :

<!DOCTYPE html>
<meta charset=utf-8>
<title>PHP Test</title>
<?php
 echo 'Hello World';
?>

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Run Windows Applications on Linux Using Wine

Wine acronym for "Wine Is Not an Emulator" is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX, & BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop.

Wine began in 1993 under the initial coordination of Bob Amstadt as a way to support running Windows 3.1 programs on Linux. Very early on, leadership over Wine's development passed to Alexandre Julliard, who has managed the project ever since. Over the years, as the Windows API and applications have evolved to take advantage of new hardware and software, Wine has adapted to support new features, all while being ported to other OSes, becoming more stable, and providing a better user-experience.

An ambitious project by definition, work on Wine would steadily continue for 15 years before the program finally reached v1.0, the first stable release, in 2008. Several releases later, Wine is still under active development today, and although there is more work to be done, millions of people are estimated to use Wine to run their Windows software on the OS of their choice

Wine will always be free software. Approximately half of Wine's source code is written by volunteers, with the remaining effort sponsored by commercial interests, especially CodeWeavers, which sells a supported version of Wine.

Wine is heavily reliant on its user community too. Users volunteer their time to share tips and test results on how well their programs work in our Application Database, file bug reports to notify developers of problems in our Bug-Tracker, and answer questions in our forums.

"Wine Is Not an Emulator" is a reference to the fact that no processor code execution emulation occurs when running a Windows app under Wine. "Emulation" usually refers to the execution of compiled code intended for one processor (say, x86) by interpreting/recompiling software running on a different processor (say, PowerPC). Such emulation is almost always much slower than execution of the same code by the processor for which the code was compiled. In Wine, the Windows app's compiled x86 code runs at full native speed on the computer's x86 processor, just as it does when running under Windows. And Windows API calls and services also are not emulated, but rather substituted with Linux equivalents that are compiled for x86 and run at full, native speed.
In a 2007 survey by desktoplinux.com of 38,500 Linux desktop users, 31.5% of respondents reported using Wine to run Windows applications. This plurality was larger than all x86 virtualization programs combined, as well as larger than the 27.9% who reported not running Windows applications.

Wine can provide benefits over Windows right now:
Wine makes it possible to take advantage of all the Unix strong points (stability, flexibility, remote administration) while still using the Windows applications you depend on.
Unix has always made it possible to write powerful scripts. Wine makes it possible to call Windows applications from scripts that can also leverage the Unix environment to its full extent.
Wine makes it possible to access Windows applications remotely, even if they are a few thousand miles away.
Wine makes it economical to use thin clients: simply install Wine on a Linux server, and voila, you can access these Windows applications from any X terminal.
Wine can also be used to make existing Windows applications available on the Web by using VNC and its Java client.
Wine is Open Source Software, so you can extend it to suit your needs or have one of many companies do it for you.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

PREY : The Open Source Answer For Stolen Device Recovery

In this fast world there are always chances of your laptops , smartphones ,tablets getting stealed or missing. The open source solution to this problem is the Prey. Prey is a web service that allows remote tracking and monitoring of laptops, smartphones, and other electronic devices. Prey lets you keep track of your laptop, phone and tablet whenever stolen or missing.

A software agent is installed on the client device and connects in the background to Prey’s host computer. If requested by the host, the agent sends it information such as the device’s location and can trigger various actions. A control panel can be set up to manage multiple devices.

If you choose to create an account on Prey’s site, you can take advantage of their Control Panel for more granular control of your stolen hardware. After you sign up for the service, you will get an activation key, which you will enter in the configuration screen. You will also have to add a new device in the Control Panel

Prey takes an ingenious approach to laptop recovery once reported missing, it will send timed reports to a configured e-mail address containing information describing its whereabouts. The information collected includes:

Status of the computer

List of running programs and active connections

Detailed network and WI-FI report

Screenshot of running desktop

A picture of the thief and surrounding taken from webcam

The Prey service is owned and operated by Fork Ltd., a small software company that does business out of Hong Kong and Chile. Prey is written primarily in Bash and runs on most versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Android, and iOS. Much of its source code is published on GitHub and can be copied under the GNU General Public License.

In order for Prey to actually work, it will have to be booted up and connected online. Therefore we cannot consider prey as a perfect solution since there are chances of your systems get formatted by thief. But it is an interesting and well-executed solution that just happens to be open source and cross-platform. This enables pretty much anyone to have at least a slight chance of recovering a stolen laptop. And even the slightest assurance is better than none.

http://preyproject.com/

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Ubuntu Smartphone Introduced At CES 2013

Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux operating system, has announced a new version of Ubuntu designed specifically for smartphones. The new ubuntu smartphone demo was released at Consumer Electronics Show 2013 .Mark Shuttleworth the man behind ubuntu said that he expected to make the most progress with the Ubuntu Phone in the developing world, where smartphone sales are only just beginning to take off. . Ubuntu, will offer as martphone version of Ubuntu that allows a handset to function as a PC when docked.

“I think carriers are looking to try us out in emerging markets,” said Shuttleworth, who noted that Ubuntu is already a household name in some of these markets due to its use on desktop and laptops PCs. “We ship on 30 percent of Chinese PCs today,” said Shuttleworth, including models from Dell, Lenovo, and HP. “If you go into a store in India, you will see Ubuntu branding,” he added. “It’s a very easy transition for us there.”Shuttleworth said he believes phone manufacturers will test the waters with Ubuntu by releasing a version of an existing Android phone with his OS installed, but under a different model name

Ubuntu Phones will be freely available as an open-source software. Canonical coördinates development of Ubuntu and makes money by offering paid-for support to companies using it, with many companies around the world using Ubuntu to run Internet and Web server It will be built around the kernel Google created for its Android mobile software.

Developers will be able to create applications for Ubuntu phones using either HTML5 or native code. Unlike some other smartphone platforms, including Android, Ubuntu does not include a Java virtual machine, which Canonical says reduces overhead and allows the OS to deliver good performance even on low-end hardware.

Because Ubuntu for phones is based on the same core OS as Ubuntu for the desktop, however, developers will be able to use the Ubuntu Software development kit to build native applications that run across phones and desktops alike, with only minor User Interface changes for different device form factors.

The new OS will also be backed by Canonical's Ubuntu One cloud service.

The ubuntu phones are likely to be released in 2014.However this year the company plans to partner with Android smartphone makers to ship the first devices featuring “Ubuntu on Android,” a solution that lets you dock your Android phone to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to use your phone as a full-fledged desktop computer.

The link to the ubuntu phone trailer is given below

http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone

Darktable: Opensource Alternative 4 Photoshop

As mentioned in the previous voyager distro review Darktable is an application used for image managing and image editing.

Darktable is an open source photography workflow application and RAW developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.we can import images from your computer as single file or a grop of images which is termed as film roll.The software also scans for external devices. Thumbnailing of this app is a bit slow. The app gives us options like lighttable darkroom and tethering.

lighttable

The left panel is for importing images, displaying Exif information, and filtering. Rating and categorizing buttons are at the top, while the right-side panel features various modules such as a metadata editor and a tag editor. A module used to export images is located at the bottom-right.

darkroom

This mode can be accessed by double-clicking on an image. The layout displays the image at center, with four panels around it; most tools appear on the right side. The left panel displays a pannable preview of the current image, an undo history stack, a color picker, and Exif information. A filmstrip with other images is displayed at the bottom, and can be sorted and filtered using lists from the upper panel. The latter also gives access to the preferences configuration. darktable's configuration allows custom keyboard shortcuts and personalized defaults.

tethering

A third mode allows tethering through gPhoto to cameras which support it like Canon (5D, EOS 30D, EOS 40D, EOS 400D, and EOS 550D), Nikon (D60, D70s, D90, D5000, and Nikon Coolpix P100), and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50.

Darktable support raw files from almost every camera,Import a variety of standard, raw and high dynamic range image formats like jpg, cr2, hdr, pfm etc.The powerful export system supports Picasa webalbum, flickr upload, disk storage, 1:1 copy, email attachments and can generate a simple html-based web gallery.darktable uses both XMP sidecar files as well as its fast database for saving metadata and processing settings.

Apart from usual image ,colour and effects options it comes with many features like watermarking ,framing,split toning ,vignetting,monochrome , highpass , lowpass ,shadows and highlights which helps in image post processing.It also have many correction modules like spot removal,lens correctio,equaliser,sharpen,denoise etc.

On the whole darktable is a very good photography workflow application and undoubtedly the best in open source

Darktable runs on GNU/Linux / GNOME, Mac OS X / macports and Solaris 11 / GNOME.

http://www.darktable.org/

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Voyager : A Beautiful Distro From France

Voyager 12.04 ,is a beautiful XFCE distro from France .Voyager Live is an Xubuntu-based distribution and live DVD showcasing the Xfce desktop environment. Xbuntu is a combination ubuntu and XFCE.Its features include the Avant Window Navigator or AWN (a dock-like navigation bar), Conky (a program which displays useful information on the desktop), and over 300 photographs to customise the desktop.

Voyager 12.04 which is based on Xubuntu 12.04 and is a LTS release. Voyager brings a wide variety of customisations and beautifications to Xubuntu which makes the Xfce DE shine. It also have a Conky Control that allows you manage different 21 different Conky configurations from a single place. The Avant Window Navigator has also been customised in a special way that makes it stand out from other Distros. Voyager come pre-installed with a wide variety of really good software and codecs which makes it the perfect Out Of The Box distro with the exception of Flash but you can easily install it as I mentioned. It also comes pack with many themes and wallpapers so you don't have to sweat in looking for different things for customising your system.

Voyager comes with many inbuilt softwares .Graphics applications include many state of the art softwares like darktable,GIMP,gthumb,mcomix etc.Default internet browser is firefox , it also have software like hotrot (twitter app), thunderbird mail,xchat etc. The multimedia softwares include cheese clemtine, formatjunkie,minitube,vlc media player. Apart from the absence of libre office it has many tools like abiword and FBnumeric etc.

Another notable advantage of voyager is the fast boot time due to its light weight. The ambience of the voyager is very similar to ubuntu. But it had made many compromises which makes compatiable to windows users and new linux users. Since Voyager is French developed distro ,there are few language mismatches.

All over voyager is a very good distro.It can be downloaded from its website.For a size of around 1GB it is an affordable download as it come with many softwares and option to download many more softwares.

This is my review of voyager, if you have any suggestion or queries kindly write in the comment section. And please do share this article if you liked it .

http://voyager.legtux.org/

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Monday, January 7, 2013

Tails Distro : Privacy for anyone anywhere

The Amnesic Incognito Live System or Tails is a live media Linux distro designed boot into a highly secure desktop environment. The Amnesic Incognito Live System is free software released under the GNU/GPL.Tails is meant for online privacy and anonymity. Tails interacts to the internet using Tor network.Using Tor, Tails pipes all Internet traffic emanating from your computer through a constantly shifting set of relays that are operated by a network of volunteers. Consequently, it’s then difficult for anyone to monitor your activity on the web or for web hosts to pinpoint your location.Thus making all your internet activites anonymous. The system is designed to be booted as a live CD or USB and no trace is left on local storage unless explicitly told to. But using it on a virtual machine can compromise the anonymity.

Once booted, it executes from RAM, taking care not to make use of a swap partition. The desktop is Gnome 2.0 and the applications are a fairly standard selection. The web browser Iceweasel 3.5 (Debian Firefox). There are other applications to handle graphics work, audio editing, media playback, text editing, instant messaging and a email client. Extra software can be added via the Synaptic package manager which pulls directly from the Debian repositories. So far, so similar to most other live desktop distros. Security and limited footprint on the the host machine are the areas in which the distro differs from the run of the mill. The tails also have open office tools.

One of the best features of the tails distro is the option to run it in a windows XP camouflage .

Also there is an onscreen keyboard .This helps from the danger of keyloggers. Also the tails have many cryptographic tools that helps to encrypt files ,emails etc.

The supplied version of Iceweasel comes with an extension to enable end to end encryption (HTTPS) whenever possible in order to further increase security and another one to switch Tor on and off. Many of the applications that are supplied have been tweaked in this way, to improve security. Tails also wipes the contents of RAM on shutdown, and it has a little onscreen keyboard to bypass hardware key loggers. Note that it isn't loaded down with security tools, such as those for penetration testing, although such tools can be added via the package manage.

Tails can be downloaded from their official website .The latest verison tails 0.15 was released on November 28 2012.
https://tails.boum.org/

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