Ubuntu Unleashed

A Brand new Google Earth 4.3 is in Town with Some Hot new features, check out this *HOT* Youtube video while easily installing this with my simple howto!

Easily Install Google Earth 4.3 by opening a terminal and issuing this one command
wget http://dl.google.com/earth/client/current/GoogleEarthLinux.bin ; chmod +x GoogleEarthLinux.bin ; sudo ./GoogleEarthLinux.bin
The above command will auto-install to /opt/google-earth and create a desktop icon for all users. Right after the install Click Start to startup Google Earth

Need a Userguide for all the features? Click here for that

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It looks like google has a little known tool that creates sitemaps with a simple python script, its in the repositories and this could surely be handy for allot of webmasters out there.

The Google Sitemap Generator is a Python script that creates a Sitemap for your site using the Sitemap Protocol. This script can create Sitemaps from URL lists, web server directories, or from access logs. In order to use this script:

• You must be able to connect to and run scripts on your web server.
• Your web server must have Python 2.2 or later installed.
• You must know the command that launches Python. (Generally, this is python, but may vary by installation. For instance, if the web server has two versions of Python installed, the earlier version may be invoked by the command python and the later version may be invoked by the command python2.)
• You must know the directory path to your site. If your web server hosts one site, this may be a path such as var/www/html. If you have a virtual server that hosts multiple sites, this may be a path such as home/virtual/site1/fst/var/www/html.
• You must be able to upload files to your web server (for instance, using FTP).
• If you will be generating a list of URLs based on access logs, you must know the encoding used for those logs and the complete path to them.

If you aren't sure about any of this, you can check with your web hosting company.

Now you’re ready to get started. Here’s an overview of what you’ll need to do.

1. Download the Sitemap Generator program files.
   

sudo apt-get install google-sitemapgen

2. Create a configuration file for your site using the provided example_config.xml file as a template. Modify this file as needed for your site and save it.
3. Upload the necessary files to your web server.
4. Run google-sitemapgen
5. Add the generated Sitemap to your Google webmaster tools account.
6. Set up a recurring script. (optional)

If you are unable to use the Sitemap Generator, you can add a Sitemap to your Google webmaster tools account in another format, such as a simple text file. Third-party programs supporting the Sitemap Protocol.

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Ever wonder where you can get free open images to edit and use without worrying about copyright? Well I have looked everywhere, and I have found a nice collection that you all can use and share. I was recently looking for some clipart online and ran across a simple way to get thousands of updated Clipart .SVG's. This will be 800+ meg's when extracted.
If you want to browse the gallery before downloading check it out here
Download/extraction Instructions:
sudo apt-get install openclipart-svg

I hope you enjoy this clipart, is there any others worth mentioning?

Thank Elkersh for this great tip!

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In todays world we need some protection against the anti-P2P organizations, script kiddies and big brother, Iplist is a kick-ass tool that will help protect your privacy!

What is iplist?
iplist is a list based packet handler which uses the netfilter netlink-queue library (kernel 2.6.14 or later). It filters by IP-address and is optimized for thousands of IP-address ranges.

Some typical reasons for using iplist are:

• to protect your privacy while sharing with others on p2p networks
  
• to ban unwanted clients from servers
  
• to block whole countries or networks
• to block spam- and ad-servers
• to block known hackers

Installation for Hardy Heron:
wget http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/iplist/iplist_0.19-0hardy2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i iplist_0.19-0hardy2_i386.deb
There is packages for all other Ubuntu/Linux Versions Here

After the installation ipblock can be found in main menu -> Internet -> ipblock.

Lists
The default choice for lists is similar to peerguardian, you have the option to add/remove what you need.

• level1.gz - Anti-p2p companies, Fake p2p file sources, Government, Military, Science, Research Labs, Bad Education facilities, and more.
• ads-trackers-and-bad-pr0n.gz - Advertising and data tracker servers
• spyware.gz - Malicious spyware and adware servers
• edu.gz - Educational institutions and universities
• bogon.gz - Spoofed IP-addresses

These lists are maintained by www.bluetack.co.uk. Custom p2p or dat lists can easily be added. Note that lists can optionally be compressed with gzip.
Settings

All options can be configured in this tab. Auto-updating lists is important and the default choice of 2 days is reasonable because www.bluetack.co.uk updates their lists 3 times per week. Using out-of-date lists is not recommended.

To ignore specific network traffic like HTTP or EMAIL (pop3) use the ignored ports section.

More information can be found @ the developers site here
More information on Blocklists can be found here

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Hey all, I just ran into a neat video on YouTube, it seems you can now get Screenlets to use Google Gadgets here is a video that shows you how!

If you need screenlets follow these directions to install by adding a getdeb.net mirror:
sudo -s
echo "deb http://ubuntu.org.ua getdeb/" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get install screenlets screenlets-doc
exit

Once Installed follow the instructions within the video to get Google Gadgets up and Running!
Here is hundreds more of Screenlets to choose from!

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We all have various log files on our Ubuntu system, and sometimes it is nice to be able to easily view a log file within a tty. Here is a simple howto, to create a tty user that's only purpose is to watch a log file
First lets create the logging script after sudo -s:
cat >>/usr/bin/logwatch
Paste this, then control-c when its pasted in the terminal, alternatively you can use a text editor..
#! /bin/bash
watch tail -n 80 /var/log/messages
Note: You can replace /var/log/messages with any log you choose, like a firewall log for instance.
Make /var/log/messages Readable and our script executable, for this I'll use chmod:
chmod 644 /var/log/messages
chmod +x /usr/bin/logwatch
Now append /usr/bin/logwatch to /etc/shells then save/exit
gedit /etc/shells

Now lets create the user that we can login via the TTY
adduser logwatch --shell /usr/bin/logwatch
Set a password, like "logwatch"

Now lets try this out, all you need to do now is simply press ALT-CTRL-F1 or any other TTY from F1-F6 then login as "logwatch" with password "logwatch", what will happen is the user will be logged into our /usr/bin/logwatch script and only be able to watch the log, so we can cycle between tty's and X

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I download .iso's all the time, and wanted to be able to mount iso's for winblows games on wine. What this does is map your iso to a filesystem directory. Here is what I did, and here is what you can do as well.
First grab fuseiso
sudo apt-get install fuseiso
If you are in firefox and have apt-url installed click here to install with one click!
Then lets add ourselves to the fuse usergroup
sudo adduser myusename fuse
If you were not in the fuse group you will need to log off, then back in right now.
Now lets create ourselves a fuseiso folder to mount our iso
sudo mkdir /media/fuseiso
Now we just grabbed an iso off the net, so lets mount it!
sudo fuseiso myisofile.iso /media/fuseiso
Ok now the iso is mounted and we can use it like its a cd/dvd
Nautilus/cd your way to /media/fuseiso and the files from the iso will be mounted readonly.

More information on fuseiso can be found here

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