One thing that I find remarkable in Linux is the vast array of clever tools that allow you to do ‘clever stuff’.
The problem exists where these obscure tools are difficult to work out how to use effectively, and moreover, use right.
One task I aim to do occasionally is search a disk for files containing particular [...]

Following up on a post about recovering bad disks and reiser file systems, here is a list of ddrescue commands to help make life that little bit easier:
Backup MBR (boot code + partition table):
dd if=/dev/hda of=mbr count=1 bs=512
Restore boot code + partition table:
dd if=mbr of=/dev/hda
Restore, not including partition table:
dd of=/dev/hda if=mbr bs=448 count=1
Saving partition sizes [...]

I’ve found that using the ALSA sound system in Ubuntu is pretty slick, but becomes a pain when the sound tool in Ubuntu doesn’t correctly switch devices using the graphical user interface.
In a nutshell, here are a few useful commands to list and select the sound devices that are on your computer:
asoundconf list
list available sound [...]

I’ve been using Office 2007 quite happily for some time now. But the niggles are starting to hit me.
One of the main issues is the new .docx format not being supported across the board yet. And with me being a sucker for all things new, I have to make a point of saving an alternate [...]

I wanted to extract Marillion’s cover of Toxic today, which lives on the DVD release of Thankyou Whoever You Are / Most Toys.
I found a useful page over at Ubuntu Geek which covered the topic nicely using a tool called transcode, which I’ve used a little of in the past.
I was having some difficulties with [...]

I’ve become a huge fan of a program called Meld in Linux. It allows me to compare files, folders and even update CVS repositories (in a basic way). It’s cool
Thankfully, there is a very similar program available for Windows and also Open Source called WinMerge. This does pretty much the same thing and works in [...]