Archive for the ‘tips’ Category

Command line tricks for smart geeks

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

This article collects together a number of useful linux command-line tricks from Linux Format.

Everyone knows the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything is “42″, but for the first time we can reveal the question. It is this: how many command-line tricks must a man memorise? You see, graphical user interfaces are all well and good, but when you want to get real work done it’s time to switch to the terminal.

And so, we squeezed our brain cells, dug through dusty piles of old issues of Linux Format, and sat reflecting quietly over many a pint of ale, all with the goal of bringing you this: 42 awesome new command line tricks we think you ought to commit to memory. We’ve tried to include a few that are easier for our, er, less-experienced readers to enjoy, but we think even the most hardened Linux veteran will learn something new over the next 12,000 words.

Middle-Click to Open Firefox Links in a New Foreground Tab

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Here is a variation of a useful shortcut you might not be aware of. Just include the Shift key when you want to open a link in a new tab in the foreground rather than in the background. It also works for Control-clicks.

It is common knowledge that middle-clicking on a link opens it in a new background tab, but pressing shift while middle-clicking opens it in a new foreground tab. This especially comes in handy when you’ve got dozens of tabs open and don’t want to shuffle through all your tabs to find the one you just opened.

Code Like a Pythonista: Idiomatic Python

Monday, July 30th, 2007

A great tutorial on how to code the Python way.

In the tutorial I presented at PyCon 2006 (called Text & Data Processing), I was surprised at the reaction to some techniques I used that I had thought were common knowledge. But many of the attendees were unaware of these tools that experienced Python programmers use without thinking.

Firefox Inside Firefox

Friday, April 13th, 2007

Run another instance of Firefox inside a tab with this trick.

… With all these favorites inside Firefox, How about Opening Firefox inside Firefox? Not bad huh? and its really easy too just type in this url in a new tab in Firefox and there you go! Firefox inside Firefox!

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

13 things to do immediately after installing Ubuntu

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

Some useful tips for making your Ubuntu experience even better.

In this article i describe some of the things to do immediately after installing ubuntu on your machine . Since most of the people reading this would be shifting from Windows to Linux with a system dual booting so i would focus more on making transition easy from Windows to Linux.

Firefox Tip: Shift-Delete mistyped autocomplete suggestions

Friday, February 23rd, 2007

This is a handy tip from Lifehacker:

You accidentally typed liefehacker.com into Firefox’s address bar, and now it suggests that whenever you enter “li.” Remove mistyped URLs from the fox’s suggestions by selecting the entry in the list and hitting Shift-Delete. Works for fat-fingered usernames and other form entries, too.

Windows Tip: Control groups of windows on the task bar

Thursday, January 18th, 2007

Lifehacker has a useful tip for temporarily grouping several windows on the Windows task bar so that you can tile, minimize, close, etc., all of the selected windows as a group.

Reader Andreas wrote to tell us about a neat little trick for tiling a pair of windows in Windows.

With the first window open, press and hold Ctrl, then right-click the second window’s button in the taskbar and choose Tile Horizontally or Tile Vertically in the pop-up that appears. Presto: Two-click tiling of two windows. Right-click a third button to add a third window to the mix, and so on. (Turns out you can use this grouping method to close or cascade windows as well.) This tip also works in Vista, though the language is a bit different: “Show Windows Stacked” and “Show Windows Side by Side.” What’s your favorite tiling tip? Tell us about it in the comments. — Rick Broida