Create a Web-based Photo Gallery in a Jiffy with GMFoto
Sep 11, 2009 GMT
Looking for a quick and easy way to set up a Web-based photo gallery? Consider GMFoto. This application lets you create a snazzy Web-based photo album literally in a matter of minutes.
Unlike many popular photo gallery applications, GMFoto doesn't use a database back-end, so it's dead-simple to install and configure. Grab the latest version of the application and unpack the downloaded archive into a directory (e.g., gmfoto). Now open the code/code.index.php file in a text editor... more »
Build a Personal Social Aggregator with Pubwich
Sep 08, 2009 GMT
Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Flickr -- with new social services popping up almost every day, how do you make all your social activities easily accessible to your friends and followers?
Enter Pubwich, a simple PHP script that aggregates data from several popular social services into a single HTML page. To run Publish on your server, you need the Apache server, PHP 5 with the SimpleXML and cURL extensions, and the crontab tool. To install Pubwich, download the latest version of the software, unpack the... more »
Set up a Personal Microblog with Bilboblog
Aug 28, 2009 GMT
There are many reasons why you would want to run your own private microblog, but how do you actually do that? The easiest way is to install Bilboblog, a tiny, no-frills PHP/MySQL-based microblogging engine.
Although Bilboblog is described as a microblogging application, it's not a drop-in replacement for Twitter or Identi.ca. It's actually more of a hybrid between a microblog and tumblelog. Similar to a conventional microblogging engine, Bilboblog lets... more »
My Perfect Backup Setup
Aug 25, 2009 GMT
For a long time I relied on an external hard drive and Jungle Disk as my daily backup solution. This wasn't the most advanced backup setup, but it did the trick. Recently, however, I added a new device to my local network: a tiny Linux-based server with the silly name Bubba Two. Initially, I planned to use it for hosting my private wiki and testing LAMPP-based applications. But since Bubba Two can be used as a file, print, and streaming server, it made sense to put its functionality to some practical... more »
First Look at TonidoPlug
Aug 21, 2009 GMT
For Linux Pro Magazine readers, the name Tonido will sound familiar. I covered this sleek and user-friendly solution that lets you turn an Ubuntu-based machine into a nifty server in issue 105. Recently, CodeLathe, the company behind Tonido, launched TonidoPlug -- a tiny Ubuntu-based server running the Tonido software. In theory, this sounds like a great idea: plug the device, run a quick and simple setup, and you have a fully-functional Linux-based server that you can use to share files and photos, maintain a... more »
Extension Watch: Transmogrify Long URLs with Shorten URL
Aug 19, 2009 GMT
Want to generate a shorter version of a long URL with minimum fuss? Enter Shorten URL -- the ultimate solution for all your link shortening needs. This Firefox extension supports over 100 shortening services, from the usual suspects like Bit.y, Tr.im, and Is.gd to the more obscure Clop.in and kl.am. Once you've installed the extension, you should add its button to the toolbar which provides quick access to Shorten URL's features. To do this, choose View -> Toolbars -> Customize and drag the... more »
Two Useful Commands for Your Linux Server
Aug 15, 2009 GMT
Want to back up files and documents on your laptop or desktop PC to a server? Assuming both machines run Linux, you can do that with just one command. First, install SSH server on the server and rsync on your machine. Both tools are available in the software repositories of most mainstream Linux distributions, so you can install them using your distro's package manager. Open then the terminal on your machine and run the following command:
rsync --progress -avhe ssh --delete /path/to/local/dir user@host:/path/to/remote/dir
Replace user with the name of the... more »