Technological Ramblings ….

how to create large files in linux from command line

Sometimes you will need to create large files in Linux or even a file with desired size and content, especially if you are a developer. Such files are especially useful for testing purposes such as testing the upload speed of your internet connection. You might want especially large text files with actual readable characters or you might be okay with binary files. Either way, you want a quick and easy way to create multiple files of varying sizes.

how to terminate or kill a process in linux

Each running tasks or programs in a system is called a process in the operating system terminology. At certain times, it is possible for a program to get into a state where it is no longer responsive and hence be need to be terminated manually.

7 simple keyboard shortcuts you should know in linux command shell

When using the command shell or terminal in Linux, there are several keyboard shortcuts available to you that perform common functions. Many of these shortcuts are common across many of the different shells, such as bash, csh, ksh or fish. That means you do not have to remember different commands for different shells.

how to configure proxy server in linux

Proxy server is an interface that allows you to connect or use a service (usually a remote resource) that is usually resource intensive. It is also used by large area network to manage network traffic and as a security measure within the network.

how to create a text file in linux from command line

Most often when you want to create a file, you will open your favorite text editor and create a new text file. You can then use the editor to add and modify content to the file and save it to the disk. This works best when you have a desktop environment on your system. If you are working using command line from a terminal or remotely then it might not be an option.

how to use secure copy (scp) to copy files in linux

If you work with computers of any kind, sooner or later you will want to copy files between folders. Often times you want to copy files between machines or computers over a network as well.

quick response (QR) codes and how to use it

You may or may not have come across a QR code in recent times. You could have seen them on a business cards, in print advertisements in magazine or store fronts or on a store aisle.

shutter - the versatile screen capturing software for gnome and linux

The default Gnome screenshot capturing software is gnome-screenshot (in most distros). Though it is a good utility, it severely lacks in features and flexibility. There are a couple of other good options for a screen capturing software in Gnome. Ksnapshot is a good alternative in most cases, even though it is native to KDE. Another option is to use GIMP if you already have it installed.

how to save or export bookmarks from mozilla firefox

Bookmarks are getting pretty outdated in modern day browsing as more and more cloud services take over the functionality of keeping track of the pages, page content and the URLs that you want to visit later. The cloud services and sync functionalities in the browser give you several good features such as keeping the bookmarks in sync and the ability to access them from different devices.

how to center images vertically and horizontally in html and css

Aligning elements in a webpage is probably one of the most challenging things for a beginner. You know all the HTML tags and your code is correct but somehow things just don't align how you want it to be. One of the important concepts to understand is the type of elements: block elements and inline elements. Inline elements will go with the flow of the page while block elements can break the flow and start on a new line.

5 caveats to be aware of before using data compression

Data Compression or compressing of your files and folders do have many advantages. It is a process by which the resources such as disk space and network time can be conserved by reducing the overall size of the files. There are several reasons as to why you might want to compress the files and folders, several of which are good.

how to append or add text to a file in linux

Append is defined as "to add something new to something that is existing, as an attachment or supplement". Sometimes you will need to append text to an already existing text file. This text could come from any source, such as a line of text from the command line, the output of a command or from another text file.

some useful things that you can do with your linux hosts file

The hosts file is one of the important files on the machines, related to networking. It is used to map hostnames to IP addresses and pretty much is similar in functionality to a DNS server.

how to split windows vertically and horizontally in emacs

One of the most useful features of modern text editors and IDEs is the ability to split the screen into multiple windows and edit/view different files in them. Emacs is no exception and makes it easy to do so.

how to configure mouse speed and acceleration in kde (K desktop env)

The mouse or cursor settings are something that is usually set once and forgotten. You don't usually need to set it again unless something accidentally gets changed or you get a newer mouse or hardware.

how to reload shell profile without restarting the command prompt in linux

In Linux there are several options that can be set in the shell profile or shell environment, such as the environment variables. The environment variable can be the path, the classpath or prompt display among various others. Every time you edit one of the shell profile files, you need to reload shell profile or the command shell itself for the modifications to take effect.

how to delete all empty directories in linux

You might already know that in Linux a directory have to be empty before it can be deleted. Well…not quite true, you can force delete the directories. What if you want to remove only empty directories recursively from the folder structure?

how to list members of an user group in linux

In Linux, as with most operating system a user is someone who can login and use the computer. Having separate accounts for each of the individual users allows you to manage the users better in terms of security. Users and Groups are concepts in Linux (and other OS-es) that are primarily used for permission-ing and to control access to files, directories and peripherals.

how to enable or disable javascript in mozilla firefox

JavaScript is an integral part of most modern day websites. It was not long ago that JavaScript (JS) was considered a major security concern. It still is, but the functionality that it provides to most websites far outweigh the security concerns. Also, the JS implementation has got more robust in all web browsers.

seo: how to get the most out of gzip compression of web pages

Enabling compression on your web server can reduce the latency and load time of your web pages enormously. Compression reduces the size of the web pages thus reducing the download time of the webpage. It also helps to reduce the bandwidth used by the server and increase the web server capacity.

how to resize multiple images in batch from command line in linux

Resizing images is one of the many different ways that you can optimize your images or photos for web usage. One of the most important factors affecting the SEO of the webpage is the page load time. If your web page contains one or more images, then optimizing these images will make the total size of the webpage smaller and thus will improve the page load times.

how to find the best image size for your webpage..improve the page load speed

More often than not, the load time of your web pages is quite important. One of the major reasons for a slow loading web page is images that have not been optimized for the best image size. The faster your page loads, the higher the user engagement and lower the bounce rate for the website. The page load time is also one of the major factors in SEO optimization of the website.

how to reduce image size using any photo editing software

A high resolution image or photograph usually also have a very high file size. If you are planning to upload the image to a website to share or just using it on your webpage or blog a page, then the image size becomes a problem. A large image size is not desirable in many situations.

the pros and cons of using 3rd party javascripts in websites

Most modern-day websites use several different features that are provided by third-party vendors. The use of these third-party features or plugins allow you to easily incorporate common and popular functionalities without having to develop them yourself or in-house.

how to create a compressed archive (tar and gzip) of a folder in linux

Creating a compressed archive of folders and files have multiple uses, such as backing up and storing files or easier and faster transfer of file over networks. A compressed archive is mainly a combination of two separate processes: archiving and compressing. This allows for two things: compression which saves space and archiving which bundles multiple files (usually related) into a single bundle.

5 softwares and utilities that can compress large files in linux

There are several different data compression software that you can use on Linux. Your choice of the software to use will vary depending on the size of the file, when you compress large files you might want to use a different program than when you compress a large number of smaller files. Some of these programs are more popular than others and hence it is quite possible that only a few of them are available out of the box on your Linux distribution. It is always possible to install your favorite one later.

how to add new files into an archive file (tar, gz, zip) in linux (also delete files)

There are several programs, both command line and GUI based that will allow you to view and extract the contents of an archive. But sometimes, you will need to modify an existing archive file, such as add files to the archive, delete an existing file in the archive or rename a file in the archive.

how to unzip files in linux command line

In Linux, tar and gzip is the widely used archiving and compressing file format. Another most widely file compression file format is zip, which is more popular in other operating systems such as Windows.

how to empty or truncate a file in linux

Quite often it is possible to end up with large files, especially large log files on your system. Sometimes, you want to start over by emptying the file especially if you are trying to minimize disk space. This is especially true about log files, which often contains a large amount of outdated data. This is not just relegated to log files, but could also happen to output files or any other file as well.

the differences between static and dynamic webpages..and which is better for seo?

Webpages and in turn websites can generally be classified into two broad categories: Static and Dynamic.The basic difference between these two types of web content is how it is created or put together each time it is accessed.

how to view, edit, unset and delete an environment variable in linux

On Linux and/or Unix operating systems, an environment or system variable is a name-value pair that is available system wide and is used to share information between applications. These (pre) named objects are usually used as configuration settings that an application can lookup provided it knows the name of the variable or object.

how to show line numbers in the "less" command line file viewer

No matter which file viewer you are using, you more often than not would want to show line numbers along with the contents of the file. The less file viewer is no different. First, let me describe what the less utility does, before I tell you how to show line numbers in less.

searching for classes inside java archive files (jar files) from the command line

Sometimes it is not enough to search for files on your hard drive, but you want to search for files inside the file archives. One good example is when you have to find a particular java class by name inside some jar file. Now, we do not know which jar file contains this particular class, and there are several jar files in several folders.

how to find files by name and content in linux or unix from the command line

So, you saved some information in a file somewhere in your hard drive sometime back and cannot find the file anymore. You vaguely remember the file name but don't know where it is, and obviously you have about 13247 file folders and thousands and thousands of files. The easiest way to find the file that you want is using one of the locate commands.

how to set the font and font size in emacs editor

Everybody has a different preference for fonts, font size and the look and feel of the editor that they are using. Most modern editors allow you to customize every single aspect of the look and feel and emacs is no exception.

how to configure proxy server in kde

Depending on the network you are connected to, you may need to configure a proxy server in order for you to connect to the internet. A proxy server is not a part of every network and is not a required component of a network. Large networks, such as corporate networks usually have a proxy server that allows the network traffic to be managed better.

6 most important and advanced linux commands for everyday use

For most users working with the command shell is a big part of the Linux operating system. To be honest, most modern Linux distros are quite user friendly and you can use it as an your everyday system with out even accessing the command shell. That does not mean you should not use it.

understanding log files in linux…where to look when things go wrong

If you spend any amount of time working on Linux environments, either as an user or as an administrator then it is inevitable that you will need to check the log files at some point. It is quite possible that the system or an application is misbehaving or is not working and the best way to fix the issue would be to find out what is wrong by looking at the log files. Looking into the log files is usually the first step in troubleshooting an issue.

how to use a mailto link tag in html webpages

Many small business websites are build once and usually never maintained after that. The content updates are far and few in between and the functionality pretty much stays the same. never fixed when broken. This is especially true of non-retail websites that do not sell any products online.

what are linux commands and the 4 types of them

In Linux or any unix based system, a command refers to a directive that can used to invoke computer program. This program then acts as an interpreter to the command and its options and arguments, and performs a specific task. In most scenarios, a command refers to a directive in the command line which is usually a shell such as bash, csh, ksh etc.

what are server response codes and how do they relate to seo?

HTTP status codes are three digits numbers that are returned by a web server in response to a web request by a client. This code provides some general information about the status of the request to the client. The response may (or may not) also contain a descriptive text regarding the status of the request.

how to find large files in a folder in linux using command line

Sometimes, you need to find large files in a file system that is taking up most of the disk space so that it can be cleaned up to preserve space. These files could be inside folders and sub-folders many levels deep, thus making it almost impossible to navigate to each one of them.

how to change line spacing or line height in html

When coding html pages for a website, the line spacing of the text content is probably one of attributes that is usually left as default. Most of the time, you do not even think about it and the default works the best in most browsers.

7 softwares with a graphical interface that you can use to find large files in linux

Quite often you have to find large files in your system so that you can clean it up and reclaim some of the disk space. It is almost impractical to go though each and every folder in order to identify large files that can deleted. There are some disk analyzers that you can use to scan your hard disk and find those large files.

how to abort, quit and exit emacs

There is a long standing joke about the vim text editor which somehow depicts the complexity of the text editors when it comes to newbies……It usually goes something like this.

how to find which program or process is using the port in linux

A port in computer networking refers to a communication end point on a particular machine. It is associated with one machine or an IP address and is used as a communication mechanism between two or more machines.

A port is said to be open, when a software is actively using the port either to receive or to send data and/or requests. Often times, there are programs that run all the time (such as services) by actively listening on certain ports for requests. A web server is good example, where a server such as Apache is listening on port 80 for requests from different client machines and serving web pages.

11 simple rsync examples that you can use to be more productive

If you have been working with Linux for any amount of time, you must be familiar with the rsync command utility. rsync is a very powerful tool that allows you to synchronize files between two locations, even remote locations over the network. It is a very powerful file transfer tool with definite advantages over any other copy programs.

4 advanced calculators that you can use from linux command line

Almost all modern day Linux distros come with a calculator application by default, unless you use Gentoo, Arch or a similar distro. Most times such GUI based calculator are sufficient to do some quick calculations. However you may not have access to a GUI based system all the time, and you would want to use a command line based calculator utility.

why is inline CSS bad….and is it really that bad?

Many webpage analyzers and most website designers will actively discourage you from using inline CSS (cascading style sheets) in your web pages. There are usually very good reasons for it, and let's see why it is generally frowned upon.

how to change permissions of files and folders in linux

File Permissions in Linux is one of its core security features. Understanding and setting the appropriate file permissions correctly can keep your system safe and secure especially in a multi user environment. In Linux, you can change permissions on a per file or per folder basis. Actually, folders or directories in Linux is actually implemented as a special type of file, so the steps are essentially the same.

how to list all hard disks in linux from command line

Hard Disk, Hard Drive, Disk Drive or Hard Disk Drive are all names for a data storage device (hardware device) for storing and retrieving digital information usually in a computer. A computer can have multiple hard disks attached to it, both internal and external.

how to login as root or super user into a linux system

Super User or root in Linux is a user who has all the rights and permissions including the administrative rights to the system. More often than not, the root is the super user on the Linux systems. Because of this it is usually advisable not to use root as the everyday user on the system even if it is a single user system.

how to change the document root directory in apache web server in linux

The Apache Web Server is one of the most popular web servers that is used both in development and production. As per the latest count, it boasts close to 50% of the market share. There are many reasons as to why the Apache server is popular.

what is a disk partition and why you should partition your disk?

Disk Partitions are logical sections or volumes on the same hard disk or a data storage device that act as separate disks for all practical purposes. Each of these partitions maintains their own address tables (or Master File Table) and file system information.

disk partition: how to partition a hard disk in linux

Disk Partitioning is a process by which one or more logical drives are created in a single data storage device. This creates a continuous set of blocks on the device along with its own address tables and is treated by the operating system as an independent disk.

how to list disk partitions in linux from command line

It is very likely that the hard disk or hard drive on your machine is divided into multiple partitions, as it allows for it to be accessed independently. There are several different reasons as to why you should partition your disk and it probably is already partitioned for you if you have not done it yourself.

how to insert google analytics tracking code into the wordpress header manually

When inserting the google analytics tracking code manually into a WordPress blog, Google recommends that it be the last piece of code before the end of the head tag. Some WordPress themes suggest that wp_head() must be the last code before the end head tag. So, which goes last !?

how to add google analytics tracking code to your wordpress blog

Google Analytics is a tracking service from Google which can be used to track your blog's popularity, user behavior, user interaction among many other features. Understanding what your users do when they are on your website and what they read will help you increase the popularity of your blog. It allows you to understand what the reader's respond to most, find out which of your blog posts are the most popular and how the readers find your blog posts etc etc.

how to add google analytics tracking code to a website

Google Analytics is a tracking service from Google which allows you to track user behavior and interaction among other features in a website. It just requires you to insert a few lines of custom JavaScript code or the Google Analytics tracking code as it is known, into your webpages that you need to track. You get plethora of statistics about your website performance and visitors.

what is a command shell in linux

Many posts on this site deals exclusively with how to get things done in Linux using just a command shell. We use the terms shell, command shell, command prompt, command line, console and terminal interchangeably most of the times. In most cases, it does not matter and it all means the same but there is some subtle differences between shell and terminal.

how to run a script (.sh) file in linux from command line

Scripts are an integral part of any Linux or Unix systems. It refers to a piece of non-compiled programming code that requires an interpreter at run time to perform a task. The scripts can use any of the interpreted language such as Linux shell, Perl, Python, Ruby, JavaScript or any of the other hundreds of interpreted computer languages.

3 ways to list all currently logged in users in linux

Many a time in multi-user environments like Linux, you want to find all the logged in sessions or list all logged in users. This will allow you to know if there has been any 'defunct' sessions which has hanging around for long. This might even be necessary from a security perspective. It could also help you to figure out if there is any particular user and process that is hogging the system resources.

how to copy the directory structure without the files in linux

Sometimes, you want to replicate just the structure of a directory to another location, without any of the files that reside inside the directory or the sub-directories. It is quite easy to copy over entire directory including the files by using the cp command. But the cp command does not provide an easy way to exclude files while copying or an option that will allow to just copy directory structure or folders.

how to check the current disk space usage in linux

It is not uncommon to have to check the disk or drive on your machine to see if there is enough space left on it. Keeping enough free disk space allows you to save more files and images, install new software and even run the operating system better and faster. The method to check for the current status of the hard disk depends on the operating system itself.

how to find the file system type in linux

File Systems are systems that are designed to manage, organize, store and retrieve persistent data on data storage devices. Data storage devices such as hard drives, flash drives and optical discs need to have a file system that is identified and recognized by your computer so that the operating system can perform operations such read and write to the stored data.

how to choose the best USB flash drive (or pen drive)

Are you currently in the market to buy an USB flash drive? Well, if not you can always do with a better one for your key chain, office or car…right? There are some obvious specifications that you look for in the flash drive…such as the capacity, compatibility, physical size etc. But there are also some other and probably more important specifications that you should look for that will make sure that you get the most for your money.

how to use NTP to synchronize the date and time in linux

Most times you want all the servers and machines in the network to be synchronized to the same date and time. This has several advantages, mainly in network related operations. It is also important because many applications on the system uses the machine clock as well.

5 compelling reasons you should have a network router at your home

Network Router is a network device that sits usually between an internal network (LAN or Local Area Network) and the external network (usually a WAN or the internet) and forwards network data packets to machines based on their addresses. You usually need a network router if you have an internal or home network and have to connect to the internet. You will also need one if you do want set up a wireless network.

what is a robots.txt file and how it affects search engine indexing

The robots.txt is a text file that resides in the top level folder on your webserver. The purpose of the robots.txt file (or just robots file) is to provide some guidance to search engine crawlers as to what should be crawled and indexed, and what content should not be crawled.

what is an IP address and how to find it…

Internet Protocol (IP) Address is an unique number that is assigned to your computer or any device for that matter, like your smart phone, router or printer, when it is connected to a computer network (eg. internet). There are usually two types of networks that you could be directly connected to, an internal network or the internet. If your computer connects to a router (or is part of a wider company network) then your are connected to a internal network. If your machine connects directly to the modem that is provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider), then you are directly connected to the internet.

how to format a disk drive in linux

Formatting a data storage device such as a hard disk or USB flash drive, involves wiping out or deleting the entire stored data on the drive and installing a brand new address table on the drive. This process will also test all the sectors on the drive for reliability and mark the bad ones as unusable. Hence, when you format a drive it is a process to start anew with your existing hard drive.

how to mount or load an USB flash drive in linux

Most modern Linux and Unix distros are mostly plug and play when it comes to using data storage devices like the USB flash drive or an external hard drive. Some of the desktop environments like the KDE or Gnome will also auto mount the device when it is plugged in and make it writable as well.

how to set or change the date and time in linux

The system time and date in Linux is important to be set correctly as it is used by many other applications and services that run on your machine. In most modern distros, it is possible to set the time and date from the graphical interface. In this post we will only discuss how to set time from the command line.

how to rename files and folders in linux using the command line

One of the common operations that you will perform repeatedly is renaming files and folders. Most often you will rename files directly from the command line. Sometimes you might also have to do it from within a shell script. Well, you could do it with a file manager as well, but what fun is that?

how to copy files from multiple locations to a single folder from linux command line

Many times you want to copy files over from several different locations into single location on your system. There could be many reasons why you may want to do it. For example, this may be to aggregate all image files or log files from all over into a single folder.

how to add an user into the user group in linux and unix

User management in Linux and Unix systems among many other things often involve adding and removing the users to and from pre-defined or custom usergroups. User groups in unix systems usually provide a smart and easy way to control permissioning in Linux systems. Several functions and actions in the system is only accessible to users in a particular user group.

how can you delete saved passwords from mozilla firefox

Mozilla Firefox, as with most modern browsers give you the ability to save passwords for different websites and webpages. This makes web browsing easier, as it does allow you to easily log in to websites that you visit often.

how to check for open ports or sockets in linux

The Linux operating system as well as many of the Linux applications use ports to communicate with each other. A port can be viewed as a communication endpoint that is identified by a number called the port number. This port number along with the address of the machine is used by other applications to communicate with an application (or process) running on your machine.

how to change desktop wallpaper in kde plasma

As with any self respecting window manager, Plasma (KDE) also give you the ability to set or change wall papers on your desktop. There are several different options when setting wallpaper for your desktop. If you have multiple screens, you can have separate or different configuration for each of your screens or desktops.

how to take screenshots with gimp in linux

GIMP is probably the most comprehensive, versatile and free image manipulation software available in Linux. In addition to the various image manipulation functionality that GIMP provides, you can also use it to take screen shots of your desktop or windows.

12 useful bash aliases that can make you more productive in linux

Aliases is one of the most useful features of Linux command shells. You probably end up using the same commands over and over on a daily basis. This is true if you use the command line for almost everything. You can use bash aliases (if you use bash) or shell aliases to make these every day tasks easier to execute.

what are shell scripts in linux and why you need them

A Shell Script is nothing but a text file which contains a series of commands that can be executed by the shell or the underlying operating system. Some of the commands that you enter in the command line might actually be shell scripts that execute a set of other lower level commands. Also many software in Linux use shell scripts as startup scripts.

how to set or change your homepage in mozilla firefox

Mozilla Firefox has several options to configure the start or homepage in the browser. The homepage button allows you to easily go to a specific webpage or URL. This is probably a website that you visit very often and is also your start page.

how to enable and disable syntax highlighting in vi or vim editor

Syntax Highlighting is a feature where the readability of the displayed text is enhanced by showing certain words, phrases or keywords in differing colors or fonts. This is especially useful when viewing source code of various programming, scripting or markup languages. In fact any text with an associated grammar can have syntax highlighting.

ksnapshot - the screen capturing software for kde and linux

Capturing screen shots is probably one of most common things you do when you are blogging, especially if your niche include software or technology. There are quite a few desktop programs that take screen shots, but the probably the best one I have found so far is KSnapshot. It provides several ways to capture your screen as well as many different ways to save it or share it. Though not the only way to take screenshots in Linux, KSnapshot is a good screen capturing software available by default on KDE, but can also be used in other Linux desktop environments such as Gnome.

why the bounce rate metric in web analytics can be very misleading…

Bounce Rate is often considered as a good indicator of the quality of your webpages and website in general. As a rule of thumb, it is considered bad to have a high bounce rate as it indicates that the user is not finding what he or she is looking for and is bouncing away to another site or back to the search results page. While this logic holds true in many cases, it does not work very well in several other scenarios.

how to use wget to find broken links on your website

As websites get larger and larger with ever-growing content, it could easily get to be a nightmare to maintain. It is true for any website. But this is especially true of a blog, a forum or any site with a constant influx of new content.

what is data compression and why use it

Data compression is a process by which the file size is reduced by re-encoding the file data to use fewer bits of storage than the original file. The original file can then be recreated from the compressed representation using a reverse process called decompression. There are several different algorithms and implementations that allow you to compress your files, some of which perform better than others for certain kinds of file types.

how to implement an HTTP redirect (301) for an URL

HTTP Redirect or URL Redirect is a technique used by the web servers to serve the same and identical content for two or more URL addresses. This allows the users to use several different URLs knowingly or unknowingly but the content that is delivered is exactly identical and transparent to the user. There are several cases where this is useful.

how to reload or refresh a webpage using javascript

When developing webpages for a website, you will often come across pages that updates much more frequently than others. One of the easiest way to ensure that the viewers get the latest content is to refresh the page automatically.

how to sort the output of 'ls command' in linux command line

In Linux or Unix, ls is the command used to list the contents of a directory. When displaying the files and folders in the directory, it is sometimes more informative to have them sorted by name, size or an another attribute. The ls command does provide some sorting options that are commonly used, such as sorting by name, last modified time, last accessed time and file size.

how and why to avoid css @import statements in stylesheets on your websites

Among the many things that you can do to improve the search engine optimization (SEO) of your web pages, one of the easiest and important thing is to improve on the page load time. It has been shown that improving the page speed leads to better user experience, user engagement and thus, indirectly better search engine optimization. Avoiding the CSS @import statements in your stylesheets are just one of those things to do to improve SEO.

how to create a new file or buffer in emacs editor

If you have been using emacs as your text editor then one of the first things you probably want to know is how to create a new file or buffer in the editor. As with many of the modern editors, emacs has the concept of a buffer and a file.

seo: how to minify source files to reduce the webpage size and improve rendering

Minification is the process by which all unnecessary characters, including white spaces are removed from the source files so as to reduce the size of the file, without comprising any of the functionality of the program. The unnecessary characters can include spaces, blank, new line and comments.

how to find matching parenthesis or braces in emacs editor

In Emacs, there are quite a few packages that allow you to match braces and brackets in the buffer. Some of these packages provide more functionality than others, but almost all them provide the matching functionality.

how to use the tail command to view files in linux

There are several different ways to view text files in Linux. You can use a text editor such as vi or gedit. You can also use an utility like more or less that will print out the complete content of the file. tail is yet another utility that will allow you to view the contents of a file.

how to find the os version in linux from command line

Linux and Unix operating systems comes in a wide range of flavors often bundled as different distributions by different vendors. Every one of these distributions also comes with an often particular version of the Linux kernel. Mostly it is a latest version of the kernel, but you would want to check the kernel version to see how up to date it is.

7 distinct advantages of developing a custom wordpress theme

One of the important things when starting or updating a WordPress blog is the choice of a theme. You usually have several different options to choose from. Depending very much on your requirements, you can choose a specific theme framework and then choose a theme that has been developed on top of that framework.

What is the difference between single quotes and double quotes in bash

When you are writing shell scripts or typing out commands in bash, you might have noticed that you can use either the single quotes (') or the double quotes (") with most commands. This is true not just with scripts but with all bash commands as well. But there is a difference between the two types of quotes, single vs double quotes and how the bash shell interprets it.

seo: why you should put the external style sheets (css) in the document head

Every webpage has a head tag at the top of the source, known as the document head. It is different from what is sometimes referred as a header. Header usually refers to the visual elements that constitute the top part of a web site. Usually the header has a constant look and feel across all the pages, often containing the site logo and navigation menus.

how to add a line break in html

Most if not all of the HTML browsers ignore the typical line breaks and spaces that are in the source code such as "Enter", multiple "spaces", "tabs" etc. This means that the line breaks you see in the source code will not translate when the page gets rendered in the browser.

kde plasma 5: how to add and remove a widget from panel in kde

In KDE and Plasma 5, you can have as many panels as you like on your desktop. The panels are usually only useful if it contains some widgets in it. We will see how you can add, delete or modify widgets to your panels.

javascript: how to delete or remove a property from javascript objects?

If you are a seasoned JavaScript developer, then you work with JavaScript objects all the time and it is pretty obvious how you can remove properties from objects. This post is more for the uninitiated and newbies, not for programmers ;-).

how to save a file or buffer in emacs editor

If you have worked with emacs then you might be familiar with the concept of buffers. It is similar to what other editors might call tabs or files. In emacs, it refers to the contents of some file or directory that you had opened and it is a copy of the contents of those files. So the contents of the file does not change until you save the buffer.

redirect non-www domain to the www domain and avoid duplicate content

A webpage or the website itself, can have more than one version of the URL pointing to it. This creates issues for a search engine crawlers and for the SEO of the website itself, often referred to as the canonicalization issue. Canonicalization or c14n, in the world of websites, is the process in which the best URL is chosen for a landing page where and when there is several possibilities. One prime example is the homepage of the website, which usually has two equivalent URLs pointing to it.

how to use a custom or user stylesheet (css) in a web browser

Almost all modern browsers support a user customizable CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) that you can use to modify the look and feel of a website when it is displayed on your browser. You could change the fonts, the color and even the layouts of almost all websites using custom user stylesheets. I am sure there are atleast a couple annoying things about a website that you frequent that you wish they did change, so now this is one way you could deal with it.

how to merge multiple files into one single file in linux

Many a times you may have multiple files that needs to merged into one single file. It could be that you previously split a single file into multiple files, and want to just merge them back or you have several log files that you want merged into one. Whatever the reason, it is very easy to merge multiple text files into a single file in Linux.

how you can easily disable category feeds (and tag feeds) in wordpress websites

Wordpress is one of the common and popular content management used to develop and publish Blogs and websites. Wordpress provides RSS or news feed support out of the box without a very good interface to either enable and/or disable any or all of those feeds.

how to get current date and time inside a shell script

When writing shell scripts, many times you would want to get the current time and date, that is the date and time when the script is getting executed. This value can be saved to a variable and used through out the script for various different purposes. You can use them to generate informative file names or even other variables. You can use them to compare it with an another time or date etc.

how to access ftp servers and transfer files in linux without an ftp client

Many times softwares are hosted on ftp servers, especially open source and not so popular ones. FTP servers are also good method to transfer files and folder between machines. This means that you will need to occasionally connect to FTP file servers either to download or upload files.

how to add or create new user groups in linux

Creating user group is fundamental to the process of user management in Linux. Most Unix systems come with many user groups built in, most of them system groups out of the box, that is usually sufficient for single user systems. If you have multiple users on the same system, then you probably want to create your own groups to manage the users better.

how to copy symbolic links in linux from the command line

Links are one of the widely used features in Linux. In its most basic sense, Links are just special files that allow you to create references to other files and directories. It has many advantages and it works more or less like a regular file or directory. You can access and operate on a link just as you can perform different functions on a file.

how to view all details or metadata of a file in linux command line

When viewing a particular file in Linux, you might want to see all the relevant file metadata associated with it. The file metadata details includes information regarding its size, permissions, creation date, access date, inode number, uid/gid, file type etc.

when to use child themes in wordpress and its advantages and disadvantages

A WordPress Child Theme is a theme that inherits the functionality and look and feel of another WordPress Theme, which is referred to as the Parent Theme. The Child theme then have the ability to extend and override the functionality of the parent theme.

how to enable and disable syntax highlighting in emacs

Emacs comes with syntax highlighting enabled out of the box for most modes or file types. So it should work just fine in most cases. The standard way that Emacs perform syntax highlighting is using the font-lock-mode function. It is turned on by default.

how to show line numbers in gedit text editor

There are many graphical editors in Linux, many with specific or unique features for text editing. GEdit and Kate are probably the most popular of these, mostly because they are tied to desktop environments such as Gnome and KDE respectively. There are several more that you could try such as Cream, JEdit, Kwrite and Scribes.

how to sort du command output by size in linux

If you use a Linux system often enough, you should already be familiar with the du command. The du command allows you to check or print the file space usage. You can use it to print out the current disk usage for a set of files and folders.

how to repeat the last or previous command in emacs editor

One of the useful features of an editor is the ability repeat commands with minimal keystrokes. Many users find it useful when having to execute arduous long commands that require some typing.

what is bounce rate in web analytics?

In web analytics, the Bounce Rate is a popular metric that is often used to measure how engaging your website is to the visitor. Bounce Rate is measured as the percentage of total visits to the websites that results in just one page view. To elaborate it even further, it is the percentage of page visits when the user left your website straight from the entrance page or the landing page.

how to remove (rm) or delete a directory or folder in linux

There are several different ways to delete folders or directories in Linux file systems. If you use a graphical file browser such as dolphin or nautilus then it provides an easy enough way to delete directory, files and sub-folders. But, sometimes you have access only to the command line and want to delete directory from the command line. Using the command line is also very useful when you need to delete nested folders selectively.

how to go to a specific line number in emacs

One of the common forms of navigation with in a text editor is the ability to go to specific line in the buffer by using the line number. In emacs, you can browse or navigate the buffer in several different ways and the "go to line number" feature is just one of them.

how to display line numbers when viewing a file in linux

While viewing files in Linux, especially text files it is often informative and useful to see the line numbers. Text based editors and utilities such as vi, nano, cat or less can all display line numbers with a command line argument or with an command with in the editor. Many text editors with a graphical interface will display line numbers by default, but you can always toggle it from the options to enable or disable it.

how to sort text, lines and fields in the emacs editor

Emacs has several different ways of sorting text in the buffer. You can sort lines, paragraphs and also sort text based on fields or words in the line.

how to find matching braces in vi or vim editor

If you are using the vi or vim editor to browse code (or any text for that matter), then quite often you would want to find the matching parenthesis to determine the scope of the enclosing brackets. Most modern editors such as gvim or vim has the ability to automatically highlight the matching parenthesis when the cursor is on a bracket/brace/parenthesis.

how to count characters, words and lines in a text file in linux

Many modern day graphical text editors have the functionality to count characters, words and lines of the text file that it is being edited. But sometimes you would want to see the statistics of the text file from the command line. It is also useful when you want to see and compare these for several different files.

how to change the working directory in linux from command line

When you are working from the command line in Linux, you will often need to change the current working directory. Although almost all functions can be performed without changing the working directory, it is often clearer and convenient when you can perform the operation from within the intended directory.

how to rename a buffer and file in emacs editor

One of the features you will need to use repeatedly while using a text editor is the ability to save the buffer or the file to the disk. In Emacs, saving the file or buffer to disk is easy enough but how do you rename the current buffer or save it to different file on the disk.

how to set font size or size of text in html or css

Defining the size of text in different contexts is important when designing and developing webpages. In HTML, there are primarily two different ways of specifying the font size or size of text. One is using the font tag and the other is using cascading style sheets or CSS.

how to enable and disable trackbacks or pingbacks in wordpress

A Trackback or Pingback is a mechanism by which a blog or website can be notified when another blog post or websites creates a link back to the site. For example, when you publish a post that has links to a blog post on another domain then the other blog is notified of this backlink. The other blog can then choose to display this trackback on their own post, thus creating a back link to your blog.

kde plasma - how to install themes

KDE comes with a wide range of themes and an easy installer allowing you to tweak the look and feel of your desktop. There are several different types of themes that controls different aspects of the environment and each of it can use a different theme.

how to count words in vi or vim editor

When editing text files, you might want to know the total number of words in the document. Sometimes you would want to count the number of a specific word. If you are using the vim or vi editor, then you can easily count the words using one of the following commands.

kde5: how to restart plasma desktop

There are situations when you would want to restart your KDE plasma environment without having to restart the entire system. This maybe because you have compiled a new version of plasma, or your current plasma shell is hanging and is not responding.

seo: how and when to inline CSS in your webpage

CSS or cascading style sheets are an important part of most websites. Having a CSS file has many advantages in the development and maintenance of the website. Some of the prominent advantages are:

how to create a symbolic link (hard or soft) in linux

Creating symbolic links or pointers to a file or folder is an important feature of posix based operating systems such as Linux and Unix. Links gives you the ability to create or duplicate "files" in the system with different names with out creating separate copies of the file. This makes it easier to update and modify a single copy where by all the links or shortcuts to the file are also updated.

how to merge two or more directories in linux

Before we merge two or more directories, we need to define what we mean by "merge" in the context of directories. There can be a variety of requirements that could be named as merging of directories. Let's assume that merging of (two or more) directories means "to create a new directory with files from all of the merged directories". There can be other requirements associated with this, but we will tackle those as we go along.

how to determine the current command line shell in linux

Linux has many different command line shells that can be used. And different Linux distros use different shells as default. Sometimes you might also be using different shells in different terminals.

how to increase line spacing in emacs editor

Depending on the font you are using, there are times when you would want to increase the spacing between the lines to make it more readable. The variable that controls the spacing between lines is line-spacing and can executed in the mini-buffer or added to the configuration file.

11 easy ways to optimize and speed up your wordpress blog

WordPress is a very popular Content Management System (CMS) that is widely used by many blogs and even websites. It has many features that make the process of editing, managing and publishing of the web content easier. One of the downsides of such a feature rich CMS is that it tends be slow in serving web content. There are several easy things that you can do to substantially speed up WordPress blogs.

how to rename file extensions of multiple files in a folder from command line in linux

You might have several files inside a folder with the same file extension that you want to rename or change the file extension of. For example, you might want to change the all .text extension to .txt or all .jpeg extensions to .jpg.

how to run cron jobs as a specific user other than root in linux

Cron jobs are an essential part of Linux and Unix systems. The Cron is a software utility that is available on almost all versions of Unix and Linux by default. It is a time-based scheduler program that can run jobs, such as commands and scripts at specified days or times. As mentioned it is primarily used for system maintenance purposes but you could use it for any purpose.

how to enable and disable ipv6 in linux

IP addresses provide an identification and address to devices in a network so that they can communicate with other devices. These IP addresses need to be unique so that the device can be uniquely identified with in the network.

how and why to defer parsing of javascript in a webpage

Most modern day websites heavily use client scripts to make the websites dynamic, responsive and personalized. The most popular of these scripts is the JavaScript, which is used to display third party widgets, dynamic menus, responsive forms etc. to name a few.

how to enable and disable double click mouse options in KDE

If you are primarily a command line user in Linux, then it is possible that you don't use the mouse a whole lot. If you use a desktop environment such as KDE or Gnome, and use the graphical file managers then you probably use the mouse quite a bit. The common practice is to click on file icons (or file names) to open the files in appropriate software.

linux: how to list users?…show all users or just local users

Linux doesn't provide a straight forward command to list all users in the system. You can list users who are currently logged in, or you can find groups that the user belongs to, but really no simple way to list users or to get a comprehensive list of all users in the system or a list of users in a specific group.

10 commonly used basic linux commands you should know

Most modern Linux distros come with one or more desktop environments already installed. These desktop environments, such as KDE and Gnome are very rich in applications that you can usually get by without using any of the commands or command line utilities directly.

You should still know at least some of the basic Linux commands that you can use from the command line in order to use the system effectively. It not only comes in handy when using a desktop, it is extremely useful while working remotely on another machine.

how to count words and lines in the emacs editor

One of the functionality you might want from a text editor is the ability to count words and lines in the current buffer. This is especially useful for writers, but can be useful for others a well.

how to use a single user CSS file in firefox, chrome and opera

Most modern web browsers support custom or user stylesheets which can be used to modify the look and feel of a web page before it is rendered. Usually there are multiple ways to set up a custom stylesheet (or user css file) in web browsers. Some browsers use extensions or addons while other just uses a simple css text file. Sometime you can use either or both.

how to write comments in html source code

If you have done programming in any language, you must realize how important comments are in understanding code. Of course, you need to write good comments and maintain them regularly. When done correctly, it is an invaluable tool in understanding code logic in long running code bases.

understanding the XML sitemap and the reasons why you should have one for your site

Sitemaps are an integral part of the most modern websites. Sitemap is essentially a file which lists all the URLs that point to the pages in the website. The sitemap can be in any format: text, HTML or XML.

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