Replacing OpenJDK with Oracle/Sun Java on Ubuntu and Mint

Ever wanted "the real thing" on your lovely Ubuntu or Mint installation when it comes to Java? Search no more, here's the solution: Duinsoft developed a very nice script / installer which does all the installation of the most recent Java Runtime from Oracle (formerly Sun) for you:

http://www.duinsoft.nl/packages.php?t=en

So in order to replace the pre-installed OpenJDK on your box you essentially need to follow the quick instructions ("Repository") on the site mentioned above plus purging the OpenJDK stuff afterwards with:

sudo apt-get purge openjdk-\* icedtea-\* icedtea6-\*

After all the voodoo is over you should get the following prompt when doing a

java -version

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_06-b24)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.2-b09, mixed mode)

(Note: Exact build numbers may vary, depending on when you installed the stuff.)

Best thing is: You don't need to all that installation mess again, the script from Duinsoft will take care of it in the future from now on.

Rethinking the shell pipeline

Nice article about rethinking the (ancient) shell pipeline by Alexander
Larsson:

http://blogs.gnome.org/alexl/2012/08/10/rethinking-the-shell-pipeline/

For which who don't like the Windows Powershell (me, for example) this
seems to be nice approach! Give this a read.

Create an API for a webpage that doesn't have one

Ever wondered why your favourite website doesn't have a nice API to
retrieve some JSON data out of it? Then you probably want to build your
own API for free using APIfy: http://apify.heroku.com/resources
This basically is a playground for hacking up a (simple) API to extract
information out of some website. Works pretty well, even if it's still a
bit simple-minded. Let's see what time will tell ...

Nice comparison of responsive JS frameworks

Just stumbled over a nice site which has a pretty nice and deep
comparison of the latest and most popular responsive JS frameworks:

http://blog.stevensanderson.com/2012/08/01/rich-javascript-applications-the-seven-frameworks-throne-of-js-2012/

So if you're into Javascript, be sure to check this out!

Tahoe-LAFS, a decentralized p2p file system in Python

While browsing through my "to-read" bookmarks I again stumbled upon Tahoe-LAFS, a decentralized peer-to-peer filesystem implemented in Python. This thing really looks promising, providing encrypted and (hopefully) secure storage of all your data across the web. Thaoe is not meant to be for the end-user (yet) really, but maybe there will be some nice addons to all the Dropbox clones out there which then finally could be used with end-to-end encryption. For non-geeks: This means that, if Thaoe is being used together with a service like Dropbox, nobody but you - not even by the Dropbox staff itself - can access your data anymore.

I'll have to play around with this a bit more in the next upcoming days. Let's see how it performs.

Oh, and here's the website in case you can't wait to get your hands on yourself: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs
 

A (Mostly) Gentle Introduction to Computer Security (by Todd Austin)

Just dug out a nice video recorded over at  LinuxConf.au 2012 from Todd Austin, which gives an introduction of (general) computer security concepts and some details behind it. Well done stuff, be sure to check it out:

Another crazy dubstep video (by Mike Tompkins)