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Upgrade I recently had to perform upgrades for multiple machines from Update Pack 4 to Update Pack 5 . It was really rather easy to do as the following instructions show. Thanks to this blog for correcting some of my mistakes. Update the Update Manager The update manager will indicate when updates are available. For a distribution upgrade like Update Pack 5 , I revert to command line. Use CTL-ALT-F1 to switch to a native console session. Then update the update manager with the commands sudo apt-get install mint-debian-mirrors sudo apt-get install mintupdate-debian sudo apt-get --fix-missing --list-cleanup update sudo apt-get install mintupdate-debian Run Distribution Upgrade So, now we are ready to perform the upgrade with sudo apt-get --fix-missing --list-cleanup update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade Questions Asked During Upgrade Questions will be asked during the upgrade. If you have a default installation you can normally use the package...

I’ve not had to use TrueType fonts before as my desktop display resolution never warranted it. Now with eyesight failing and much better monitors, I decided to give them a go. Fonts are globally managed by settings in /etc/X11/app-defaults . However, TrueType fonts can be locally set in  ~/.Xresources . To browse the list of fonts use: fc-list :fontformat=TrueType -f "%{family}\n" | sort -u | less Test a font by specifying in the xterm command using the -fa option: xterm -fa 'Luxi Mono' -fs 10 Where fa refers to the fonts face name, and fs , the font size. Once happy with your font, apply to your application in ~/.Xresources. For example to apply for XTerm : ! my customisations XTerm*faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono XTerm*faceSize: 11 The final step is to set these resource changes using xrdb : xrdb -merge .Xresources So, next time you invoke a plain xterm command you will be greeted with your new font.

To Generate Key On source host run ssh-keygen(1) ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048Take defaults on prompts. This will generate two files in .ssh .ssh/id_rsa.pub .ssh/id_rsa Copy these from source to target host with cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh user@target "cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys; chmod 600 \ .ssh/authorized_keys" Now you can login without password from source to target using ssh target References http://www.openssh.org/manual.html http://www.wikihow.com/Use-SSH http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_(algorithm)

GPS Information in photos I got a post today asking I had no idea this could happen from taking pictures on the blackberry or cell phone. It's scary. http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=N2vARzvWxwY The short answer is, yes if you have location services switched on then photo's you take can include that information. How detailed is it? And how can you use it? As an example consider this photograph, It contains a metadata including GPS properties. I used ImageMagick to extract the following, Image: CameraZOOM-20120215124309832.jpg Format: JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group JFIF format) Class: DirectClass Geometry: 1944x1944+0+0 Resolution: 72x72 Print size: 27x27 Units: Undefined Type: TrueColor Endianess: Undefined Colorspace: RGB Depth: 8-bit Channel depth: ... Image statistics: ... Page geometry: 1944x1944+0+0 Properties: ... exif:GPSAltitude: 0/1 exif:GPSAltitudeRef: 0 exif:GPSDateStamp: 2012:02:15 exif:GPSInfo: 302 exif:GPSLatitude: 37/1, 48/1, 58099/1000...