Favourite Linux Applications

I know what applications you use for day to day tasks is a very personal affair, however i had numerious people asking me what I use daily and sometimes what alternatives to commerial software I am using as such I though I would list them for reference, obviously all of these fit my spesific requirements. Lots of the time the need for me is to have applications that can work cross-platform with some sorts of a mechanism to sync between operating systems / devices.



As operating system for home and general use I am using Kubuntu Xenial.


 Then there is a few out of the box KDE applications I can't live without:
 

For Audio management there is nothing better on this planet than Amarok and an application i will never be without.

  VLC Media player is that swiss army knive for media playback.

Then for IRC I find Konversation the easiest to use.

For that dreaded email world we wlive in nothing do the task better than KMail. It integrates well with Google and for me the use of OpenPGP and encryption from within KMail was very easy to use.

Then to ensure all those Keys as managed easily KGpg is a simple interface for GnuPG.

For backups I found Back In Time to perform the easiest for me nad do have a KDE GUI.


Then more generic applications I use:

Favourite and first choice web browser is FireFox, as i find the web developer tools and Greasemonkey integration valuable.





Second choice for browser is Google Chrome.

Whenever I am not using Dolphins' location bar to perform FTP functionality, I will be using FileZilla client.

The one text editor that stands out head above the rest for me at this moment is Sublime Text. With multi column layout, Syntax Highlighting and the command pallet to perform actions it surely increase the productivity for anything that needs to be done in a text editor.

For all those backups and transfers, nothing better than Rsync, and if I need to use a GUI the best out there is Grsync.

Calibre eBook library management and reader application is another of those applications I will never be without. The ability to tag, and create series for my magamzines as well as convert to the proper format for reading on any of the devices in the household is invaluable.

Another one of those swiss army knives for audio tagging and management is Musicbrainz Picard. Written in Python with the ability to use plugins.

DupeGuru ME (Music Edition) does a great job at identifying duplicates in music collections and can do so based on many criteria.

Puddletag is the best to view & edit custom MP3 tags. As I add things like BPM to my MP3 audio files via a Picard plugin, Puddletag is a great way to confirm the BPM field.

Then for the tagging and library management of multimedia files, I have found the best GUI application to be MediaElch. Ability to sort Movies and Series and spesify source folders is great. It uses multiple scrapers as well.


Then for more work related stuff I do use:

Keepass for those password

I use KRDC for all those remote desktop connectivity (RDP and VNC)

yEd from yWorks is great for BPMN, flowcharts and semantic diagrams with an easy abillity to auto arrange and export.

One of those Gnome apps that I do use frequently as well is Dia.

then there is nothing better for those documents andspreadsheets than LibreOffice.

Graphical disk usage Filelight

Postgresql on Ubuntu server

Install
To install use the command line and type:

sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib

This will install the latest version available in your Ubuntu release and the commonly used add-ons for it.
We then need to change the password for the postgres database user; as postgres we execute the psql command

sudo -u postgres psql postgres

and give the user a password

\password postgres

type a password and quit psql with Ctrl+D or \quit
to set a *nix password for the user use the

sudo passwd postgres

and type the new *nix password for the user

User access
Then to give users access amend the

/etc/postgresql/current/main/pg_hba.conf

and add something like below (granting all users on subnet 10.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 access to all databases with username / password method)

type	database	user	ip address	method
host	all	all	10.0.0.0/24	md5

And make sure postgresql listen on the correct interface / ip address in

/etc/postgresql/current/main/postgresql.conf

by configuring the listen_addresses. Default only listen on localhost.

This can then be tested with the following from a host on the 10.0.0.0/24 subnet:

psql -h 10.0.0.1 -U postgres -d postgres

Add a database and spesific user for it

To create a database with a user that have full rights on the database, use the following command:

sudo -u postgres createuser -D -A -P myuser
sudo -u postgres createdb -O myuser mydb

Else install pgadmin to manage the database.

iPad Aplications that makes my tablet a productivity tool

After some time I decided to post the applications I use to make my tablet a productivity tool. After all it is the apps that make the tablet and not the other way around.

I divided my apps into 4 catagories

• Productivity
• Utilities
• Social
• Entertainment

And yes productivity in my case can be enhanced by entertainment (imagine a noisy open plan office whilst trying to do some decent low level architecture analysis) Nothing better than in-ear headphones and my favourite radio station or music collection ...

Productivity:

• iThoughtsHD - it will import and export mindmaps to and from many of the most popular desktop mindmap applications and used daily by myself.
• TouchDraw - Vector drawing and diagramming with useful Libraries and great support (had some queries around connector types)
• SharePlus - Used to access content on SharePoint sites
• Quickoffice HD - office editing suite for iPad (including Office 2010)
• GoodReader - A auper-robust reader for iPad (great at PDF & Office docs with great file management & multitude of connections e.g. Dropbox, Skydrive, Google Drive, SMB servers, etc.)

Other used as well

 

• UPAD Lite - great for quick freehand notes or freehand schetching
• Evernote - The best note taking application and cross OS (from my PC to my Android phone and my iPad)
• DropBox - cloud sync for non sensitive data (I use a private cloud for sensitive data)
• OneNote - used to sync notes from Microsoft Notes (for a spesific customer in a pure Microsoft environment)
• AceProject - Keeping track of project tasks & collaborate with other teams

Most of these are used on a daily basis by myself with iThoughtsHD used for mind mapping as well as note keeping per project and assigning tasks to myself and others. GoodReader is in my mind the swiss army knive of IOS and enabled me to read most things on the iPad from local, private- or public cloud. All of them was carefully picked to enhance my productivity and still keep the data-overload era we live in catagorized and not to duplicate wherever possible.

Following posts will look into the other catagories of applications I use.