Guake - Drop-down terminal for linux

Today there is seldom a need to open a terminal in a linux system to carry out your day-to-day tasks. And i feel it is good, as many new linux may get scared off, if you need to use the terminal for simple daily tasks, but as any moderate linux user will tell you, it is very useful to have some basic terminal skills. But i hate it when you have to keep track of all the terminal windows when you minimize them or when they hide behind some other window. A solution to this problem is the Guake terminal for gnome desktop.

Guake Terminal 

It is a drop-down terminal for gnome desktop system. Here are some of its main features

• Can be invoked by single key press.
• Opens instantly, as it is already loaded in the memory at the start-up.
• Multiple terminals can be opened in the single window.
• Highly customizable. Keyboard shortcuts, window appearance, scrolling behavior can be changed very easily.

To get it for ubuntu just search it in the software center or CLICK HERE to visit its development page.

Klavaro - Free touch typing tutor for linux

If you are a heavy web user or a general computerholic, significant amount of your tasks are done using a keyboard and i am sure that most of you, use just the index fingers to do most of the typing. Though i have seen some people typing really fast with just their index fingers, it is frankly a very unproductive way of typing. So it would be worthwhile to learn to use all your fingers for typing and to not look constantly at you keyboard. This is called touch typing. If you are a linux user here is good software too get started with touch typing.

Klavaro
It is a free touch typing tutor for linux systems. Small in size but you will be amazed to see so many features packed in it. Some of the important features are

• Supports mostly all the languages you can think of.
• Supports a wide range of keyboard layouts.
• You can also customize the keyboard layout
• Shows progress charts to review your performance.
• Very simple layout and free of unnecessary options which you will seldom use.

If you are a ubuntu user, just type "klavaro" in the software centre and install it. To download it for other distros Click Here to visit their website.

Conky (with personal conky configuration)

If you have seen any Linux desktop screenshots, there is high probability that you have come across the very geeky looking system monitor on the side. That is conky.

Conky
Conky is a free system monitoring software for Linux and BSD. One of its most attractive feature is that its highly configurable. There are hundreds of parameters and graphic layouts you can choose, to be displayed on your desktop.
If you are using Ubuntu just search for conky in their software center.
or CLICK HERE to download and get other installation instruction.

Configuring Conky Layout
But the most fun part about conky is its configuration. Some people spend hours trying out different layouts to suit their personal needs. You can access the conky config file by typing "gedit .conkyrc" in the terminal. To get more information about conky configuration and parameters, visit the above download link.
If you like the conky layout in the image of this post CLICK HERE to download its config file.

Block Flash Content

Day by day the Internet is getting more complex and dynamic. Earlier mostly all the websites contained only text and images. But today whole world's garbage is dumped onto the website, like annoying widgets, banners, toolbars, flash content etc. From them one of the most disturbing is the flash content. The flash videos and ads start playing automatically without the users permission therefore wasting valuable bandwidth and CPU power. Due to the the flash content websites take longer to load and put unnecessary load on your CPU, frequently crashing the entire browser. So here is a FireFox addon which can help you block the flash contents and make your online time more productive.

 Flashblock
   
Flashblock Is a firefox addon which blocks Flash content on a website. It currently blocks the following type of contents.

• Macromedia Flash
• Macromedia Shockwave 
• Macromedia Authorware

Instead of the flash content it provides you with a arrow button, which you can press to allow the flash content.
And don't be afraid that it will block the Youtube videos. There is whitelist option in the addon to add exceptions for sites like Youtube. So enjoy the flash free world!
Click here to get the addon

Checking Whether a Website is Down for you Alone

Have you ever tried to access a website, but instead sat there like for hours getting hypnotized by the revolving loading button?. Most of the time the reason for this is that the website is down (means the browser is not able to retrieve the information from the web server, due to some technical malfunction on the server side). Now most of the web administrators provide you with a message when the site is down due to some maintenance work or other up-gradation, but many times there is no telling why the site is not loading. So here is a website, which you can use to check whether a particular site is down for everybody or whether it is some internal problem from your part, like the website is not compatible with your browser, your ISP has blocked that particular site, the site is down for users from a particular region etc.

www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com

Block specific words from the internet on firefox

As the internet is growing, so are the risk factors associated with it. A very innocent search term can lead the user to pornographic and other offensive material. Today if you browse through some popular websites you will most probably come across offensive words and other abuses in the comment section. If you are a youtube fan profanities is the standard language in their comments. Now parents can't actually stop their children from visiting all these sites. There are many parent control software available to avoid this exposure but they are mostly very limited, like you can block some sites on it or block pornographic contents but you never get the full control of the software to make your desired change suitable for your pupil. An excellent solution for this problem is to block specific words from the internet. Here is a Firefox addon which can accomplish this perfectly.


ProCon Latte Content Filter
ProCon latte is a very popular content filtering addon for the Firefox browser. It has wide range of features and is very customizable according to the users personal needs. Here are some of its most important features

• It has a blacklisted word section where you can provide the words you want to block. When the user tries to open a website it first quickly scans the website for occurrence of the blacklisted words. If it comes across such words it does not allow the browser to open the page and redirects the user to a website which has been provided by the admin.
• There is a profanity blocker where the admin provides a list of profanities to block or you can just subscribe to standard profanity lists provided by other users. While scanning the website if the addon comes across a profanity, it will substitute it with a string provided by the admin like" XXXX " etc.
• You can set a password for the addon to restrict the pupil from disabling the addon.
• All the lists are editable to give the admin total control. Specific features can be quickly disabled if the admin feels no need for them.

DOWNLOAD

View hardware and software info on ubuntu using hardinfo

There are hundreds of occasions when you need to check some information about the hardware or software installed on your computer. On windows this can be easily done by typing "dxdiag" in run. On ubuntu you can get this information using "sysinfo" but it it is very limited. To get detailed information about all the components installed on your computer and getting other software related information you can use hardinfo.

hardinfo
hardinfo provides the user with detailed information of the user's computer. Currently it shows information of PCI, ISA PnP, USB, IDE, SCSI, Serial and parallel port devices. It also carry outs benchmark test for your CPU. It can also generate reports in html and plain text for later reference.

Getting hardinfo
To get and install hardinfo, open your terminal (Alt + Ctrl + T) and type "sudo apt-get install hardinfo"
or just go to the "Ubuntu software center" and search  for "System Profiler and Benchmark".

To open it type "hardinfo" in the terminal or just open it through the dashboard by searching "System Profiler and Benchmark".

For more information, CLICK HERE to visit their website.