Convert BIN/CUE Images to ISO

Convert bin/cue into ISO

Installation

sudo apt-get install bchunk

Usage As the name implies, a BIN/CUE CD image has two files. BIN being a binary of the raw CD data, and CUE being an ASCII file of CD layout.General usage:

bchunk image.bin image.cue basename

For example:

bchunk myimage.bin myimage.cue myimage

Where basename(myimage) is myimage.iso of the produced file.

Error trying to mount an external device: mount_point cannot contain the following characters: newline, G_DIR_SEPARATOR (usually /)

The computer fails to mount a device with the following error:

Cannot mount volume.Unable to mount the volume 'yourdevicenamehere'.Detailsmount_point cannot contain the following characters: newline, G_DIR_SEPARATOR (usually /)

This can be from incorrectly setting the mount point by right clicking the drive and choosing Properties then the Drive tab and finally expanding the section for Settings, this should simply contain the name you would like the device to be named on your desktop and NOT a fully qualified pathname such as /media/freecom

If you have incorrectly set this or some other bad voodoo has happened to result in this error then it can at least in some cases be very quickly fixed with the following. Open a terminal and open the Gnome Configuration Editor with this command:

gconf-editor

and navigate to this location in the left hand menu:

system / storage / drives /

If you can now see an entry relating to the problem drive then click it and edit its entry on the right, removing the path and any /'s is normally sufficient , all it should be is a simple name that you would prefer it appear on the desktop as, in my case I was changing a drive that mounted as /media/FREECOM HDD to mount as /media/FREECOMHDD due to X-Plane not liking paths with spaces in. So the correct entry for mine was to just input "FREECOMHDD" with no path, no /'s and no speechmarks! ;)

Recover Photographs From a Memory Card

Recover images off a corrupt/damaged memory card. The first step to do is to install a software package named “testdisk”. sudo apt-get install testdisk Or of course use synaptic to search for "testdisk" and install it. The next step is to make an image of your memory card, this is achieved using the ‘dd’ command which comes by default with most distributions, the command you will have to issue is: dd if=/dev/sda1 of=memory_card.img bs=1024 You can get the correct /dev/xxxx path by inserting the memory card then using "dmesg" in a terminal and reading the last few lines. In the above command, ‘if’ is the input drive which should be your memory card, ‘of’ is the file name for the image which we are creating, and ‘bs’ is the byte size. Recover files by scanning the image using photorec The final step is to use a command provided by testdisk package. The ‘photorec’ command will recover all the JPG and GIF files which were recently deleted from your memory card. The command is very simple and run from the folder containing the image file: photorec memory_card.img The software will take you through a menu driven interface where you will have to select a few options to get your work done. It is simple and anyone should be able to use it with ease.

Do more with Gnome Do

Do more with Gnome Do.

I just discovered this launcher a few days ago and was instantly impressed after viewing the demonstration video available via the homepage. It provides some of the most powerful features of a launcher I have ever seen with massive potential for speeding up *real* productivity in ways you won't have considered.

First you need to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Then add the following lines:

For Hardy Users
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu hardy main

For Gutsy Users
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu gutsy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu gutsy main

Save and exit the file.

Update the source list file using the following command

sudo aptitude update

Install gnome-do using the following command from terminal

sudo aptitude install gnome-do

If you want to open gnome-do go to Applications—>Accessories—>GNOME Do

You can then open its preferences from the system tray and tick the first check box called "Start GNOME Do at login" so that it will launch when you reboot rather than remembering to do so from the menu.You can then choose the "Plug-ins" tab in the preferences to install any plug-ins that you feel would be useful to you, some I find very useful, Evolution, Files and Folders, Gnome Terminal, Locate Files, Tomboy and Tasque. Others would be more dependant on your computer uses and software such as Gmail Contacts, Imageshack, SSH, Rhythmbox etc

To call up Gnome Do just tap the Super+space key combo, that is windows key + space in other words. For further information it is well worth checking out the homepage and for help with plugins it can be helpful to open the preferences and click the About box for a plugin, you will be taken to its own wiki page that often has details on its use.

Bash script to act as a thesaurus

I just stumbled across this excellent post at The Linux and Unix Menagerie which lists a brilliant little script to add a thesaurus command to your shell, this just perfectly rounds off my recent discovery of the dictionary word lookup commands!

This script is very small, in fact surprisingly so. Just be careful copying it into your text editor as the formatting isn't 100% and needs some tweaking, nothing major and no one should have any problems (yeah I know, fatal last words ;))

Linux Pocket Guide by O Reilly

This is a command reference that I have been using for several months now (check your plug-ins if you can't see the image above) that I got off Amazon and it has really earned its keep. using 'man' in the terminal is an excellent source off information if you already know the command but sometimes you just don't know it or even know the facility existed. Don't worry about the "Covers Fedora Linux" if you don't use Fedora, the commands are generic that I have found and nothing has failed to work on my Ubuntu box that I have tried.

Linux Pocket Guideis fantastic as you can just dip into it for clarification on a command syntax for a quick solution (there are many examples on most commands, or you can just read through it as I did when it first arrived, discovering several commands I had no idea were possible. I didn't know for there were dictionary's lookup commands available at the command line (look, aspell, spell) for checking spellings for instance. Try the following as an example of it:

look big

Its extremely useful and helps with checking words on a variety of projects, including this blog. Check out the book, its inexpensive and pocket sized, perfect for taking with you on the odd trip to dip into and refresh, it gets my unreserved approval.