Tag: InTheShop

Tiny Tiny RSS: Building my own RSS Reader

ttrssI finally setup my TinyTinyRSS server following the guidelines on LifeHacker outlined in this article.  The original plan, when Google Reader shut down, was to have my own RSS server and not be beholden to someone disappearing.

Next on the list is to find a bookmarking tool that wouldn’t go away.

While I have the basic system setup and am going for coffee now I have a few things to still look at:

The feature set – read more about them here, the Android app, the Chrome extension, and more third-party supported apps.

I haven’t set it up for auto update.  I am running the PHP update script in a terminal window for now.  I think I may simply use the client to update itself by setting it as a pinned tab, it would update every 30 minutes then.

Open up your config.php file in a text editor, and scroll down “SIMPLE_UPDATE_MODE” and change its flag from “false” to “true.” This will make TTRSS update your feeds for you every 30 minutes (by default, you can change this in the Preferences) as long as you’re logged in. Set it as a pinned tab, and you’ll never have a problem.

And I have the final sheet of items I may look at someday, depending on whether I actually switch in the next 7 days from Feedly to it.

Additional Reading

SetUp Your Own Private Cloud Storage Service with OwnCloud

owncloud-square-logo-150x150Currently in the shop I decided that although I use Box, SkyDrive, Dropbox, Ubuntu One, and Amazon, I need a bit more storage and my own control. 

So I have setup OwnCloud.

For an overview of OwnCloud look at this article on Lifehacker.  Review OwnCloud’s list of features.

I am using Fedora 18 which is currently behind a version.  I needed to remove the old version, follow the instructions from OwnCloud to add the repository (ignore the warning error on install), add the MySQL database, and add SSL to my server and I was off.

Everything works.

I haven’t gotten my userdir moved to a public_html under the owncloud file structure yet, a hack on the .htaccess or ACLs or possible the userdir.conf seems indicated, but I am having fun playing Alice’s Restaurant in the player.

Give it a try.

WinFF: An Open Source Windows Video Converter

winff044-xpWinFF is a GUI for the command line video converter, FFMPEG. It will convert most any video file that FFmpeg will convert. WinFF does multiple files in multiple formats at one time. You can for example convert mpeg’s, flv’s, and mov’s, all into avi’s all at once. WinFF is available for Windows 95, 98 , ME, NT, XP, VISTA, and Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat based GNU/Linux distributions. WinFF is available in Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese Traditional, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish and Turkish.

WinFF is open source and cross platform written in Free Pascal and Lazarus. WinFF is published under the GNU public license. WinFF is published without any warranty or suitability for any purpose.

Jolicloud: Web Based OS

In the shop on my bench today I am working on Jolicloud

The main purpose of Jolicloud is to present a web enabled GUI. Under the hood, it’s based on the Ubuntu long term service release (10.04), and the front end is handled by a combination of the Chromium web browser and a full screen user interface that eschews overlapping windows.

I am setting it up on an older notebook to see what kind of user experience in terms of speed I can get.  One of the claims is that using a cloud computer is even faster than simply installing Linux on the computer.

Since I last perused Jolicloud I find they now have a Chrome Web App available in the Chome Web Store for those who want to give the install a spin without seeing how it works on an older computer.  You can also install it on a USB stick, although the install supports it heritage and will dual boot a windows machine easily and that would be the simplest and quickest path to testing.  I assume you are multi-booting by now for evaluation at least.

So, what does Jolicloud offer once it’s up and running?

Everything you would expect for someone running in the cloud, a great deal of focus on the apps that one uses every day with the speed of a machine much faster than the one I was using.  You get the identical desktop by installing the Chrome Web App.

Conclusion

I will be keeping Jolicloud on this old notebook as it makes it a bit more exciting and simple to use.  It is as if someone has simplified and overpowered the device and made it very similar to a touchpad that I also have tested recently.  Give this a try to see what the fuss is all about.