Having a TL;DR day? In a nutshell, I just replaced a 2011 HP Mini netbook with a 2014 HP mini-notebook. Both run Linux. Thank you, HP. The netbook I bought a 2011 HP Mini 110-3744TU in early 2012 (specs below). It came with Windows 7 'starter', which I replaced with CrunchBang Linux. The Mini is…

In 2003 a strange paragraph made the rounds on email. It read: Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a…

In a 2014 Linux Rain article I describe a fast 'points plotter' for Google Earth. First I copy a list of latitude/longitudes (lat/lons) from a spreadsheet to the clipboard, then I launch a shell script with a keyboard shortcut. The script builds a KML file from the copied list and opens the KML for…

In this article I explain one way to group data items with AWK arrays. The code is a little mysterious but the results are impressive, especially in my second example! Case 1: Cricket stats The table 'runs' is tab-separated and lists the 86 national team cricket players who scored (or have so far…

There are two easy-to-use tools for generating numerical sequences. 'Brace expansion' is a BASH shell built-in, while the seq command is included in the GNU/Linux 'coreutils' package. Each tool has its peculiarities and advantages, as shown below. Simple sequences One difference between the two…

Software must be free as in freedom Good software is Free Software. I will avoid using the term "open source" as it doesn't cover a social side at all, which is equally as important, as the technology itself. You can read more about this from here. Widely accepted tools and languages Good…

If you're anything like me, you've probably heard about this new thing from Canonical called "Snappy" Ubuntu Core, but at the same time trying to understand exactly what it is may leave you cross-eyed, especially with the buzzwords such as "cloud", "containers" and…

While not Linux-specific, Kirby (also known as KirbyCMS) is a content management system that The Linux Rain itself runs on. Kirby 2, an updated and revamped version of the file-based CMS, recently became available and we have updated to that exciting new version. You may say to me, "wait, the…

I often look something up in Wikipedia when reading non-browser documents, like PDFs, ODTs and emails. I wanted to have a little desktop window for those look-ups - somewhere I could check Wikipedia without opening a browser and without leaving the document I'm reading. This article describes how I…

You know that trick where the magician snatches the tablecloth from the table, leaving the plates, cutlery and glassware in place? Watch as I do something similar on my computer. The screenshot above shows the top left corner of a large data table of mine in a spreadsheet. Drum roll, please... …

We all take notes in various ways. Whether it's old fashioned sticky notes littering the front of your PC monitor, an app on your smartphone or simply using your brain to take a 'mental note' (if your memory is that good!), it's a useful activity. How about note taking on the command-line? And in a…