We cut the cord a couple of years ago, the need to get TV over traditional TV Ariel was no longer needed and services such as TV Catchup, iPlayer and the other UK Catchup TV Channels streamed over the net to my TV were all we needed.

Having had an Asrock 330 Ion be the trusty device for nearly 5 years the box finally gave up the shost last week.

The options available for using the internet to provide your TV are huge, from the giants of Apple with Apple TV, Google are dipping their toes in the water they have the ChromeCast, and there are a huge bagfull of Android Devices which all claim to plug into the HDMI port of your TV.. Then there is the Raspberry PI which has a custom build of OS's to provide different interfaces.

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This isn't a Windows thing, Linux as well should be more secure than the assumption that the OS with elevated privileges is secure enough, there is so much more Desktop Linux could be doing to make the users experience more secure.

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While I know this is a Linux site, i feel that Windows RT is getting the same bad rap Linux gets from the Tech press in many areas. A lack of true understanding of just what they are dealing with or just a huge need to present some form of being part of the crowd. I'm not sure just what it is however it needs to change. It's the same thing that happens when some people review Ubuntu PHone for example and claim it's not a viable platform.. and it annoys me..

Why Everything you've read in the tech press about Windows RT is WRONG!!

With the tenuous link of Linux/android I take a look at just how googles flagship device stands up against the top WP8 phone

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I'm not a huge fan of VS posts, you know, Linux Mint VS Fedora.. I'm a Linux user, and i've recently migrated from Ubuntu to OpenSuse to see what the other side of the fence is likem what's done different, what is good, what is not so good. I've put together a few observations

Please, have a read

Lets not beat around the bush here, the default font rendering in OpenSuse and the default font do not an OS fit for reading make.. this can be fixed however..

Love or hate Ubuntu, out of the box it has one of the best font rendering setups of any distro and considering how much time we spend on our PC’s setting your fonts up correctly is one less headach, literally.

I’m not sure how much of these instructions I got right, however after a reboot the screen text does at least look better..

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This is a solution to a problem which has been dogging me on every version of Linux I install on the Acer Aspire S3. I'm hoping it will help someone.

Read my solution

I'm switching to KDE from Gnome 3 for a Month.. This is nearly a week..

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If you’ve chosen one of the major Linux distributions chances are (unless you’re a Mint user) you’ve come across the three big Linux Gui’s KDE, Gnome 3 and Unity.

The problem with any post like this is it’s an opinion piece, and with out a shadow of a doubt my opinion is probably going to vastly different to a lot of people out there. Linux users can be ferociously protective of not just their choice of distro, but their choice of Desktop as well.

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There is functionality in OSX called Airdrop which Linux Desktops could do with as a replacement of the SMB/NFS shared files sharing system. There are some options out with but they are seemingly stale projects which however can provide the functionality which is needed in Linux

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asking this very simple question which is the best Operating system in some corners of the Internet, is like throwing a slab of raw meat into a wild animal enclosure and watching as the question gets ripped apart. Its tantamount to asking which religion or political system is the best in the way some will tear strips off others

The rest here...

There’s lots of forums and even 3 or 4 releases in I still hear people talking about how much they dislike Unity, which is a shame because it’s turning into quite a nice Gui from where i’m sitting, however one thing Linux has is choice. If nothing else there are other solid, stable distributions out there which offer a user a good solid alternative. Once such example is maybe OpenSUSE.

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I've been having a problem all week stopping some insane screen tearing on an Acer Aspire S3, I've got to a point where its better, usable, but not perfect, so i've posted what I've done and it might help someone else.

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I found this article on the osxdaily website, the article refers to running nettop on OSX however it’s a *nix command so will also be in the package repository (if not preinstalled) on your favorite distro. I’ve tested all of the command options on Sabayon and they work fine..

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I’m really starting to appreciate the benifits of dual factor authentication across the board, so this Howtoforge article is of interest to anyone who wants to secure SSH access on thier Linux systems. I previously posted about using your mobile phone as the something you have bit, well this is another method.

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While you may have your Ubuntu install locked down with Full disk encryption incase you loose the laptop, UFW locking down the network with a firewall, there is no point if you have a poor password. Dual factor authentication using One Time Passwords may be an option for you, if they are this great howtoforge article might point you in the right direction.

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With prism being the story of the week, I'm just asking a simple question

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This is a bit old school however if you are a Sysadmin you might need to get a console up for a Cisco or other device. I hope this helps

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I’ve had a need to get a local squid proxy to perform local filtering based on AD Security groups because it’s not something websense can do. I found this wonderful howtofoge guide online and Used it to setup the base system. This howto is a work in progress as the next stage is to get it working with DansGuardian or SquidGuard.

Prerequisites
Client Internet Explorer Browsers need to have “Enable Integrated Windows Authentication” ticked in Internet Options :: Advanced settings as well as Proxy Auto detection enabled – google these if not sure. All modern web browsers will support proxy auto detection. Firefox and Chrome also support Windows Authentication.

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post on using a Chromebook to develop on a cloud platform. Its based on a Digital Ocean remote server and like most people who wish to attach to the command line interface on a remote server I use SSH. It’s an encrypted connection over the network/internet from end to end. However being a cloud server I was wondering if it was possible to secure this a little bit more?

A chat with a friend on the way into work provided me with a solution.

The solution is Two Factor authentication a system beased on a simple premise, something you know (the SSH password in this case) and something you have (your mobile phone in this case, but it could be a secure token) which will deliver a random number.

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