Why everyone should have a external hard drive.

An external hard drive should be a necessity for everyone who has a computer with valuable information and files stored on it. A external hard drive can provide security and peace of mind to users who hold irreplaceable files on their computers, but don't want to back up gigabytes of files to individual DVDs. There is chance your external hard drive could fail so DVDs will always be needed for the most irreplaceable files. Below are a few of the reasons why I think everyone should have an external hard drive.

1. Back up Operating System
One of the best reasons to have a external hard drive would be the luxury of having a back up operating system just in case something happens to your primary hard drive and default operating system. GNU/Linux can be easily installed to a external hard drive the same way it is installed to a internal hard drive. A external hard drive is also a way to try Linux without it touching your primary hard drive.




2. Security
A external hard drive can provide a since of security for those who are worried about others viewing there private files and documents. Some external hard drives are small and compact so they can be carried around with ease. These small and compact drives allow security concerned people to take there sensitive information where ever they go. You can either create diskless computers and run the operating system from the external hard drive to stop others from using or accessing your computer.

3. Back up large amounts of data
This may be the most obvious reason to get a external hard drive, but not the most important. Getting a external hard drive just to back up a small to medium amount of data is a waste of money. You can simply back up data and files to a DVD. You should only get a external hard drive if there's a need to back up large amounts of data and important files. Some may wish to clone there primary hard drive or have large media collections they want to have copies of.

Cut cost on building a PC with FOSS

Building a PC can be a way of saving money and having the PC of your dreams. Some people may want to build a dream PC, but not have the cash to do so. By choosing to use free and open source software, PC builders can cut hundreds of dollars off of the price of their dream machine. Below are a few ideas that can cut the cost of a PC build by using free and open source software over proprietary software such as Microsoft Windows.

1. GNU/Linux as your operating system
There's no better way of save money when building your own PC, than using GNU/Linux instead of Windows. By choosing Linux you instantly save around $100 and up to a astonishing $285. This is money that would have went to purchasing a copy of Microsoft Windows for only one PC. And the savings don't stop there, in Linux virtually all the software is free. In Windows you'll have to purchase MS Office, a good disc authoring suite and photo shop for image manipulation. For Linux there is Open Office instead of MS Office, K3B and Brasero for disc authoring and GIMP and Blender for image manipulation. Even if you choose to use Windows, Open Office and GIMP can still be used, but K3B and Basero are only for Linux.

2. No Hard Drive
Believe it or not a hard drive is totally optional when building a PC. Omitting the hard drive can reduce the cost of a PC by at least $40 and up to hundreds of dollars. This will work best for people who have servers with large hard drives and years of experience with PC building and installing operating systems. For experienced Linux users this can be accomplished in three ways(from hardest to easiest):

A. Diskless Boot, Diskless Nodes and Network Booting:
I won't go into major detail here, but basically you are booting a complete operating system from the hard drive of another computer or server over the Ethernet port. I would not recommend this procedure for beginners, as it can be a very tedious task to complete. Instructions about diskless boot can be found at these sites:

Diskless Network Boot
Diskless Workstation
Diskless Ubuntu

B. Boot from USB flash drive:
With a large enough flash drive, a complete Linux operating system can be installed and ran over the usb. I've manage to run Debian from a 1GB flash drive with openbox, XFCE, thunar and VLC. Installing Linux to a flash drive is not a very difficult task for anyone who has ever installed his/her own operating system. Linux can be installed to a flash drive the same way it would be installed to a hard drive. For more about Linux on a flash drive visit here.

C. Boot from CD/DVD:
Now to the easiest method. Simply obtain a Linux live CD/DVD that fits your needs for a desktop and use sftp or fish protocol with nautilus or konqueror to access your files from another computer acting as a server. This method would require knowledge of ssh and setting up a network.

3. Less RAM
I've seen computers advertised with 8 or more gigabytes of RAM. Now this might be necessary in Windows, but that much RAM would be overkill in Linux. A computer running Linux will work fine with 1 gigabyte of RAM. The amount of RAM for A PC depends on the applications and desktop environment being used. 512 megabytes of RAM is still possible with window managers like openbox and the XFCE desktop environment. I recommend 2 gigabytes of RAM since it is not very expensive.

4. No Optical Drive
Building a PC without a Optical drive may seem odd to some, but it is another PC part that is totally optional. The first thing that might come to mind is how do I run the operating system without a optical drive and hard drive. That question has already been answered above with diskless booting and Linux on a flash drive. This option works best for those who share content over a network.

Conclusion
So how much money can be saved by building a PC with Linux as the operating system, no hard drive, less RAM and no optical drive? Lets take a look at some prices of the excluded PC parts.

A OEM version of Windows 7 Home Premium is about $100.
A cheap hard drive can be found for around $40.
Most DVD drives are around $30.
Opting for 2GB of RAM instead of 4GB will save about $40.

That's at least $210 saved.

Please keep in mind that these saving are mostly possible do to the use of free and open source software and the use of a server.

Clamz and Pymazon - Download Amazon MP3's with FOSS

Recently while trying to download a digital album from Amazon's Music store, I discovered that Amazon's mp3 software no longer functioned in Arch Linux. The reason behind this malfunction is a piece of software named openssl that was recently updated after 5 years. This update of openssl has rendered AmazonMP3 downloader useless. Just to make sure that this was not a problem specific to Arch Linux, I switched over to my Ubuntu distribution and the problem was present there also. I quickly thought of three ways I could solve this problem.

1. Downgrade openssl back to 0.9.8 from 1.0.0 in Arch Linux.
I quickly found out that this would not be possible because I had cleared my package cache to save disk space and I did not want to search the internet for mirrors with the old openssl package.

2. Switch over to Ubuntu and use getlibs to download all the necessary libraries for AmazonMP3.
The instructions can be found here and here. While these procedures did work to get AmazonMP3 functioning again, it downloaded music very slowly.

3. Use Clamz as a alternative to AmazonMP3.
I remembered there was a command line program named Clamz that could download music from the Amazon music store. In order to use clamz you simply need to obtain the amz file for the album you wish to purchase. From there open a terminal emulator and type clamz and the full name of the amz file.



Example: clamz AmazonMP3-1264313761.amz

yaourt -S clamz pymazon

To obtain Clamz in Arch Linux, you must have yaourt installed. If you don't have yaourt installed or you are using another distribution of Linux than you can compile clamz from source code.

There is also a python based GUI named pymazon for those who don't enjoy using command line interface. Clamz and pymazon gives Linux users the freedom to use free and open source software to download DRM-free music.

Cheap PC Media Remote for HTPC

If you ever thought of getting a remote for your media PC or HTPC, but didn't want to break the budget, than this cheap PC remote maybe for you. This remote can be had for less than $15 and has plenty of functionality for such a cheap price. The best thing about this cheap PC remote is that it works out-of-the-box with open source software.

This PC remote has many features and functions such as:

• built in mouse functionality with scroll, left and right click
  
• volume control and mute key
  
• e-mail, web browser tab and close window keys
  
• four hot keys(A B C D) for CLI console (Ctrl Alt + F1, F2, F3, F4)
  
• backspace and tab key
  
• four arrow keys and enter key
  
• start, stop and search keys

I am still not familiar with all the functions and shortcuts of this PC remote, but from what I have experienced so far, this cheap PC remote does have some major drawbacks that need to be addressed. The first drawback is the mouse function. The mouse function of this PC remote takes some getting used to. It can be a very arduous task moving the mouse point around with accuracy. The second drawback has to do with IR receiver. The PC remote has to be pointed directly at receiver for the remote to work. This drawback can be a deal breaker for many. Even with these two drawbacks, this PC remote is still a very good deal for the money.



Currently I am using this remote with my Arch Linux HTPC. It works great with Totem, Banshee and XBMC. Below is a video that shows how this PC remote performs: