To many IT professionals it is imperative to be able to connect remotely to their work via VPN and if you connect by VPN, the next likely step is to connect using Remote Desktop. Many of us however, prefer to use Ubuntu at home and in most workplaces almost all machines are Windows based; that is where the problem comes in. One big obstacle in finding the solution is the apparent lack of a true compatible Windows Remote Desktop alternative in Ubuntu, and the scarcity of information on the web about this topic. This myth becomes even more believable when users find that Ubuntu has labeled VNC as “Remote Desktop Viewer”; a total nonsense. VNC is not compatible with Windows Remote Desktop, but “rdesktop” is and it comes already pre-installed in Ubuntu. I have also written another article that explains how to do the inverse:  Connecting from Windows to Ubuntu using remote desktop.

Audacity is a free and powerful audio editor that works in a variety of operating systems, such as Windows Mac OSX and Linux. Audacity, however, cannot save files in mp3 format by default; it needs to use an external encoder to do the job. Fortunately, there is a quality mp3 encoder that will do the job and its free: The Lame mp3 encoder. This encoder, however, does not have an installation package for Windows on its page, instead it refers you to a number of 3rd party sites that have created Windows installation of this codec for Audacity. With this tutorial I will try to simplify the whole installation process which it was done in Windows 7, however, it applies to all versions of Windows from 2000 to 7.

If some of you did not know, you can run ISO image files using VirtualBox. This is useful because it saves you time and Cds. A while ago I was working on creating my own Custom Ubuntu LiveCD. There was a lot of trial and error involved, which let me to create numerous ISO images. Imagine if I did not have this capability, how much time I would have wasted restarting the computer every time I had a new CD, or how much time I would have spent burning CD-RWs, or CD-Rs which would have ended up in the garbage. VirtualBox’s advantages are vast; in this tutorial I will show you one of these many advantges: How to run an ISO image using VirtualBox.

If you have never heard of VirtualBox, it is the free and open source equivalent to VMWare. If you are still lost, what VirtualBox basically does is let you run any operating system inside your current operating system virtually!. For example, you can run Mac-OS X inside Windows, or Run Windows inside Ubuntu Linux, just like having a Windows emulator for Ubuntu, etc. The possibilities are endless. Virtualbox is a blessing for those of us who are in need of running another operating system. Let’s say that your main computer is Windows based, however, you are in need of running a program that only exists in Linux, or you want to test certain programs you downloaded from the web but are afraid of catching a virus.With VirtualBox you will be able to accomplish all of that reliably and without the licensing constraints of VMware.

Squares, rectangles and circles are very useful tools when making quick fixes in drawings. The Gimp is a wonderful photo editing and drawing program, however, making shapes such as squares, rectangles or circles is not intuitive, specially for people that are used to programs like Microsoft Paint, where the square icon draws exactly that, a square. With The Gimp drawing a square or circle is very easy, however, it involves an extra step and that is exactly what gets people confused. In this tutorial I will teach you how to draw some geometrical shapes using the gimp. I will describe the technique using a rectangle, however, the same steps apply for circles.

Need to do an online survey? Maybe you need to collect inventory information for your company assets, create an online job application for your company’s HR department or simply collect input from readers of your website. Forms can get very complicated and time consuming if done from scratch. Google Docs however, has simplified the process tremendously, allowing developers to create powerful online web forms without ever having to deal with code. Google Docs not only allows you to create the web form, but also host it on its web servers so you can send the link via email or incorporate it on your website. In this article I will describe how to create an online web form using Google docs.

In past I have written articles describing differences between Clonezilla SE and CLonezilla Live and  how to setup a Clonezilla server. However, many people kept asking me for instructions on how to use Clonezilla. That is why I decided to write this tutorial. For those of you not familiar with Clonezilla, it is a free disk cloning utility that will let you image hard drives via a USB or Ethernet connection. In this tutorial we are going to be using Clonezilla Live to clone a computer’s internal hard drive to a USB external drive. The instructions, however,0 should be pretty much the same for Clonezilla Server Edition. As opposite to other Clonezilla tutorials on the web, I have tried to make this tutorial as detailed as possible, including instructions for “saving” as well as “restoring” the image. Do not be scared by the length of the article; this is actually a walkthrough, so it should be very easy for everybody to understand.

Formatting a USB external hard drive, could be a very easy task when done with proper tools. However, sometimes there are drives which, for whatever reason will not format. For this reason I have decided to divide this guide into two parts. The first part of this guide applies to any type of drive, not only USB external drives. For this first part I will be using a utility called GParted, which in my opinion is the easiest and most practical method to format a hard drive in Linux. The second part could also apply to both external and internal disks, however, it is geared more towards problematic USB external hard drives. It will be unpractical to use it normally due to the amount of steps involved.

In this article I will try to explain the differences between Clonezilla Live and Clonezilla Server (DRBL). There are two versions of Clonezilla: Clonezilla Live, which runs from a liveCD and Clonezilla Server version. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, it all depends on what you need it for. If some of you don’t already know, Clonezilla is a disaster recovery backup software designed to clone or backup entire drives. It is the Open Source equivalent of Norton Ghost. It can backup hard disks regardless of the data or operating system contained in them. It is one of the most useful tools for the IT professional, and it is free.

Your computer suddenly died and it is full of important files; what do you do now? How can you retrieve your files? Here’s the scenario: You press the power button to turn your laptop computer on and discover it is dead, nothing is coming up on the screen, not even the brand’s logo. You look at your computer’s lights and none seem to change color or flicker; your laptop computer is officially dead. Don’t panic, you are actually in better situation than most; your data is most likely intact; you just have to get your files out. As you’ll soon discover, getting your files out is easier than it looks.