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Mar 12, 2015 - Gnu Cash

GnuCash, a personal and small-business, single-user, double-entry bookkeeping software application based on standard accounting principles, with a wide variety of financial and accounting reports to help you get a clear picture of your finances. GnuCash is as quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register and works on GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. With GnuCash, you can balance your books and track bank accounts, stocks, income, and expenses.

www.gnucash.org | sourceforge.net/projects/gnucash

Mar 5, 2015 - HTML5 video

Up until recently the most popular solution for viewing video online has been to use the Adobe Flash player. But now with the growing acceptibility of HTML5, there's another option -- WebM video. If you want to enable this way of viewing YouTube videos, just go here (www.youtube.com/html5). It will tell you if your browser supports WebM and if it does, click on the HTML5 player button.

If you want to test the two formats, remember to right-click on the YouTube video, and both versions (Flash and WebM) will show their respective properties. Also, you can always swich between the two methods by going to the HTML5 page on YouTube.

Feb 26, 2015 - Video and voice conversations online

There's a new free option for real-time chats (RTC) with "Firefox Hello" which lets you make free video and voice calls directly from your browser. All you need are a microphone, a webcam (optional), and the latest version of Firefox to call friends who are on WebRTC-supported browsers like Firefox, Chrome, or Opera.

The main advantage of this new system is that it avoids closed proprietary software, and does not require you to install special software or setup an account.

If you need to record the conversation, you will need to install video capture software for your OS. For example: Tiny Take (for Win 7 and 8); QuickTime (for the Mac OS); Record My Desktop (for Linux).

www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello | support.mozilla.org | Youtube video

Feb 19, 2015 - Linux

There are many distributions of Linux freely available on the internet. Here's a list of all the distributions on WikiPedia, and a comparison chart. Essentially, they all have their start from three sources: Debian, Slackware and Red Hat.

One popular distro that I use is Linux Mint. From their own website:
"The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use. Linux Mint is the most popular desktop Linux distribution and the 3rd most widely used home operating system behind Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS."

In addition, one of the main benefits of using Linux is that it has much better security and performance than other operating systems and can be used to liven-up old hardware.

Mint is based on Ubuntu (which is based on Debian), and tends to follow their release schedule. Recently, Mint released their next "long-term" version, codenamed "Rebecca" (or Linux Mint 17.1), which will be supported until April 2019. It comes with a choice of four desktop environments: Cinnamon, MATE, KDE and Xfce.

For those that are new to the world of Linux, a very brief explanation of terms. Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open-source software development and distribution. The name Linux usually refers to both the kernel (originally developed by Linus Torvalds) inside the operating system as well as all the other parts making up the complete OS (hence GNU/Linux), and has always been a character based OS. The popularity grew when a graphical interface was added called X11. Some of the most common graphical desktops are Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE etc... In short, the operating system together with the graphical desktop is the essence of your computer's software. On top of this you can add a browser, office suite, games, etc..., all for free. Enjoy your freedom.

www.linuxmint.com.

Dec 11, 2014 - Security in-a-box

This toolkit was created by the Tactical Technology Collective and Front Line Defenders.

Tactical Tech is an international NGO helping human rights advocates use information, communications and digital technologies to maximise the impact of their advocacy work. We provide advocates with guides, tools, training and consultancy to help them develop the skills and tactics they need to increase the impact of their campaigning.

Front Line Defenders was founded with the specific aim of protecting human rights defenders at risk, people who work, non-violently, for any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Front Line Defenders aims to address some of the needs identified by defenders themselves, including protection, networking, training and access to international bodies that can take action on their behalf.

securityinabox.org

Nov 27, 2014 - More Social Media tips

A few months ago, Facebook changed its default settings to enable auto-play of video content on the social network's news feed. Here are some instructions to control these settings:

For desktop computers and laptops: Go to your options drop-down menu in the top right. Click "Settings," Select the "Videos" link on the left. Turn the "Auto-Play Videos" from ON to OFF.

For Phones and tablet apps: You can adjust your auto-play settings to On, Wi-Fi only or Off. If auto-play is On, the data used depends on the amount of time you spend watching a video. If you scroll past an auto-play video in News Feed, your phone will use less data than if you stop to watch it for a longer period of time. If auto-play is set to Wi-Fi only, no data will be used.

To adjust your auto-play settings: Android: Open the Facebook app, Tap your phone's menu button, Tap Settings, Scroll down and tap Video Auto-play, Choose an option.

Here's a complete list of instructions and here.