iPhone: Repair black/white and corrupt photo thumbnails in camera roll

The iPhone camera roll photo thumbnail database can become broken and corrupt. This results in either black/white thumbnails and fully functional photos or functional thumbnails but black/white photos. Typically this happens when the users backup their iPhone camera roll photos to a computer without using iTunes, which is not even available for the popular Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora Linux distributions. The fix, which is described here, is to regenerate or repair the photo thumbnail database.

Everyone should ensure that they back up the photos on their phones from time to time. Whether this is done to the cloud or to their home computer, a working routine is extremely important to prevent irreparable damage if one loses the phone. For iPhone users, backup to iCloud of the camera roll photos can be easily set up, although in the long run this is not a sustainable solution due to the space limitations on the iPhone itself as well as on iCloud. Simply put, keeping all photos ever taken on your iPhone is not a sustainable solution. Therefore, users should occasionally backup their photos to a computer to free up the storage space of their iPhone as well as iCloud account.

The process of backing up the iPhone photos from the camera roll can be performed through iTunes, although many users find it slow, bloated and sluggish. For Linux users, such as the popular Ubuntu and Debian users, iTunes is not even available. Thus, the use of a file manager to transfer the data in the DCIM folders is preferred by many for its transparency, and effectiveness. Unfortunately, it has been shown that backing up photos in this way may corrupt the photo thumbnail database, causing it to lose its sync with the camera roll. This results in either non-existent (black/white) photos, or black/white thumbnails when the users attempts to access their iPhone photos. This tutorial shows how to fix and repair the camera roll photo thumbnail database.

How to ping BackupPC hosts behind a NAT router or firewall

BackupPC is a very capable open-source enterprise-grade backup system that is readily available for most Linux distributions, e.g., Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora. However, since most computers today are behind a NAT router or firewall, this completely breaks the ping command that a remote BackupPC server uses to check if a host client is alive or reachable. The most common solutions which allow BackupPC to ping host clients that are behind a NAT router or firewall are discussed here.

BackupPC, being open source and free, is great in many aspects and thus has also become the backup system of choice in many enterprise environments as well as home networks. Although it usually works out-of-the box in most popular Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora, some quirks do exist. For example, the broken GUI interface caused by Apache. Another example, which is discussed here, is the ping system that BackupPC uses to check if a host computer client is alive. In addition, it will be argued why some common solutions provided on the internet are better than others based on experience and logic.

The scenario that is particularly considered is the case of a remote BackupPC server attempting to backup multiple computers that sit behind a NAT router with firewall, as illustrated in the picture above.

Fix for iPhone not charging through USB on Ubuntu Linux

Connecting an iPhone/iPad/iPod to Ubuntu or a modern Linux system is usually a plug-and-play experience. However, with new iOS versions, sometimes the device simply fails to charge through USB even if it is recognized by the system. While rebooting Ubuntu solves the problem, it is actually possible to resolve the problem without a reboot.

The Ubuntu Linux distribution is certainly great in many aspects, although when it comes to supporting the newest iOS versions on Apple devices, the support is usually lagging behind and also buggy and lacking. Many users of the newer iOS versions have run into cases where they have plugged in their iPhone to their Ubuntu system with everything working smoothly, and all of a sudden (while the iPhone is plugged in), the iPhone simply cease to charge or become unreachable on Ubuntu. Rebooting the computer does bring the iPhone back to life, however, the problem is more easily solved if we understand it better. 

How to put Matlab icon/shortcut on Ubuntu Unity launcher bar

The Ubuntu Linux is one of the most popular distributions to run Matlab on *nix systems. However, the Unity launcher used by Ubuntu does not support Matlab by default and putting a shortcut to Matlab is a confusing and non-trivial task. This tutorial demonstrates an easy and straight-forward way to integrate Matlab with Unity in Ubuntu.

The powerful scientific computing tool, Matlab (Matrix Laboratory) from Mathworks is certainly a widely used tool in the scientific world. While Mathworks does provide good Windows, Linux, *nix, Mac OS X support for Matlab out-of-the-box, one overlooked aspect is the integration of Matlab to the Unity launcher used in Ubuntu. 

Ubuntu: Broken BackupPC web interface fix

Ubuntu recently updated the Apache version to 2.4. However, this new version is unusable with BackupPC out of the box and breaks the web interface. Fortunately, the fix is easy as described in this tutorial.

During an upgrade process of a distribution, naturally, a large number of packages (software) will simultaneously be upgraded as well. One main task for distribution managers is to ensure that compatibility is ensured to the greatest extent. However, as the number of combinations of package dependencies is extreme, it is unavoidable that practical problems which may render some software useless from time to time. Fortunately, in most such cases, a fix is relatively easy to find.

The top 5 best text editors for Linux

Good and excellent text editors have a long tradition in the Linux/*nix world. These text editors, which initially may appear simple and trivial, are paramount for programmers around the world and are still very actively developed. This article lists 5 of the best text editors available today.

There certainly is no lack of text editors under various forms of licenses. Most people may think of Microsoft Word in the Office suite or Apple's Pages as text editors, they are actually better referred to as word processors than text editors. Instead, text editors are usually composed of a simplistic layout, with little to no typesetting features. However, they greatly excel over the word processors when it comes to software development for programmers and in addition usually support a large number of programming languages and script languages. This article summarizes 5 of the most useful text editors for a Linux/*nix environment.

Flashcache 3.0 released by Facebook to enhance SSD

Flashcache is a highly open-source (GPL2) regarded software developed by Facebook which aim to reduce the wear of SSD disks while simultaneously enhance the performance. Now, Facebook has released Flashcache 3.0 to the public.

Facebook clearly deals with massive amounts of data in every given instance. During the past few years, Facebook has gradually migrated to SSDs in favor of the conventional mechanical disks. The enhanced read/write performance of SSDs, in particular when it comes to seek times during random events, results in significantly faster user-content serving, something which obviously enhances the user experiences. However, while SSDs offer excellent performance, the inherent nature of the underlying flash memory technology means that each module can only be written to a finite number of times before it malfunctions.

Linux cuts costs by 40% for French police

The French police have recently migrated from Windows to Linux, affecting 37000 computers at present and with another 72000 computers coming up. This migration resulted in a cost reduction of 40%.

Whether or not open source platforms can reduce costs or not is often up for debate, and in particular the migration from Windows to Linux is a very delicate topic. While some claim that it is obvious that a switch to an open-source platform would reduce the costs significantly due to the free license forms, others claim that a migration to open source platform always is associated with lots of hidden costs, such as training, re-implementation of processes and reduced support, which in the end could be more expensive than supported proprietary options. There are examples that support both camps but the latest example by the French police department is in favor of the open-source camp.

Hand of Thief Linux trojan harmless

Hand of Thief was discovered in August and described as the first functional and dangerous Linux trojan in the wild. However, recent analysis has showed that this trojan is relatively harmless and in most cases does not even function.

At the beginning of August, reports from EMC showed that a new trojan targeting the Linux platform has emerged. The trojan was given the name Hand of Thief. The purpose of the trojan is to collect login credentials and transmit it to the owner of the trojan based on input fields in web browsers, potentially able to collect banking information from the users. The threat was considered to be severe and Hand of Thief was considered to be the first Linux trojan in wild that posed a true security risk.

India embraces open source to save its economy

The economy crisis in India has caused both corporations and government agencies to move to open source as a way to cut costs and ensure future compatibility.

The economy in India is doing anything but good and the currency, rupier, has been free falling for some time now. This has resulted in massive increase in license costs for both corporations and government agencies since most licenses are priced in USD.

In order to find ways to cut down the cost of software the Indian magazine The Economic Times has reported that government agencies as well as private companies/corporations are investing significantly into the field of open source software and platforms, instead of the conventional solutions from SAP, IBM and Oracle. These larger corporations include Hungarna Digital Entertainment, Uttam Energy, Bilcare and IGate.

Demand for open source jobs rockets

Open source knowledge significantly increases the career possibilities as shown by a recent analysis by CIO magazine.

In the last decade, applications and the awareness for open source projects has increased tremendously. According to a recent study by CIO magazine, the number of job openings that involves open source is increasing in an extremely rapid fashion. 

As an example, the number of job openings in Python development has increased by 22% over the last year and similarly Ruby on rail development jobs have increased by 15%. 

Ubuntu finally to become 64-bit by default?

Since the origin of Ubuntu, users wanting to download the popular Linux distribution have been recommended to choose the 32-bit version even though 64-bit version has been around forever. At last, 64-bit version may become the recommended build.

Today, it is almost impossible to purchase a new computer which does not support 64-bit or the x86_64 instruction set. This has been the situation for several years now, however, for some reason Canonical which manages Ubuntu, still persistently recommend its users to use the 32-bit version.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release date planned for April

The most popular Linux distribution Ubuntu is already scheduling the release date of its 14.04 version. The Ubuntu 14.04 will be a Long-Term Support (LTS) and is currently scheduled for 17 April.

During the virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit that was held this week, the release date for the to-come LTS version of Ubuntu 14.04 was scheduled. At present the release date is scheduled for April 17, 2014 but some opinions were raised to push this release date 1 week further to April 24, 2014 due to it coinciding with Easter holidays and tax day.

Viber client released for Linux

Viber, the popular free VOIP and instant messaging app for smartphones, is now finally available for Linux users.

Viber is an app that was primarily designed to enable users of smartphones to engage in voice calls (VOIP), messaging and photo- as well as video sharing over data traffic instead of the traditional phone plans. The main difference of Viber as compared to other apps, such as Skype, is that it leverages the push notification system on smartphones, meaning that the app itself does not add extra battery drainage on the mobile devices, i.e., it does not need to be run in the background constantly in contrast to, for example, Skype. 

Fedora 20 codename poll started

Fedora is known to use rather strange codenames. This appears to be the case for the next Fedora 20 release judging from the codename poll.

With the development well under way for the next Fedora 20 release, the time has come to decide on the codename. Traditionally, Fedora has used rather goofy codenames and this time this tradition seems to still be kept alive. 

The shortlist of codenames for Fedora 20 that are open for voting are, Chateaubriand, Cherry Ice Cream, Eigenstate, Félicette, Heisenbug, Österreich, Santa Claus, and Superego. The codenames are all inspired from the quantum mechanical thought experiment known as Schrödinger's Cat and posed by the physicist Schrödinger.

Ubuntu Edge campaign fails to reach target by $19 million

Ubuntu Edge has been running a crow funding campaign that ended August 21. The end result was $12.8 million whereas the goal was $19 million, meaning that the project will automatically be cancelled.

Ubuntu Edge is a smartphone concept designed by Canonical and development of the phone itself was supposed to be started through a crowd sourcing campaign.