MIXED HELP

We find that people often have problems with – or need some guidance with – the same issues, so here are some help guides which may be useful for you.

Accessing Android phone media in Debian

maggie

To get Debian to communicate with your Android phone so that you can download/backup your photos, videos, documents, etc onto your computer, you need to install a couple of packages. Open a Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install jmtpfs gvfs-backends

Make sure when you connect your phone to your PC that (on your phone)  you choose Media device (MTP), not Carera (PTP).

You should now be able to access media on the device by just clicking it on Thunar (file manager).

Don’t forget to Unmount/Eject the drive in Thunar BEFORE removing the USB cable, in the same way you would do with a USB stick.

How to resize/convert images in Debian using ImageMagick

maggie

ImageMagick is a powerful image manipulator, best used in a terminal in Linux.

For complete instructions see:  http://www.howtogeek.com/109369/how-to-quickly-resize-convert-modify-images-from-the-linux-terminal/

In brief, for width (preserving the aspect ratio) (change the 200 for your desired width in pixels):

convert example.png -resize 200 example.png

for height (still preserving the aspect ratio):

convert example.png -resize x100 example.png

It is also possible (and easy) to process several images at the same time. For example, the following command would take all PNG files in the current directory, give the all a width of 600px and save a new copy of each with “-600px” added to the beginning of each file name. The directory will now contain the old and the new image files.

for file in *.png; do convert $file -resize 600 600px-$file; done

For complete instructions see:  http://www.howtogeek.com/109369/how-to-quickly-resize-convert-modify-images-from-the-linux-terminal/ (repeated for emphasis!)

See alsoman convert in your terminal or visit http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/ for a multitude of things that can be done with imagemagick.

Using pacpl to rip CD’s in Debian

maggie

First you need to install pacpl. Open a Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install pacpl

Any dependencies, as usual with Debian, will also be installed.

Ensure that your CD is in the drive, and decide in which directory you want to put the resulting MP3 tracks – I would suggest your Music directory which will probably be /home/[yourname]/Music.  It’s a good idea to create a directory here with the name of the artist, so the files will be put directly into /home/[yourname]/Music/[ArtistsName] as they are copied & ripped.

Then type:

pacpl --rip all --to mp3 --outdir /home/[yourname]/Music/[ArtistsName]

If you want to check the manual, just type:

man pacpl (q to close it)
or
pacpl --longhelp (q to close it)

Skype on Linux

maggie

Although Microsoft acquired Skype and incorporated it into their Office 365 suite, and since then into Windows 10, it is still possible to download it for Debian here: https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/. However, it will only work if you have a 64-bit system.

If you’d prefer not to dabble with this installation you can use a great, yet very simple, alternative directly on the web. See Skype Alternative for more details.

If you’re continuing with the Skype download and installation, you need to choose the Linux DEB package (not Linux RPM or Linux SNAP) which will download skypeforlinux-64.deb into your Downloads folder.

Open a Terminal and change the directory to your Downloads folder:

cd Downloads

Then you need to find the file within your Terminal. You can do this by listing the contents of the directory in the order downloaded so that the skype file is at the bottom:

ls -ltr

Now to install it, you need to type:

sudo gdebi skypeforlinux-64.deb (you’ll be asked to enter your password before you can proceed).

You should now find Skype in your applications menu (Debian) or Internet menu (MX-Linux).

Windows 8 Safe Mode

maggie

To access Safe Mode in Windows 8, you need to do so via the Advanced Startup options menu. To restart your computer into the Advanced startup options menu, go to the Windows 8 Start Screen and type Advanced. When the search results appear click on the Settings category.

Now click on the option labeled Advanced startup options and you will see the General PC Settings screen. Scroll down to the bottom until you see an option labeled Advanced startup.

Click on the Restart now button and Windows 8 will restart your computer and go directly into the Advanced Startup options menu.

Then click on the Troubleshoot button and then the Advanced options button. This will take you to the Advanced options screen where you should click on the Startup settings option.

At the Startup Settings screen, click on the Restart button. Your computer will be restarted and brought into the Startup Settings menu as shown below.

You can start Safe Mode in Windows 8 from this screen. There are 3 possible Safe Modes options that you can choose from.

Choose Enable Safe Mode with Networking

Printing an A5 brochure in LibreOffice Writer

maggie

You can print a LibreOffice Writer document as a brochure or a booklet. That is, Writer prints two pages on each side of the paper, so that when you fold the paper, you can read the document as a book.

When you create a document that you want to print as a brochure, write your document in ordinery A4 pages, using portrait orientation for the pages. Writer will apply the brochure layout when you print the document.

To Print a Brochure

Choose File – Print.
In the Print dialog, click Properties.
In the properties dialog for your printer, set the paper orientation to landscape.

If your printer prints duplex, and because brochures always print in landscape mode, you should use the “duplex – short edge” setting in your printer setup dialog.

Return to Print dialog, and click the Page Layout tab page.
Select Brochure.
For a printer that automatically prints on both sides of a page, specify to include “All pages”.

Click OK.

If you print a document in portrait on a landscape page, two opposing sides in a brochure will be printed next to each other. If you have a printer with double-sided printing capability, you can create an entire brochure from your document without having to collate the pages later. If you have a printer that only has single-sided printing capability, you can achieve this effect by first printing the front pages with the “Front sides / right pages /odd pages” option marked, then re-inserting the entire paper stack in your printer and printing all the back pages with the “Back pages / left pages / even pages” option marked.
Note: If LibreOffice prints the pages in the wrong order, open the Options tab page, select Print in reverse page order, and then print the document again.

How to install TeamViewer

maggie

The QuickSupport TeamViewer download page is here:  http://www.teamviewer.com/download.

For Windows you should download the “Quick Support” version.

For Debian you’ll need to download the “Deb” 32-Bit / 64-Bit Multiarch “All-in-One TeamViewer Full Version” file and SAVE IT TO DISK.
NB: Don’t go for the 64-Bit without Multiarch version (it seems to have a few issues, as of August 2014).

Then you need to install it with gdebi:

sudo gdebi /Downloads/teamviewer_linux.deb

(where teamviewer_linux.deb is the name of the downloaded file).

Once installed, you can find and open it from the Applications Menu:

Applications Menu > Internet > Teamviewer

 

 

Website:  http://www.teamviewer.com

 

 

 

Why you get viruses

maggie

This interesting study by a Danish security firm (http://net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1863) found the main reasons people get viruses is because they don’t update their software.

The main vectors for getting infected are via old versions of Adobe Flash, Adobe PDF Reader, Java and Microsoft Internet Explorer. So if you use these, make sure you keep them up to date.

The conclusion of this study is that as much as 99.8 % of all virus/malware infections caused by commercial exploit kits are a direct result of the lack of updating five specific software packages.

Microsoft also recently published a similar study where they found about 90% of virus infections were through unpatched software.

As they say, prevention is better than a cure. As annoying as it is, it’s safer to keep your software up to date (and less annoying than getting a virus).