Table of Contents

Welcome From The Chief Editor

1. ICYMI: Use Netflix Secret Menu To Unlock New Movies

2. GIMP Tutorial: PlayIng With G'MIC, Part 4

3. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner: Cheesy Tortellini and Sausage Skillet

4. Back To School With Linux

5. Linking Orage (Xfce4 Desktop) To Your Google Calendar

6. Tip Top Tips: What Is My External IP Address?

7. GNU TeXmacs: How to Create a Bibliography and Add Citations

8. UPS: A Source of Backup Power

9. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus: Homemade Hamburger Helper Type Mix

10. PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

11. Screenshot Showcase

From The Chief Editor's Desk...

As August grew to a close, my kids (as do most kids) got to go back to school.

We had the obligatory “Meet the Teacher” night at their school. Walking up to the school, my son commented about how much he missed his school. My daughter responded with a resounding “Me, too!” comment.

Ryan, 11 years old, is in fifth grade, and will be going to middle school next year. Lexi, 8 years old, is in second grade. To be honest, I'm not looking forward to the “drama” of them NOT going to the same school together. They are inseparable, and each other's best friends. This, conceivably, will be the last year that they both attend the same school together.

Ryan & Lexi with dad, on the first day of school

In the school district where my kids go to school, the school year started on August 19. They typically go to school four days a week, except for the first two weeks, when they go the more traditional five days a week. Our school district implemented the four-days-a-week school week starting last year. While the vast majority of school districts around us are still using the traditional five-days-a-week school schedule. Normally, the kids go to school Tuesday through Friday, and have a three-day weekend just about every week. Every once in a while, they'll have to go to school on Mondays for a variety of reasons, but for the most part, it's the Tuesday through Friday school week.

The kids LOVE it! I love it, as a parent who's retired. But, there was considerable “push back” from other parents in the district when it was first floated out there. Most of the parents work at least five days a week, and they were concerned about what they would do with their children while they were at work, but the kids were not in school. Granted, their concerns are valid. But with me being retired, it was never an issue for us.

With the kids only going to school four days a week, instead of the typical five days a week, it affords us significantly more family time. Cub Scouts is on Mondays, when school is typically not in session. Before, it was a race to see if we could get dinner done in time to go to the Cub Scout meetings. Now, by not going to schools on most Mondays, it allows us to actually take a more leisurely approach to dinner before the Cub Scout meetings. It also allows us to take short trips over those three-day weekends. And, because the kids are typically off from school on Mondays, that's when we've scheduled Ryan's appointments with his speech and language pathologist. That way, we don't have to pull him out of school for those weekly visits.

When our school district implemented the four-days-a-week school schedule last year, they pretty much did it unilaterally, after having open comments and discussion with the community about the proposed change. Now, (as if they didn't have anything else to meddle in), the Missouri legislature passed a measure that requires any other school districts in the state to put the measure up to a vote by the voters before implementing the schedule change. For what it's worth, our school district was one of the first (if not THE first) in the state to implement the change.

My kids get the same amount of instruction as the students going to school under the five-days-a-week model. The only difference is that they get home a little later (about one hour) than they normally did under the previous five day school schedule.

Not only do our kids love the four-days-a-week school week, but “we” (mom and dad) love it, too. We love the extra family time the change affords us. We love that we don't have to run that race every Monday to see if we can squeeze dinner in before the Cub Scout meetings. We love that Ryan can go to his weekly meetings with his speech and language pathologist without having to pull him out of school (which also means pulling his sister out of school at the same time). We love that we can take little trips with the kids. Again, we LOVE the increased amounts of family time.

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This month's cover is from an image by Pixabay artist Temel. Meemaw edited the image, placing Tux into the image to go with our “theme” of “Back To School.”

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Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity, prosperity, and continued good health. Please be cautious out there … COVID is resurging in many areas around the globe. Even though it isn't as serious as the first and second waves of the disease, let's do all we can to keep EVERYONE with us for as long as possible.

ICYMI: Use Netflix Secret Menu To Unlock New Movies

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

A remote worker hired by KnowBe4 as a software engineer on its internal IT team was actually a persona controlled by a North Korean threat actor, the security firm revealed in a blog post Tuesday, according to an article from Cyberscoop. Detailing a seemingly thorough interview process that included background checks, verified references and four video conference-based interviews, KnowBe4 founder and CEO Stu Sjouwerman said the worker avoided being caught by using a valid identity that was stolen from a U.S.-based individual. The scheme was further enhanced by the actor using a stock image augmented by artificial intelligence. An internal investigation started when KnowBe4's InfoSec Security Operations Center team detected “a series of suspicious activities” from the new hire. The remote worker was sent an Apple laptop, which was flagged by the company on July 15 when malware was loaded onto the machine. The AI-filtered photo, meanwhile, was flagged by the company's Endpoint Detection and Response software.

Do you speak a second language (or more)? Do you want to learn a new language? Or do you want to brush up on a language you learned in the past, but don't use regularly enough to maintain fluency? Never fear, because Openculture.com has your back. They currently offer FREE language courses in 49 different languages (so far). You can learn more about the free courses from an article on Lifehacker.

Are you tired of every streamer you subscribe to hiking prices year over year? Between endless price creep and crackdowns on password sharing, the modern streaming landscape is starting to look a lot like the old world of cable, according to an article from Lifehacker. On the other hand, there are a ton of free streaming options out there, and they're more enticing than ever. Here are 21 great sites and apps to turn to when you want something new to watch. (Note that many films are available on multiple free services at once, so if your selection has too many commercial interruptions or painfully low resolution on one source, search for it on another.)

Can't find anything good on Netflix? Try the secret menu to find movies and shows. The Netflix secret menu is your key to unlocking hundreds of new movies, says an article from CNET. Netflix is hiding things from you. There are hundreds more TV shows and movies on the streaming service than what you know. You aren't locked out of the content. You just need to learn how to use the Netflix secret menu. Only then will you unlock access to everything the service has available and more. Check out the article for all the juicy details.

Running and cycling app Strava has a ton of features that help you find new running (and cycling) routes, including segments, the route builder, and the global heatmap. Earlier this summer, Strava began offering a weekly heatmap. It's great for finding trails and routes that are popular at a given time — but it may reveal information that is more private than what you thought Strava users could see, according to an article from Lifehacker. Using the weekly heatmap, the author was able to browse the map, select a neighborhood that looked like it had one active runner, and find that person's name and where they lived. To be clear, this person is a stranger to him, and he chose the neighborhood randomly. It took a matter of minutes to find this information.

On July 30, 2024, OpenAI began rolling out an alpha version of its new Advanced Voice Mode to a small group of ChatGPT Plus subscribers, according to an article from Ars Technica. In early tests reported by users with access, Advanced Voice Mode allows them to have real-time conversations with ChatGPT, including the ability to interrupt the AI mid-sentence almost instantly. It can sense and respond to a user's emotional cues through vocal tone and delivery, and provide sound effects while telling stories.

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

A space reconnaissance mission has returned unprecedented imagery of a metal hunk zooming around Earth, according to an article from Mashable. The discarded three-ton rocket, a robust piece of space junk some 36 feet (ca. 11 m) long, is the type of problematic debris agencies seek to remove from our planet's orbit. A future collision could spawn thousands more objects, posing threats to satellites and potentially the International Space Station. The Japanese satellite technology company Astroscale plans to remove this spent rocket stage, but is first gathering more information on the rocket's condition and motion.

Thousands of accounts have been exposed after hackers used existing emails to create Google Workspace accounts and bypassed the verification process, according to an article from TechRepublic. According to Google, a “specially constructed request” could open a Workspace account without verifying the email. This meant that bad actors only required the email address of their desired target to impersonate them. While none of the fake accounts were used to abuse Google services, like Gmail or Docs, they were used to access third-party services through the “Sign in with Google” feature.

Google Chrome users on Mac, PC, or Chromebook will soon see some new features designed to make searching the web more flexible, according to an article from TechRepublic. The new features are enabled by Google Gemini and other Google AI models. Google Chrome's last major AI update was in May, when it announced Gemini functionality across Workspace and added AI-generated answers to some Search queries. The three new features are: 1) Google Lens in Chrome on the desktop browser, 2) tab compare, an automatically generated comparison tool for online shopping, and 3) natural language search in browser history.

Image by InspiredImages from Pixabay

Smart TV companies have injected ads into their platforms to play year-round, forcing you to dodge these promotions whenever you want to watch a show or movie. In researching how to stop these horror ads from popping up on my TV, there's one solution that seems to work well: blocking the domains from which the TV obtains the ads. While it is a little involved and doesn't apply to all brands (Vizio is one of the notable exceptions), it does appear to work for most Samsung, LG, and Roku smart TVs. If you have one of these TVs, and you're sick of these ads, too, give this a shot. Check out the article on Lifehacker to discover how to block these ads.

Microsoft has confirmed the cause of the outage on July 30 was a distributed denial-of-service attack, according to an article from TechRepublic. However, its advisory added that the issue was exacerbated by an “error in the implementation of their defenses” during a mitigation attempt. The Azure cloud services were impacted between approximately 11:45 UTC and 19:43 UTC after being flooded by internet traffic. Redmond security pros say that the Azure Front Door and Azure Content Delivery Network components were “performing below acceptable thresholds, leading to intermittent errors, timeout, and latency spikes.” Microsoft has DDoS protection mechanisms that kick in automatically. However, an error in their implementation “amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it.” The security team performed network configuration changes and failovers to alternate networking paths to provide relief to the primary systems.

Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, a federal judge ruled on August 5, 2024, a landmark decision that strikes at the power of tech giants in the modern internet era and that may fundamentally alter the way they do business, according to an article from the New York Times. Judge Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a 277-page ruling that Google had abused a monopoly over the search business. The Justice Department and states had sued Google, accusing it of illegally cementing its dominance, in part, by paying other companies, like Apple and Samsung, billions of dollars a year to have Google automatically handle search queries on their smartphones and web browsers. “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta said in his ruling.

What happens now that Google has been declared a monopoly? That's exactly the question an article from Lifehacker takes a look at. In a historic blow to one of the biggest of big tech companies, the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C. yesterday ruled that Google is a monopoly. In an opinion published August 5, 2024, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said the company has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, and declared that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” The focus is on its oldest business—search. Following revelations earlier this year that the company paid billions to make Google the default search engine on Safari and other browsers, the court decided that “Google's distribution agreements are exclusive and have anticompetitive effects.” The severity of the declaration means that Google probably can't just pay its way out of this one. If you remember the fallout from the antitrust case against Microsoft's Internet Explorer strategy in 2001, you've already got an idea of how this all could play out.

One flu jab for all strains of the virus could be available within FIVE years following an “exciting” breakthrough, according to an article from Talker News. American scientists used a new vaccine platform to target the interior of the potentially deadly pathogen. They say the same method could be used against other mutating viruses, such as COVID-19, capable of triggering future pandemics. A universal flu vaccine would be effective against all human-adapted strains of influenza.

On August 1, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act came into force across the bloc, setting strict rules on the use of AI for facial recognition, creating safeguards for general-purpose AI systems and protecting consumer rights to submit complaints and request meaningful explanations about decisions made with high-risk AI systems that affect citizens' rights, according to an article from TechRepublic. The AI Act legislation outlines EU-wide measures designed to ensure that AI is used safely and ethically, and includes new transparency requirements for developers of foundation AI models like ChatGPT. The European Union Parliament voted the Artificial Intelligence Act into law on March 13, 2024, with 523 members voting in favor of its adoption, 46 voting against it and 49 abstaining. The vote came after the member states agreed on the regulations in negotiations in December 2023.

Image by Ivana Tomášková from Pixabay

Nearly three billion of us may have had our personal data exposed in an April hack, according to an article from Lifehacker. Seeing as there are just over eight billion people alive on the planet today, that means more than a third of the world's population may have been affected. As reported by Bloomberg Law, the exposure is the fault of Jerico Pictures Inc., operating as the background check company National Public Data, according to a lawsuit against the company. The suit alleges that, on April 8 of this year, the hacking group USDoD uploaded a database on the dark web site Breach Forums, called, simply, “National Public Data.” This 277GB database supposedly contained the information of 2.9 billion people. That data could be yours for the price of $3.5 million.

A bid to break up Alphabet Inc.'s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found that the company monopolized the online search market, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations, according to an article from Bloomberg. The move would be Washington's first push to dismantle a company for illegal monopolization since unsuccessful efforts to break up Microsoft Corp. two decades ago. Less severe options include forcing Google to share more data with competitors and measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations.

The team preparing NASA's X-59 continues through testing in preparation for the quiet supersonic aircraft to make its first flight, according to an article from SciTechDaily. This includes a trio of important structural tests and critical inspections on the path to flight. The X-59 is an experimental plane that will fly faster than the speed of sound without a loud sonic boom. It will be the first of its kind to fly, with the goal of gathering sound data for NASA's Quesst mission, which could open the door to commercial supersonic overland flight in the future.

National Institute on Aging, NIH

New research from Emory University suggests that proteins accumulating around amyloid-beta deposits, rather than the deposits themselves, may play a crucial role in the progression of Alzheimer's disease, offering new directions for treatment, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Recent research from Emory University is prompting a reevaluation of current theories on the origins of Alzheimer's disease, a major cause of dementia globally. Led by scientists at the Goizueta Brain Health Institute, the team has uncovered compelling evidence that suggests a different mechanism may be responsible for Alzheimer's. In a paper published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, Todd E. Golde and Yona Levites explain how the amyloid beta deposits long known to build up in the brains of Alzheimer's patients serve as a kind of scaffold for the accumulation of other proteins. Because many of these proteins have known signaling functions, their presence around the amyloid accumulations, known as plaques, could be the culprit causing brain cell damage rather than the amyloid itself.

Along the coast of South Wales, renowned as a “prehistoric hotspot,” a mother and daughter made an extraordinary discovery: Camelotian footprints dating back a staggering 200 million years, confirming the presence of dinosaurs in Wales, according to an article from Interesting Engineering. The five footprints, each measuring an impressive 75cm (30in) apart, make humans look more like ants, and according to a paleontology expert at the National Museum Wales, it belonged to a “type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorpha” due to their immense size.

Android updates often come with a bunch of security patches and bug fixes as standard, few of which ever get much attention, but the latest security update pushed out by Google is noteworthy: It addresses a vulnerability that may have already been exploited in the wild, which makes it even more important to update your devices as soon as possible, according to an article from Lifehacker. The vulnerability has been logged under the name CVE-2024-36971, and Google says it “may be under limited, targeted exploitation.” In other words, there's the possibility that hackers have already found ways to make use of it, albeit with limited end results or a limited number of devices affected. It's registered as a high severity remote code execution bug, which means it potentially enables someone else to run code on your device without your knowledge. While there's a very good chance you haven't been hit yet, you should keep an eye on security updates for your phone or tablet. Well-known Google bug squasher Clément Lecigne has been credited with discovering the problem.

MDEQ – via Facebook

A fossil hunter in Mississippi recently unearthed an intact mammoth ivory 7 feet long, according to an article from Good News Network. Believing it was the tusk of a mastodon, a far more common proboscidean in the area, Eddie Templeton was nevertheless ecstatic to find one that wasn't fragmented. But it was only after scientists arrived from the Mississippi Museum of Natural History and were able to examine it that the real former owner of the tusk became clear. It was the ivory of a Colombian mammoth—the largest mammoth in North America, and rarely documented this far south. He has found mastodon teeth, jaws, saber-tooth cat gnashes, and other Ice Age treasures, but the size, majestic curl, and rarity of the ivory surely places it not only among the most remarkable finds of Templeton's career, but among the most remarkable in the state's history, as it's the first time an intact tusk from this species has been found in the Magnolia State.

Amazon.com sued Nokia in Delaware federal court on Tuesday, accusing the Finnish telecom company of infringing a dozen Amazon patents related to cloud-computing technology, according to an article from Reuters. Amazon said in the lawsuit that Nokia misused Amazon Web Services (AWS) technology related to cloud computing infrastructure, security and performance to bolster its own cloud offerings. Nokia said in a statement that it would “review these matters and defend ourselves vigorously in court.” An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.

An unexplored region in the foothills of the Southern Pyrenees in Spain is shedding light on a little-known period of Neanderthal history, according to an article from SciTechDaily. New research from The Australian National University (ANU) suggests that this area could offer valuable clues to help archaeologists unravel the mystery of the Neanderthals' decline. Abric Pizarro is one of only a few sites worldwide dating from 100,000 to 65,000 years ago during a period called MIS 4. The researchers have gathered hundreds of thousands of artifacts, including stone tools, animal bones, and other evidence, providing significant data about the Neanderthal way of life during that time — largely unknown in human history until now. The findings reveal Neanderthals were able to adapt to their environment, challenging the archaic humans' reputation as slow-footed cavemen and shedding light on their survival and hunting skills.

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

Isn't It Ironic? Google researchers have come out with a new paper that warns that generative AI is ruining vast swaths of the internet with fake content — which is painfully ironic because Google has been hard at work pushing the same technology to its enormous user base, according to an article from Futurism. The study, a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper spotted by 404 Media, found that the great majority of generative AI users are harnessing the tech to “blur the lines between authenticity and deception” by posting fake or doctored AI content, such as images or videos, on the internet. The researchers also pored over previously published research on generative AI and around 200 news articles reporting on generative AI misuse.

Google is denying online reports that it is ending the Fitbit brand, and a representative says that the company has new Fitbit-branded products in the pipeline, according to an article from CNET. A spokesperson for Google, which purchased Fitbit in 2019, told CNET in an email, “We are very committed to Fitbit, and even more importantly to the customers that use and depend on those products and technology.” According to a report from the site TechRadar, Google “quietly confirmed” that it will no longer produce Fitbit Versa or Sense smartwatches. This comes as Google just rolled out its Pixel Watch 3 smartwatch, which Google says incorporates some of Fitbit's technology. According to the TechRadar report, Fitbit's trackers -- the Inspire, Luxe and Charge -- will still exist, but the implication is that five years after announcing it was buying Fitbit for $2.1 billion, Google is phasing out the brand. Google insists this is not the case. UPDATE: Well, that didn't last long. Google has confirmed that Fitbit as a brand will no longer be making new smartwatches, with the Pixel Watch series taking over that form factor going forward, according to an article from 9to5google.

Google has quietly made its latest text-to-image AI model, Imagen 3, available to all U.S. users through its ImageFX platform and published a research paper detailing the technology, according to an article from Venture Beat. This dual release marks a significant expansion of access to the AI tool, which was initially announced in May at Google I/O and limited to select Vertex AI users in June.

Image by RoadLight from Pixabay

A new attempt to predict earthquakes with the aid of artificial intelligence has raised hopes that the technology could one day be used to limit earthquakes' impact on lives and economies, according to an article from SciTechDaily. Developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, the AI algorithm correctly predicted 70% of earthquakes a week before they happened during a seven-month trial in China.

Researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia have achieved a significant breakthrough in developing optical lenses for mobile phone cameras, according to an article from Interesting Engineering. They have created a cutting-edge AI model specifically designed to aid in developing these lenses. According to the researchers, an automated computational approach to the optical lens design of imaging systems promises to provide optimal solutions without human intervention, slashing the time and cost usually required. The result could be improved cameras for mobile phones with superior quality or new functionality.

The European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), a new microchip manufacturing plant to be built in Dresden, Saxony, will be the first to produce so-called high-performance chips in the EU, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said during a visit to the nascent plant on August 20, according to an article from Euro News. “This new centre qualifies under the European Chips Act as a first-of-a-kind facility. It will manufacture products that are not present or planned in any other facility across Europe. That means this facility is also entitled to national financial support,” Von der Leyen said, adding that the European Commission has approved a €5 bn German measure to support ESMC in the construction and operation of its plant. The new plant will produce so-called high performance chips, using field-effect transistor (‘FinFET’) technology and allowing the integration of several additional features in one chip. The produced chips will offer better performance while at the same time reducing total power consumption. ESMC – a joint venture between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Bosch, Infineon, and NXP – is planned to be operating at full capacity by 2029, and is expected to produce 480,000 chips – used for automotive and industrial applications.

Cresilon, Inc.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a novel treatment that is designed to stop severe bleeding in a matter of seconds, according to an article from Fox News. TRAUMAGEL — made by Cresilon Inc., a Brooklyn-based biotechnology company — is a plant-based hydrogel that comes in a pre-filled syringe, according to a press release. First responders, paramedics, and combat medics can use the gel to rapidly stop severe blood loss from wounds due to gunshots, stabbings or other traumatic events. Joe Landolina, Cresilon's CEO and co-founder, invented the gel in his dorm room when he was a 17-year-old chemical and bioengineering student at NYU. TRAUMAGEL, which is “the color and texture of hummus,” works by instantly creating a mechanical barrier against bleeding at the site of the wound, Landolina said. “That barrier then allows the patient to quickly produce their own natural clot that doesn't become incorporated with TRAUMAGEL, allowing TRAUMAGEL to then be removed without disturbing the clot.” The gel is supposed to be removed within 24 hours.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has determined that the upsurge of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and a growing number of countries in Africa constitutes a public health emergency of international concern under the International Health Regulations, according to a news release from the WHO (World Health Organization). Dr Tedros's declaration came on the advice of an IHR Emergency Committee of independent experts who met earlier in the day to review data presented by experts from WHO and affected countries. The Committee informed the Director-General that it considers the upsurge of mpox to be a PHEIC, with potential to spread further across countries in Africa and possibly outside the continent.

According to an article from Live Science, the Milky Way galaxy has a 50-50 chance of colliding with a nearby galaxy in the next 10 billion years, a new study finds. Yet while those odds appear daunting, the new finding suggests the catastrophic collision is far less likely than previously thought. Located roughly 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda (M31) galaxy is approaching our Milky Way at a speed of 68 miles per second (110 kilometers per second). Because of this, astronomers have long predicted that the two galaxies will inevitably become locked in a fatal dance sometime in the next several billion years — spiraling into each other and merging to form a new galaxy. But according to a new study, published July 31 on the preprint server arXiv, the two galaxies are just as likely to narrowly miss each other. “We find that uncertainties in the present positions, motions, and masses of all galaxies leave room for drastically different outcomes, and a probability of close to 50% that there is no Milky Way-Andromeda merger during the next 10 billion years,” the authors wrote in the study.

Another month, yet another set of Google Chrome vulnerabilities. If you use Google Chrome or a Chromium-based web browser, you need to update it ASAP, according to an article from Lifehacker. Google's latest update for Chrome, version 128.0.6613.84/.85 (Windows/Mac) and 128.0.6613.84 (Linux), comes with patches for 38 security vulnerabilities, eight of which Google identifies as “High” severity. Google detailed all these patches in its latest Chrome Releases blog post, running through each vulnerability's type, severity, reward (the money rewarded to the researcher who discovered it), and noting who reported the flaw. One of those is a zero-day vulnerability that has been exploited “in the wild.”

From an article by ADWEEK, sales representatives from Google have suggested that advertisers target teenagers on YouTube, seemingly in violation of the platform's own policies, according to three ad buyers and written documentation seen by ADWEEK. This activity goes beyond the practice that was first identified by Financial Times earlier this month. Earlier this month, FT (Financial Times) reported that Google worked with Meta to target 13- to 17-year-old YouTube users with ads, targeting a group of users labeled as “unknown”—a group that Google knew was skewed towards under-18-year-olds, the article said. But buyers told ADWEEK that this activity involves more advertisers than the special arrangement between Meta and Google identified by FT. All buyers who spoke to ADWEEK for this article did so anonymously to discuss sensitive industry relations, but their identities are known to ADWEEK.

A newly discovered bug causes iPhones and iPads to briefly crash. All you need to trigger the bug are just four characters, according to an article from TechCrunch. On August 21, 2024, a security researcher found that typing “”:: can cause the Apple mobile user interface, called Springboard, to crash. TechCrunch verified that those characters do crash Springboard when typed into the Search bar in the Settings app, as well as if you swipe all the way to the right on your home screen and type them into the App Library search bar.

GIMP Tutorial: PlayIng With G'MIC, Part 4

by Meemaw

I've been having fun exploring G'MIC! I think I could explore for months, since our version of G'MIC says it has 569 filters, and that's just in G'MIC … GIMP already has hundreds of its own filters. Let's play some more.

I went to the Repair section. One of the effects is called Bayer Reconstruction, and looks similar to the GIMP tool Colors > Desaturate > Desaturate. The first image is from G'MIC, and the second is from the GIMP tool, using a photo of mine.

Bayer Reconstruction

The only change I made in Desaturate was to change the mode to Average.

Desaturate

I skipped to the Rendering section, and looked at a couple. Rendering > 3D Random Objects puts objects in your page (or on top of your photo).

You can choose the following objects: cube, cone, cylinder, sphere, torus (kinda like a donut), and can adjust size, density, and things like light direction and rendering mode. I'm sure it would be useful for some backgrounds (maybe the background for some type of notice).

Rendering > Tree is an interesting filter. I did an Inkscape tutorial in 2018 about creating a tree, but this does it much more easily.

This one has many settings, from leaf and trunk colors to how sparse or heavy the branches and leaves are. You could apply this several times with several settings to get your forest. In GIMP, it is added to the page as a floating layer, so you can copy your tree to a transparent page and save it as a .png, then insert it as many times as you need in any project. You can also export it as a GIMP brush.

The Silhouettes section is interesting, too. It has five categories: Animals, Icons, Misc, Nature and Others. Settings include the color and size of the silhouette. It could be useful to insert a silhouette into a photo or project to add an accent. I inserted a heart into this photo.

There is also a Testing section, which includes filters that others have submitted to G'MIC. They are organized by the submitter's name. For these I have re-opened the photo I took in Seward, Alaska in 2017.

Using Testing > samj > Artistic > Hallucinogen2, you can apply a really weird effect.

In Testing > samj > Artistic > Posterize B, you can see a much more subtle effect.

Using Testing > samj > Degradations > Random Plasma, the plasma effect seems to have been placed over the photo.

Using Testing > Garagecoder > Depth Blur, it blurs the photo on the basis of depth, blurring parts more that appear farther back from the camera. The settings in this filter were changed from the defaults and are Distance Threshold: 1, Blur Amount: 5, and Blur Percentage: 0.1.

Again in Testing, but in Testing > Telperion > Mc Pendraw, it changes the photo so it looks like it was done with a paintbrush.

In many of these filters, you might have to mess with different settings to get the effect you want. I hope that you've found a G'MIC filter that makes your project great.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner: Cheesy Tortellini and Sausage Skillet

Cheesy Tortellini & Sausage Skillet

Servings: 6

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb cooked pork sausage, sliced

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 jar (25.5 oz) pasta sauce tomato basil

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, drained

1/4 cup chicken broth (from 32-oz carton)

20 oz refrigerated cheese tortellini

11/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (6 oz)

6 fresh basil leaves, chopped

DIRECTIONS:

In a 12-inch skillet, cook the sliced sausage, onion and garlic for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the onion softens and sausage starts to brown.

Stir in sauce, tomatoes, chicken broth, ½ cup cheese and tortellini. Cover and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tortellini is cooked.

Remove from heat; sprinkle with remaining cheese and basil. Serve when the cheese has melted.

TIPS:

Substitute chicken sausage, turkey sausage, sweet Italian sausage or kielbasa for the pork sausage.

Substitute the mozzarella for your favorite cheese, or a blend of cheeses.

Add some sliced sautéed or fresh mushrooms to the mix.

To make this a meatless version, drop the meat and add all your favorite veggies.

Serve with Cheesy garlic toast or a crusty bread and a salad on the side.

NUTRITION:

Calories: 420    Carbs: 33g    Sodium: 960mg    Fiber: 3g    Protein: 21g

Back To School With Linux

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Ahhh … summer is winding down, and that means the kids are headed back to school! I use the term “kids,” because anyone heading back to school, whether they are students in an elementary school, middle school, high school, or college (regardless of their age) are probably a lot younger than I am.

In a lot of education venues, having a computer isn't an option anymore. It's a requirement. So, let's take a look at how Linux can be used by students in furthering their education.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Costs

It's no secret that students are *very* strapped for funds more frequently than not. There are a lot of expenses associated with getting an education, so anywhere you can save some money is usually appreciated.

You can purchase a Windows 11 Home license for $139 or a Windows 11 Pro license for $199 directly from Microsoft. And, that only works if you have a computer that meets the hardware requirements for Windows 11. There's a LOT of computers out there that don't meet Windows 11's hardware requirements … which can actually help students, in a roundabout way.

Those people looking to “upgrade” (and that is a term I use loosely) to the latest version of Windows may be looking to unload their existing computers before buying a new one capable of running Windows 11. They may either sell their existing computer for very little money, or perhaps even give it away to someone they think may benefit from it. This is how the Windows versions and hardware incompatibility cycle can benefit Linux users in general, and especially students.

All Linux users know (and the rest of the world should know) that the vast majority of Linux OS's can be had for FREE. Downloading the latest Linux distro of their choice, students can install it on that “older” hardware, and have a fully functional computer that's capable of doing everything the newer, flashiest, most modern computer can do. In fact, that's one area where Linux excels, in breathing new life into older hardware, and thus, extending the use of that hardware for a considerable amount of time.

While I'm not a student, here's an example. My “main” laptop is one that was “new” in or around 2020 (or thereabouts). I bought it (a Dell 5480) as a Grade A refurbished laptop from a reseller on eBay. It runs an Intel® Core® i5-7300U CPU @ 2.60GHz, but its hardware is not “up to snuff” to run Windows 11. In fact, it came with Windows 10 preinstalled on it when I bought it. Originally, this computer model sold for as much as $1,300, with all of the whistles-and-bells options available for it. I paid under $200 (U.S.) for it, and then upgraded the SSD from its puny 256 GB version, to a 2 TB NVMe SSD. I also maxed out the RAM on the laptop to 32 GB (four times the amount of RAM it came with). Those upgrades cost me about another $100.

After opening the laptop and performing those hardware upgrades, I then installed PCLinuxOS on the laptop. It has served me very well for over a year, and I suspect it'll keep going for quite some time to come. All of that for just $300. Compare that to a “new” computer, which is likely to cost much, much more than what I paid out.

The incessant upgrades to Windows that require an ever-increasing level of “minimum hardware” can be a real asset for Linux users. That also makes them a real boon for students looking to manage their education costs.

Image by Gianluca from Pixabay

Complete Homework

In many cases, homework is done by students on the computer these days. Both of my kids are still in elementary school, but I can remember back to the Covid-19 pandemic when the schools were closed, and we were doing “remote learning.” We employed Zoom for live contact with my son's teacher, and much of the “learning” was done on the computer.

My wife is currently enrolled in school to advance her healthcare career, and all of her school work is done on the computer. However, it seems that the IT department at her school isn't very proficient, requiring students to ONLY use a “modern” release of Windows (she uses Windows 10 on her computer). Or, maybe it's a “control” issue. Who knows. So, there's that issue.

On other days, when my son had to miss school due to illness, he completed most of his homework on his computer running Windows 11. He could have just as easily completed that homework on any computer, including one running Linux.

While neither of my kids are yet expected to write papers, a lot of students are expected to submit their papers digitally, instead of actually turning in a paper copy of those documents. My wife has had to write papers for some of her classes, but she uses the school-provided access to Office 365.

Linux users have many ways to create those documents. Yes, Linux users can subscribe to the cloud-based Office 365 … provided they pay for it. Microsoft offers various pricing options for Office 365, now known as Microsoft 365. The cost can vary depending on the plan you choose. For example, Microsoft 365 Basic is a new $1.99 a month subscription with 100 GB of storage, while Microsoft 365 Personal is $6.99 a month with 1 TB of cloud storage.

There are also Google Docs and Zoho Docs, both cloud based office suites. Both of these, unlike Microsoft 365, are free to use. They both are also capable of outputting documents in whatever document format is needed, including the proprietary *.docx format used by many as the “default” or required format. While not an “official” standard, *.docx files have become a de facto standard … like it or not.

Most full versions of PCLinuxOS come with LibreOffice preinstalled. Not only can LibreOffice (LO) output documents in their native format (*.odt, *.ods, *.odp, etc.), but they can also save documents in many different formats, including the proprietary *.docx format.

So, at least for papers written by students, the educational institution need never know that the student didn't use Microsoft 365 to create it. Just so long as it's in the proper format, there's little to tell the instructor that it wasn't created using that proprietary (and costly) office suite. While there may be something in the document header that specifies what program/platform was used to create the document, it's doubtful that instructors are going to spend the time examining the document header. At that point, I would think that the content of the paper would be what's most important, and not what program or platform was used to create it.

Image by UnratedStudio from Pixabay

Summary

When you look at capabilities, there's little that Linux can't do. It can definitely “hold its own” against any other operating system out there.

Do you need to participate in video conferences? Check. I've used Zoom **many** times on PCLinuxOS to participate in video conferences and webinars.

Do you need a messaging program? Check. The messaging program “Signal” is in the PCLinuxOS repository. It's also available for your mobile devices, and the two update simultaneously and seamlessly. I know, because tbs, Meemaw, and I use it to sometimes communicate when we're assembling the magazine every month. When the PCLinuxOS servers run by The CrankyZombie went down, we used the Signal program to communicate, since the PCLOS-Talk service was one of the things that went down with the server hardware failure. I can start a conversation on my PCLinuxOS desktop, and then continue that conversation on my phone if I have to leave the house.

Do you need a good, capable web browser? Check. With just a casual count in Synaptic, I counted 28 different browsers listed in the PCLinuxOS repository.

Do you need a decent office suite or word processor? Check. As I've pointed out, there are several routes you could take to produce your document. Use one of the online office suites, or use LO to create your documents.

Do you need to work on graphics? Check. With GIMP, Inkscape, Krita and various other graphic tools available, you can easily and quickly unleash your artistic prowess.

Do you need to work with a publishing program? Check. Scribus is a desktop publishing program that easily rivals (and often outperforms) the commercial offerings.

So, as you can see, Linux is a very capable solution for budget-conscious students, at any and every level of their educational journey.

Linking Orage (Xfce4 Desktop) To Your Google Calendar

by davecs (Dave Spagnol)

When Google decided to tighten up security (a.k.a. made it difficult to get to your own data), I believed that I wouldn't be able to link orage to my data anymore. Numerous online searches showed that others had the same problem, lots of questions, but no answers. There is a vdirsyncer manual online, but I found it hard to follow. But I persisted with the manual, and eventually found the answer. It turns out the solution wasn't that difficult. All it involved was uninstalling the old version of vdirsyncer, and installing the up to date one. Then uninstalling requests-oauthlib, and installing python-aiohttp-oauthlib. And apart from that, not much had changed. I now have everything working again!

I have been testing the PCLinuxOS Debian Edition Xfce version, and it works without any problems up until now. My only worry is that vdirsyncer's access to my Google Calendar will be time-limited. At the time of writing, it seems OK. I have also tested it on standard PCLOS Xfce. It should also work on non-XFCE desktops, because Orage is no longer tied to the XFCE panel.

1: Install vdirsyncer and python-aiohttp-oauthlib You will need to install vdirsyncer, and python-aiohttp-oauthlib. You should be able to do this through your distro's normal installation method. Otherwise, you install python3-pip then install the packages online via python repositories. Firstly, use your Distribution's installer (synaptic, for example) to install the package: python3-pip. Then you need to open a terminal, either as root or precede each line with sudo, and run the following line for each app:

pip3 install vdirsyncer

pip3 install aiohttp-oauthlib

(You don't include the “python-” part of the name if installing via pip3)

If using pip3 as root, you will get a message warning you that you may have a problem due it clashing with your distro's repository system, then it goes on to install it anyway. In the case of Texstar's PCLinuxOS, vdirsyncer and aiohttp-oauthlib are not available in the repository, so there is no clash.

If you have an old version that doesn't work anymore, you can use the command pip3 uninstall to uninstall vdirsyncer and requests-oauthlib, before re-installing vdirsyncer and aiohttp-oauthlib. I couldn't find another way to upgrade vdirsyncer to the latest version.

2: Opening your Google account up to vdirsyncer Click on https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/dashboard Once there click on “+ ENABLE APIS AND SERVICES” near the top of the screen. Ask for a new Desktop Application.

This takes you to a search screen, and in the search box, enter “caldav”. You will get a box to click on, “CalDAV API” which you should select. You will need to Create Credentials. In return, you will get two long IDs, client_id and client_secret. This part is a lot more complex than it used to be! You have to give your “project” a name and fill in all sorts of seemingly irrelevant information to get at your own data!

Open your File Manager, and Show Hidden Files, click into .config and create a folder within that called vdirsyncer — and inside that create a text file called config.

You should create a folder under ~/.local/share/orage/ which is your Gmail address (shown as youraddress@gmail.com in the file that follows).

You need to create a configuration file at /home/yourusername/.config/vdirsyncer/config which should look like this. You will use your own Gmail address, client_id and client_secret, but everything else should be typed as I have. All quote marks should be standard upright ones:

[general]

status_path = "~/.vdirsyncer/status/"

[pair mygoogle_calendar]

a = "mygoogle_calendar_local"

b = "mygoogle_calendar_remote"

collections = ["from a", "from b"]

[storage mygoogle_calendar_local]

type = "singlefile"

path = "~/.local/share/orage/youraddress@gmail.com/%s.ics"

[storage mygoogle_calendar_remote]

type = "google_calendar"

token_file = "~/.vdirsyncer/google_token"

client_id = "1235467890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.apps.googleusercontent.com"

client_secret = "1234567890abcdefghijklmnop"

Now, make a folder in your home folder (not under .config) called “./vdirsyncer”, inside that, create another folder called “status”, and inside that, another folder called “calendar”.

That's the preparation done…

Now for the moment of truth. You need to open a terminal, and run the following command as user:

vdirsyncer discover mygoogle_calendar

A very off-putting browser window now pops up, I wish I had a screenshot of it. It's basically an error report, similar to the one when you try to log in to an insecure site, with two large buttons on the screen, the one on the right saying “back to safety” and the other leading you to pages purporting to explain what you have to do, but which add to the confusion. Ignore both these buttons, instead there is another link in very small print at the bottom. It might say “Advanced”, if it doesn't, it leads to another link that says “Advanced”. That's the one you have to click, and we go through to the authorization window.

A browser window should pop up to complete the authorisation, and that will create an access token, which will be saved as the file you set up as the “token_file”. Finally, you can run the following command as user to download your data files from Google for the first time:

vdirsyncer sync

3. LOADING YOUR GOOGLE DATA INTO Orage

When vdirsyncer sync finishes, you should have one or more files in the folder “/home/your-user-name/.local/share/orage/youraddress@gmail.com/” which you can now link to orage.

To get started, run orage, either via your start menu, or if you've already attached it to your panel clock, just click on that. You link the calendars by clicking on File>Exchange Data, and the tab called Foreign Files. Using the button “Open”, locate the folder and click on one of the ICS files, with READ-ONLY clicked for now. Then click “Add”. When you have added one, try to locate some of its data both in your online Google Calendar and then by checking in Orage. There should be one calendar that you'll want to write stuff back to. When you identify it, click on Remove, but remember the name it appears under in the files. You might also want to remove all of the files, and add them again, but with a human-readable name in the Visible Name box.

In my own case, there was one I didn't want, the main calendar in fact, which seems to add multiple copies of Birthdays, including long-forgotten ones, and loads of cruft. So I've excluded that from among the linked Calendars altogether. I have created another calendar specifically generated for Birthdays from my Google Contacts account, and another one for British Public Holidays and so on. I left these on the Foreign Files tab as READ-ONLY. I clicked on the “Orage Files” tab, and added the file that I want to write stuff back to, under “Orage Main Calendar File”. If there's more than one file you might want to write stuff back to, you can keep one in the Foreign Files section, but remember to untick Read Only before saving it to the list. If there is more than one file you can write to, you get a choice when you are entering a new appointment.

4. SETTING UP vdirsyncer CRON JOB

When setting up a schedule, in this case, to run command every hour, you should bear in mind that the standard paths don't always work. You must always type in the full path to vdirsyncer. Depending on how you installed it, it will be one of the following:

/usr/bin/vdirsyncer sync

/usr/local/bin/vdirsyncer sync

/home/yourusername/.local/bin/vdirsyncer sync

You should use your File Manager to take a look and see which one it is before proceeding.

Your distro may have a nice GUI to set up a cron job. I strongly recommend you use it. PCLinuxOS has gnome-schedule available, but PCLOS Debian uses job-schedulery. If you prefer, you can use the command line (as user, not root) in a terminal. I wouldn't recommend this if you are not used to using old-fashioned console text editors like Vi and Nano. This involves typing the line:

crontab -e

Whichever method you use, decide what minute of the hour you want the sync to take place. I use 36 out of habit. The minute is the first entry, followed by hour, day, month, and weekday. An asterisk means “any” so to make it 36 minutes every hour, your line reads:

36 * * * *

Then it needs the full path to vdirsyncer. If you installed via your distro's repository, it's likely to be /usr/bin/ but if you installed it using pip3, then it might be /usr/local/bin — check it via your file manager. So your line in crontab could be one of these:

36 * * * * /usr/bin/vdirsyncer sync

36 * * * * /usr/local/bin/vdirsyncer sync

36 * * * * /home/yourusername/.local/bin/vdirsyncer sync

All you need to do is to arrow down past all the hashed lines, then type it in. When you've done this, you need to save it!

Using a GUI like gnome-schedule

New task window in gnome-schedule

If you're using a program like “gnome-schedule” or “job-scheduler”, look at the illustration. If you install gnome-schedule using synaptic, it appears in the start menu as “Scheduled tasks”. Once you've installed it, run it. Adding your task is simple enough. Just click on “New” and then select “A task that launches recurrently”. You get the Dialogue box shown. Note that when you add the name of the program, you need to include the full path, as shown above.

I suggest that you set the synchronization up to run once an hour, which is the basic default. If you have other scheduled tasks which need to run once an hour, set them at different minutes so they don't all put a load on your system at the same time.

Job Scheduler window

5. ADDING APPOINTMENTS USING Orage

When you create a new entry using Orage, (File>New from the calendar), the entry you make is added to the Orage Main Calendar File you declared earlier. If you also have a Read-Write file on your “Foreign Files” tab, you will get a choice as to where it goes (a drop-down menu near the top of the window). Once an hour when vdirsyncer runs, data will be merged with the copy at Google!

If, when there is also stuff to be uploaded, you do see some worrying messages if you run vdirsyncer sync in a terminal, but ignore them. It will work. Just let it run in the background on the hour!

6. Adding Orage to your panel clock

If you are using Orage with XFCE (>=4.18) or another Panel whose clock supports running a command when clicked, you might want to add Orage to your panel clock, see last month's magazine.

(We'd like to thank davecs for allowing The PCLinuxOS Magazine to reproduce this article from his blog, at https://davespagnol.wordpress.com/2024/07/07/linux-linking-orage-xfce4-desktop-to-your-google-calendar/)

Tip Top Tips: What Is My External IP Address?

Editor's Note: Tip Top Tips is a semi-monthly column in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Periodically, we will feature – and possibly even expand upon – one tip from the PCLinuxOS forum. The magazine will not accept independent tip submissions specifically intended for inclusion in the Tip Top Tips column. Rather, if you have a tip, share it in the PCLinuxOS forum's “Tips & Tricks” section. Occasionally, we may run a “tip” posted elsewhere in the PCLinuxOS forum. Either way, share your tip in the forum, and it just may be selected for publication in The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

This month's tip comes from SemperOSS, and was posted in the PCLinuxOS forum on June 30, 2024.

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

It seems that this subject has not been up since 2011, but I do not think it is less relevant now, so I would like to present a script that displays the external IP address (IPv4 only) using different methods and different external servers. I developed the method for a script that updates my DNS entry in my DNS provider's database. That script tries each server in order until it gets a reply, thus making it resilient to any individual site not working. The original script used lwp-request, but since this apparently had issues with missing dependencies on some machines, I have redone it using curl.

Most people will probably just use their browser for this, so I have added a list of websites I have used. Every website on the list works without needing JavaScript enabled, which I prefer for security reasons.

The script, as it is here, just shows the result from each source. If you find new sources, please send me a mail with the details and I will try to update the script at some point.

I call the script myip, and store it in ~/bin:

1. #!/bin/bash

2. PATH=/bin:/usr/bin

3. declare -A Sites

4. Sites=( \

5. [OpenDNS.com]='$( dig -4 +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com )' \

6. [WhoIsHostingThis.com]='$( curl -s https://www.whoishostingthis.com/tools/user-agent/ | awk '"'"'/flag.*[0-9][0-9]*\.[0-9][0-9]*\.[0-9][0-9]*\.[0-9][0-9]*/ { sub(/.*flag[^0-9]*/, ""); sub(/<.*/, ""); print }'"'"' )' \

7. [ShowMyIP.com]='$( curl -s https://www.showmyip.com/ | awk '"'"'/[0-9][0-9]*\.[0-9][0-9]*\.[0-9][0-9]*\.[0-9][0-9]*/ { sub(/[^0-9\.]*2>/, ""); sub(/<.*/, ""); print; exit }'"'"' )' \

8. [DynDNS.org]='$( curl -s checkip.dyndns.org | awk '"'"'{ sub(/.*:/, ""); sub(/<.*/, ""); print }'"'"' )' \

9. [CanHazIP.com]='$( curl -s http://canhazip.com )' \

10. [ShowIP.net]='$( curl -s http://showip.net/ )' \

11. [IPinfo.io]='$( curl -s https://ipinfo.io/ip )' \

12. [IPecho.net]='$( curl -s http://ipecho.net/plain)' \

13. [WhatIsMyIPaddress.com]='$( curl -s -A '"'"'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0'"'"' https://whatismyipaddress.com/ 2>/dev/null | awk '"'"'/\/ip\// { sub(/.*none;.>/, ""); sub(/<.*/, ""); print; exit }'"'"' )' \

14. )

15.

16. MaxLength=0

17. for Site in "${!Sites[@]}"

18. do

19. if [ ${#Site} -gt $MaxLength ]; then

20. MaxLength=${#Site}

21. fi

22. done

23. MaxTabLength=$[ $MaxLength / 8 ]

24. for Site in "${!Sites[@]}"

25. do

26. Tabs=$[ $MaxTabLength - (${#Site} / 8) ]

27. echo -n $Site

28. while [ $Tabs -ge 0 ]

29. do

30. echo -n $'\t'

31. Tabs=$[ $Tabs - 1 ]

32. done

33. eval "IP=${Sites[$Site]}"

34. echo = $IP

35. done

Personally, I prefer the first method, where the dig command queries opendns.com directly. Thanks to opendns.com for making this hack available.

The other requests basically scrape websites for the information. If you only want one result, you can just remove the servers you do not want to use from the script.

List of websites:

• https://ipinfo.io/ip

• http://canhazip.com

• https://www.whoishostingthis.com/tools/user-agent/

• https://www.showmyip.com/

• http://checkip.dyndns.org/

• http://showip.net/

• https://whatismyipaddress.com/

You can download SemperOSS's script from the magazine website. As with all scripts hosted on the magazine website, save it to where you save all of your custom scripts, strip the “.txt” file extension, and mark the file as executable. Ideally, the location where you save your script should be in a directory that is in your PATH environment variables. That way, you can just call the script by its name, instead of having to type in the full path to the script (which is what you will have to do if you store it in a directory NOT in your PATH environment variables).

Editor's Note: If you use a VPN, you might also want to check to be sure you don't have a DNS leak. Visit https://www.dnsleaktest.com/ to check whether you have a DNS leak. A DNS leak can also reveal your external IP address, if you haven't taken efforts to also mask your DNS from the prying eyes of your ISP.

GNU TeXmacs: How to Create a Bibliography and Add Citations

by David Pardue (kalwisti)

Introduction

While writing last month's article, I realized that certain tasks in TeXmacs might be a bit intimidating for users who are unfamiliar with the (La)TeX ecosystem. Although TeXmacs does not use (La)TeX directly, its method of creating bibliographies and handling citations / references follows “the LaTeX way”.

If you decided to explore TeXmacs but have little or no prior LaTeX experience, and are wondering how to create a bibliography and add citations to your document, I will attempt to demystify the process. It is not complicated once you acquire some basic knowledge of two programs: BibTeX and JabRef.

BibTeX

The GNU TeXmacs editor uses BibTeX to compile bibliographies. BibTeX is a software program that is used in conjunction with LaTeX to help organize your bibliographic references and create a bibliography. BibTeX automates most of the work in managing references. The program formats your citations and reference list consistently, in a style of your choosing.

BibTeX references are stored in a plain-text database with a simple format (with a file extension of .bib). Every reference in this bibliography file is formatted according to a certain structure and is given a “key” (also known as a “citation key”) which uniquely identifies that item. The “key” is the first item in a BibTeX entry.

The citation key is something that you create yourself. You may use any naming convention that you wish; a common pattern is “AuthorsurnameYearofpublication”, e.g., Knuth84, Lamport94, etc. An author with multiple publications in the same year could have a letter appended to the key, e.g., Dijkstra69, Dijkstra69a, Dijkstra69b.

Below is an example of a BibTeX entry for Donald E. Knuth's famous book, The Art of Computer Programming. It illustrates the general structure of the file format:

BibTeX was developed by computer scientist Oren Patashnik in the 1980s, while he was a graduate student at Stanford University (working under the supervision of Donald Knuth and Leslie Lamport). The program's first public release was in March 1985, so it has been in existence for almost forty years. BibTeX is tried and true; it has proven itself to be an invaluable tool.

As you might imagine, with such a long history, there is a large corpus of literature published on BibTeX. If you have specific questions about how to accomplish something in BibTeX, a quick web search will lead you to answers.

Andrew Roberts, the author of some popular LaTeX tutorials, provides a good introduction to BibTeX with a helpful cheat sheet (in PDF format) that summarizes all the BibTeX entry types and fields.

If you would like to delve more deeply into BibTeX, Dr. Nelson Beebe (Dept. of Mathematics, University of Utah) wrote an excellent tutorial.

A few other points to consider about BibTeX:

• The order of the BibTeX fields is unimportant

• Your .bib file can contain references that you do not cite. At the end of your document, BibTeX and TeXmacs will only print the references that you have cited (using the “\cite|your-citation-key” command)

• BibTeX is persnickety about the capitalization of proper nouns and acronyms, as well as the formatting of names (or words) with non-ASCII characters (such as foreign-language diacritics). Some basic guidelines are available here. A table demonstrating how to type common foreign-language diacritics can be found on Wikibooks

JabRef

Although you can create and edit BibTeX files in any text editor — such as Kate, Emacs, Geany, etc. — using a reference manager app is a more comfortable experience. I recommend that you consider JabRef as your primary citation management software because it uses BibTeX (.bib) as its native file format.

JabRef is a reference manager that acts as an interface to BibTeX. JabRef is FOSS, cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows) and is freely downloadable. The GUI allows the user to easily import, edit, search, and group citations in the BibTeX format. It also offers automatic citation key generation. JabRef does not offer any citation styles of its own; instead, the citation is generated from the BibTeX style setting.

A complete JabRef tutorial is outside the scope of this article. However, the video tutorials below can help you quickly become familiar with JabRef's features:

• The presentation by Dr. James Azam, “JabRef for Beginners (Part 1): JabRef Interface and Creating a Library” [3 Apr. 2021 (13 min., 55 sec.)], is an excellent starting point. It provides a clear overview and is well paced

• The tutorial by JoshTheEngineer, “Introduction to JabRef” [31 Jan. 2021 (22 min., 25 sec.)], is more detailed but at times the presenter overly focuses on his personal configurations / preferences

How to Install JabRef

Although JabRef is not currently in the PCLinuxOS repositories, it can be installed easily as a Flatpak (ver. 5.15).

• First, install the Flatpak utility via Synaptic from the official PCLinuxOS repository. The current version (at the time this article was written) is flatpak 1.15.6.

• As root user, you need to add the Flathub repository and initialize it before installing the JabRef Flatpak on your system. Open a Terminal and type the following (this is all one line):

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

• Note: Restart/reboot your computer. After that, you can proceed with actually installing the JabRef app.

• Open a web browser and go to the Flathub page for JabRef:

https://flathub.org/apps/org.jabref.jabref

• Copy the “Manual Install” CLI command from the Flathub.org webpage, and paste it into a Terminal. (You must have root privileges): flatpak install flathub org.jabref.jabref

(In case you are curious, here is a partial gloss of the command's syntax:

flatpak install flathub org.jabref.jabref

• The third element (“flathub”) is the remote repository, i.e., flathub[.org].

• The final element is the ID of the application.

Identifiers have a three-part structure, e.g., com.company.App

In this instance, we have “org” since it is a non-commercial entity.

The “jabref” is the name of the developer.

“jabref” is the object's name, i.e., application name.)

Methods of Creating a BibTeX File

There are several methods of creating a BibTeX (.bib) file:

• You may convert your existing references from text format using the online tool text2bib. You can copy and paste your bibliography from LibreOffice Writer (or another word processor) into text2bib, which will convert your references into a BibTeX file.

• The text2bib website is maintained by Martin Osborne, a retired economics professor from the University of Toronto. Dr. Osborne prepared a brief video which explains how the utility works.

• Makino Takaki provides an (experimental) online converter here.

• If you already use a reference management program such as Zotero, it can export your references as a .bib file. This library guide explains how to export Zotero references in BibTeX format.

• You can export references from Google Scholar in BibTeX format. However, please be aware that the accuracy of these references is often not very high.

Google Scholar is a web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of publications from a variety of scholarly disciplines. After conducting your search, identify the source(s) that you wish to cite. Then, it is a simple three-step process to export the BibTeX reference: click on the “Cite” hyperlink; then click on the “BibTeX [format]” hyperlink; copy and paste the displayed BibTeX entry into JabRef or your favorite text editor.

Below is the citation, in BibTeX format, for the book Linux for Small Business Owners (as downloaded from Google Scholar):

@book{both2022linux,

title={Linux for Small Business Owners},

author={Both, David and Bulka, Cyndi},

year={2022},

publisher={Springer}

}

The sample item above, although it is bare-bones, contains mistakes. It omits the book's subtitle; it omits the edition statement and lists the publisher incorrectly (it should be “Apress” [which is an imprint of parent company Springer Verlag]. The book's ISBN was not included in the Google Scholar metadata.

I edited the entry to include additional bibliographic data. My modifications are in blue boldface type:

@book{Both22,

isbn = {978-1484282632},

year = {2022},

title = {Linux for Small Business Owners: Using Free and Open-Source Software to Power Your Dreams},

edition = {First},

publisher = {Apress},

author = {David Both and Cyndi Bulka}

}

• A topic on the TeX StackExchange lists good websites to find citations in BibTeX format. In particular, DBLP is mentioned as an excellent source if you are interested in computer science and/or math topics.

• As a retired librarian, I must put in a plug: don't forget your local public library. It probably offers free access to online databases (on an array of subjects) which you can search. Most of these databases allow exporting citations in various formats.

The screenshot below shows a small sample of the databases available at my local library (via the Texas State Library).

• A more labor-intensive option is to type your BibTeX database from scratch — either directly as a plain text file, or by using a BibTeX reference management program such as JabRef.

Referencing In Action: TeXmacs

We have covered background information on BibTeX and the role it plays in compiling bibliographies. Now let's walk through the process of citing reference sources within GNU TeXmacs and actually compiling a bibliography.

• To begin, you should have already created a (separate) bibliography file, in BibTeX format (.bib).

• Make sure that your TeXmacs file (.tm) and your bibliography file (.bib) are saved / stored in the same directory.

• To include the bibliography file and make it known to your current TeXmacs file, from the Insert menu > choose Automatic > then Bibliography.

(As an alternative, you can insert the bibliography file via the menu on the second-tier toolbar. Look for the last icon in the left group [“Insert automatically generated content”] > then choose the Bibliography option.)

Navigate to the folder with your .bib file, select it and click on the Open button.

Notice that an unnumbered section called “Bibliography” will be added at the bottom of your document.

At this point, you may begin entering your relevant citations. For example, to add a citation after the phrase:

“In the book by Mittelbach et al.”: After “et al.” press the Spacebar then Tab:

• A faint blue hyphen will appear (as shown above).

You must type the Spacebar + Tab key sequence to ensure that the automatic hyperlinking of the citation works properly. (If you fail to do this, hyperlinking will not be active, and you will receive an error message if you click on the citation.)

• Next, type “\cite”, i.e., Backslash symbol followed by the word “cite” (without quotation marks):

(The purple-colored angle brackets appear automatically in the TeXmacs editor while you are typing out this command.)

• Next, press the Enter/Return key.

A pipe symbol (“ | ”) will automatically appear:

• Type in (or paste) your BibTeX citation key for this book. In this example, I used the citation key “Mittelbach04”:

• Press the Enter/Return key.

Notice that the argument you were typing as part of the “cite” command disappears, and changes to a red question mark:

The question mark appears because TeXmacs is unaware — for now — of this newly added citation. In order for TeXmacs to “look up” this new information, you must first update / refresh your TeXmacs file.

• To refresh your file, click on the Hammer icon two or three times.

• Afterwards, all changes should be reflected, and the citation will become active / hyperlinked.

• You will see the “[?]” change to an Arabic numeral (“3” in this example):

• An entry for the Mittelbach book will be generated in the “Bibliography” list:

The reference list shown in the screenshot above is one of the seven standard BibTeX bibliography styles; it is called “plain”. (TeXmacs refers to it as “tm-plain”). A brief overview of BibTeX styles is available in the library guide at https://www.reed.edu/it/help/LaTeX/bibtexstyles.html

• You may optionally change the style by going to the Focus bar (the smaller, third-tier toolbar). Look for the property labeled “Style” and use its menu to change the style to “tm-alpha”:

• After applying the change, results will look like this in the text body and reference list:

Video Demos

I hope this article has clarified how BibTeX and TeXmacs interact, and perhaps saved you some frustration. You might find it helpful to watch two real-time video demonstrations of the bibliography / citation procedure:

• Useful Knowledge. “How to Easily Type Your (Scientific) Notes with TeXmacs.” 1 Apr. 2022.

The bibliography segment runs from minute 17:08 to minute 20:42.

• TeXmacs Videos. “Typing Your First Article with GNU TeXmacs.” 25 Apr. 2019. The bibliography demonstration runs from minute 4:54 to minute 6:19.

UPS: A Source of Backup Power

by The CrankyZombie

Why Do I need backup power (UPS) for my home computer?

UPS systems serve two main purposes. They provide backup power as quickly as possible in the event of power loss, and they offer some degree of protection from power quality issues that may damage equipment. The electronic devices you rely on every day for communication, security, and entertainment are at risk for damage and failure due to unexpected blackouts, voltage fluctuations or other power disruptions.

What is a UPS (uninterruptible power supply)?

A (UPS) uninterruptible power supply is a type of continual power system that provides automated backup electrical power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from a traditional standby generator in that it will provide near-instantaneous protection from input power interruptions by switching to energy stored in batteries. The on-battery run-times of most UPSs are relatively short (about 9-45 minutes) but sufficient to “buy time” for initiating a standby power source or properly shutting down the protected equipment.

A Word of Warning…

Home UPS systems are not designed to run your computer for hours on end. They are designed to run for short periods. Long enough for you to safely power down your system when a power outage occurs. Depending on your system, they could run for as few as 9 to 45 minutes.

If you need a backup power supply that can handle your equipment for longer lengths of time, then a Sine wave inverter with battery backup is a better solution, but is also an expensive solution.

How big of a UPS do I need?

To determine the appropriate Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) for your setup, you will need to calculate the total power consumption of the devices you want to power during the outage.

Here's how you can do it:

1. PC: To estimate the power consumption of your PC, you can check the power supply unit (PSU) rating in watts. This will give you an idea of the maximum power draw of your PC. If you don't have this information, you can estimate the power consumption based on the components in your PC.

2. Monitor: Most LED monitors consume around 20-30 watts on average. You can check the specifications of your specific monitor to find the exact power consumption.

3. Modem/Router/Wi-Fi: Most consume between 5-20 watts.

To calculate the total power consumption, add up the power consumption of each device:

Total Power Consumption = Power Consumption of PC + Power Consumption of Monitor + the Modem/Router/Wi-Fi.

Once you have the total power consumption in watts, you can then determine the capacity of the UPS you need. To calculate the required UPS capacity in VA (Volt-Amps) or watts, you should consider not just the total power consumption but also the desired runtime. In this case, say you want to run the devices for approximately 1 hour.

To calculate the UPS capacity in VA or watts, you can use the following formula:

UPS Capacity (VA or watts) = Total Power Consumption x Runtime Factor

The runtime factor can vary depending on the efficiency of the UPS and the type of batteries it uses. As a general rule of thumb, you can use a runtime factor of around 1.6 for more accurate results.

Once you have the UPS capacity in VA or watts, you can then look for a UPS that meets or exceeds this capacity. It's recommended to choose a UPS with a slightly higher capacity to ensure that it can handle the load comfortably.

Please note that these calculations are approximate, and actual power consumption may vary based on the specific devices and their usage. It's always a good idea to consult with a professional or refer to the user manuals of your devices for more accurate information.

An example:

Computer

= 450 watts

Monitor

= 30 watts

Modem

= 2 watts

Router/Wi-Fi

= 5 watts

That is a total of 487 watts. I want to be able to power my devices for 1 hour, so I take my total watts and multiply it by 1.6 (runtime plus a fudge factor) which gives me a total power consumption of 779.2.2 WH. So my UPS must support at least 780 WH (UPS Capacity = Total Power Consumption + Runtime). In this case, something like this Tripp Lite UPS or the APC BR100MS2 UPS could easily run my system for an hour. A great way to figure out the actual wattage of your equipment is to plug everything into a KILL-A-WATT meter. These meters can be bought for less than $15.00 and can tell you so much about the power your equipment draws and more.

What is a good UPS to buy?

Some of the better UPS systems on the market are made by

1. APC

2. CyberPower

3. Tripp Lite

4. Eaton

5. Vertiv Liebert

What shouldn't I connect to my UPS?

Any devices require a significant amount of power, which the inverter may not be able to provide. Especially high-powered devices such as Air Conditioners, Refrigerators, Stoves, Microwave, Vacuum Cleaners and Washing Machines. In general, anything that has an inductive load shouldn't be connected to your UPS. All the devices mentioned above are inductive loads.

How do I connect my UPS to my home system?

After unboxing your new UPS, connect the power cord into a 15 amp wall socket. DO NOT plug your UPS into any surge protection device. Doing so could cause the UPS to fail to operate properly. The UPS equipment has built-in surge protection.

On the back of your UPS there should be several rows of outlets. Some will be marked “Surge + Battery” and others will be marked “Surge” On some UPS models the plugs themselves are color coded. You will want to plug your computer, monitor, and your Modem/Router/Wi-Fi into the outlets labeled “Surge + Battery”. Other devices like your printer, etc. should be plugged into the outlet marked “Surge”.

On some models, you can also find protection for your Ethernet Modem/Router/Wi-Fi device and coax connectors for your Cable Modem. The input side of these connectors should go from the wall to your UPS, and the output of the connectors go from the UPS to the appropriate device. IE: Cable modem or your Modem/Router/Wi-Fi

Once all your devices are connected to your UPS, you are ready to power on the UPS. Once the UPS is powered on, it should start charging the internal battery. (Be aware that it can take up to 8 hours for the UPS to charge its internal batteries fully.) Depending on the UPS you have, it may show the state of the internal battery charge, the load, the voltage or more, depending on your menu selection.

Now the UPS is powered on and running, it is time to power up your equipment that you have connected to your UPS. That's it. If everything has gone right, you should see nothing different than if your equipment was plugged directly into the wall socket.

Some UPS equipment even comes with the cabling and software that allows the UPS and the computer to communicate with each other, allowing the computer to shut itself down when or if the UPS battery becomes depleted. Most of the software that allows for this, is written for Window or Macs only. There is a program in synaptic called “apcupsd” for the Power management software for APC UPS system.

The synaptic descriptions says:

Power management software for APC UPS hardware

UPS power management under Linux for APCC Products. It allows your computer/server to run during power problems for a specified length of time or the life of the batteries in your BackUPS, BackUPS Pro, SmartUPS v/s, or SmartUPS, and then properly executes a controlled shutdown during an extended power failure.

Now your system should be ready to take on the next power outage.

Some Other Thoughts.

If you have a Home Theater setup, you may also want a UPS to protect it.

It is possible to split the working load of your equipment across two or more UPS systems. It may be cheaper to split the equipment load, than to buy one huge, expensive UPS capable of supporting everything on its own.

For Example: Put your gaming machine on one UPS while putting your Monitor(s), Modem/Router/Wi-Fi on a different UPS.

For some UPS Equipment, you can purchase external battery packs to help extend the runtime of the unit. I know that both APC and Tripp Lite have these options for some of their equipment.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus: Homemade Hamburger Helper Type Mix

Homemade Hamburger Helper Type Basic Mix

And some helpful recipes

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups nonfat dry milk

1 cup corn starch

1/4 cup beef bouillon powder

2 T onion flakes

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp black pepper

2 T dried parsley

1 T garlic powder

DIRECTIONS:

Measure all ingredients into a Ziploc Bag. Shake well, transfer to vacuum seal bag, seal and store for up to a year. To use, see the sample recipes below, each recipe calls for 1/2 cup of the mix above.

Chili Mac:

1 lb. ground beef or turkey, browned and drained

1 C. water

1/2 C. macaroni noodles (uncooked)

2 cans chopped tomatoes

1 T. chili powder

1/2 C. mix

Combine all and simmer for 20 minutes, or until macaroni is cooked.

Stroganoff:

1 lb. ground beef or turkey, browned and drained

2 C. water

1/2 C. mix

2 C. uncooked egg noodles or substitute 5 ounces Dehydrated Potato Slices

1/2 C. sour cream

Combine all except sour cream. Simmer for 20 minutes or until noodles are tender. Stir in sour cream and serve.

(Alternatively, here's how I prefer to make mine. Heat a Large skillet over medium heat, place ground meat in pan to brown, when halfway cooked add 1/2 a small onion diced, 1/2 c diced bell pepper (red or green or both) until meat is no longer pink. Add Water & Mix, whisk to combine and break up any chunks. Add noodles. Cover & cook 15–20 minutes or until noodles are tender, Stir in Sour cream & Serve)

Potato Beef Casserole:

1 lb. ground beef or turkey, browned and drained

3/4 C. water

6 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

1 C. frozen mixed veggies

1/2 C. mix

Combine all and simmer, covered, until potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove cover and cook until excess water has evaporated.

Lasagna:

1 lb. ground beef or turkey, browned and drained

1/2 C. mix

1 onion, chopped

2 C. water

16 oz. tomato sauce

3 C. lasagna noodles, uncooked, broken in bits. I buy mini lasagna noodles at my local WinCo grocery store.

1/4 C. Parmesan cheese

2 C. mozzarella cheese, shredded

Combine all except mozzarella in a large skillet. Bring to a boil, let simmer for 15 minutes or until noodles are cooked. Top with mozzarella. Turn off heat and let cheese melt.

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Sudoku

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

September 2024 Word Find

School Days

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

September 2024 Crossword

School Days

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

Mixed-Up-Meme Scrambler

Download Puzzle Solutions Here

Screenshot Showcase

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