The basic idea is that every day a new trivia question is posted to the site and then you have to use your search skills on Google to find the answer. The next day is a new question and the answer to the previous days question. Each day, from Monday on the game gets progressively harder so don’t worry if you feel like you are getting worse as the week goes on.

On the surface it seems like it’s just a fun little game to waste time on. However if you play every day and really try and figure out the answer, your search skills are bound to improve, which of course is a great thing.

So go forth and try to solve todays challenge! I’ll even include another link down here, now you have no excuse!

The easiest way for you to do this is to open Terminal and install the package there.

Open Terminal by clicking on the Applications Menu at the top left hand corner of the screen. Next you need to navigate to Accessories, then you should see Terminal near the bottom of the Accessories category.  Click on it to open up Terminal.

Now that you have opened up Terminal it’s time to type. All you need to do is enter the following text into Terminal and hit enter.

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sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

After you hit enter you will have to type in your password. Don’t worry when you can’t see any stars after you type, that’s just how Terminal works. Just look at your keyboard and be careful to type the right letters!

Now you should see a bunch of words and it eventually ends on “Do you want to continue: Y/N”.

Obviously you want to type Y and hit enter. This will begin the installation. Just let Terminal do the work and wait until it’s done. Once it’s done it will go back to your username have a blinking box next to it.

That’s it! Now you can watch DVD’s, listen to MP3′s and look at content that requires Flash!

I recently came across Brandon Grotesque and instantly fell in love with it. Brandon Grotesque is a sans serif type family that comes in 6 weights, so it can be used for a variety of different designs.

It was designed by Hannes von Döhren in 2009/10. Influenced by the geometric-style sans serif faces that were popular during the 1920s and 30s, the fonts are based on geometric forms that have been optically corrected for better legibility.

I really like this typeface and definitely plan on using it in a design sometime soon. Since it’s fairly new there hasn’t been that much usage of it yet. However I still was able to come up with a few great uses of Brandon Grotesque in design. Check them out below!

When I first learned about aliases, some people said to put the commands here and others said to put them there. I’ll show you the easiest way to set up some aliases of your own.

Ubuntu

For this tutorial I am using the latest version of Ubuntu which is Ubuntu 10.10. Your mileage may vary, but I have done it this way for a while now so I’m sure it will work with whatever version you are using.

Open up Terminal by clicking Applications > Accessories > Terminal.

How to open Terminal in Ubuntu

Type the following and then hit ENTER after each line.

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cd
nano .bash_aliases

Now you will be in the text editor called nano. This is where you will type in the aliases you want to have. Here is an example of how to format the aliases.

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alias NAME='COMMAND'

Here are a few examples of aliases that I use.

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alias uu='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade'
alias myssh='ssh -C USERNAME@YOUR.SERVERNAME.COM'
alias ll='ls -l'
alias la='ls -a'

Nano text editor in Ubuntu

As you can see, there are many useful aliases that you can add. Enter all the ones you want and once you are done hit CTRL + X. It will then ask you if you want to save, type Y for yes. Now it is asking for your file name, we already specified that earlier when we opened the file so just hit ENTER to confirm that.

Almost done. Just close out of Terminal, when you re-open it your aliases will be ready to go.

Mac OS X

For this tutorial I am using the latest version of OS X which is OS X 10.6.6. Your mileage may vary, but I have done it this way for a while now so I’m sure it will work with whatever version you are using.

Open up Terminal by going to Applications > Utilities > Terminal. Or just click on your spotlight search icon in the top right hand corner of your screen and type Terminal. Just click on that and it will open.

How to open Terminal in Mac OS X

Type the following and then hit ENTER after each line.

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cd
nano .bash_profile

Now you will be in the text editor called nano. This is where you will type in the aliases you want to have. Here is an example of how to format the aliases.

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alias NAME='COMMAND'

Here are a few examples of aliases that I use.

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alias myssh='ssh -C USERNAME@YOUR.SERVERNAME.COM'
alias ll='ls -l'
alias la='ls -a'

Nano text editor in Mac OS X

As you can see, there are many useful aliases that you can add. Enter all the ones you want and once you are done hit Control + X. It will then ask you if you want to save, type Y for yes. Now it is asking for your file name, we already specified that earlier when we opened the file so just hit ENTER to confirm that.

Almost done. Just close out of Terminal, when you re-open it your aliases will be ready to go.

So there you have it. An easy way to set up Terminal aliases in both Linux and Mac. Hope you learned something and found this useful. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

I will try my best to include cross-platform applications when possible. However, since I am a Windows, Mac OS X and Linux user I occasionally may feature one that is exclusive to a certain platform. My hope is that you will learn about and even start using some great new programs that you previously may not have know about.

Dropbox

Although I will not be able to accurately express my love for Dropbox with just words, I will try my best. Dropbox is a multi-platform cloud syncing application that keeps all of your computers up to date. When you first install Dropbox, it sets up a folder and anything you put inside of it is automatically uploaded to their servers in the cloud. You can then access those files from the Dropbox website or your mobile phone.

Dropbox iPhone App

The real magic happens when you have Dropbox set up on more than one computer. After installing Dropbox on your second computer, it automatically downloads the contents of your Dropbox folder and from then on, keeps it in sync.

Now all of that may sound a little confusing so let me give you some examples that show you what I use Dropbox for. Say I finish typing an assessment for class on my desktop computer at home. I save it to my Dropbox folder and grab my laptop and leave for school. It is already on my desktop at home and now in the cloud, accessible from the Dropbox website. If I need to quickly check something about the paper to make sure I did it right I can grab my iPhone, open the Dropbox app and there it is. Now when I get to school all I have to do is open my laptop, connect to the internet, and instantly my paper is already sitting in the folder on my laptop. No flash drives required.

Dropbox Folder on a Mac

Through out college I have had to do multiple presentations for classes. Most people either use a USB flash drive or email themselves the Powerpoint file so they can get access to it from class and use it during the presentation. All I do is save the file into my Dropbox folder. Once I’m in class all I have to do is login to the Dropbox website and I’m ready to go.

Dropbox Website

As you can see, Dropbox is really handy and speeds up every day tasks a lot, especially if you have multiple computers. This just scratches the surface of what Dropbox can do. For example, you can share folders with groups of people so you have one constantly updated folder shared between the group.

Dropbox gives you 2GB for free and you can upgrade to more space if you need to. It is available on almost every platform you can think of, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and even your web browser. I urge everyone to sign up and start using Dropbox, once you do, you will be wishing you found out about it sooner.

My hope is that you will learn about some great new websites that you previously may not have know about.

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha Search Bar

Google is to searching what WolframAlpha is to data based queries.

Unlike Google, Wolfram Alpha does not search the web for answers to your query but instead but by doing dynamic computations based on their collection of built-in data. This is why it works so well with data and what makes it the perfect tool for anything related to numbers, statistics, mathematics, and science. The only downside to Wolfram Alpha is that, at first, it is not as easy to use as a search engine like Google.

I suggest you start with the examples page just to get an idea of some of the many things you can compute. Here are a few examples of some of the awesome things you can do with Wolfram Alpha.

Wolfram Alpha Examples

As you can see, there are lots of great uses for Wolfram Alpha. I urge you to check it out, play around with some searches and hopefully you will end up finding it as useful as I have.

I will be posting various technology related articles and tutorials to this blog every few days. I will be posting about anything and everything tech related. Linux, Web Design, Networking, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Web 2.0, Typography, Photography, Servers and much, much more. Hopefully you enjoy my tech ramblings and learn a thing or two from my tutorials.

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