How to edit Grub boot order

     Phewwww!!! Finally, some relief from tests and tuts... It's been a long time since my last post. Life has been just too busy all this time ... painfully busy.
     A lot of people have recently asked me about changing the GRUB boot order, having installed linux quite enthusiastically. So here's a HOW-TO for the same :

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

      Now you can customize and configure your GRUB boot loader from here. The first option you will find is 'default'. The default value for this option is 0.

default 0

      You just need to change this 0 to 3/4/5 according to the OS you want to boot by default. Generally, 0 will be for the linux kernel, 1 for recovery mode and 2 for the memory testing mode. Changing this default value is all you have to do. You can also enable colored GRUB menu by uncommenting the 'color' option. For newbies, uncommenting means deleting the '#' from the line

#color cyan/blue white/blue

      I hope that helps you BD !!! :)

Google hack

I am quite sure that almost all of us have been atleast once disappointed by Google while searching for music files. Of course, this I speak of those who don't use bittorrent clients. Most of the search results lure us to the sites which end up asking us for $$$ to download the song. So, here's a nice Google search hack, for all of you , which has till date not disappointed me.
Suppose you have to download a song, say 'Strangers in the night'. So, instead of googling this song, google this :
intitle:"index.of" (mp3) Strangers.in.the.night

Notice the '.' in between the words of the song. You can also use '_' in place of '.'.
The search results that Google shows are the directories of various sites which actually have this file in mp3 format. Replacing mp3 by mpg, avi, etc .. should give you results for videos.
Bitsians, you don't need to remember this little hack, because I have made a simple webpage wherein you just need to enter the song name normally, without the '.' or '_'. You can access the page at http://172.16.10.43/gmusic.htm .

Axel : Download accelerator for linux

Hi guys, the title must have got you really excited if you have been accustomed to downloading in windows using IDM or DAP or any other accelerator. I myself had been searching for such a tool for quite some time now and I was relieved to find Axel. It's a command line downloading tool. And it works!!!
The steps involved are pretty simple. Just another run-of-the-mill installation using yum/apt-get.

Installation : For Fedora users

sudo yum install axel

For Ubuntu users
sudo apt-get install axel

That's it! The installation is done.

Configuring : 1. sudo gedit /etc/axelrc
2. In this file, look out for 'http_proxy='. To set the proxy first uncomment the line by deleting the '#' before http_proxy. Then set the proxy as
http_proxy=http://host.domain.com:port/
eg. http_proxy=http://172.24.2.1:8080/

To download any file, use the command
axel 'fileURL' (without the '' :)
eg. axel http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty
(I had been trying to download this file but everytime I could download only around 40 kb of the total size. Axel downloaded the whole 704 kb just about a couple of minutes using only one connection as the server does not support multiple connections I suppose.)

You can manually set the number of connections to open :
axel -n 16 'fileURL'
Randomly increasing the number of connections wont help. There's a limit upto which the speed can increase, depending on the internet connection you are using.

The file is downloaded in the directory from which you enter the command.

I hope you wont come across any problem while installing and using Axel.
There's another little ultility which integrates apt-get with axel. Keep checking the blog to know more about it.

I love Google !!!

You cannot possibly think of anything that you wont be able to find on the internet. There are billions of webpages already existing and probably hundreds or perhaps even more webpages coming up daily. But just think for a minute, what would have happened if there was no Google ?? Well, I am quite sure that all this information would be useless.
If it had not been for Google, I would not be able to do anything with computers that I can do now. In fact, I am afraid I wouldn't even know all this stuff. Every time Windows flashes any stupid error, Google comes to the rescue. Google has now become more of a verb than a noun. I wonder if I would have been able to complete my college projects or fix people's computers without Google.
But the search engine is not the only thing that makes Google what it is. Services and applications like GMail, Google Talk, Google Apps, Google Earth, Google Sky ...... make it an indispensable part of our lives. And all its applications share this unique blend of simplicity and style which makes it all the more lovable. Well, I can go on and on... I just love to love Google. (and to hate Yahoo!)
What amazes me is why Google hasn't come up with an OS (free, of course) yet, with all the super geniuses it has. That, for me, would be the ultimate way to kick Microsoft in the ass.
I am a huge fan or more of a worshiper of Google. My friends say that I love and advocate Google so much that even if the company hires me for nothing, I would join it. But I am quite sure that they wont hire me even if I pay them! :)

Hello World ;

So finally here it is .... my first blog. It's been almost 3 months that I have been thinking of writing my first blog. Now that I have done that, I hope to regularly update my blog with interesting and new tech fundas. So look out !!!