Productivity Sauce

Turn Raspberry Pi into an Ebook Server with Calibre

Aug 16, 2012 GMT

There is probably no better tool for managing, converting, and sharing ebooks than Calibre. You can use it as a regular desktop application for reading and organizing ebooks, but Calibre also features a built-in server for sharing ebooks on the web. In practical terms, this means that you can publish your ebook library on the web and access all your ebooks from any machine using a browser. To publish your ebook library, you can turn Raspberry Pi into a little headless Calibre server. And since a fairly recent version of Calibre is available in the Raspbian software repository, this project can be done in a few simple steps. Because Calibre doesn't allow you to...

Highlight and Share Web Snippets with MASHA

Jul 31, 2012 GMT

Bookmark sharing services are a dime a dozen nowadays, but what if you want to give your visitors the ability to share specific text snippets from a web page without relying on third-party services? Then MASHA (which stands for MArk and SHAre) is just the ticket. This nifty little tool provides a simple and elegant solution for highlighting text fragments on a web page and sharing them with other users.Deploying is not particularly complicated, even if your web coding skills are not up to scratch. Grab the latest release of the software from the project's GitHub repository. If you have Git installed on your system, you can do that by executing the following command: git clone...

QuickDic: Offline Multi-Lingual Dictionary for Android

Jul 27, 2012 GMT

Whether you learn a foreign language or travel to another country, a good dictionary is a must-have. And if you already have an Android device in your pocket, you can replace a thick paper dictionary with a more practical solution like the QuickDic app. What makes QuickDic particularly suitable for travel and study is the fact that it works offline. When you launch the app for the first time, you need to grab dictionary files for a specific language pair. Once you've done that, you can use QuickDic without an Internet connection. The app can handle multiple dictionaries, which can be useful when you are working with several foreign languages. QuickDic features a...

Improve Photos Automagically with aaphoto

Jul 23, 2012 GMT

For many photographers and shutterbugs, post-processing photos is an important part of the creative process. But there are situations when you want to improve your shots without going through the photo editing rigmaroles. And this is when aaphoto can come in rather handy. This simple utility lets you improve photos using a single command. aaphoto is available in the software repositories of many popular Linux distributions, so you can install it using your distro's package manager. On Debian and Ubuntu, you can do this by running the apt-get install aaphoto command as root. Alternatively, you can grab a compiled binary from the project's website, or compile aaphoto from the source.aaphoto...

KBOX: Miniature Linux for Non-Rooted Android Devices

Jul 19, 2012 GMT

While it's possible to run Linux on Android, this usually means going through the rigmarole of rooting the system with the ever-present risk of bricking your precious Android device. If this proposition is not your cup of tea, you'll appreciate KBOX, a miniature single-user Linux distribution with an integrated terminal emulator that can be installed on non-rooted Android devices. KBOX is not available in the Google Play Store, so you have to download the apk file from the project's website and install it manually.KBOX comes with an assortment of Busybox utilities (find, grep, tar, vi, etc.), an SSH server and client, and the scp tool. A handful of other packages are available as separate...

PAFM: No-Frills Web-Based File Manager

Jul 17, 2012 GMT

PHP Ajax File Manager (PAFM) is decidedly bare-bones, but this simple application can come in handy when you need to set up a web-based file manager on your server in a pinch. Indeed, deploying PAFM requires only a few simple steps and can be done in a matter of minutes. Grab the latest version of PAFM from the project's GitHub repository, and unpack the downloaded archive. Open the pafm.php file in a text editor and edit the following two lines: define('PASSWORD', 'auth'); define('ROOT', '.');In the first line, replace auth with the password you want, and in the second line specify the path to the directory PAFM should use as its root. Upload the entire pafm to your server, and you are...

Set up a Mailing List in Minutes with Simple Mailing List

Jun 29, 2012 GMT

Need to set up and manage a mailing list with a minimum of fuss? The Simple Mailing List application (SML) is the perfect tool for the job. This web-based application runs on the Apache/MySQL/PHP stack, and it offers all essential features wrapped into a lightweight and user-friendly interface. Although deploying SML requires a bit of manual work, the entire process in not particularly complicated. Grab the latest release of the application from the project's website and unpack the downloaded archive. In the resulting directory, locate the admin/tables.sql SQL file and use it to create tables in a MySQL database. Open the admin/config.inc.php configuration file in a text editor. All...