Productivity Sauce

KeePassDroid: Password Safe for Your Android Device

Aug 28, 2011 GMT

KeePass is an indispensable tool for managing passwords on your Linux desktop, but what if you need to have access to your passwords when you are on the move? KeePassDroid provides a solution for that, assuming you're using an Android device. This nifty little app has all the features you need to keep tabs on your passwords when you are out and about. KeePassDroid supports both older password databases created with KeePass 1 and new databases in the kdbx format. You can use the app to create empty databases directly on your Android device, although this feature allows you to create databases in the older kdb format only. Similar to the...

Read Ebooks with Kindle Cloud Reader

Aug 17, 2011 GMT

If you consider the lack of Amazon Kindle applications for the Linux desktop a nuisance, you will appreciate the recently launched Kindle Cloud Reader browser app that works with Google Chrome and Chromium on Linux. Although this app doesn't provide all the functionality of the Amazon Kindle desktop application, the Cloud Reader is a rather slick solution for reading books bought via Amazon Kindle without leaving the convenience of your browser. Installing the Kindle Cloud Reader is as easy as visiting https://read.amazon.com in the Chrome or Chromium browser. You will be prompted to install a browser app, and once you've done that you can access and read all your books purchased though...

Collect and Analyze Web Stats with SlimStat

Jul 29, 2011 GMT

Collect and Analyze Web Stats with SlimStatPiwik is an excellent open source alternative to Google Analytics, but it might be overkill if you are in the market for a lightweight web analytics solution. In this case, SlimStat can be what you are looking for. This no-frills application is easy to deploy, and it collects all essential data about your visitors and presents them in an easy-to-comprehend form. SlimStat comes with a simple setup wizard which guides you through the installation process. Once SlimStat is up and running, insert the <script type="text/javascript" src="/slimstat/?js"></script> line into the pages you want to track. Alternatively, you...

Dress up LibreOffice with Faenza-like Icons

Jul 27, 2011 GMT

While each new release of LibreOffice brings new features and improvements, the productivity suite still sports the same old icon themes. Fortunately, you can freshen up LibreOffice's appearance by replacing the default icon theme like the Faenza Mod. As the name suggests, this icon theme is derived from the stylish monochrome Faenza icon set. Installing the Faenza Mod icon theme on Ubuntu requires a few simple commands. First install the Oxygen icon theme (you can skip this step if you are using Kubuntu): sudo apt-get install libreoffice-style-oxygenGrab the latest version of the Faenza Mod package, and rename the downloaded archive to...

Tweak Images with Converseen

Jul 21, 2011 GMT

ImageMagick is a powerful command-line tool for batch processing graphics files, but it could definitely use a graphical front end for performing the most common editing and conversion operations. Enter Converseen, a user-friendly GUI tool for tweaking and converting graphics files powered by ImageMagick. This tool offers only a subset of ImageMagick functionality, but if you often need to quickly resize, downsample, or convert one or several graphics files, Converseen is right up your alley. Binary packages of Converseen for Fedora, Ubuntu, and openSUSE are available on the project's website, so you can install the utility on these...

Do Python Coding with NINJA-IDE

Jul 13, 2011 GMT

I'm not a programmer, but when I need to cobble together a Python script, I find a dedicated IDE (integrated development environment) a better tool for the job than a regular text editor. After I've tried several existing IDEs, I settled for a relatively new software called NINJA-IDE, which stands for Ninja-IDE Is Not Just Another IDE. For starters, NINJA-IDE allows you to work with single scripts as well as manage complex projects consisting of multiple files and libraries. As you would expect, NINJA-IDE features a number of creature comforts that make coding more efficient. This includes code completion and syntax coloring as well as...

Manage Conference Schedules on an Android Device with Giraffe

Jul 11, 2011 GMT

When my good buddy and lead DokuWiki developer Andreas Gohr started posting links to Android development resources on Twitter, I had a suspicion that he was up to something. It turned out I was right. Recently, Andreas released his first Android application called Giraffe. It is a simple yet genuinely useful app -- especially if you attend conferences and events, and you need to keep tabs on their schedules. If the conference or event provides its schedule in the iCal format, you can use Giraffe to pull the calendar data and present them in a readable format. Better yet, you can use Giraffe to star the desired entries and view the current...