IT Nuts - News, Toys, Some Step-by-Step

Ubuntu Firewall Make Easy - UWF

2013-06-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

uwf is the default firewall configuration tool to ease the firewall configuration of iptables. To limit the firewall for http/https/ssh, just a few commands will do:

sudo ufw default deny

sudo ufw allow http

sudo ufw allow https

sudo ufw allow ssh

sudo ufw enable

Done.

Install Tesseract-OCR in Ubuntu

2013-05-08T20:33:00.003-07:00

Installation

Tesseract OCR

sudo apt-get install tesseract-ocr

Install imagemagick to convert PDF to TIFF

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

Install poppler-utils (pdfinfo) to check number of pages of PDF

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils

Install Other Languages

Download from https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/downloads/list
Put it in /usr/share/tesseract-ocr/tessdata

Shell Script to OCR PDF

#!/bin/sh
STARTPAGE=1 # set to pagenumber of the first page of PDF you wish to convert
RESOLUTION=600 # set to the resolution the scanner used (the higher, the better)

dumphelp(){
        echo "sudo $0   "
        echo "language (optional): default eng, other possible "
        echo "ara (Arabic), aze (Azerbauijani), bul (Bulgarian), cat (Catalan), ces
       (Czech), chi_sim (Simplified Chinese), chi_tra (Traditional Chinese),
       chr (Cherokee), dan (Danish), dan-frak (Danish (Fraktur)), deu
       (German), ell (Greek), eng (English), enm (Old English), epo
       (Esperanto), est (Estonian), fin (Finnish), fra (French), frm (Old
       French), glg (Galician), heb (Hebrew), hin (Hindi), hrv (Croation), hun
       (Hungarian), ind (Indonesian), ita (Italian), jpn (Japanese), kor
       (Korean), lav (Latvian), lit (Lithuanian), nld (Dutch), nor
       (Norwegian), pol (Polish), por (Portuguese), ron (Romanian), rus
       (Russian), slk (Slovakian), slv (Slovenian), sqi (Albanian), spa
       (Spanish), srp (Serbian), swe (Swedish), tam (Tamil), tel (Telugu), tgl
       (Tagalog), tha (Thai), tur (Turkish), ukr (Ukrainian), vie (Vietnamese)"
        exit 1
}

if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then
        dumphelp
fi

SOURCE=$1 # set to the file name of the PDF
OUTPUT=$2 #set to the final output file


LANGUAGE="eng"

if [ $# -eq 3 ]; then
LANGUAGE=$3
fi

ENDPAGE=`pdfinfo $SOURCE | grep Pages | sed 's/ //g' | cut -d':' -f2`
echo $STARTPAGE $ENDPAGE

touch $OUTPUT
for i in `seq $STARTPAGE $ENDPAGE`; do
    convert -monochrome -density $RESOLUTION $SOURCE\[$(($i - 1 ))\] page.tif
    echo processing page $i
    tesseract -l $LANGUAGE page.tif tempoutput
    cat tempoutput.txt >> $OUTPUT
done

Avidemux - Free Video Editor

2010-07-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

URL: http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

Price: $0

Platform: Windows

Version: 2.5.3

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.
Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license. The program was written from scratch by Mean, but code from other people and projects has been used as well. Patches, translations and even bug reports are always welcome.

Most Important, you can use Avidemux to rotate a video by clicking Filter -> Rotate.

Mixxx - Free Digital DJ Software

2010-03-24T00:41:00.000-07:00

URL: Mixxx

Price: $0

Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux

Version: 1.7.2

Free, open source DJ software for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux

MIDI controller support

Superior mixing engine with recording, vinyl control, and more

Created for DJs, by DJs

Unknown Device Identifier - Discover those yellow question mark labeled Unknown Devices

2010-03-22T00:39:00.000-07:00

URL: Unknown Device Identifier

Price: $0

Platform: Windows

Version: 7.0

Unknown Device Identifier enables you to identify the yellow question mark labeled Unknown Devices in Device Manager. And reports you a detailed summary for the manufacturer name, OEM name, device type, device model and even the exact name of the unknown devices. With the collected information, you might contact your hardware manufacturer for support or search the Internet for the corresponding driver with a simple click. With this utility, you might immediately convert your unidentified unknown devices into identified known devices and find proper driver on the Internet and contact the hardware device manufacturer or vender. Known devices recognized by Microsoft Windows will also be analyzed independent of the operating system.

You are suggested to do a thorough driver backup with My Drivers after you have identified all the unknown devices with their proper device drivers software installed.

Supported OS: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Future OS are supported via the online update. You might even run the small freeware utility from CD or floppy.

Features

- Identify USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 Device

- Identify IEEE 1394 Device

- Identify ISA Plug&Play Device

- Identify AGP Bus Device

- Identify PCI, PCI-E, eSATA Device

- Multilingual interface: English, French

- Find Drivers for Hardware Devices

- Contact Hardware Vender directly

- Save or Print Hardware information

IZArc - Free Archive Utility

2010-03-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

URL: IZArc

Price: $0

Platform: Windows

Version: 4.1

IZArc is the best freeware archive utility supporting many archive formats like: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. With a modern easy-to-use interface, IZArcprovides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more. IZArc has also build-in multilanguage support.

With IZArc you can open CD image files like ISO, BIN, CDI and NRG.

It is also possible to convert such files from one type to another (BIN to ISO, NRG to ISO).

If you need to send large files to your colleagues, friends or customers who may not have archiving tool you can easily create self-extracting archive that can be extracted by simple double click.

IZArc can be configured to run your preferred Anti-Virus scanner when you open any archives.

IZArc supports 256-bit AES encryption to secure your data.

IZArc is integrated in Windows so you can perform all archiving operations by using right-click menus in Windows Explorer. If you have broken archives

IZArc can help you to repair them with ease.

IZArc is 100% virus free and it doesn't contain any spyware or adware.

IZArc is the most complete archive utility available today.

doPDF - Free PDF Converter

2010-03-18T00:33:00.000-07:00

URL: doPDF

Price: $0

Platform: Windows

Version: 7.1.330

doPDF^7.1installs itself as a virtual PDF printer driver so after a successful installation will appear in your Printers and Faxes list. To convert to PDF, you just have to print the document to doPDF, the free pdf converter. Open a document (with Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad or any other software), choose Print and select doPDF. It will ask you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer. Screenshot below shows how easy it is to create a PDF file from Microsoft Word (word to pdf):

Main benefits for using this free PDF converter:

It’s free - PDF converter free for both commercial and personal use.
32-bit and 64-bit support - can be installed on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems.
No GhostScript or .NET - doesn’t require 3rd party programs to do PDF files such as GhostScript or runtime environments like the .NET Framework. This makes the setup file to be incredibly small compared to other free PDF creator programs.
Customizable resolution - you can choose any resolution from 72 to 2400 dpi.
Predefined/custom page sizes - choose a default page size (Letter, Legal, A4, A5, A6, ...) or enter your own custom page size.
Searchable PDFs - you can search for text within the created PDF file (and search engines will also index the text from the PDF).
Multi-language - choose a language for the user interface from the 20 languages currently supported.
Do your part in saving the planet - instead of consuming paper to print your document, why not create a PDF file out of it and spare a couple of planet-saving trees?
Barely uses any computer resources - compared to other free PDF creator softwares, doPDF barely uses any memory or CPU resources when doing the actual conversion to PDF.

doPDF is a free PDF converter, it is not a PDF viewer. To view PDF files you will need the free Adobe Reader.

Sync Back - Free Backup Tools

2010-03-16T00:31:00.000-07:00

URL: SyncBack

Price: $0

Platform: Windows

Version: 3.2.20.0

SyncBack is a freeware program that helps you easily backup and synchronize your files to: the same drive; a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc); an FTP server; a Network; or a Zip archive.

BurnAware - Free CD/DVD burning tools

2010-03-14T00:28:00.000-08:00

URL: BurnAware
Price: $0
Platform: Windows
Version: 2.4.4
BurnAware Free is a free CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc burning software. It is ideal for users with basic disc burning needs as backup, creating data, audio, MP3 music, DVD-Video discs and burning disc images. Free, easy to set up, it enables you to save your files to disc quickly and provides clean, flexible interface to help you complete your burning tasks much faster.
Features
Create data, bootable and multisession CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs
Create Audio CDs and MP3 CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs
Create DVD-Video
Create and burn boot images
Create and burn disc images
Supports all current hardware interfaces (IDE/SCSI/USB/1394/SATA)
Supports UDF/ISO9660/Joliet Bridged file systems (any combination)
On-the-fly writing for all image types (no staging to hard drive first)
Auto-verification of written files
Supports CD-Text and unicode characters
Supports Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 (32 and 64 Bit), no drivers required

Back4Sure - Free Backup Tools

2010-03-12T00:26:00.000-08:00

URL: Back4Sure

Price: $0

Platform: Windows

Version: 1.0

Some features of Back4Sure

Freeware
Back4Sure is unlimited freeware for private and commercial use. Please see the license agreement in the downloadable files for further details.
Easy folder selection
You can easily select multiple folders from the directory tree to include them into the backup set. Just as easy you can exclude certain folders from the backup.
Efficient filter system
You can easily create filter set to determine which files to include in or to exclude from the backup. And this not only for the whole backup, but also for individual folders.
Compression option with adjustable directory depth
Backups may be stored in a compressed format. If you choose to enable compression, you can specify the directory depth from which on all files are packed into a single archive file. This way you can avoid very large archives and improve overall safety of you backup process.
Cleanup the target directory
After larger restructuring of your file organization, lots of files in the backup target directory do not have corresponding source files anymore. Using the cleanup function of Back4Sure you can easily remove those orphaned files from the target directory.
Logging of the backup process
All actions performed during backup may be logged into a plain text file. You can choose between two different formats of the log file: either an easy to read version or version in ini format optimized for automated analysis.
Creating desktop links to backup jobs
You can easily create a desktop link to a backup job from within the program, from which the backup job can be directly started by just double clicking it.
Portable use or fixed installation
Besides the normal setup file for a fixed installation, a zipped version for use from a USB drive is also available.

ComparePSD - Compare 2 PSD files layer by layer

2010-03-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

URL: ComparePSD

Price: $0

Platform: Windows

ComparePSD compares two Adobe Photoshop PSD files for you and highlights the differences. Layer by layer. Effect by effect. Simple. And did we mention that ComparePSD is absolutely free?

Key features:

ComparePSD compares PSD files layer-by-layer
ComparePSD handles layers styles (effects), styles attributes and layers visibility flags
ComparePSD provides a scaled view of the files that helps you to find differences easier
ComparePSD allows you to select the files in Windows Explorer by right-clicking on them

Backup & Recovery 10 - Free

2009-12-27T05:56:00.000-08:00

Website: Backup & Recovery 10 Suite
Price: $0-69.95 (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/brs/comparison.html)
Version: 10
Platform: Windows

Backup & Recovery 10 Suite is a disaster recovery and system migration solution for home Windows® environments, both physical and virtual. Positioned as a successor to the Drive Backup 9 consumer’s line, it offers two backup approaches, the time-proven Drive Backup™, characterized by rich functionality and excellent flexibility and the brand new System Backup™, based on simplicity and minimal user participation. P2V and P2P operations are supported by Virtual Image Management™ and the updated Adaptive Restore™ - implements the latest trends in the system migration, protection, and evaluation.

DriveImage XML

2009-12-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

Website: DriveImage XML

Price: $0 for Home User, Buy for commercial users

Version: 2.13

Platform: Windows

DriveImage XML is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives.

The program allows you to:
- Backup logical drives and partitions to image files
- Browse these images, view and extract files
- Restore these images to the same or a different drive
- Copy directly from drive to drive
- Schedule automatic backups with your Task Scheduler

Image creation uses Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Services (VSS), allowing you to create safe “hot images” even from drives currently in use. Images are stored in XML files, allowing you to process them with 3rd party tools. Never again be stuck with a useless backup! Restore images to drives without having to reboot. DriveImage XML runs under Windows XP Home, XP Pro and Windows Server 2003 only. The program will backup, image and restore drives formatted with FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS.

Free online OCR Service

2009-11-06T02:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.onlineocr.net/

Cool.

Time to switch to Chrome with AdBlockPlus

2009-11-04T02:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/11/02/15-great-google-chrome-extensions/

AdblockPlus, Xmarks, Bubble Translate, ...

Format Factory - All round video/audio converter

2009-10-07T01:51:00.000-07:00

URL: Format Factory
Price: $0
Version: 2.1
Platform: Windows

Format Factory is a multifunctional media converter.
Provides functions below:
All to MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF.
All to MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV.
All to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA.
Rip DVD to video file , Rip Music CD to audio file.
MP4 files support iPod/iPhone/PSP/BlackBerry format.
Supports RMVB,Watermark, AV Mux.

Format Factory's Feature:

Support converting all popular video,audio,picture formats to others.
Repair damaged video and audio file.
Reducing Multimedia file size.
Support iphone,ipod multimedia file formats.
Picture converting supports Zoom,Rotate/Flip,tags.
DVD Ripper.
Supports 50 languages

Free Screen to Video - Record screen activity to video.

2009-09-08T06:34:00.000-07:00

You can record entire or parts of your screen to FLV, AVI, WMV or SWF. Very easy to use, Free screen to video can record mouse mouvements and audio from a microphone. You can create help desk, online help, training, education and distance learning videos more easily.

URL: Free Screen to Video

Price: $0

Platform: 2000/XP/Vista/7

Version: 1.0

Cleeki - Very Cool Firefox / IE / Chrome Add-on

2009-09-06T06:33:00.000-07:00

URL: Cleeki

Cleeki can capture keyword(s) anywhere on a screen with as simple as one click, search it on the Internet, and preview the results immediately. Demos showing how Cleeki works.

One click, Done!

One click will do everything: grab keywords anywhere on your screen, search in multiple channels, and display results instantly.

Easy Capture of Multiple Keywords
Cleeki can form complex keywords from multiple screen locations. Simply SHIFT+Click.
Parallel Search

Search requests can be submitted to multiple websites simultaneously.

Your On-hand Wikipedia Client

Wikipedia's over two million articles are never this close to you with a little help from Cleeki.

PDFsam - PDF Split and Merge

2009-09-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

URL: PDFsam

Price: $0 - Basic Version (Source code + Windows Installer)

Price: $0 - Enhanced Version (Source code)

Price: €1+ - Enhanced Version (Windows Installer + Support Forum)

Platform: Platform Independent (JRE 1.4.2+)

Version: 1.0

ManicTime - Track your activity in front of a computer

2009-09-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

ManicTime automatically collects data on your computer usage. It records active and away time, as well as which applications you used and for how long you used them.

URL: ManicTime

Price: $0

Platform: Windows

Version: 1.2.1

Photoscape - Free Photo Viewer, Editor, Batch Editor and More

2009-09-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

Photoscape is the fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos.

URL: Photoscape
Price: $0
Version: 3.4
Platform: Windows

Key Features

Viewer: View your folders photos, slideshow
Editor: resizing, brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming
Batch editor: Batch editing multiple photos
Page: Make one photo by merging multiple photos at the page frame
Combine: Make one photo by attaching multiple photos vertically or horizontally
Animated GIF: Make one animation photo with multiple photos
Print: Print portrait shot, carte de visite, passport photo
Splitter: Divide a photo into multiple parts
Screen Capture: Capture your screenshot and save it
Color Picker: Zoom in screen on images, search and pick the color
Rename: Change photo file names in batch mode
Raw Converter: Convert RAW to JPG
Paper Print: Print lined, graph, music, calendar papers
Face Search: Find similar faces on the internet

Viewer : Slideshow, Fullscreen, Wallpaper, Lossless Rotation, Exif

Editor : Frames, Resize, Rotate, Brightness, Color, Contrast, Auto Level, Auto Contrast, Whitebalance, Curves, Sepia, Negative, Sharpen, Blur, Noise Reduction, Vignetting, Bloom, Gradient, Texture, Fisheye, Clipart, Balloon, Text, Figures, Crop, Red Eye Removal, Mosaic

Batch Editor : Frames, Resize, Filters, Objects

Nagstamon - Nagios Status Monitor

2009-08-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

Nagstamon is a Nagios status monitor which takes place in systray or on desktop (GNOME, KDE, Windows) as floating statusbar to inform you in realtime about the status of your Nagios monitored network. It allows to connect to multiple Nagios servers.

URL: Nagstamon
Price: $0
Version: 0.8.2
Platform: Windows, Linux

Google Chrome Developer Tools

2009-08-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

http://code.google.com/p/chromedevtools/

This project provides debugging tools for developers writing web applications that run on Google Chrome or its open-source version Chromium. The tools enable you to debug JavaScript inside the browser over the TCP/IP protocol.

The project comprises:

A ChromeDevTools SDK that provides a Java API that enables a debugging application to communicate with a Google Chrome browser from the localhost using the TCP/IP-based Google Chrome Developer Tools Protocol.
An Eclipse debugger that uses the SDK. This debugger enables you to debug JavaScript running inside Google Chrome tabs from the Eclipse IDE.

As the SDK and Eclipse debugger are written in Java, this project is of most benefit to developers who use Java tools for debugging web applications inside Google Chrome. You can use the SDK to write your own debugger that uses the protocol to communicate with Google Chrome.

ManyCam - Use your webcam with multiple program simultaneously

2009-08-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

- Use your webcam with multiple programs simultaneously.
- Add text to your webcam video window with any application.
- Add cool animations to your video window.
- Show your local day and date in your video window.
- Add live CGI graphics like fire and water effects. You can even make it appear as if it is snowing inside your house!

URL: ManyCam
Price: $0
Version: 2.4.39
Platform: Windows or Mac

NClass - Free UML Designer

2009-08-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

NClass is a free tool to easily create UML class diagrams with full C# and Java language support. The user interface is designed to be simple and user-friendly for easy and fast development. Properties, enums, delegates and other language specific elements are fully supported with strict syntactical and semantical verification.

Design your application with just a few clicks - the main goal is to provide a simple but powerful class designer that is very intuitive to use. Diagram styles help you to create professional looking diagrams, just like in Visual Studio or other commercial products. Furthermore, you can generate code from your models or you can also import classes from existing .NET assemblies.

Please note, NClass is far from complete. There are many missing features that are planned for future versions. But if you have an idea, please share your thoughts in one of the way listed on the support page.

URL: NClass
Price: $0
Version: 2.0
Platform: Windows

Features

Full C# and Java language support
Declaration parsers for class members
Syntactical/semantical verification
Source code generation
Diagram navigator window
Inline class editor for faster editing
Precision snapping to align objects without grid
Configurable diagram styles
Multilanguage user interface
Printing / saving to image
Assembly importer plugin by Malte Ried
Official Mono support

Planned upcoming features:

Undo/Redo
Packages (namespaces)
Inheriting classes from .NET assemblies