How to use your iPod Shuffle in Linux

In this article I will describe the probably best way to use your first or second generation iPod Shuffle in Linux. The described method is based on a python script called rebuild_db. The script will allow you to simply copy/paste music files to your iPod like to any other regular MP3-Player. In case you have a different or newer version of the iPod, the described method may not work for you and you should try using gtkPod instead.

How to mark books as read in Calibre

In this article I will describe how to mark/flag books you have already read in Calibre. Calibre is probably one of the best open source E-book library management application out there. It comes with many great tools and features and it’s easy to customize. By default there is no prebuild possibility to mark books you have already read in your library, but that’s where Calibres possibilities of customization come in handy. You can achieve this by simply adding a new column to your library. Just follow these simple steps:

How to compile Truecrypt from source

A few days ago my new USB hard drive arrived. My idea was to connect the hard drive to my Raspberry Pi so that everyone in the network can read the data on that drive. But all the data stored on that drive should be encrypted. The problem was that I also wanted to use the hard drive to copy files from a computer of a friend. Not everyone uses Linux, so I could not encrypt the hard drive with LUKS.
But I had an idea to encrypt the hard drive with Truecrypt, which is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. I created a little partition (about 100MB) which is not encrypted and download the Truecrypt installer for each OS to that partition. The advantage is that you don’t need an internet connection to download the installer. The rest of the hard drive is encrypted with Truecrypt.

The main problem was the installation of Truecrypt on my Pi because there is no ARM binary. I’ve no X-Server on my Pi so I had to install Truecrypt as console-only version. Here are the steps I’ve done to install Truecrypt on my Pi.

How to set up a stateful firewall with iptables

My old post to set up a small rules set for iptables is deprecated so I decided to update this post and improve some rules.
This time I tested this iptables setup on my Raspberry Pi. I connected to my Pi via SSH and the first time I tested the rules order I locked myself out and I had to connect the monitor and keyboard to fix this. The rule order in this post worked for me to set everything up via SSH.

I also tried this setup on a virtual machine and made a screencast of it. You can find the video at the end of this post.

1. Kernel modules
2. Important Rules
3. Chain Policies
4. Port Rules
5. Logging
6. Saving Rules
7. Appendix (Script and video)

How to install a CalDav and CardDav server using Radicale

During my time at the university I had lots of meetings, events and I couldn’t remember all these events, so I had to write them down. But we’re living in a digital world, so I wanted to keep all my appointments digitally. I tried Thunderbird Lightning and it is a great Add On. But I also wanted to synchronize all these events with my smartphone without using an external cloud, e.g. Google Calendar.

I wanted a small program with minimal dependencies to act as a server which is able to run on a Raspberry Pi. It doesn’t have to provide a web interface, because I can use Thunderbird or my smartphone to add, change or delete events. I found Radicale which is written in Python and has no dependencies. It supports the CalDav and CardDav protocol. That’s all I wanted so I gave it a try. My first impression was very good and it works great. Here are all steps I did to set up my own CalDav server with Radicale.

1. Installation of Radicale
2. Adding bcrypt support to Radicale (optional step)
3. Configure Radicale
4. Configure Thunderbird Lightning
5. Configure Android Calendar

How to make diffs of SVN and Git files with vimdiff

Version control systems like Git or SVN have lots of advantages. One can easily fork a project or create a new branch to test new code. I use Git for all my programs, reports and for my thesis. But sometimes it is necessary to see the difference of two versions of a file. One can use git diff or svn diff but in my opinion the output of these tools are not very nice and it is not easy to see the difference of the files.
In this post I will show you how you can display the difference of two versions of a (SVN or Git) file. The tool I’ll use for this purpose is vimdiff. It’s also possible to use gvimdiff for graphical vim, just replace vimdiff with gvimdiff.

ConkyPress a WordPress stats visualization tool for your desktop

This post is about a software I have written called ConkyPress. You can use ConkyPress to visualize the statistics of your WordPress blog on your desktop. ConkyPress is just like a widget sitting on your desktop and it updates itself by default every 10 minutes. You can change the update interval and everything else by using the provided and very simple configuration files. If you decide to use ConkyPress I would be very happy about your feedback and especially about screenshots of your desktop.

1. About ConkyPress
2. Dependencies
3. Installation and configuration
4. Starting and Stopping
5. Download
6. Screenshots
7. Troubleshooting and FAQ
8. Changelog
9. Acknowledgment