Africa's OSS/Linux All Blogs

Python is open source software and mature language. You can create commercial software using free tools with Python.

I have developed GPS tracks plotting software with elevation information in 3D space. Mapsource gives you only 2 dimensional view so gradient is not visible and you loose a lot of information

I have used wxPython for the GUI and py2exe to create software distribution package

GPS tracks data is read from .GPX file which needs to be exported from Mapsource

Have a look if you own GPS device such as Garmin or others

February is launch of our Canada Info Directory. Currently there is over 100,000 domains in the database but it will grow slowly as we discover more .ca sites

Linux server is better than Swiss army knife. Using pipes you can join commands together to process and transform data.

Task:

Automatically backup entire folder to encrypted file and upload in secure manner to backup server using minimum of disk space.

Code:

#
# install as cronjob, must escape any % as \% otherwise it becomes newline
#
tar cvf - /home/tom | gpg --no-tty --passphrase-file pass.txt -c - | ssh user@backup.com "cat > tom.tar.gpg"

Explanation:
--no-tty is required for cronjob as there is no tty attached during execution
pass.txt will contain your symmetrical password

#
# create tarball containing entire folder and send output to stdout
#
tar cvf - /home/tom

#
# read from stdin and encrypt data stream using pass phrase in file pass.txt
#
| gpg --no-tty --passphrase-file pass.txt -c -

#
# read from stdin data stream and send via secure shell to backup server as tom.tar.gpg
#
| ssh user@backup.com "cat > tom.tar.gpg"

for more info try

man tar
man gpg
man ssh

I was nicely surprised to see increase in traffic this year to my online portfolio. After examining web stats the top search engine was Bing and not Google. I have been fan of Google for a long time but their search engine is far from perfect. Listing of pages is chaotic and does not seems to follow logical rules. The rise in traffic from Bing means users are defecting Google search. Playing field is slowly becoming even. One dominant search engine creates online monopoly and kills business opportunities. "Evil Empire" started to having positive influence on Internet search. The ideal situation would be to have mainstream search engines equal market share. Exiting times ahead !

Finally broadband prices have fallen by half. Previously you paid R60 per one Gig of data. Now you can pay R29 per Gig. This offer is from AfriHost and I have been using their account for the past 2 months with good result. Next year we can expect further price drop as more undersea cables come online in Africa.