I’ve been using Linux for almost 13 years. I’ve been answering folks questions about Linux for almost 13 years too. And if you asked me to give you an answer how to find something on your Linux server via Twitter in 140 characters, I’d not be able to do it. In fact, I’d not even try it. No friggin’ way.

Well, thankfully a much smarter and much more experienced person did just that. Found a way to answer questions about Linux in 140 characters or less for most anything you could want to find in Linux.

Dead serious.

One of the biggest challenges we face in using Linux and UNIX on servers is how to find files or small strings of text lost in the labyrinthine file system of a server. “Where was that executable?” “PHPMailerHost? Where’s that?”

Fortunately, most Linux (and UNIX) systems provide two powerful tools for searching.

IT veteran Don R. Crawley says that you can almost always find anything you want in the file system with either the “find” or the “grep” commands. These are just two of the commands he explains in his new book, Tweeting Linux, 140 Linux Configuration Commands Explained in 140 Characters or Less.

Tweeting Linux: 140 Linux Configuration Commands Explained in 140 Characters or Less is a straight-forward approach to learning Linux commands. Each command is first explained in 140 characters or less, then examples of usage are shown in screen captures, and finally more details are given when necessary to explain command usage. You’ll see the most commonly-used commands, plus a few gems you might not know about.

Don R. Crawley writes from experience and has an informative blog too. The book is on sale at Amazon for $30.00 and well worth the peace and quiet information that your forgetful friends will gain from this book. Give it a look!

[ Links: Tweeting Linux: 140 Linux Configuration Commands Explained in 140 Characters or Less ]

Talk about timing… I just had a conversation with a couple of college students that were looking for a collection of applications that would benefit them most on their smartphones and I ran across GetJar. Apparently, it’s been around for a while and is the “second largest” (guess who’s first) app store and they specialize in applications for most any smartphone platform, not just one (again, guess who).

Today’s generation of tech savvy students is turning to mobile devices and digital gadgets, like the iPad to communicate with teachers and other students. GetJar—the world’s second largest mobile app store, has pulled together a list of the Top 5 Mobile Apps For Every College Student:

• Social Networking Apps – helps students network and make friends more easily. Whether it is a study group or a new friend from the bookstore, apps allow them to get connected. (SoMo, Social Bookmarks, Friends Connector, etc.)
• Map Apps to navigate campuses – helps new students find their way around campuses and local hubs, etc. (Zhiing, Vicinity, CitySearch, SpotMe!, etc.)
• Safety Apps – helps students stay safe while at school, walking home from late night classes, etc. (TaxiPal, Taxi V1.01, HandyNumbers, etc.)
• Activities Guide – helps students get involved around campus, school campus job postings, etc. (Management Society TSEC, etc.)
• Educational tools –educational apps now offer students language translators, word processors, etc. A financial tools app works well for the first time student learning how to budget. This year, reports show that the average student will spend over $1000 on textbooks, but mobile apps could help them save money. (Finance Calculator, Xeladico, etc.)

Covering Nokia, Blackberry, Android and Palm, it’s quite possible that they have everything that the other large online app store doesn’t have. And if you know the name of the application you’re looking for, you can use their AppIt! feature by typing in in their URL and the app name – http://getjar.com/gowalla (for example) and it will direct you to it without the need to search or fiddle around. Not bad at all.

[ Links: GetJar ]

A University of Southern California team has produced flexible transparent carbon atom films that may have great potential for a brand new variety of solar cells. Inside a paper recently published in the journal ACS Nano, researchers stated that organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells have been proposed as a method to obtain low price energy due to their ease of manufacture, light-weight, and compatibility with flexible substrates.

This work shows that graphene, an extremely conductive and highly transparent type of carbon made up of atoms-thick sheets of carbon atoms, has high possibility to fill this role. While graphene’s existence has been known for many years, it has only been studied extensively since 2004 due to the impracticality of manufacturing it in high quality and in quantity.

The University of Southern California team has produced graphene/polymer sheets ranging in sizes nearly 150 square centimeters that in turn may be used to create dense arrays of flexible organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. These organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices convert solar radiation to electricity, although not as efficiently as silicon cells.

The energy provided by sunlight on a sunny day is about 1,000 watts per meter square, for every 1,000 watts of sunlight that hits a square meter part of the standard silicon solar cell, 14 watts of electricity will be generated, Organic solar cells are less efficient; their conversion rate for that same 1,000 watts of sunlight in the graphene-based solar cell would be only 1.3 watts.

But what graphene organic photovoltaic (OPV) lack in efficiency, can potentially be compensated by its lower price and, greater physical flexibility. Researchers think it may eventually be possible to cover with inexpensive solar cell layers extensive areas like newspapers, magazines or power generating clothing. In the meanwhile Prof. Ruoff and his colleagues of the mechanical engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin, are studying the basic science in the introduction of graphene-based ultracapacitors for usage in electronics and other fields.

Prof. Ruoff says batteries are relatively slow, they can store energy but require sometime to charge up, and then they distribute energy slowly, over time. Ultracapacitors can be charged very quickly, in seconds, and discharge quickly, but, today, they can’t store very much electrical energy. The introduction of stable and cheaper ultracapacitors should be a key step in using wind or solar-generated power, especially if researchers will find ways to enable capacitors to store energy longer, which is not yet possible.

Even with their current storage capacity, the graphene devices could provide quick energy when needed in certain situations on the ecological way. They could be used, for instance, to absorb heat generated in braking an automobile or train, and store it for a short time, and then employ it for the electrical needs of the vehicle (i.e. starting the automobile or acceleration).

About the writer – Sophia H. Walker writes for the solar battery charger blog, her personal hobby weblog dedicated to tips to help individuals save electricity using solar energy for small gadgets.

Sporting a lower price, a better high-contrast e-Ink screen and a much slimmer design, the new generation of the Amazon Kindle comes in built-in wi-fi and double the storage. Other features include a much better battery and the same 6″ screen size but much smaller bezels around the screen.

Kindle is our #1 bestselling item for two years running. It’s also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon. Now it’s even better.

• All-New, High-Contrast E-Ink Screen – 50% better contrast than any other e-reader
• Read in Bright Sunlight – No glare
• New and Improved Fonts – New crisper, darker fonts
• New Sleek Design – 21% smaller body while keeping the same 6″ size reading area
• 17% Lighter – Only 8.5 ounces, weighs less than a paperback
• Battery Life of Up to One Month – A single charge lasts up to one month with wireless off
• Double the Storage – Up to 3,500 Books
• Built-In Wi-Fi – Shop and download books in less than 60 seconds
• 20% Faster Page Turns – Seamless reading
• Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights
• New WebKit-Based Browser – Browse the web over Wi-Fi (experimental)

Currently up for pre-order at $139 via Amazon.com

[ Links: Amazon Kindle Pre-Order ]

As noted back in June, companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast started indicating they were actually looking for Congress to begin enacting telecom law “reform.” Why? These three companies have such immense influence over Congress, they’re the ones that are usually ghost writing new laws. Not surprisingly, Politico notes that AT&T, Comcast and Verizon outspent nearly every other major tech giant in lobbying during the second quarter, spending a combined 11.3 million.

What is that money buying? Bills like Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) “Freedom for Consumer Choice Act,” which essentially bogs the FCC down in red tape at AT&T’s behest (AT&T is DeMint’s third largest campaign contributor).

As a South Carolinian, this affects me in more ways than just a few. Fight it, if you can, vote accordingly.

Link to the original article…

Coding an application from scratch is an intense affair. Libraries, references, classes, includes, programming patterns and if you’re not a programmer, it’s an uphill battle to even get started on a concept.

You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like WhackAMole or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend’s faces. You can even make use of the phone’s sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone.

But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android’s text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud.

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.

Via Google Labs, App Inventor for Android allows easy access to the GPS, desktop, SMS and web portions for even the non-programmer. The inevitable fart or banner app that announces your name from across the room will pop-up, but this is a very quick way to start out programming and overcome the hurdles of learning Android from scratch.

Based on Java and able to connect to your Android phone, this looks like an impressive way to start out.

[ Links: Google Labs App Inventor ]

Partnering with Google Earth, General Motors (GM) has produced an application for the education of K-12 students that, once downloaded, will show and educate children using the proven Google Earth technology to accurately show you where in the world people are using renewable energy.

As a responsible corporate citizen, we know it’s important to give back to society. And, as an automaker in these times, we are often on the leading edge of technology development that will help to reduce the impact our products have on the environment. We think it’s important to pass on the lessons and knowledge we’ve learned from working on these issues to the young students today who will be tomorrow’s leaders and problem solvers.

General Motors has really embraced the renewable energy push that will hopefully lead them from being a bailed out, broken and nearly bankrupt company back to a company that employs technology and overall “know-how” to get themselves back into the forefront of innovation once again and supply the next generation with information that will help shape their educational and career opportunities.

Keep up the good work GM. The application is a free download.

[ Links: GM, GM Education ]

2010 is shaping up to be either the year of the tablet or year of the eBook reader.

Plastic Logic revealed its plans to unveil ‘QUE’, the first proReader designed for business professionals. With the QUE, Plastic Logic is expanding the eReader category, which to date has focused on leisure reading devices and casual users. QUE is designed to simplify the multi-faceted lifestyle of the modern businessperson, and to quite literally lighten their workload.

In addition to connecting its users with their business and professional newspapers, books and periodicals, QUE supports the document formats business users need (including PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents) and features powerful tools for interacting with and managing the content.

Extra thin, lightweight and wireless-enabled, QUE is the size of an 8.5 x 11 inch pad of paper, less than a 1/3 inch thick, and weighs less than many periodicals. The innovative QUE proReader features the largest touchscreen in the industry, an intuitive touch screen user interface, and provides access to a file cabinet’s worth of documents, plus your favorite – and most necessary – publications.

QUE stands out in a crowd because it’s a business reader, but it’s also unique for its shatterproof plastic display. This exclusive technology from Plastic Logic, along with E Ink Vizplex technology produces an outstanding reading experience. Its battery can last days, instead of hours.

QUE users will be able to connect to content and download wirelessly via Wi-Fi and AT&T’s 3G network, the nation’s fastest 3G mobile broadband network. The store will offer the most significant collection of business reading available on any eReader. The QUE store is powered by Barnes & Noble, the worlds’ largest eBookstore.

Link to the original article…

I love sushi. I love seafood. I love my Apple iPhone. Combine all three and I’ll be happy… oh wait, Monterey Bay Aquarium has just done that. Well, you can’t exactly eat the app, but you can install the free Apple iPhone app and see whether or not what you’re buying is not only environmentally friendly but also what should be avoided due a plethora of reasons from overfishing to health concerns due to shipping or place of origin.

Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, our new iPhone application brings the latest Seafood Watch recommendations directly to your iPhone or iPod touch. Now you can make sustainable seafood choices quickly and easily; whether you’re eating at your favorite restaurant or shopping for dinner. And at a time when the world’s oceans are severely overfished, your seafood choices make a big difference.

And if you’re not an Apple iPhone owner, you can user their mobile website just as well. Definitely worth it if you enjoy some of the yummier things from the sea and wish to raise your awareness about not only what you eat but how your decisions affect the future generations as well.

Thanks Janice for the tip. This one is staying on my iPhone!

[ Links: Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch iPhone App, Monterey Bay Aquarium mobile website ]

AT&T executive comments yesterday that the carrier might be ditching the current “all you can eat” iPhone data plan for usage-based pricing didn’t go over very well with either the company’s users or the press.

Many felt AT&T was blaming its customers for the company’s inability to adequate meet iPhone bandwidth demand. Others felt AT&T was continuing the industry trend of pretending that the flat-rate pricing model doesn’t provide enough revenue for network upgrades. The coverage has had echoes of Time Warner Cable’s botched attempt to hoist usage-based billing upon their customers earlier this year.

As has repeatedly been the case when it comes to AT&T’s 3G network this year, AT&T again found itself in the unenviable position of having to do damage control. As such, AT&T’s been going around to various news outlets insisting that AT&T Wireless boss Ralph de La Vega’s comments were “taken out of context.” As such, they’re providing a link to the one hour presentation where the comments were made. Here’s the transcript of the relevant bits:

I think one of the first things that we need to do is we need to educate the customers. And it s something that customers today have not been used to doing, so we ve got to get them to understand what represents a megabyte of data. And so what we re doing now is we re improving all of our systems so that we can begin to give customers real-time information about their data usage and begin to get customers educated. And I think longer-term, there s got to be some sort of a pricing scheme that addresses the usage, but that s going to be determined by industry competitive factors, regulatory factors and customer successes.

The idea that “user education” will somehow magically compensate for the capacity and network reliability AT&T failed to provide iPhone users is the kind of disingenuous language Time Warner Cable used when they tried to impose a new pricing model that lacked consumer value. Like Time Warner Cable, AT&T investors and executives are chomping at the bit to impose an unpopular usage-based billing model on both their wireless and wireline networks — simply because it generates more revenue than flat rate pricing. “User education” plays no part in the equation. User disinformation does, and there’s been a lot of it.

The argument that an already hugely profitable company wants to charge even more money for bandwidth isn’t one that sits well with consumers. As such, AT&T’s tried to sell the idea by arguing that usage-based billing is about being fair to grandmothers, while their lobbyists have spent a lot of money arguing that unless you embrace their new pricing vision, the Internet will explode. As with Time Warner Cable, AT&T’s customers see this “consumer education effort” for what it is: an effort to impose higher prices on consumers. As de la Vega himself notes, the issue will be whether regulators and consumers sign off on the idea.

Link to the original article…

Being a college student usually means that your book expenses were more than your food expenses… which is not exactly fun at all. Well, Questia plans on making learning a bit more inexpensive and modern with their Apple iPhone and iPod Touch app.

The application, called Questia Library, provides mobile access to the full text of 74,000 books and over 2 million journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. The collection consists mostly of copyrighted works and is selected and organized by professional librarians to facilitate academic research in the humanities and social sciences.

“The research process is becoming increasingly mobile,” said Tim Harris, President and CEO of Questia. “Questia Library enables students and other researchers who are on the move to search, browse, skim, and read a large and valuable collection for the same price they might pay for a single ebook. Questia Library delivers amazing resources all in the palm of your hand.”

The application makes browsing for research purposes easier than ever, allowing users to quickly navigate Questia’s subject category schema and drill down to one of 6,700 research topic pages, such as psychology of war or magical realism, where they can view the top librarian-recommended books and articles for that topic.

24/7 access to just about every book!? I could have definitely used this while I was at the University of Colorado at Boulder – that’s Norlin Library above in the picture by the way.

The price of the app is 99¢ via the Apple iTunes Music Store and gives users permanent access to 5,000 public domain books and 1 week of access to every publication in Questia Library. After one week, users may purchase additional access to the full library through iTunes on a non-recurring basis and most books are quite inexpensive for purchase, while many are free public domain books.

Think I can pass for a freshman?

[ Questia ] [ Questia Library Plus ]