I have been trying out Barracuda Networks cloud file storage "Copy" for the last few day. The Linux client seems stable and syncing has been reliable up to now. Although there are claims that Copy stores files encrypted, it is also an architectural fact that Copy needs to store your encryption keys on the server side.

So, if you want to store private Data, then you'll have to setup encryption yourself - Enter EncFS. Continue reading "Using EncFS with Copy Cloud File Storage"

Copy is a new cloud storage solution similar to Dropbox. They have a better price model, allowing you to use 250GB of storage for 99$ per year. The free account starts with 5GB and you can get a few extra GB by promoting the service. You get client agents for most operating systems, including Linux.

Barracuda only supplies Linux users with a simple tgz installer. This installer is perfectly working, but I wanted to install and update software with dpkg. So I hacked a little script to download the current version of the client agent and build a Debian package from the tgz.

You can find the script on GitHub: https://github.com/neovatar/copycom2deb

Spotify is great and it is nearly the only choice if you want a music streaming service with a native Linux client. But the client is still in a "preview" stage. So if Spotify releases a new version of the Linux client, it sometimes botches your spotify installation. So if you do your "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" dance, it might leave you without music (eeeeeeek!). But fear not! There is an easy way to backup your working Spotify installation on an Ubuntu/Debian system. Continue reading "Spotify and Linux: Backing it up with dpkg-repack"

I just stumbled over the ability to set vsync in compiz settings manager. I had an increased screen tearing with my new Eizo 24" monitor for a while now and switching vsync on in compiz removes it! Yay! Open compiz settings manager, then click "General Options", go to the tab "Display Settings" and check "Sync with VBlank". Move around a window and cheer .

I did some research on my prolonged firefox startup time and alas I found something cool: Vacuum your Firefox databases Basically you have to do the following:

• Install sqlite3:

  sudo apt-get install sqlite3

• Vacuum your Firefox DBs:

  find ~/.mozilla/firefox -name "*.sqlite" -exec sqlite3 \{\} VACUUM \;

• Reindex your Firefox DBs:

  find ~/.mozilla/firefox -name "*.sqlite" -exec sqlite3 \{\} REINDEX \;