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Showing posts with label Linux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linux. Show all posts

Sunday, August 21, 2011

How To Find The Best Strategy Flash Games

While there are tons of games out there that are graphically rich and meant to take advantage of your computers hardware to render realistic characters, environment and special effects, not a lot of us have the money to spend on gaming rigs to even be able to play these games. Fortunately though, there are also games that have been developed that you can play within your browser, making use of flash which doesn't need quite as much video processing power for you to play. Strategy flash games are one of the most popular genres today, requiring strategy and critical thinking similar to playing a game chess. A popular variation are tower defense flash games which is similar to chess in that you defend against attack, as well as launching attacks of your own. Strategy flash games generally require just a keyboard and mouse to interact with the game and can be played straight from the browser. There is no need to install them once it has been fully loaded.

Strategy flash games provide endless opportunities for fun and challenge for hours at a time. One can typically go online and look for websites that feature flash games. They are typically segregated into different genres and sub-genres. These can include puzzle, shooting, arcade, strategy, RPG (role playing game), Sports and action genres. Some sites can feature hundreds or even thousands of games, and one can probably find them on several different sites. Some websites sometimes pay for exclusivity or at least semi-exclusivity, so you may find the same version of a particular game across several sites, but only one site would probably give you access to special bonuses and levels. Some sites will often encourage you to play particular titles across different genres, sometimes offering in-game rewards and boosts that you can use to your advantage while playing tower defense flash games. Playing on a site focused on flash games also allows you the opportunity of reading through the forums where you can learn and exchange ideas and strategies. It also allows you to meet players with similar interests not necessarily limited to gaming.

Another great place to find strategy flash games are at the sites of the designers themselves. Designers often make more than one game and use their site as a portal for players to experience playing the games directly from them. Many of these developers can be accessed and found on online gaming distribution.

These websites allow website developers and gamers to sample and even download these online games, usually in a 'SWF' file format. If you have enjoyed a particular game, you can try out many other games that the developers have made with the likelihood of being able to experience the same level of polish across all their titles. In addition to playing strategy flash games and various other genres, you can also provide feedback that can actually influence upcoming titles or even future versions of the same game. Normally, you will be able to rate or comment on a game that you like. Sometimes there will be a link to the game developer's website where you can contact them directly to share your opinion.
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Saturday, August 20, 2011

Classification of Computers

Computers are available in different shapes, sizes and weights, due to these different shapes and sizes they perform different sorts of jobs from one another.
They can also be classified in different ways. All the computers are designed by the qualified computer architectures that design these machines as their requirements.

A computer that is used in a home differs in size and shape from the computer being used in a hospital. Computers act as a server in large buildings, while the computer also differs in size and shape performing its job as a weather forecaster.

A student carrying a laptop with him to his college is different in shape and size from all the computers mentioned above.
Here we are going to introduce different classifications of computers one by one. We will discuss what are in classifications and what job they perform.
Super computer
The biggest in size, the most expensive in price than any other is classified and known as super computer. It can process trillions of instructions in seconds. This computer is not used as a PC in a home neither by a student in a college.
Governments specially use this type of computer for their different calculations and heavy jobs. Different industries also use this huge computer for designing their products. In most of the Hollywood's movies it is used for animation purposes. This kind of computer is also helpful for forecasting weather reports worldwide.

Mainframes
Another giant in computers after the super computer is Mainframe, which can also process millions of instruction per second and capable of accessing billions of data.
This computer is commonly used in big hospitals, air line reservations companies, and many other huge companies prefer mainframe because of its capability of retrieving data on a huge basis.
This is normally to expensive and out of reach from a salary-based person who wants a computer for his home.
This kind of computer can cost up to thousands of dollars.

Minicomputer
This computer is next in he line but less offers less than mainframe in work and performance. These are the computers, which are mostly preferred by the small type of business personals, colleges, etc.

Personal computers
Almost all the computer users are familiar with the personal computers. They normally know what the personal computer is and what are its functions.
This is the computer mostly preferred by the home users. These computers are lesser in cost than the computers given above and also, small in size; they are also called PCs in short for Personal computers.
This computer is small in size and you can easily arrange it to fit in your single bedroom with its all accommodation. Today this is thought to be the most popular computer in all.

Notebook computers
Having a small size and low weight the notebook is easy to carry to anywhere. A student can take it with him/her to his/her school in his/her bag with his/her book.
This is easy to carry around and preferred by students and business people to meet their assignments and other necessary tasks.
The approach of this computer is also the same as the Personal computer. It can store the same amount of data and having a memory of the same size as that of a personal computer. One can say that it is the replacement of personal desktop computer.
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Saturday, June 18, 2011

Public Key Authentication in SSH or Passwords

In this Server-Bits tutorial, I'll show you a real time-saver when it comes to SSH and anything connected to SSH. To put it simply, public key encryption in SSH is where you don't need to log into an SSH account because the public key (stored on the server) matches your private key (stored on the client machine), and it logs you into your account. Because anyone with your private key can appear to be you and gain access to your account, it is extremely important to guard your private key with your life. The public key can float around the internet for all time without any danger to yourself, your accounts, or your private key, as public/private key encryption is very secure.


What this all translates to in layman's terms is that public key encryption allows you to securely log into your server without using a password. If this freaks you out at all, don't worry, you aren't alone. But don't worry, as long as you're creating keys from your user account and not from root, the risk of huge damaging effects is minimized, as you still need a sudo password to do any serious damage (provided that your server is properly configured).
Of course, to take full advantage of Public Key Authentication, you will be using two computers, but all of the key generation and even the copy will be performed client-side (The computer you want to have remote, password-less access).

The first step to generating a public/private key pair is to run this command (which we will break down into detail):
ssh-keygen -b 4096 -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -C "Your Comments"
This is how the command breaks down:
-b: This is the number of bits to be used in the key. This number can be as low as 768, but since we're running a server, lets be overly-paranoid and use 4096.
-t: The type of algorithm we will be using. In this example, we'll be using RSA for our key generation, but you also have the choice of DSA, but in that case, you will need to make your key exactly 1024-bit.
-f: This option specifies the file in which the key will be saved.
-C: This allows you to specify a comment to go at the end of each key. This is important because you will most likely have several keys floating around (we will go into the why this is a good idea later) and if you need to void a key, it is very hard to distinguish which key is which.
You can specify a passphrase for each key if you wish. To log into the server with this key, you will need to type in the passphrase before the key will be unlocked. The downside to this is that by using a key, you are trying to move away from having to use a password, but the upside is that you can leave this key on a less-secure network (your office/school network) with greater ease-of-mind. You do have the ability to use a blank passphrase, but that is only recommended for systems you completely trust (your completely encrypted laptop, for instance).
 
Next, you need to make sure that no one else on the system can read your private key.
chmod -R 700 ~/.ssh/
Now that we have a key on our client machine that is readable by us, we need to pipe it over to our username on the remote server.
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh username@server.address.com 'cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'
This is how the command breaks down:
cat: This command just spits out any data in a file to the terminal. You can redirect the output to other files, however, which is exactly what we are doing here.
The ssh login bit logs us into the remote server under our remote username, then gives a command to the terminal on that end. Our previous text output from the client machine is being redirected through 'cat' server-side, then it is appending the new text to the end of the file located at '~/.ssh/authorized_keys'.
Most of the time, when an SSH login is established, a key is looked for first, before the password. How does the system know who is who when using a key? It looks in the 'authorized_keys' file. Any public key located in that file is a match, and if is corresponds correctly with the matching private key, you are logged in using public key encryption.

For our server system, we don't really need any additional configuration, as most Linux distributions (including Ubuntu) automatically accept private keys through SSH. The really cool part about this is that you can now mount remote directories without having to put in a password, making bash scripts endlessly useful. For instance, you could set up a completely encrypted backup system over SSH (I'll be writing about this later).
To learn more about Public Key Cryptography, head over the Wikipedia page on it. Very wonderfully written article.
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Friday, June 17, 2011

The Perfect Middle Ground

I really really like Kubuntu 10.04. Out of curiosity, I loaded up Kubuntu 10.04 onto my external hard drive to give it a spin. Other than loving the fact that I have my own personal encrypted Linux install bootable at all times on just about any computer I happen to be near, I really really like the new KDE. Take the easy-to-use mentality of standard Ubuntu and mix it with the endless-options power-user mentality of KDE and you get Kubuntu. First impressions went something like this:
Oh! Its the ease of Ubuntu! But wait... all of these options.. all of these rolled in configuration options, right up front? This is made for power users! But it is still Ubuntu? I'm confused... and happy...
Kubuntu seems like the perfect middle ground for those not yet happy to jump to Fedora, SuSE, or Debian proper. Kubuntu still contains some helpful Ubuntu-centric additions (read: training wheels) for the Linux newcomers, but maintains the features and customizations that power-users crave. To add to the list of things I really like about Kubuntu, it is absolutely beautiful.
If I were to pick one Linux distribution to deploy to a mass enterprise environment, it would be Kubuntu. Debian backend, Ubuntu ease-of-use, and KDE power and flexibility. It could possibly be one of the best general office use distributions yet. 

The only problems I can see with KDE is operating within a current Microsoft-rich environment (and this is more of a general Linux /OpenSource problem than a KDE/Ubuntu problem) is the total lack of Exchange support. Whether it is with Evolution or Kontact, it just kills me when I find amazing open source applications that don't work with the biggest force in business today. If running a business on open standards and open technologies is interesting to you, consider Kubuntu a powerful choice.
I highly recommend Kubuntu for those who are ready for more Linux power in their hands, while not quite ready to take the full plunge.
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