Slow Internet? The problem could be your computer...

I have grown tired of fixing windoz computers for the same people, over and over.  If I fix it, and you don't take my advice, you don't have enough sense to use the computer.  Sorry.  I've grown to hate MS products really because of it.  Vista was the last straw for me.  Then I experienced Windoz 7 and calmed down a bit.  They did better.  Just not enough to get my money though.  If you want advice, I'll help though.

The number one issue I dealt with was, "my computer is slow" or the variant, "my internet is slow(doesn't work)".  If you can't get these following programs to update from the internet, then you're infected for sure and should seek help.  I've had repairs that took days to completely remove all the infections people had picked up.

You may think your anti-virus is working.  Don't count on it alone.  Frankly, if you try to download any of these programs or try to update your anti-virus and your pc never loads the page, or starts the download... I'd bet you have malware, virus, or trojan infections, probably all of them.  Because once you get one, they download all kinds of nasties to better hide.  After all when your anti-virus software proudly tells you it found something.. you think it's working and you're safe. Not quite.

Here's my secrets:From a different pc, download the following software:
ps. I will not cover Hijackthis, as you have to know how to get into safe mode and I'm posting this for some friends that wouldn't be comfortable doing that. 

• CCleaner                                                 www.piriform.com/ccleaner
• Firefox                                                     getfirefox.com
• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware                  www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
• Spybot Search and Destroy                    www.safer-networking.org/
• SuperAntiSpyware                                  www.superantispyware.com
• Hijackthis                                                free.antivirus.com/hijackthis 

This will be around 46MB, which will fit fine on a USB flash drive, or burn to a re-writeable CD, as you have to use current versions of all these programs.

Once you've logged into windoz, plug in your USB drive.  Copy all the programs to your desktop.  *copy and paste*


Install all the software to your local hard drive.
 *** Note *** Pay attention when installing these free programs.  Uncheck any yahoo, google, or toolbars they ask you to install along with the programs.  Why add clutter to your browser?  If you find them useful, buy the paid versions.  I've never had to though. Oh, wait..that's cause I rarely use my windozs, I'm into Fedora LINUX. :P  ...<to continue>

Then start with CCleaner, when it finishes go to the next program...in other words "rinse and repeat".

I'll explain CCleaner in greater detail.
After starting CCleaner you will see along the left side of the window, Cleaner, Registry, Tools, and Options.

• Cleaner is the window that you should see first

You will notice 'Analyze' and 'Run Cleaner' buttons at the bottom.  Select 'Analyze'.  Once it's finished finding clutter it will show how much it will remove once you select 'Run Cleaner', do so to complete the cleaning.

• Registry

Select 'Registry' now.  Find the button 'Scan for Issues', and select it.
Once it's finished you will have the button 'Fix selected issues' available, and you can do so when it is.  You will then be given the option to save your registry before proceeding, and this is a good idea.  I never do, but you should.  I don't want any crying later.  I've never ever had this program do anything but fix common issues, but just make sure to save it until you've rebooted and everything works fine.

• Tools

That's not for beginners but worth a look.  Uninstall, Startup, System Restore, and Drive Wiper are the tools.  Startup will allow you to remove things that start when windows starts up, but don't be fooled, any virus will hide from you.

Which is why you now move on to Malwarebytes, Spybot, or Superantivirus.

When you browse the web, use Firefox.  When you want a safer email client try out Thunderbird, when installing you can import all your contacts and mail into it.

Have any questions? Found this useful? hate me? Please leave a comment..

First blog entry, sorta...

Well, I've been working on this blog, on and off, for months.  I guess I'm finally ready to publish.  I hope to post weekly articles to help friends out.

My thoughts go back to a teacher long ago making me keep a journal. and though it was fun, only with tons of effort did I write daily.

I will post topics that are often asked of me, and others that I find important.

I've used LINUX personally and professionally since 1997.  I started getting into system administration back in 1992, using IBM's AS400.  I've worked with Windows since 3.11.  I got my first copy of Red Hat 5.0 at a USEnix event in New Orleans in 1997.  I've worked with Solaris and AIX also.  I've focused my studies at Tulane on UNIX, C++, and LINUX.

So, Welcome!  I hope you find something useful.  Drop me a message or comment if you please.

Images and Photo tagging from cmdline using ImageMagick in LINUX

Adding a copyright or tag to your pictures:
   Want a really fast command to add a comment or protect your photos, graphics, or other images, from the command line (LINUX)?
   I wanted to add a comment to a screenshot I took from google-earth.  The file format was .png and I'm using Fedora 14 on this pc.  There are plenty of ways to add comments with extra steps, but I wanted a simple, one-liner to do this.
  I found a lot of really cool things this powerful software is capable of doing.
cool stuff I made: polaroid effect on pictures, copyright to put on stuff, a proof tag for work I do for clients.

Ever see copyrights or other text on photos online? I was wanting to do this without opening GIMP or other photo editing programs and came across this cool script to do just that.  You need ImageMagick (link to examples), because convert is part of this package.

Make sure you have ImageMagick by doing the following, in a terminal window:
$sudo yum info ImageMagick
Installed Packages
Name      : ImageMagick
Arch        :x86_64
Version   :6.6.4.1
Release   :15.fc14
Size         :6.7 M

or, what I did:
$sudo yum whatprovides "/usr/bin/convert"
 ImageMagick-6.6.4.1-15.fc14.x86_64 : An X application for displaying and
                                   : manipulating images
Repo        : installed
Matched from:
Filename    : /usr/bin/convert

To see all the details of what convert can do:
$man convert
<here's basic info on convert from that manpage info>
manpage description:
convert  -  convert  between  image formats as well as resize an image, blur,
       crop, despeckle, dither, draw on, flip, join, re-sample, polaroid effect, and much more. Go here for a list of the switches, their usage, and descriptions.
I'll use this image for my example PELICAN.jpg (38KB, 187 x 209)

Open terminal and "cd" to your Desktop, or where your image is you wish to tag.  Then with the following command:
$/usr/bin/convert -font Utopia-Bold -fill white -gravity South -draw 'text 10,2 "Pelican-DSPrinting"' Pelican.jpg NewPelican.jpg
 Results in this new image:

Simple tagging of an image (for example, 428x521, 43.8k in size):
$/usr/bin/convert -font Utopia-Bold -pointsize 26 -fill Red -gravity SouthWest -draw 'text 15,24 "Whatever you want"' InputPic.png outputPic.png

If it's a large (read high quality Megapixel image) then you'll need to adjust the pointsize switch, like this...
$/usr/bin/convert -font Utopia-Bold -pointsize 48 -fill Blue -gravity SouthWest -draw 'text 15,24 "Whatever you want"' InputPic.png OutputPic.png

If you leave out the -font switch, convert will use a default font.
To list the fonts you have available:
$/usr/bin/convert -list font