today's howtos
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Organize Thunar Custom Actions In Submenus
The nice thing about Linux is all of the choices Linux users have. One is the choice of which desktop environment to use. For me, Xfce is my desktop environment of choice. One of those reasons I prefer Xfce is because of Thunar, the file manager for Xfce. It's not flashy. It lets me get my file tasks done with a minimum of fuss. But what I like most of all is how easy it is to add custom actions to Thunar to create various custom tools to perform bulk file operations (which I do quite frequently). I have several custom actions that I use frequently with the production of The PCLinuxOS Magazine, and they are REAL timesavers.
Those Thunar Custom Actions can be one-liners, or can invoke a custom bash script. I have custom actions that use both methods. Obviously, more complex actions require the use of a custom bash script, but there are quite a few one-liners that wield a LOT of power. Typically, my one-liners and my custom bash scripts run command line programs on either a single file, or on a group of files.
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Linux Fu: Build A Better Ls
Ask someone to name all the things they can find in a room. Only a few will mention air. Ask a Linux command line user about programs they use and they may well forget to mention ls. Like air, it is seemingly invisible since it is so everpresent. But is it the best it can be? Sure, you can use environment variables and aliases to make it work a little nicer, but, in fact, it is much the same ls we have used for decades. But there have always been moves to make better ls programs. One of them, exa, was recently deprecated in favor of one of its forks, eza.
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GIMP Tutorial: Adding A Person To A Group Photo
Several years ago (2010), I went to a meeting with some fellow secretaries. Towards the end of the meeting, we went to supper at a local restaurant, and decided to have someone take a group photo. Unfortunately, one of the girls had not eaten with us, so they asked if I could put her in the photo with the rest of us. I was able to do it, but with my limited GIMP experience, it didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.
With a tutorial from Davies Media Design, I'm learning how to do it. I'll use a couple of photos I downloaded from Wikimedia Commons before I go back to my own photo. Use larger photos to give yourself room to work. Photos can always be sized down later, but not made bigger.
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How To Enable Dark Theme In Trinity Mini
As ⅆα√ℯℂ§ suggested, I created a short guide on how to configure a dark theme in Trinity Mini. As an example, I chose Arc Darkest, which was used in the guest's account in the latest ISO TDE Mini.
Of course, this theme can be implemented simply by copying the guest's account configuration to the newly created user directory. However, this is not recommended, because the "guest" name will remain here and there, which is difficult to detect and can cause embarrassing errors. And besides, configuring everything from scratch, the user will learn something new.
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Domain Fronting and Domain Fuzzing
Charles Miller delivered his masters thesis at the Crypto and Privacy village at DEF CON. He introduced domain fronting, where a client contacts a Content Distribution Network (CDN) endpoint under one name, and the endpoint forwards traffic to another destination. This exploits a gap between TLS and HTTP as implemented by CDNs. His research found ways to identify endpoints at scale, even when Azure, Cloudflare, and Google clamp down on domain fronting on their infrastructure. Domain fronting is an important tool used by Tor to circumvent censorship in places that block encrypted SNI.
This talk summary is part of my DEF CON 31 series. The talks this year have sufficient depth to be shared independently and are separated for easier consumption.