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HowTo Geek on Applications, HowTos
Applications
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HowTo Geek ☛ 3 popular apps I always run in headless mode so they don’t clutter my desktop
As more applications have been released, it feels like the fight for screen space is filled with unnecessary clutter. We often have status bars, background processes, or media players running, but really don't need to look at them. What's cool is that a lot of software we rely on daily can run completely without a GUI.
When an app runs headless, it offloads the heavy job of rendering the entire user interface. This is so useful that there are some applications I wouldn't want to use without headless mode, and you may not have realized that this option exists. If you use the apps below, maybe try ditching that window to see if things aren't better overall.
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HowTo Geek ☛ Please stop lowering your standards for open source software
I love open-source software, and it's been essential to my needs over the years. I've used GIMP when I couldn't afford Photoshop. Scribus when I needed to design a book for college, and OpenOffice for the Linux netbook that got me through post-grad. I owe open-source software a lot, and it's too important to hold it to a lower standard than the closed-source for-profit stuff.
Stop pretending busted UX is “fine because it’s free”
Open-source projects are often backed by talented coders, but I guess talented UX professionals don't like to work for free (or for donations), because, compared to commercial closed-source software, FOSS interfaces are generally bare-bones and sometimes barely functional.
A part of the problem is that, in some cases, the look and feel of this software isn't the result of unified guidance, and lots of people are working on small parts of the elephant without the big picture. If there is even a big picture. Some tools are convoluted to use, hard to find, menus lack logic, and to be proficient you just have to learn all the oddities of the app.
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Instructionals/Technical
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HowTo Geek ☛ SSH over bad Wi-Fi is miserable—this CLI tool fixes it
If you've ever logged in to SSH and had your connection drop, you might have found yourself banging on your keyboard in frustration. One day, I found the solution to SSH connection drops over one Fourth of July weekend.
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HowTo Geek ☛ These Linux tools behave differently when piped, and it’s not a bug
If you have any experience with the Linux command line, you’ve probably used a pipe to solve tasks by combining simple programs. It’s the UNIX way.
A pipe connects one program’s output stream to another’s input, but there can be more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.
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HowTo Geek ☛ 7 ways to create an empty file in Linux (and what each one teaches you)
On Linux, there’s always more than one way to do something. Whether you run a command, use a GUI app, or write your own program, there are plenty of methods to get things done. But each one can teach us something new about the operating system we use.
Learn about Linux’s black hole, a command to install other commands, how to script Vim, and more!
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