Category: FOSS

free and open source apps

📅 August 9, 2020

OpenSnitch Application Firewall for Linux

A free and open source Linux application firewall

If you’re looking for an application firewall for your Linux box, you must’ve heard of OpenSnitch. The bad news is that the original project is no longer under active development. The good news is that OpenSnitch has been forked.

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📅 July 29, 2020

You Can Run Mac OS 8 on Your Mac, Linux or Windows Machine. And It’s Awesome…

a fully functional Mac OS 8 that can run on your Mac, Linux and Windows machines

Some of us can’t even imagine a digital world before 2010, while others have been around for long enough to remember the thrills of a BBS.

And most of us don’t even realize how much computers have evolved in the last 30 years. For example, Mac OS 8.1 could be written today entirely in JavaScript and run as an app on Linux, macOS and Windows.

That’s exactly what Felix Riesenberg did. He turned an entire 1991 Macintosh Quadra running Mac OS 8.1 into a single Electron app that can run cross-platform.

NOTE: Mac OS 8 was released in 1997.

The app emulates a Macintosh Quadra 900 with the Motorola CPU Apple used before its transition to IBM’s PowerPC chips.

The best part, it really is fully functional and it comes preloaded with a bunch of games and apps like Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization II, Dungeons & Dragons, Namely, Oregon Trail, Alley 19 Bowling,  Damage Incorporated, Photoshop 3, Premiere 4, Illustrator 5.5, StuffIt Expander, and Apple’s Web Page Construction Kit.

The only thing that’s not working, although fully understandable, is web browsing. Felix included Internet Explorer and Netscape into the app but the programs are so old they are incapable of resolving anything.

Furthermore, as the app is basically a virtual machine, you can even transfer files to and from the machine.

Check out the official Github project to learn more and download Mac OS 8.

You can download standalone or installers for macOS and Windows. Linux users can download .deb and .rpm packages. Would’ve been great if macintosh.js came as an .AppImage.

📅 July 20, 2020

auto-cpufreq: Automatic CPU Speed & Power Optimizer for Linux

Automatic CPU speed & power optimizer for Linux based on active monitoring of laptop’s battery state, CPU usage and system load. Ultimately allowing you to improve battery life without making any compromises.

Linux is great for so many reasons. Battery life is not one of them. Most users, with every new isntall, one of the first thing they install is TLP and/or Powertop. Tools like these definitely help with extending the battery life but they also come with their own set of problems. Like losing turbo boost.

Here’s where cpu-freq comes in. A simple tool which will automatically make “cpufreq” related changes, save battery like TLP, but let Linux kernel do most of the heavy lifting.

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📅 July 16, 2020

HOW TO: Make GIMP Look and Feel More Like Photoshop

Make your transition from Photoshop to GIMP as smooth as possible.

 

GIMP is a replacement for Photoshop. You must’ve heard this before, but let’s be honest, that’s not really true.

If you’ve never used Photoshop before, don’t even think about it. Go for GIMP, it’s fantastic. But if you’ve only worked in Photoshop, moving to GIMP is a steep learning curve that will at least double the time for your project. Not to mention that collaboration and everything that goes with working in Photoshop goes out the window. Sort of…

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📅 July 13, 2020

An Awesome CLI Tool to Get Info About Movies and TV Shows

A CLI for getting information about movies and TV shows.

If you love movies and TV shows, here’s a nifty little command line tool that will make your life much easier when researching what you’re going to watch next.

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📅 July 9, 2020

Transfer Files Over Wi-Fi Between a Computer and a Mobile Device by Scanning a QR Code

A foss, cross-platform program to send files between your computer and mobile devices

 

If you’re looking for a cross platform command line program that allows you to send files between your computer and your mobile devices ( and vice-versa ) you should take a look at qrcp. 

It binds a web server to the address of your Wi-Fi network interface on a random port and creates a handler for it. The default handler serves the content and exits the program when the transfer is complete. When used to receive files, qrcp serves an upload page and handles the transfer.

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📅 July 3, 2020

Use the Mac App Store from the Command Line

A simple command line interface for the Mac App Store

 

I try to stay away from the Mac App Store. Why? Because 1. I try to avoid proprietary software as much as pososible and for the most part that’s totally viable ( at least in my case ) and 2. This.

Your case might be different. And that’s ok. But, you might want to avoid using a slow and bloated piece of software like the Mac App Store while continuing to take advantage from what it can offer you.

Here’s where mas comes in – a simple command line interface for the Mac App Store…

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📅 July 3, 2020

Assign Keyboard Shortcuts to Open macOS Apps

How to assign keyboard shortcuts to open macOS apps

When it comes to opening apps in macOS you basically have the following options: the app is in your Dock, you use Spotlight, you use Launchpad or you simply open up Finder and go to the Applications folder.

You definitely have options, but they are all slow and time consuming. It would be great if you could assing keyboard shortcuts to open apps, but macOS’ shortcut functionality is very limited.

Luckily there’s a 3rd party solution, Thor. A free and open source app that aloows you to do exactly that – assign a keyboard shortcut to any app that’s installed on your system.

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📅 July 2, 2020

A Better TLDR

An upgraded TLDR experience

A couple of weeks ago I showed you a few awesome man pages alternatives. One of them is TLDR. Today we’re going to upgrade the TLDR experience with TLDR++.

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