[Sat Sep 19 13:56:11 CDT 2015]

I just had to install Skype on Debian Linux and, to my surprise, it was pretty easy. All I had to do was to follow these instructions from the Debian Wiki. I also thought I might search for a way to run WhatsApp from my computer and, also to my surprise, found this other document from Softpedia telling me how to run it over the Web using a Chrome browser. Again, it worked just fine. Apparently, there is also a way to run it using an Android emulator, but why bother if the web-based app works fine? {link to this entry}

[Wed Sep 16 08:51:32 CDT 2015]

If, like me, you are an old Linux user, you may still resort to manually editing the shadow file to add an asterisk in the password field in order to lock a user account. However, over time, new ways to perform the same activity have been added to the different command tools that make more sense, I think. This document succintly explains how to do it. As you can see, there are many choices, but perhaps the following is the easiest one:

# passwd -l [user]

However, notice that, as the man page for the passwd indicates, this simply adds a "!" to the beginning of the password field and it does not truly disable the account per se. The user may still be able to log in using a different authentication token like, for example, an SSH key. In order to truly disable the account you are better off running the following command:

# usermod --expiredate 1 [user]

{link to this entry}

[Tue Sep 15 15:52:06 CDT 2015]

If you need to learn a bit about systemd on Debian jessie, here is a quick tutorial. To be honest, I don't think it's as bad as people make it sound. Yes, it's different than the old System V init, and what? Overall, I'm convinced the change is for the better. We just have to get used to it. That's all. {link to this entry}

[Tue Sep 1 20:09:49 CDT 2015]

If you are one of the many users who don't truly like the way GNOME 3 handles the Alt-Tab keystroke to switch between windows (it does it the same way as the Mac OS X), just install or enable the AlternateTab shell extension by fmuellner. I truly don't remember now if it came preinstalled with Debian 8 or I had to install it, but it works just fine. It behaves the same way the old GNOME did in that respect. {link to this entry}