Holidays are great reasons to give and receive gifts from loved ones. At some point, we may give (or receive) gifts that are not considered as normal by some people’s standards. Cars are expensive and usually, these were given as graduation or wedding gifts, but for me, cars are in the range of being normal.

There are gifts that I consider as “extra special” in a way that they make the recipient happy in a long time. These gifts are not just there for their physical value, but they help boost someone’s confidence and self-esteem. What I am talking about here is the gift of cosmetic surgery.

Cosmetic surgeries have evolved so fast these past few years, and I am amazed by how much the technology used in cosmetic surgeries has grown. MYA.co.uk offers procedures like breast reduction UK uses state-of-the-art techniques and equipment and their experts offer free consultation for those who want to feel sexier and healthier. Other procedures are also offered, depending on the patient’s needs like breast reduction which reduces the size of the breasts for a more perky breasts and alleviate pain in the lower back due to heavy chest.

There procedures are guaranteed safe and performed only by certified medical professionals, and the patient’s privacy is held with utmost confidentiality.

Popularity: 2% [?]

There some scripts that need human interaction from time to time from confirming certain actions or to warn users that they are about to do something stupid ( “ rm -rf / “, perhaps?). In any case, putting a pause break in a Bash script is a very nifty trick to learn.

This is an example of how to use the Bash built-in command read to put pauses in scripts:

#!/bin/bash

find /home -type f -name "*.txt"
read -p "Press [enter] key to delete *.txt files in /home or CTRL+C to exit”
find /home -type f -name “*.txt” | xargs rm -v

This example script will run the find command and display the results. If user presses the Enter key, the script will remove all files that were found, while pressing CTRL+C will terminate the script.

Here is another variation of the the script:

#!/bin/bash

find /home -type f -name "*.txt"
echo "Press [enter] key to delete *.txt files in /home or CTRL+C to exit”
read contscr
find /home -type f -name “*.txt” | xargs rm -v

Popularity: 5% [?]

There are a lot of gift ideas for this holiday. It is a tradition that during this time of the year, we give gifts to families and friends and make amends to enemies. But where does the tradition of gift-giving began? Looking back at the history of gift giving, during the birth of Jesus Christ, three wise men traveled afar to visit the young Jesus. Caspar, Balthasar and  Melchior bought gifts of myrrh, gold and frankincense, each representing the lands from where the wise men came and how it will help the child Jesus on His way to saving the mankind.

Today, gifts vary from a simple greeting card, to elaborate and expensive goods like cars. Personally, I keep it simple. A dinner with my family and friends on the Christmas eve is more than enough for me, but still, there are plenty of gifts for everyone.

Radical gift ideas are also the “in” thing today, ranging from geeky ideas like life-size toys, and electronic gadgets like radar gun for a baseball junkies, PSP for soon-to-be-geeks, LCD TV for couch potatoes, and my personal favorite, laptops for young working professionals.

Whatever gift we give and receive this holiday season, we should not forget that it is the thought that comes with the gift that always counts.

Popularity: 3% [?]

*This holiday cheer greeting image was made using GIMP, an open-source image manipulation program.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Okay, for the first time in my life, I am going to create a list of what I want for Christmas. I have never created one, and I am not so very good at asking people for anything either. When someone asks me what I want for Christmas, I always tell them “kahit ano” (means “anything” in English). Here goes my list what I want to see in my Christmas stocking:

15. Harry Potter Book Set (Books 1-7)
14. Pancake House’s Spaghetti and Steak Recipe
13. Tabi socks
12. RHCE stuff (shirt, jacket, sticker, mug or whatever)
11. Someone who wants to do my laundry for a day
10. One freezer full of Nestle Yogurt Ice Cream (Strawberry, please!)
9. Starbucks Mug and Tumbler, one for each
8. One sack of kittie litter for my obnoxious cat who always pee on the door
7. Someone who wants to pay my water bill for December at his/her own expense (I forgot to pay my water bill )
6. A penguin plush doll
5. Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden Manga Set (not necessarily translated to English)
4. A dinner date with an American boss from my workplace (no hints!)
3. One month pass in any Fitness First gym within Metro Manila
2. Nikon D60 camera, with or without extra accessories
1. Tickets for a one-week trip for 2 to any Disneyland Park

There you go. It’s not a very long list but it is what I conjure up for now. Maybe I’ll add more.

Merry Christmas!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Here is little nifty code I found to snip or remove duplicate lines in a file using Perl. An example of a file that has duplicate lines looks like this:

/home/index.php
/home/links.php
/home/index.php

The result we want to achieve is this:

/home/index.php
/home/links.php

And here goes the code:

$ftmp = 'file.txt';
my %match = ();
{
local @ARGV = ($ftmp);
local $^I = '.tmp';
while(<>){
$match{$_}++;
next if $match{$_} > 1;
print;
}
}

The original file, file.txt, has its duplicate lines removed.

Popularity: 5% [?]

I just renewed my Pinoytux.com domain this month. Time flies by so fast, PinoyTux.com is now officially 2 years old! And while the domains gets older, my webhosting choices kept changing for the nth time. Hopefully this time, I stay with my current hosting provider.

I am still crossing my fingers that I will not encounter issues with my provider. It is so difficult to find a suitable provider among all these scammers all over the web. These so-called cheap web hosting providers give you tempting deals but in the end, you will end paying more. So before you go head-first into building your first website, do your research. It is tiring and confusing but learning won’t hurt you.

One website that I have found when it comes to helping people in finding the right web hosting provider is Web Hosting Report, a site that provides readers with web site reviews and promos. The site is very friendly and easy on the eyes, which is very important if you are already tired of browsing countless of websites. Web Hosting Report also provides web hosting guides and tips for newbies to help them find the right provider.

If you are searching for a web hosting provider, well, good luck!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Boo-yah!

With over a year in providing useful Linux tips and what-not to all people around the world, Pinoy Tux reaches 50,000 visits.

To those who are consistent readers of my blog, and those who use Pinoy Tux as Linux reference, I thank you for your support.

Popularity: 6% [?]

For most people, debt is like an evil that you should avoid at all times. Well, that is mostly true, if you have enough savings to help you go through difficult times, like an untimely death of a family member. Otherwise, we are forced to have debts in order to save us from financial troubles, which are not bad in times of emergencies.

And with limits on the amount that can borrowed in financial institutions, some even have multiple debt accounts. This is not a good situation to be in considering there are more than one interest that are being carried over to the original amount borrowed. This also make paying the debt difficult to do. And with more people losing their jobs in United States, more and more people are neck-deep in debt.

Debt consolidation should be considered well before any more money is wasted because of paying the interests. There are some sites that help people consolidate their loans. And what are the benefits of consolidating debts? One advantage is it lowers the total amount of interest, making the total amount of debt lower. It also makes paying easier and faster since there is only one account being paid.

Debt is a double-edged sword, it helps you when you need it, but will get you in trouble if you get in too much debt.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I just found out that Fedora 10 is available for download.

In a nutshell, Fedora 10 has these changes from its predecessor, Fedora 9:

• Wireless connection sharing enables ad hoc network sharing
• Better setup and use of printers through improved management tools
• Virtualization storage provisioning for local and remote connections now simplified
• SecTool is a new security audit and intrusion detection system
• RPM 4.6 is a major update to the powerful, flexible software management libraries
• Glitch free audio and better performance is achieved through a rewrite of the PulseAudio sound server to use timer-based audio scheduling
• Improved webcam support
• Better support for infrared remote controls makes them easier to connect and work with many applications
• The paths /usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin have been added to the PATH for normal users, to simplify command-line administration tasks

Just to let you know, I am still stuck with Fedora Core 6. I would *love* to upgrade to higher version, I just can’t find a server large enough to fit my backup files in.

Popularity: 8% [?]