Tag Archives: Tech Blog

I recently encountered a problem with images appearing rotated whilst updating the latest posting in the How Writers Write feature on this WordPress powered website.

The images looked fine whilst I was editing the page, but when previewed they appeared rotated.

Searching online showed this to be a known problem, all to do with EXIF data. You can read more about EXIF data by following this link to How-To Geek

The WordPress problem seems to be that the images are recorded with one orientation and then displayed with the rotation stored in the EXIF data added to them.

The easiest way I’ve found to get the images displaying properly is to first strip the EXIF data and then to rotate them appropriately before uploading. There are instructions on the How-To Geek link above on how to strip EXIF data in Windows.

It’s a lot simpler in Ubuntu or similar.

First, install exiftool

sudo aptitude install exiftool

Exiftool allows you to look at the EXIF data in an image as follows

exiftool someImage.jpg

We want the data stripped. Copy your images to a directory (I just copy them to my pristine desktop) and then run the following command

me@comp:~/Desktop$ exiftool -all= -overwrite_original -ext jpg .

And that’s it. Time for a cup of tea.

1. The Linux Filesystem Hierarchy is a logical, sensible structure

It’s not. It’s something that has been cobbled together in an attempt to unify diverging practices. In an age of terabyte hard drives its easy to forget a time when you were limited to just a couple of floppy drives for storage and had to store programs across different locations.

That’s why program files today are stored in /usr and /opt. And /usr/local. And /usr/bin and /usr/sbin. Oh and /bin and /sbin. When you can’t store everything in one place, you have to make (sometimes artificial) distinctions between where things go. Remember a time when you used to boot up a computer with one floppy, then put in a second floppy with an application program, then a third floppy with data files?

Someone designing a directory structure in a world where terabyte HDDs are the norm might be persuaded it was a good idea to keep bootup files separate in /bin. But /usr/sbin? /opt? I don’t think so.

Have a look at Gobolinux http://www.gobolinux.org/ As they say

GoboLinux is an alternative Linux distribution which redefines the entire filesystem hierarchy.

If you want to know what goes where, there’s a nice overview of the Linux Directory Structure here: http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/usersguide/linux_ugfilestruct.html

2. Bash is just like the Windows shell, except with different commands

Here’s a simple test. How do you use the ls command to list directories only?

Checking the man page, it’s obviously ls -d, right?

Wrong.

Do a Google search on linux list directories only and you’ll find a lot of people making the same mistake. It all comes down to failing to realise that its Bash that’s expanding the * wildcard, and not the ls command itself.

If you’re going to use Bash, you’re going to have to take a little time to read up on how it works. This is a great site: http://linuxcommand.org/

(My preferred method is ls -d */, btw.)

3. The .exe files are in there somewhere

It’s easy to accept that file extensions aren’t necessary in Linux, but it’s hard to shake the idea that something like exe files are still lurking in there somewhere, albeit under different names.

Not really. Linux is far, far more modular than Windows. This is down to the philosophy on which the system is built: programs tools chain their input and output to produce results. A typical Windows application is a flat pack wardrobe, something that solves one problem. A typical Linux application has been formed from many parts using the equivalent of saws, hammers, screwdrivers and chisels.

As an example, a GUI based program that would be a single exe file in Windows would typically be a graphic interface to command line utility in Linux. In terms of user experience, there should be no difference, but behind the scenes, things are very different.

4. Linux is faster/uses less resources than Windows

That may have been true back in the Windows Vista Bloatware days, and it may be true for lightweight distros like Puppy Linux http://puppylinux.org/ and Damn Small Linux http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/, but its not so true now.

Windows 8 may have the worst user interface ever devised, but it installs quickly, loads quickly and runs quickly, matching if not beating systems like Ubuntu 14.04 in benchmark tests.

Why mention Ubuntu 14.04? Well, that leads onto the next point…

5. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, so long as it works

It does.

It really, really matters.

You might do everything via the command line. You might think that Openbox is all you need as far as desktop management goes, but you’re in a minority.

If you’re the only person using your computer, then fine, but if your less technologically inclined partner, friends, parents or children are relying on you to provide the IT then all of a sudden looks really matter.

Of course they does. In a world slowly being taken over by Apple this is so obvious it shouldn’t need saying.

The command line is fantastic, lxde is a miracle of economy, damn small linux is damn fine, but they’re not what most people regard as a solution. What most people want is something that looks good and is so easy to use they don’t even have to think about it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t care how my shirts are made as long as they look smart and feel comfortable. Most people feel the same way about their computer.

I’ve just changed the hosting for my websites. I’ve been meaning to do it for a couple of years now, but there are always other things to do. Add to that the worry that there are so many services dependent upon the hosting provider its no surprise that I ended up staying where I was, paying over the odds for a declining service.

That’s the modern business model, get you tied down to so many different services you find it harder and harder to move. That’s why Apple and Google like to make themselves so indispensable to all the different parts of your life. That’s why people hate to move banks: they’re worried about the fuss of changing all their standing orders. Well, I moved banks in the mid 90’s, and once I’d done it I realised how easy it was to do it a second time. Once you become aware of how something works you become free to uproot and move somewhere better. People accept second best because they’re afraid to move on. They’re afraid because they don’t know how.

That’s my view, at least.

Vincent Deary writes far more convincingly on why people find it so difficult to change in his book How We Are (How to Live Trilogy 1).

Vincent Deary is a health psychologist, but don’t hold that against him. He’s written a quietly literary book that meanders through an impressive range of sources and references on just why people are creatures of habit. From urban planners to Terry Pratchett, from Primo Levi to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this is a book packed full of small revelations that unite to form an oddly positive and refreshingly different perspective on what it is to be human.

As for the new webhosting… Well, so far it’s very, very good indeed. So good I’m thinking of giving them a mention on my tech site.