Kazam Screencaster Gets Webcam And YouTube Live Support, On-Screen Mouse Click And Keyboard Indicator

http://www.webupd8.org/2014/08/kazam-screencaster-gets-webcam-and.html

Kazam is a GStreamer-based screen recording and screenshot tool for Linux. The application supports recording the entire screen (with multi-monitor support), a window or an area and features:

• customizable framerate;
• option to show/hide the mouse when recording;
• record sound from speakers and/or microphone;
• keyboard shortcuts;
• configurable delay before capturing;
• automatic file saving;
• supports mp4 (H264), webm (VP8) and avi (RAW, HUFFYUV and lossless JPEG) video formats.

Kazam 1.5.3 was released recently and it includes some very useful new features:

• support for webcams: it can record just the webcam or it can display the webcam in a window on top of the screencast;
• support for broadcasting to YouTube Live;
• added on-screen keyboard indicator and mouse click indicator;
• new countdown timer.

 Here are a few screenshots with some of these changes:

Kazam mouse click indicator



On-screen keyboard indicator (notice "Alt Tab" under the Nemo window)

 

Kazam webcam options

YouTube Live options

Kazam demo 

Below you can watch a Kazam demo screencast recorded using the latest Kazam:

 (direct video link; for more videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel)

Install Kazam Screencaster in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

Kazam is available in the official Ubuntu repositories, but it's an old version so it doesn't have the new features mentioned in this article. To get the latest Kazam in Ubuntu or Linux Mint (and derivatives), you can use a PPA.

To add the PPA and install Kazam Screencaster, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kazam-team/unstable-series
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install kazam python3-cairo python3-xlib

For other Linux distributions, grab the latest Kazam (unstable branch) from HERE (BZR).

 

Report any bugs you may find @ Launchpad.

The Most Popular and Useful Google Scripts

http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-scripts/28281/

Google Scripts offer programmatic access to most Google products including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Analytics, Google Contacts, Calendar, Maps and Google Analytics. The Google scripts are written in regular JavaScript language and they are hosted on Google’s servers.

Most Useful Google Apps Scripts

Here’s an always-updated collection of Google Scripts that will help you do more with your favorite Google products. And you don’t have to be programmer to use any of these scripts.

1. Files Permissions Explorer – See who has access to your shared files and folders in Google Drive and whether they view or edit permissions.
2. Google Form File Uploads – You can receive files directly in your Google Drive from anyone through HTML forms created with HTMLService.
3. Mail Merge with Gmail – Send personalized email messages to your contacts using the Gmail Merge add-on.
4. Send to Google Drive – You can save your Email and Gmail attachments directly to Google Drive with the Save Emails add-on.
5. Retweet & Favorite Bot – Another Twitter bot written in Google Scripts that will auto-retweet matching tweets.
6. Gmail Autoresponder – Reply to one or more email messages in your Gmail using pre-written email templates.
7. Website Uptime Monitor – Receive instant email and SMS alerts when your websites goes down. You can monitor all your web domains for free.
8. Amazon Price Tracker – Keep track of prices of your favorite products on Amazon and get email alerts when the prices go down or up.
9. Gmail Unsubscriber – Automatically unsubscribe your email address from mailing lists and bulk emails.
10. Read Receipts in Gmail – Use Apps Script and Google Analytics to track your outgoing Gmail messages and get notified when people open and read your email.
11. Advanced Gmail Filters – Have more control over the criteria for sorting incoming messages in your Gmail.
12. Send Google Spreadsheets as PDF – You can setup a recurring task that will convert your spreadsheet to PDF and email to specific recipients as per schedule.
13. Download Tweets Permanently – specify any hashtag and the script will download and save all matching tweets to a spreadsheet.
14. Schedule Gmail Emails – You can write the emails now and send them later at any date and time with Apps Script and Google Sheets.
15. Sell Digital Products Online – Use a combination of PayPal and Google Drive to setup your own digital shop online.
16. Save Google Voicemails as MP3 – The web app will automatically copy the MP3 of your Google voice mail messages from Gmail to Google Drive.
17. Gravity Forms to Google Sheets – Write a Google Script that will save your Gravity WordPress form entries to a Google Spreadsheet without Zapier.
18. Gmail Encrypt – You can encrypt your outgoing Gmail messages using the powerful AES encryption and no one will be able to snoop your private conversations.
19. 1-click Website Hosting – Use this Google Script to host your websites, images, podcasts and other media files on Google Drive with one click.
20. Google Web Scraping – Import Google Search results into a Google Spreadsheet with the ImportXML function for analysis or export them in other formats.
21. Flipkart & Snapdeal Price Tracker – Monitor and compare prices of items listed on Flipkart and Snapdeal and get price alerts via email.
22. Bullk Tweets & DMs – You can send personlized tweets and Direct Messages in bulk to Twitter users from a Google Spreadsheet.
23. Save Gmail Images – The script monitors your Gmail mailbox and will auto-save any image attachments to your Google Drive.
24. Sort Gmail by Size – Is your Gmail mailbox running out of space. The scripts will determine all the bulky messages in your Gmail mailbox.
25. Bulk Forward Gmail – The auto-forward feature in Gmail only works on incoming messages but our bulk forward script can forward even older email to your other email addresses.
26. Update Google Contacts –  See how your friends and family members can directly add or update their own contact information into your Google address book.
27. Google Contacts Map – The Google Script will plot the postal address of your Google Contacts on a Google Map. You can also export this data as a KML file for Google Earth.
28. Email Form Data –  Google Forms are the best tool for creating online polls and surveys. The script will email you the entire form data as soon as someone submits the form.
29. Auto Confirmation Emails – Send confirmation emails to the user’s email address after they submit a Google Form.
30. Schedule Google Forms – Set an expiration date for your Google Form and they’ll close automatically at a certain date.
31. Twitter Bot – Learn how to write your own Twitter bot that auto-responds to tweets. This particular bot queries Wolfram Alpha to answer queries.
32. WordPress Authentication with Google Scripts – Put anything behind a WordPress login be it a link to download a document from Google Drive or a web app created in Google Apps Script.
33. Twitter Out-of-Office –  You can create out-of-office automatic replies for people who are trying to reach you via Twitter and they wouldn’t expect a response from you right away.
34. SMS Alerts for Gmail – You can receive SMS text alerts for important incoming messages in your Gmail by connecting your mailbox with a private Twitter account.
35. Extract Email Addresses – The script scans your mailbox and creates a list of email addresses of people who have previously communicated with you.  Useful for building your email marketing lists.
36. Transfer Gmail – Moving to a different email address? The script will automatically copy all your email messages from your old Gmail inbox to another mailbox that could be on any web service.
37. Reminder for starred messages – Get a daily digest with a list of messages that you have “Starred” in your Gmail mailbox and may want to follow up on them.
38. Advanced Gmail Search – Gmail supports a variety of search commands but now you can also use Regular Expressions for searching messages on Gmail.
39. Twitter RSS Feeds – Twitter no longer provides RSS feeds but you can use Google Apps Script to create your own feeds for Twitter timelines, searches and lists.
40. Google+ RSS Feeds – This Apps Script based Chrome add-on will help you generate RSS feeds for any Google Plus user or even search results. Written by Eric Koleda.
41. Translate RSS – You can translate foreign language RSS feeds into your native language with Google Scripts and subscribe to them in your favorite news reader.
42. Gmail Label Feeder –  Create a RSS feed for any of your Gmail labels that you can later feed into Evernote, Pocket, etc. through IFTTT. Written by Martin Hawksey.
43. Gmail Meter – The script will help you analyze how you use Gmail and generates statistics like how much email you send, average length of messages, turn-around time, etc. Written by Romain Vialard.
44. Gmail Delay Send – While there are browser add-ons that let you schedule emailsin Gmail, the script is easier, safer and your messages will be delivered on a specified date and time. Written by Blair Kutzman.
45. Gmail Snooze – When you snooze an email, it disappears from view but reappears in the inbox at some specified time in the future. Written by Corey Goldfeder.
46. Gmail Auto Purge –  Similar to auto-sweep in Outlook, the script will automatically delete older email messages from specific senders after a certain period of time.
47. Gmail Clean-up – Create time-based filters in Gmail that will automatically move, archive or even delete all messages from any particular Gmail label that are older than “n” days. Written by John E. Day.
48. Save Gmail as PDF – The script will save the body of an email message as a PDF file. You can optionally send the converted PDF to your email address.
49. Instagram Downloads – Download photos belonging to specific tags from Instagram to your Google Drive with Apps Script. Written by Waqar Ahmad.
50. GDocs2MD – The script will convert your Google Drive documents into the popular Markdown (.md) format that can be imported into several publishing platforms. Written by Renato Mangini.
51. Gmail NoResponse – It tracks your email messages in Gmail that are awaiting response and where you may want to send a follow-up mail. Written by Jonathan Kim
52. Force Password Change – If you are an admin of a Google Apps domain, use this script to force all your domain users to change their passwords. Written by Waqar Ahmad.
53. Text Browser – A Lynx-inspired browser that lets you browse the web in text and is written using Apps Script. The browser can also be used as a proxy server for reading web content.
54. Self-destructive Messages – Send confidential messages inside a Google Sheet and the message will disappear after it has been read.
55. Auto-Expire Shared Folders – You can set an expiry date for your shared folders in Google Drive and the shared links will automatically expire at the specified date and time.
56. Reddit Scraper – Use the Reddit API with Google Scripts to download all posts from any Reddit to your Google sheet.

How to Sort Gmail Messages by Size

http://www.labnol.org/internet/sort-gmail-by-size/21191/

What do you do when your Gmail account storage is nearly full? You can either purchase additional storage space from Google – they charge $5 per year for 20 GB – or a cheaper alternative would be that you scan your Gmail mailbox for messages that contain large file attachments and delete (or forward) all the bigger messages and recover precious space.

The problem is how do you find these bulky messages in your mailbox when Gmail doesn’t offer an option to sort and filter messages by size?

Sort GMail Messages by Attachment Size

What we use is a simple Google Sheet that connects to Gmail, computes the size of individual messages and lists the bulky ones (size > 1MB) in the same Sheet. Here’s how you can get started:

1. Create a copy of the Gmail Sort Google Sheet in your Google Drive.
2. Click Scan Mailbox under the Gmail menu and authorize to let the script access your Gmail Inbox. It is an open-source Gmail Script that runs in your own Drive.

Sit back and relax as the script will pull the message list in the sheet. If the process stops for some reason, click Scan Mailbox again and the script will resume scanning from where it left off.

Once the sheet has a list of all the bulky message, you can sort the sheet by theSize column to find the big ones. Or use the Filter option (the Funnel icon) to find messages that are within a particular range (5 MB < size < 10 MB). Click the “View” link to open the corresponding message in Gmail, bulk auto-forward the big email to another email address or use the Save Emails add-on to download the big emails and attachments to your Google Drive.

Troubleshooting tips: If you get an error that says “Service invoked too many times for one day” or “Exceeded maximum execution time”, you may want to wait for some time before re-running the program. These are Google Apps Script limits to prevent abuse.

Awesome Google Scripts → Custom Google Scripts →

Sort Gmail Messages by Size with a trigger

If your Gmail mailbox is large, you can also set up a time-driven trigger to let the script run automatically without manual intervention. In this case, you can even close the browser tab and the script will run in the background. Here’s how:

1. While the Google sheet is open, go to Tools -> Script Editor. On the next screen, choose Resources -> Current Script Triggers.
2. Click “Add a New Trigger,” change the Event from “Spreadsheet” to “Time Driven” and set a minutes timer that triggers every 10 minutes.
3. Save the trigger, authorize the script if it requires and close the sheet.

12 Open Source Cloud Storage Software to Store and Sync Your Data Quickly and Safely

http://www.tecmint.com/free-open-source-cloud-storage-tools-for-linux/

Cloud by name indicates something which is very huge and present over a large area. Going by the name, in technical field, Cloud is something which is virtual and provides services to end users in form of storage, hosting of apps or virtualizing any physical space. Now a days, Cloud computing is used by small as well as large organizations for data storage or providing customers with its advantages which are listed above.

                                    12 Free Open Source Cloud Storage Software’s

Mainly, three types of Services come associated with Cloud which are: SaaS (Software as a Service) for allowing users to access other publically available clouds of large organizations for storing their data like: gmail, PaaS (Platform as a Service) for hosting of apps or software on Others public cloud ex: Google App Engine which hosts apps of users, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) for virtualizing any physical machine and availing it to customers to make them get feel of a real machine.

Cloud Storage

Cloud Storage means storage of data away from users local system and across the span of dedicated servers which are meant for this. At its earliest, CompuServe in 1983 offered its customers 128k of disk space which could be used to store files. Whereas this field is under active development and will be because of potential threats including: loss of data or information, data hacking or masquerading and other attacks, many organizations have come forward with their own solutions to Cloud Storage and Data Privacy which is strengthening and stabilizing its future.

In this article, we will present some of selected contributions for this concern which are open source and successfully being accepted by huge masses and big organizations.

1. OwnCloud

A Dropbox replacement for Linux users, giving many functionalities which are similar to that of DropBox, ownCloud is a self-hosted file sync and share server.

Its open source functionality provides users with access to unlimited amount of storage space. Project started in January 2010 with aim to provide open source replacement for proprietary cloud storage service providers. It is written in PHP, JavaScript and available for Windows, Linux, OS X desktops and even successfully provides mobile clients for Android and iOS.

OwnCloud employs WebDav server for remote access and can integrate with large number of Databases including: SQLite, MariaDB, MySQL, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL.

Provides large number of features countable of which include: File storage and encryption, Music Streaming, content sharing across URL’s, Mozilla sync hosting and RSS/Atom feed reader, one-click app installation, Video and PDF viewer and many more.

The latest version of ownCloud i.e. 8.2 adds on other new features including: improved design, allows admin to notify users and set retention limits on files in the trash.

                                                                             OwnCloud

Read More: Install OwnCloud 8 to Create Personal Cloud Storage in Linux

2. Seafile

Another file hosting software system which exploits open source property to avail its users with all advantages they expect from a good cloud storage software system. It is written in C, Python with latest stable release being 4.4.3 released on 15th October 2015.

Seafile provides desktop client for Windows, Linux, and OS X and mobile clients for Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Along with a community edition released under General Public License, it also has a professional edition released under commercial license which provides extra features not supported in community edition i.e. user logging and text search.

Since it got open sourced in July 2012, it started gaining international attention. Its main features are syncing and sharing with main focus on data safety. Other features of Seafile which have made it common in many universities like: University Mainz, University HU Berlin and University Strasbourg and also among other thousands of people worldwide are: online file editing, differential sync to minimize the bandwidth required, client-side encryption to secure client data.

                                                                Seafile Cloud Storage

Read More: Install Seafile Secure Cloud Storage in Linux

3. Pydio

Earlier known by the name AjaXplorer, Pydio is a freeware aiming to provide file hosting, sharing and syncing. As a project it was initiated in 2009 by Charles du jeu and since 2010, it is on all NAS equipment’s supplied by LaCie.

Pydio is written in PHP and JavaScript and available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux and additionally for iOS and Android also. With nearly 500,000 downloads on Sourceforge, and acceptance by companies like Red Hat and Oracle, Pydio is one of the very popular Cloud Storage Software in the market.

In itself, Pydio is just a core which runs on a web server and can be accessed through any browser. Its integrated WebDAV interface makes it ideal for online file management and SSL/TLS encryption makes transmission channels encrypted securing the data and ensuring its privacy. Other features which come with this software are: text editor with syntax highlighting, audio and video playback, integration of Amazon, S3, FTP or MySQL Databases, image editor, file or folder sharing even through public URL’s.

                                                                  Pydio Cloud Storage

4. Ceph

Ceph was initially started by Sage Well for his doctoral dissertation, and in fall 2007 he continued on this project full time and expanded the development team. In April 2014 Red Hat brought its development in-house. Till now 8 releases of Ceph have been released latest being Hammer in April 7, 2015. Ceph is a distributed cluster written in C++ and Perl and highly scalable and freely available.

Data can be populated in Ceph as block device, a file or in form Object through RADOS gateway which can present support for Amazon S3 and Openstack Swift API’s. Apart from being secure in terms of data, Scalable and reliable, other features provided by Ceph are:

1. network file system which aims for high performance and large data storage.
2. compatibility to VM clients.
3. allowance of partial/complete reads/ writes.
4. object level mappings.

                                                                    Ceph Storage

5. Syncany

Released in about an year ago in near March 2014, Syncany is one of the lightest and open source cloud storage and file sharing application. It is currently being actively developed by Philipp C. Heckel and as of today, is available as a command line tool for all supported platforms, but GUI version is under active development.

One of the most important feature about Syncany is that it is a tool and requires you to bring in your own storage, which can be FTP or SFTP storage, WebDAV or Samba Shares, Amazon S3 buckets etc.

Other features which make it an awesome tool to have are: 128-bit AES+Twofish/GCM encryption for all the data leaving the local machine, file sharing support with which you can share your files with your friends, offsite storage as chosen by user instead of provider-based storage, interval-based or on-demand backups, binary compatible file versioning, local deduplication of files. It can be more advantageous for companies who want to use their own storage space rather trusting some providers provided storage.

                                                                    Syncany Cloud Storage

6. Cozy

Not just a file sharing or synchronization tool or software, Cozy is bundled as a complete package of functions that can help you build your complete App Engine.

Like Syncany, Cozy provides flexibility to user in terms of storage space. You can either use your own personal storage or trust Cozy team’s servers. It relies on some open source software’s for its complete functioning which are: CouchDB for Database storage and Whoosh for indexing. It is available for all platforms including smartphones.

Main features which make it a must to have Cloud storage software are: ability to store all the Contacts, Files, Calendar, etc in the Cloud and sync them between laptop and smartphone, provides ability to user to create his own apps and share them with other users by just sharing Git URL of the repository, hosting static websites or HTML5 video game consoles.

As a step further to provide its availability even for cheap hardware’s, Cozy team has introduced Cozy Light which performs well even on cheap hardware’s like: Rasberry Pi, small Digital Ocean VPS etc.

                                                                 Cozy Cloud Storage

7. GlusterFS

GlusterFS is a network attached file storage system. Initially, started by Gluster Inc., this project is now under Red Hat Inc. After their purchase of Gluster Inc in 2011. Red Hat integrated Gluster FS with their Red Hat Storage Server changing its name to Red Hat Gluster Storage. It is available for platforms including Linux, OS X, NetBSd and OpenSolaris with some of its parts licensed under GPLv3 while others dual licensed under GPLv2. It has been used as a foundation for academic research.

GlusterFs uses a client-server model with servers being deployed as storage bricks. Client can connect to server with custom protocol over TCP/IP, Infiband or SDP and store files to the GlusterFs server. Various functionalities being employed by it over the files are: file-based mirroring and replication, file-based stripping, load balancing, scheduling and disk caching to name a few.

Other very useful feature of it is that it is flexible i.e. data here is stored on native file systems like: xfs, ext4 etc.

                                                          GlusterFS Storage

Read More: How to Install GlusterFS in Linux Systems

8. StackSync

StackSync is a Dropbox like tool running on top of OpenStack swift which is specially designed to tackle the needs of organizations to sync their data at one place. It us written in Java and released under GNU General public license v3.

Its framework is composed of three main components: a synchronization server, Openstack swift, desktop & mobile clients. While the server processes metadata and logic, Openstack is focused on storing the metadata while desktop and mobile clients help users sync their data to their personal cloud.

StackSync employs various data optimizations that allow it to scale to cater the needs of thousands of people with efficient use of cloud resources. Its other features are: provision of RESTful API as a Swift module which allows mobile apps and other third party applications to use it to sync data, separation between data and metadata which makes it flexible for deployment based on different configurations, provides both Public configuration which is useful for Public Cloud providers and Private configuration which solves the problems of big organizations aiming for a better cloud storage solution.

                                                           StackSync Cloud Storage

9. Git-annex

Git-annex is another file synchronization service developed by Joey Hess, released in October 2010 which also aims to solve file sharing and synchronization problems but independent of any commercial service or central server. It is written in Haskell and available for Linux, Android, OS X and Windows.

Git-annex manages the git repository of the user without storing the session into git again. But instead it stores only the linking to the file in the git repository and manages the files associated to the link at a separate place. It ensures the duplicacy of file which is needed in case recovery of lost information is required.

Further, it ensures availability of file data instantly as and when required which prevents files to present on each system. This reduces a lot of memory overhead. Notably, git-annex is available on various Linux distributions including: Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian etc.

                                                                       Git-Annex

10. Yandex.Disk

Yandex.Disk is a cloud storage and synchronization service released in April 2012 and available on all major platforms including: Linux, Windows, OS X, Android, iOS and Windows Phone. It allows users to synchronize data between different devices and share it with others online.

Various features provided by Yandex.Disk to its users are: built-in flash player that lets people preview songs, sharing of files with others by sharing download links, synchronization of files between different devices of same user, unlimited storage, WebDAV support allowing easy management of files by any application supporting WebDAV protocol.

                                                                    Yandex-Disk

11. Bitcasa

Developed by Bitcasa Inc. Which is a California Based company, Bitcasa is yet another solution for open source Cloud Storage and synchronization available for Windows, OS X, Android and Linux. Not directly an open source software, but it is still a part of Open Source community as it uses those software’s of which many are open sourced like: gcc/clang, libCurl, OpenSSL, APR, Rapid JSON etc.

With main features being file storage, access and sharing other features which make it popular among customers across more than 140 countries worldwide are: its convergent encryption protocol which is mostly safe but with less risks associated with it as reported by an article, provision of secure API’s and white label storage applications for OEM’s, network operators and software developers.

                                                                     Bitcasa Storage

12. NAS4Free

NAS is acronym for ‘Network Attached Storage‘ and ‘4Free‘ indicates its free and open source nature. NAS4Free released under this name in March 2012. It is a network attached storage server software with a user interface written in PHP and released under Simplified BSD License. It supports platforms including i386/IA-32 and x86-64.

NAS4Free supports sharing across multiple Operating Systems. It also includes ZFS, disk encryption etc with protocols such as: Samba, CARP, Bridge, FTP, RSYNC, TFTP, NFS. Unlike other software’s, NAS4Free can be installed and operated from USB/ SSD Key, Hard Disk or can even be booted from LiveCD, LiveUSB with small USB key for config storage. NAS4Free has won awards including Project of month (August 2015) and Project of the week (May 2015).

                                                            NAS4Free Network Storage

Conclusion

These are some known Open Source Cloud storage and synchronization software’s which have either gained a lot of popularity over the years or have just been able to enter and make their mark in this industry with a long way to go. You can share any software that you or your organization might be using and we will be listing that with this list.

OwnCloud 8 Released – Create Personal/Private Cloud Storage in Linux

http://www.tecmint.com/install-owncloud-to-create-personal-storage-in-linux/

Cloud storage stands for virtualised pool of network storage most commonly hosted by third parties. Cloud storage is a network-based service which physically do not exist but remains somewhere in the cloud. To be more clear, cloud storage means sharing data over network, rather than having local servers or personal device.
Cloud storage is all around us in our smart phones, on desktops and servers etc. The Dropbox application which is now available on smart phone is nothing but cloud storage application. Google Drive is another cloud storage application which lets you store and access your stored data from anywhere and anytime.
This article aims at – Building your personal cloud storage using ownCloud application. But what is the need of building personal cloud when there are third party hosting. Well all the third party hosting limits you to work with the given configuration and storage limit. With the ever expanding list of photos, videos, mp3’s of storage is not sufficient, moreover cloud storage is a relatively new concept and there are not many third party cloud storage host and the available one is too much costly.
ownCloud community has recently released their special release ownCloud 8. They have come up with incredible changes in terms of quality, performance and innovations to provide excellent cloud experience with “ownCloud“. If you are already working with its older version, you’ll definitely experience significant improvements in Document handling.

What is ownCloud

ownCloud is a free, open-source and powerful web application for data synchronization, file sharing, and remote storage of files. ownCloud is written in PHP/JavaScript languages. It is designed to work with several database management systems, including MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, Oracle Database, and PostgreSQL. Moreover owncloud can be deployed on all known platforms viz., Linux, Macintosh, Windows and Android. In short it’s a robust, platform Independent, flexible in terms of configuration and usability, easy-to-use open source Application.

Install Owncloud in Linux

Features of owncloud

1. Store files, folders, contacts, photo galleries, calendar, etc on the server of your choice, Later you can access it from mobile, desktop, or web browser.
2. In the world of gadgets, a normal person have tablet, smart phone, laptop, etc. Own cloud lets you sync all your files, contacts, photo, calendar, etc synced among the devices.
3. In the era of sharing aka Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc, owncloud lets you share your data with others and share them publicly or privately as per your needs.
4. Easy user interface lets you manage, upload, create user, etc in a very easy fashion.
5. A special feature is that, even user can undelete the accidentally deleted data from Trash, is not it easy to handle and maintain.
6. The search feature in owncloud is very responsive which is done in background and lets user search by name as well as file type.
7. Contacts are organised in categories/group hence easy to access contacts on the basis of friends, co-worker, Family, etc.
8. You can now access external storage be it Dropbox, FTP or anything else by mounting.
9. Easy to migrate to/from other owncloud server.

What’s New in ownCloud 8

1. Accessibility Improvement for app’s management page, updater app and search.
2. Additional notification and direct download supported.
3. Storage configuration file can be tuned to a higher level in this release.
4. Apps management is now intelligent enough to store App’s dependency in XML file from where Apps container can solve the dependencies automatically.
5. Documentation improved to next level, PDF viewer improved with the implementation of new version of PDF.js.
6. Improved user management and structured settings and admin page improved.
7. Link sharing has now gone better by shortening.
8. Overall performance improved as compared to previous version.
9. Contacts importing improved.
10. Federated (United) cloud sharing which means setting up of shared folder across server is a cake walk. This feature makes it possible to collaborate organizations with the control at local owncloud deployment server.
11. Apps now features rating and are category based.
12. Set favorite icon to files and folder so that it is easy to sort and edit.
13. Add files to favorites so that it is easy to find them later.
14. Admin can edit email address of users, sort and select user as well as rename group.
15. Basic feature includes – connecting to owncloud over HTTP(s), browse for files/folder in explorer, automatic sync, sharing files with other users, sync folders from PC, Pause and resume downloads and uploads and configure proxy.

Step 1: Install ownCloud Storage in Linux

In order to setup your own personal cloud storage (ownCloud), you must have LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack installed. Other than LAMP stack you might need Perl and Python based upon your use.

On Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint

# apt-get install apache2 apache2-doc apache2-utils mysql-server mysql-client php5 php5-mysql php5-curl

On RedHat/CentOS/Fedora

# yum install httpd mysql-server mysql-client php php-mysql php-curl

Step 2: Create Cloud Database

Once you setup LAMP stack on your personal box, just login to your database (MySQL, here).

# mysql -u root -p

Enter mysql root password. Now we will be creating a database (say cloud).

mysql> create database cloud ; 
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

It is not a good idea to access your database from root, hence grant all the permission to a normal user (say tecmint).

mysql> grant all on cloud.* to tecmint@localhost identified by 'my_password'; 
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Step 3: Download and Install ownCloud Application

Now its time to Download latest ownCloud (i.e version 8.0.0) application using below link.

1. http://owncloud.org/install/

Alternatively, you may use wget command to download the source tar-ball package.

# wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-8.0.0.tar.bz2

You may alternatively install from source package using APT or YUM. The installation instruction can be found at:

1. Install ownCloud using APT or YUM

However we choose the TAR package which is universally accepted and works on most of the known system.
After Downloading the owncloud package, move it to your Apache working directory, which is /var/www (for Debian) and /var/www/html (for RedHat).

# cp owncloud-8.0.0.tar.bz2 /var/www/  [For Debian based Systems]
# cp owncloud-8.0.0.tar.bz2 /var/www/html/ [For RedHat based Systems]

Next, extract the package using tar command as shown below.

# tar -jxvf owncloud-8.0.0.tar.bz2

Since the TAR Archive is extracted you may remove the Archive.

# rm -rf owncloud-8.0.0.tar.bz2

We might need to change the file permission of owncloud, in our Apache working directory.

# chmod -R 777 owncloud/

Note: Remember we are giving read, write and execute permission to all, which is although risky but this time needed since several configuration file would be written automatically. We later need to change permission to 755, once the setup is finished.

Step 4: Configuring Apache for ownCloud

For security purpose ownCloud uses Apache‘s .htaccess files, in order to use them. We need to enable two Apache modules mod_rewrite and mod_headers for ownCloud to function properly. Type the following command to enable these modules under Debian based systems only, for RedHat systems they are enabled by default.

# a2enmod rewrite
# a2enmod headers

Additionally, we need to enable mod_rewrite rules to work properly under Apache‘s main configuration file. Open the Apache global configuation file.

# nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default [For Debian based Systems]
# vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf   [For RedHat based Systems]

There, find “AllowOverride None” and change this to “AllowOverride All” as shown.

AllowOverride None

Change this to:

AllowOverride All

Now we need to restart Apache to reload new changes.

# service apache2 restart   [For Debian based Systems]
# service httpd restart    [For RedHat based Systems]

Step 5: Access ownCloud Application

Now you can acess your very personal cloud storage at:

http://localhost/owncloud
OR
http://your-ip-address/owncloud

Once you get the Owncloud page, you need to create an admin account and a Data folder location, where all files/folders will be stored (or leave default location i.e. /var/www/owncloud/data or /var/www/html/owncloud/data). Next, you need to enter mysql database username, password and database name, refer the screenshot below.

ownCloud Configuration

Once all the correct values are entered, click Finish and your private cloud storage is ready, you are greeted with the working interface:

OwnCloud Admin Panel

Notice the Favorites, edit, share, download, upload and new file options available for a file.

OwnCloud Upload

Activities log of oneself and others.

Owncloud Activity Log

Pictures library.

Owncloud Picture Library

Apps enable and disable interface as well as recommendation with brief introduction.

Enabled Application

Inbuilt PDF reader.

PDF Reader

From this admin panel you can view security and setup warnings, Fedrated cloud sharing, Mail Templates,
Updater, Cron, sharing, Security, Email Server, Log, etc.

Security Setup Warning

User and Group information with quota.

User Group Quota

Note: You can add users or imports user account, change password, assign user role and allocate space by clicking the Gear icon on left bottom of the page.
You may now add folder, sync media files be it pictures, images and videos from the mobile application. Owncloud lets you add new user, and sync calendar, contacts, Media files, etc.
It also has a built in MP3 Player, PDF Viewer, Document Viewer, and a lot many which is worth a try and explore. So what are you waiting for? Become a proud owner of private cloud storage, give it a try!

Upgrading to Owncloud 8 from Older Versions

To update earlier version of your owncloud to 8, you need to first update the old owncloud to latest point release of the same version.
For example, if you’re using owncloud 6.0.xy (where ‘xy‘ is the version number), you need to first update to 6.0.x of the same series, and then you able to upgrade to owncloud 7 using the following instructions.

Update Owncloud 6.0.xx to 6.0.2

1. Making proper backup of everything is always suggested.
2. Enable the updater plugin (if it is disabled).
3. Go to Admin Panel and fire update.
4. Refresh page using ‘Ctrl+F5‘, you’re done.
If above procedure doesn’t worked, you can do a full upgrade to update to the newest point release (see ‘Upgrade‘ instructions below).
Else, if you’re already using Owncloud 7 and want to update to Owncloud 8, you can follow the below same ‘Upgrade’ instructions to get the latest version of Owncloud.

Upgrading OwnCloud to Latest Release

1. Update your owncloud version to latest point release of your version.
2. Not to Mention, Make a full backup before upgrading.
3. Download the latest tarball using wget command.

# wget http://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-latest.tar.bz2

4. Deactivate all native and third party Applications and plugins.
5. Delete Everything from the owncloud Directory except DATA and CONFIG directory.
NOTE: Don’t touch DATA and CONFIG directory.
6. Untar the tar-ball and copy everything to the root of your owncloud directory within your working directory.
7. Grant required permissions and run Upgrade from the Next page and its done!.
8. Don’t forget to install and enable Third party Application and plug-ins only after checking the compatibility with the current version.
So what are you waiting for? Install the latest owncloud project or upgrade your last version to latest and start using it.

Reference Links

1. ownCloud Homepage

10 outstanding open source server tools

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-outstanding-open-source-server-tools/

1: phpMyAdmin

If you're looking for a tool to make the management of your MySQL database as easy as possible, phpMyAdmin is what you want. It's easy to install and use and it takes up little room on your server. With phpMyAdmin you can manage databases, tables, columns, relations, indexes, users, permissions, and much more. phpMyAdmin is a web-based interface, which makes managing your databases as simple as point and click.

2: Capistrano

Capistrano is a remote server automation and deployment tool that supports scripting and task automation. You can easily deploy web applications to multiple machines simultaneously or in sequence, perform data migrations, run automatic audits, script arbitrary workflows over SSH, and execute any number of other tasks. Capistrano can also be integrated with any Ruby software.

3: MySQL Tuner

MySQL Tuner is a Perl script designed to assist you with the configuration and performance tuning of a MySQL database server. The only caveat to using MySQL Tuner is that it is a read-only script. You don't run the script and then watch it tune your DB server. This script will examine your MySQL server and then report its findings. You can then make suggested changes to your server to increase performance. With that in mind, you'll want to have a solid understanding of MySQL before you dive into using the tuner.

4: ConfigServer Security & Firewall

ConfigServer Security & Firewall is a "Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall, Login/Intrusion Detection and Security application for Linux servers." It's made up of a suite of scripts that offer a ton of features: SPI IPTables firewall, login failure checking, POP3/IMAP login failure detection, excessive connection blocking, SU login notification, SSH port auto-configuration, traffic blocking on unused server IP addresses, and much more. ConfigServer also integrates with cPanel, Webmin, and DirectAdmin.

5: Webmin

Webmin has been around for a long time—with good reason. As an easy-to-install and simple-to-use GUI tool for server admin, Webmin has proved itself year after year. You can use it to administer every aspect of your server—including Apache, MySQL, DNS, file sharing, users, and firewalls. Webmin is so powerful and flexible, you'll be hard-pressed to find a GUI better suited to help administer your Linux server (outside of the likes of the Red Hat and SUSE solutions—which require licenses as well as their respective platforms).

6: VNC

VNC is what you need if you want to enable users to log into the server and enjoy a GUI. But this tool isn't just for allowing users to work with a remote instance of LibreOffice. If you'd rather not work with the likes of Webmin and want to manage your server from a more standard desktop GUI, you can work with VNC. The only issue with adding VNC to your server is deciding which one to choose. I've worked with a number of VNC servers and have found tightvnc to be the best of the bunch. Not only is its installation and usage better documented, it offers better compression for enhanced performance.

7: Apache Cloudstack

Apache Cloudstack is designed specifically for the purpose of deploying and managing a large number of virtual machines. This is a turnkey solution that includes all the features you'd require (such as compute orchestration, network-as-a-service, user and account management, a full and open native API, resource accounting, and a first-class User Interface). Cloudstack currently supports the most common hypervisors (VMware, KVM, XenServer, Xen Cloud Platform (XCP), and Hyper-V), and users can manage their clouds with a simple web interface.

8: OpenLDAP

OpenLDAP is the open source iteration of LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol). Although it's powerful and flexible, the biggest issue facing the system is its complexity. This isn't a point-and-click tool as you'll find with Windows Active Directory. OpenLDAP is complex. And even though there are GUI tools designed to make the management of OpenLDAP easier, the installation and setup is not for the faint of heart.

9: MONIT

MONIT is not just a server-monitoring tool. It will also attempt to resolve problems (when/if they arise) by taking predefined actions for certain situations. Say, for instance, MONIT discovers that Apache is using too many resources. Should this happen, MONIT will attempt to restart the http daemon to resolve the issue. MONIT is easy to deploy. (The site says you can have it up and running in 15 minutes—a claim that is very much true.) And MONIT doesn't just monitor services; you can also set it up to monitor files, directories, and file systems.

10: Ganglia

Ganglia is another server monitoring tool, only it's geared toward high-performance systems, such as clusters and grids. Ganglia uses XML for data representation, XDR for compact and portable data transport, and RRDtool for data storage and visualization. There is no other open source tool better suited for presenting data and information of a cluster in a useable, simplified manner. If you happen to administer such high-performance systems, you'd be remiss if you didn't at least take a look at Ganglia as your go-to cluster monitor.