Download Free Books!

For those of you who are constantly on the go, and who have a kindle or a smartphone, I present you a list of 103 sites where you can legally download scores of literature, compliments of the “Confessions of an Opinionated Book Geek” blog. And no, I don’t condone using this list to avoid coming to see me in my soon to open bookstore… I still expect to see you there having a cup of tea/coffee and reading a REAL book!

The Classics

Browse works by Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and other famous authors here.

  1. Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
  2. The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
  3. Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.
  4. Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
  5. Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
  6. Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.
  7. Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.
  8. Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
  9. The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.
  10. Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.
  11. Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
  12. Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
  13. Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
  14. Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

Textbooks

If you don’t absolutely need to pay for your textbooks, save yourself a few hundred dollars by reviewing these sites.

  1. Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.
  2. Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.
  3. KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.
  4. Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.
  5. Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.
  6. MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.
  7. Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.
  8. Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
  9. Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
  10. eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

Math and Science

Turn to this list to find books about math, science, engineering and technology.

  1. FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
  2. Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.
  3. Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks like Elementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
  4. Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
  5. FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
  6. Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

Children’s Books

Even children’s books are now available online. Find illustrated books, chapter books and more.

  1. byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
  2. Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.
  3. International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
  4. Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.

Philosophy and Religion

For books about philosophy and religion, check out these websites.

  1. Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.
  2. Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
  3. Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
  4. The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.
  5. Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.

Plays

From Shakespeare to George Bernard Shaw to more contemporary playwrights, visit these sites.

  1. ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
  2. Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
  3. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
  4. Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”
  5. ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

Modern Fiction, Fantasy and Romance

These websites boast collections of graphic novels, romance novels, fantasy books and more.

  1. Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
  2. The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
  3. Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
  4. Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
  5. Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
  6. The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
  7. Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
  8. John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
  9. SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights, Aesop’s Fables and more.
  10. Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.

Foreign Language

For books in a foreign language like French, Spanish and even Romanian, look here.

  1. Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.
  2. ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
  3. Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
  4. Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
  5. Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
  6. KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.
  7. Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.
  8. Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.
  9. Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.
  10. Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
  11. Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.
  12. Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
  13. Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
  14. CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
  15. Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

History and Culture

Refresh your memory of world history, the classics and U.S. history here.

  1. LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
  2. The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
  3. Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.
  4. Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.
  5. Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne

Rare Books

Look for rare books online here.

  1. Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.

Arts and Entertainment

This list features books about celebrities, movies, fashion and more.

  1. Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.
  2. Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
  3. Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
  4. 2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
  5. Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.
  6. Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.
  7. Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.
  8. Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.

Mystery

Here you can find mystery books from Sherlock Holmes to more contemporary authors.

  1. MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.
  2. TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.
  3. Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.

Poetry

These poetry sites have works by Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe and others.

  1. The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
  2. Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
  3. Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
  4. Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
  5. Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, from The Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
  6. QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
  7. CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
  8. PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.

Miscellaneous

For even more free book sites, check out this list.

  1. Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
  2. World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
  3. DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the more recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
  4. A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
  5. Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
  6. ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
  7. Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
  8. Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.

Open Source Privacy

I’ve blogged about OpenSource software and the Linux operating system before – I’ve even convinced friends and family members to join me. CentOS and Debian are my distros (distributions) of choice, but for most of them, moving over from the Windows world; simpler is better. To resolve that, I’ve set them up mainly with Ubuntu (shudder) and Mint. My own children use Xubuntu. I get asked a lot –

How do you get anything done since (insert overpriced product here) doesn’t run on Linux?

The answer is slightly complicated. In the wake of US programs for spying on the American public, such as PRISM, merely using OpenSource and expecting the lack of anything Microsoft to protect you isn’t enough. I’ve touched on configuring TOR, using Off the Record plugins for Pidgeon and other similar privacy enhancements HERE.

But I’d like to take a moment to post on a basic level for beginners, about the bare essentials in protecting their privacy. Simple changes that they can make without having to do any real major configuration to their system.

For this, you need to be a bit more clever by taking certain steps such as changing your search engine, what browser you use, how you email and how you generally make use of any web-based products. Read more about giving the NSA the finger HERE, and opting out of global data surveillance HERE.

The “Opting out of Global Data Surveillance” link should pretty much cover what you need, and for Linux users like myself, this specific LINK in the opt-out information is useful. But at the basic level, even if you don’t feel a need to install, configure and make use of TOR, at the minimal, use Firefox and make either https://duckduckgo.com or https://www.startpage.com your go-to for your searches each time you search. StartPage has the obvious advantage as it provides Google search results (let’s face it, we call searching “Googling” for a reason) but strips out your personal information so that Google never receives your IP or has a chance to laden your machine with cookies. That’s not to say that DuckDuckGo isn’t useful, but you will see a noteworthy difference in the quality of search results.

For your email, while it does not have anywhere near the bells and whistles of Google/Gmail, I highly recommend Autistici-Inventati. Their service does offer all the following, free, and naturally they accept donations to keep these services available. Find them HERE. The web mail is plain and uses Roundcube, but it’s free, private and secure. Couple it with Thunderbird or Earlybird (HERE‘s how you secure them), and it’s a win! Also, you can use K-9 on your Android phone for the secure email feature.

There exist other email alternatives, of course, aside from even those mentioned in the opt-out link. A friend of mine on Mastodon (more on this in a bit) recommends ProtonMail. I haven’t tried it to date, and as such, cannot comment on it positively or negatively. I respect his opinion and assume that if he recommends it, it’s worthy of said recommendation. You can read about his move to Linux HERE. You can also read his write-up on online privacy (in which he touches on ProtonMail) HERE.

Anyway, these are the surface level important bits gleaned from the opt-out information. You can read more details and customize more of your desktop environment with apps and web services as you wish based on their guide. These presented here are the absolute BASICS for preserving a shred of privacy in an ever-increasingly watched, regulated and data mined digital world.

The last subject I’d like to touch on, is… well… a touchy one. Social networking. I know… you’re old and stuck in your ways. Facebook is familiar and easy. Twitter is comfortable and doesn’t need any configuration. Well – that may be true, but they’re also undoing everything that we are trying to do in the entire preceding part of this blog post. Facebook caches every single search. Whether for people or for products. Every page you like. Every status you like. Each news story that you read from their web app. Twitter does the same. Everything that you do on either site is monitored, collected, and placed into a nice little package that allows them to serve all those ads that you see all over in the sidebars, and between posts. Your email… your birthday… all your relationships. This data is all theirs. You gave it to them. And they use it.

There exist two main alternatives for Social Networking that I highly recommend. The first is older (if you don’t count OpenSource predecessors) and is called Diaspora. It’s pretty much got all the functionality of Facebook, but without the clutter, without the ads, and without fear of all your data being mined and sold to any and all bidders. They have a large pool of “pods” to choose from, and you can join any of them. They allow you to follow people from other “pods”, but they aren’t ruled by a centralized, authoritarian data miner. I know, it’s a pain getting your family and friends to switch, but persistence does pay off! The second is Mastodon. It’s essentially a fuller featured Twitter, which allows more character input as well. Like Diaspora, it’s broken into “instances” and not all housed in a central server somewhere. You can join any instance that you like, and like Diaspora, follow people from other Instances. Again, no centralized authoritarian data miner granting you the right to use a website in exchange for all your digital data. Both Diaspora and Mastodon have mobile apps that you can use. Both are well worth a try, and both will help you protect / control your own data. That isn’t to say that either is foolproof, but both by far outweigh the negative aspects of Facebook and Twitter.

Useful Linux Commands

​Here is a list of the most common commands that you will probably find useful. The commands and descriptions are all separated by “=”, so don’t include the = sign in the commands

The most important one which will make your life MUCH easier is:

sudo apt-get install <enter a programme name here>

This finds the most up to date repository for you and installs the latest version of the software. No going to different websites, downloading and then trying to figure out how to install from an extracted bzip etc…

Now… on to the rest of the goodies.

  • cat /proc/cpuinfo # CPU info
  • cd # change directory
  • convert -resize 640×480 -colors 14 wallpaper.png splashimage.xpm
    && gzip splashimage.xpm # change picture into grub splash.
  • cp # copy
  • df -h # disk space usage
  • fglrxinfo # graphics driver info
  • free -m # memoryusage
  • glxgears # check 3d graphics
  • glxinfo # opengl info
  • ifconfig # network configuration info
  • killall gnome-panel # kill,refresh panel
  • locate # find target
  • lsb_release -a # OS info
  • lshw # list hardware
  • ls # list contents
  • lspci # list pci devices
  • man command | col -b > file.txt # save man uotput to file
  • man -f # man title of target
  • man intro # user commands help
  • man -k # man file for target
  • man man # man manual
  • mkdir # make directory
  • mv # move
  • netstat -l –tcp –udp (and then) watch -n 1 netstat -an –tcp –udp # watch port activities
  • rmdir # remove directory
  • rm # remove
  • rm -r # remove all
  • sudo apt-cache # debian apt library
  • sudo apt-cache search (search subject) # Search debian repo for apps
  • sudo apt-get dist-upgrade # upgrade all
  • sudo apt-get update # update sources.list
  • sudo cp /<filename.backup>/<filename> # reset to backup file
  • sudo deborphan | xargs sudo apt-get -y remove –purge # remove orphans
  • sudo dmidecode | more # Detailed hardware info
  • sudo dpkg -l | cut -d ” ” -f 3 # list installed packages
  • sudo dpkg-reconfigure menu sudo dpkg-reconfigure menu-xdg (reboot) # fix Debian menu
  • sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg # Reconfigure periphials, graphics
  • sudo fdisk -l # View Hard drive partitions
  • sudo hdparm -l /dev/sda # hard drive settings
  • sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sda # hard drive speed
  • sudo ln -s ~/.themes /root/.themes sudo ln -s ~/.icons /root/.icons sudo ln -s ~/.fonts /root/.fonts # make root look like user
  • top # system,processes,resources,cpu,ram,etc. info
  • uname -a # kernel version
  • update-menu # update gnome menu
  • whereis program-name # location of program/man page
  • which <program name> # location of program

Cheatsheet may. be downloaded HERE. All credit for it goes to http://fosswire.com

Thanks to Michael Lindner for reading and offering insight. A few corrections made, thanks to his assistance!

Another update from a different Michael:

alias claer=”clear” “There are lots of variations on that for other common misspellings, but I think I’ve used ‘claer’ instead of ‘clear’ far more than any other mistake. Also, if you’re going back and forth between Windows and Linux a lot, it might not be a bad idea to make ‘cls’ an alias of ‘clear’, and maybe do the same for ‘ls’/’dir’.”

 

Configure Your Privacy in Linux

In light of the revelation of government snooping by William Binney, Edward Snowden, WikiLeak contributors, and others: people are increasingly concerned about their privacy and security. This has many people exploring Linux, as they have “heard” that it’s harder to attack, has fewer viruses, etc. Newer users tend to install simple distros such as Mint or Ubuntu, and assume once they have it up and running and drivers installed, that all is well. This isn’t the case. I am not going to go into details on why this isn’t the case, I am simply going to offer a simple guide to those that want to use the web as anonymously as possible be it for reasons of paranoia, or desire to shop Macey’s online without being tracked and getting a drove of SPAM mail as a result. While some of us may be able to make do with a live distribution built for security, such as TAILS, (used by Edward Snowden), I suspect people would prefer a persistent operating environment that saves files, settings and more. While TAILS can be configured to do so, it isn’t the same as a regular desktop experience. It is the entry-level users rather than the power users that this instructional targets.

Step one, they pretty much got correct in switching to Linux, though Ubuntu and similar distros are questionable, and that is, use only programmes which have open-source code that anyone can review. Closed source software like Microsoft Windows, or Skype, have deliberate “backdoors” through which attackers may gain access. Why they were added, one can only speculate, but they are there, and they compromise your security. You will want to find software for your Linux distro which is open source so that you know that you have a community constantly pouring through the code, ready to blow a whistle at the slightest provocation.

Step two is to get the software necessary for securing and anonymizing your internet connection. For this, we naturally look to the Tor Project. While it is not perfect (nothing is), it is well tested, in constant development, and is better than nothing at all. One of the main components of the Tor Project is their Tor Browser Bundle. For details on exactly how it functions, see HERE. Installing is a breeze.

For Debian users, add this line to your/etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org <DISTRIBUTION> main

where you put the codename of your distribution (i.e. Lenny, Sid, Saucy or whatever it is) in place of <DISTRIBUTION>. Then add the gpg key used to sign the packages by running the following commands at your command prompt:

gpg –keyserver keys.gnupg.net –recv 886DDD89 gpg –export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add –

Now refresh your sources, running the following command (as root) at your command prompt:

apt-get update

If there are no errors you’re good to continue. To install Tor, run:

apt-get install tor

Once you have installed the Tor Browser Bundle, I recommend using Vidalia for a graphical user interface to control Tor. Installing Vidalia is similarly simple:

To install Vidalia as a Debian user, simply add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org <DISTRIBUTION> main

…where you substitute the above word (etch, Lenny, Sid, Karmic, Jaunty, Intrepid, Hardy) in place of <DISTRIBUTION>. Then add the gpg key used to sign the packages by running the following commands at your command prompt:

gpg –keyserver keys.gnupg.net –recv 886DDD89 gpg –export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add –

Now refresh your sources and install Vidalia by running the following commands at your command prompt:

apt-get update apt-get install vidalia deb.torproject.org-keyring

Now you will have to configure Firefox (and Thunderbird if you have it) to use the proxy supported by Tor. To do this, open the browser and go into the settings. Under the settings select proxy settings. Select either SOCKS or SOCKS5 as a protocol, and use port 9050. For host, enter “localhost”. You will also need to install two plugins to Firefox which will lessen your digital footprint. The first is HTTPS Everywhere, and the second is NoScript. They can be configured to allow certain pages, for instance, FaceBook which will essentially be non-functional with scripts turned off. Keep in mind, every allowance is an open door. A few other scripts that are noteworthy: Adblock, Self-Destructing Cookies and Disconnect. They aren’t necessities, but they certainly increase your experience.

As for Thunderbird, if configuring it manually is too much for you, you can try TorBirdy. It will set up your Thunderbird install to rout everything through the Tor Network. This isn’t enough, but; you will still want to install the EnigMail plugin. Enigmail is a security extension to Mozilla Thunderbird. It enables you to write and receive email messages signed and/or encrypted with the OpenPGP standard. Sending and receiving encrypted and digitally signed email is simple using Enigmail.

Once you have that done and working, you will want to do the same to your instant messaging software. For this, I strongly recommend Pidgin, with the “OTR” Off the Record plugin. It works much the same way. Click on your account, select the proxy tab and use the same settings as for your browser. This routs all your internet communications (Firefox, Thunderbird, and Pidgin) through Tor, which anonymizes your location, data, and details.

Installing Pidgin couldn’t be easier…

apt-get install pidgin

That’s it. Really. Now you will want to make use of websites that do not track you, so rather than using Google as your goto, try performing searches using DuckDuckGo. The website uses scripts, but it doesn’t track you, or keep a record of your searches. It also doesn’t start submitting advertisements based upon your search history.

For securing the contents of your hard drive, I recommend installing BleachBit both for its capabilities and for its ease of use. And lastly, for your passwords, PWSafe. It’s pretty self-explanatory.

If you follow this guide, you will have a relatively secure setup with an anonymization cloak. It isn’t foolproof, and it isn’t perfect, but it minimizes your digital footprint and the information that you send each time you use your computer. Please be aware that with these settings, you can expect to have to verify common logins such as Facebook, Google, etc. due to their security measures. It will often tell you that you are logging in from an unrecognized location (such as Germany or Romania) and require you to identify photos of friends or enter a code sent to your phone etc. If you can live with these little annoyances in the name of privacy, then enjoy!

Do you have any suggestions to make this guide better? Drop me a message and I’ll get it added and credit you as a contributor!

Linux Programmes (Alternatives to Windows)

A friend of mine has installed Linux and asked me for my opinion on software that he should install. I figured I would share it here too, in case any of you have toyed with the idea of making the switch over to Linux.

ESSENTIALS

COMMERCIALWARE REPLACEMENTS

GAMING

And as always, to maximize your experience, ALWAYS look into plugins. There is a plugin for EVERYTHING, so if you want to do it, all you need to do is find it. My most used plugins are for GIMP, and for that, I go to: http://registry.gimp.org/popular

It is important to remember that just because you are using Linux now, does not automatically make you secure and safe from the snooping of government overlords or hackers extraordinaire.

Have a few that you think should be on the list? Drop me a message, and I’ll get them added!