Shutter is open source utility for Linux which allows you to take screenshot of any area of your screen. Also you can add annotations to image using circle and rectangular shapes, arrows, numeric references. Images could be saved to local disk or uploaded to public image hosting, such as imageshack.us or FTP server.

Installation in Ubuntu 10.04 from command line is easy:

sudo apt-get install shutter libgoo-canvas-perl

Second package is required by image editor. This utility is somewhat similar in its functionality to commercial product SnagIt or open source GreenFlog available for Windows platform. Very convenient if you need to drop an e-mail showing a bug in application, add application screenshot to blog, etc.

Related links:

• Greenshot – an open source screenshot grabber

WinMerge is an excellent open source tool for comparing two versions on text file. Unfortunately, it runs only on MS Windows platform. As a Linux user, I was looking for similar tools which could be run in Linux natively. The following two application can to a job of WinMerge. If you running Ubuntu Linux, they could easily installed using package manager.

Kdiff3

http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/

Allows you to compare file and directories. Has nice and intuitive interface.

Meld

http://meld.sourceforge.net/

Another tool offering similar functionality. It also has intergration with CVS source control.

If you have the following error when trying to write DVDs with growisofs:

130449408/906477568 (14.4%) @4.0x, remaining 2:34 RBU 100.0% UBU  90.8%149061632/906477568 (16.4%) @4.0x, remaining 2:27 RBU 100.0% UBU  90.8%

:-[ WRITE@LBA=11d40h failed with SK=4h/ASC=08h/ACQ=03h]: Input/output error

   write failed: Input/output error

/dev/hdc: flushing cache

/dev/hdc: writing lead-out

Try to execute:

hdparm -X66 /dev/hdc

It will change UDMA transfer mode for your drive.

More detailed information can be found here: http://pcburn.com/article.php?sid=2127