My Last Post on This Domain

OK guys,

I think that it is time for me to publish the last post on this blog using WordPress as a domain. As you probably already know, GitHub is my favorite company and I have decided to switch my blog to a completely new domain.

I have published a couple of posts exclusively on the new domain and backed up every post from this domain to my new address (with one exception, but I’m working on it). I feel confident now to make the switch and I started to feel really comfortable using GitHub + Jekyll as a blogging platform, so I’ve decided to drop by and say good bye to my old domain.

From now on, you can follow me on r3bl.github.io. Be sure to use the http version of the site because https version is currently not properly implemented in the code. If you run into some issue while browsing the site or you miss a feature that I had implemented on this domain, feel free to report it here.

As always, you’re more than welcome to contact me anytime on aleksandar.todorovic@mail.ru. I hope that you’ll continue to read me on my new address.

Sincerely,
Aleksandar Todorović

Why Have I Decided To Switch My Blog To a GitHub Pages + Jekyll Combination

WordPress was a great platform for the beginning of my blogging experience. The simplicity needed for the creation and maintaining of the WordPress blog is amazing. It literally took me 10 minutes from the creation of my blog to my first post. But, a few days ago, I’ve decided that it is time for me to switch to something more powerful. I’ve decided to switch to Jekyll blogging platform.

Why have I chosen GitHub + Jekyll as my new platform?

Well, first of all, my PHP knowledge is very limited. I have always considered PHP to be the weakest spot in my education. And, on top of that, I’m not that comfortable with databases for now. Jekyll has allowed me to run a completely self-maintained blog without using any PHP or MySQL.

Using this combo is going to boost my GitHub profile and my Git knowledge

Because of the excellent Jekyll integration with GitHub pages, maintaining a blog using Jekyll is going to force me to use GitHub even more than I have used it so far. And I think that is great. By doing so, I’m going to visit GitHub more often, which will boost my desire to hack and program new things (this is the newest project I’m planing on making a reality).

It will also boost my GitHub profile in the search results, which is something I desperately need to do. While Google-ing my full name, I found out that there’s an actor, a photographer and a war criminal with the same name as mine. You can imagine the surprise of my future employer if he sees my name associated with a term such as a war criminal.

I love every single product that GitHub developed over the years

Lets be honest, GitHub is my favorite company and I love every single feature they’ve developed over the years. I love their tight integration with Git, their pages, their Gists, their Atom text editor and their Student Developer Pack (even though my request is still in the verification process).

Markdown has become my favorite markup language

Ever since I’ve started using GitHub more regularly, I’m amazed by the simplicity behind Markdown. I’m using it to type everything from by blog posts to my collage papers and essays. Now, to be honest, I’ve written most of my posts using Markdown even back when in my WordPress days, but Jekyll allows me to update my blog in an incredibly simple way. I just have to write my post inside of a new Markdown file, update my repository and that’s it. I don’t even have to open Firefox to post something.

An option to choose a commenting platform

Lets be honest, if you need comments on your website, Disqus is the way to go. Most of the sites I’m visiting are using it, and I see no reason of why I should choose anything else.

I love having the full control over my blog

Worpress.com is a free platform and as such it does have some advantages and some limitations. Even though I loved the simplicity of some feature (like a WordPress stats feature), I hated the way I was limited in the customization of my blog. Using this combination, I have no limitation that I’m uncomfortable with. I can customize my blog in any way I want and it feels great! Every Jekyll customization, every theme and every plugin I ran into were completely free (as in both speech and beer) and because of that I can customize every single aspect of them as I wish.

So, how will I make the transition happen?

Now this is a tricky one. I have decided that I’m going to be using this combination permanently, but I do have a lot of work to do before making the final switch.

First of all, there are still some parts of this excellent HPSTR Jekyll theme that I haven’t customized properly (or at all). This is why I’m regularly updating a TODO.md file to remind myself of what still needs to be done.

So, if you like my blog, I encourage you to go through that TODO.md file and to report any issues that I haven’t noticed inside of that file here.

In the meantime, I’m going to post on my old platform and my new platform until I’m completely satisfied with the switch. I have also started posting my most interesting articles on Medium not too long ago, so you might want to check that out as well.

You can expect some great new things like SSL support, my own domain and a fully customized home page in the near future. And, in the spirit of open source software, every single line of code is available for you to fork and use in your project in any way you want.

Reasons Why GitHub is My Favorite Technology-Related Company

In this post I’m going to share with you a few reasons why I consider GitHub as my favorite technology-related company. If you still don’t know what GitHub is, you should continue reading this article because I’m going to share with you some of the most popular features GitHub has integrated in their service.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a web-based Git repository hosting service, which offers all of the distributed revision control and source code management (SCM) functionality of Git as well as adding its own features.

This is the definition I borrowed from a GitHub Wikipedia article. In short terms, it’s a place where every developer (or a student soon-to-be developer like me) can share their source code and their stories with the world. It’s a huge and highly respected collaboration platform.

It’s been used by every big technology company you can think of. Let me give you a few examples: Google, Twitter, Mozilla, Microsoft, Facebook, Adobe, IBM, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Netflix, Dropbox and PayPal. Still think GitHub doesn’t have a huge support? What if I told you that White House uses it too? I bet you didn’t know that some of these organizations even participate in the open source community at all!

So, why have they all chosen GitHub as a platform?

A Great Place to Store Your Code

Let’s be honest, today, if you’re not hosting your source code on GitHub, your open source project does not exist. I have a lot of respect for other solutions such as Launchpad and BitBucket, but lets be honest, GitHub is the place to go if you need a place to share your source code.

Huge Developer Community

There are 8.2M people collaborating right now across 19M repositories on GitHub. Developers from all around the world are building amazing things together. Their story is our story.

I borrowed this quote from GitHub’s press page. Over eight million people is not a small number, and they’ve all chosen GitHub as their choice. Together, they’ve created around 19 million repositories.

GitHub as a Replacement for LinkedIn

Don’t get me wrong, I love LinkedIn and I’m using it myself for quite some time (you can find my LinkedIn profile here). But the truth is, you can post pretty much anything you want on LinkedIn and you can perfect your profile in any way you want. GitHub does not allow you to do the same.

Everything you publish on GitHub, you prove it right away.

As an example, lets say that you posted on LinkedIn that you know how to program using C++. Your connections can endorse your skill and your employer can be sure that you know how to program using C++ if enough of your connections endorse it. But, if he visits your GitHub profile, he can see your C++ knowledge in action. He can read the code you’ve posted and based on the code, he can make sure that you’re a creative and a collaborative person, and that you have an experience in working with C++.

Now don’t get me wrong, your GitHub is not a replacement for your resume and you should not think of it as a replacement for your resume. But, it is a place where you can show your skills instead of talking about them. And there are some projects like Open Source Report Card that grabs your public GitHub data and represents them in a way that’s pretty similar to a resume (check out my Open Source Report Card here).

GitHub Pages

Now, let’s say that you want to build a website that represents you, your organization, your company, or anything else. You have a couple of options. You can buy your own domain and hosting service and build it from scratch. You can choose some freemium service like Wix, where you will create a stunning website in minutes without any coding knowledge, but you will be limited to the features that service allows you to do.

So, lets say that you want to have a full control over your site, without any limitations what so ever, and you showcase your website development and design skills in the process, all of that completely free of charge. The solution? GitHub Pages! You can create your personal website, a website for your organization or a website for your project straight away. And it’s not really complicated to do that. Don’t believe me? Check out my online portfolio! It took me less than 15 minutes to create it using a template offered by GitHub, and I have a full control of that website, which explains how I managed to alter the design of the template called Hack by Ben Bleikamp (see how original template looks like here).

GitHub Training

GitHub uses Git, which is a distributed revision control system designed and developed by Linus Torvalds for Linux kernel development back in 2005. It has become the most widely adopted version cotrol system for software development there is (source).

Now, lets say that you don’t know how to work with Git, the same way I didn’t know how how to work with Git not too long ago. Problem? Heck no! All resources for working with Git using GitHub as a platform are already provided for you by GitHub itself! GitHub offers you free resources (or training kits as they call them) here and you also have a few free online courses available here. Whatever learning option you choose to use out of those provided, you’ll see that your materials are divided in three difficulties: beginner/foundations, intermediate or advanced.

GitHub Gists

This is the newest addition to the GitHub services. It’s a place where you’re able to share your text or a part of your code publicly (which means that your gist will be searchable by a search engine and viewed from your profile) or privately (which means that only people you choose are going to be able to view it, and you share Gists with them by simply copying a link).

Atom Text Editor

After I found out about Atom, I fell in love with GitHub all over again. Atom is a hackable text editor for the 21st Century (as advertised by GitHub).

So, a hackable text editor, what does that even mean?

That means that you can hack every single thing inside of that text editor. Don’t know how? Not to worry, there are thousands of packages already available, all of them hosted on GitHub and offered free of charge. Don’t like the design of the editor? Pick your favorite flavor of Atom out of thousands of them available here. You can customize your installation to be anything from a simple text editor to a full IDE (short for Integrated Development Environment). Heck, you can even write your publications, your blog posts or your books in it. In fact, I even used it to write the post you’re currently reading (see the picture below) in the same way I’m using it to write every single post on my blog.

GitHub Student Developer Pack

This is something I recently discovered. A few days ago, I got a letter from my collage professor stating that as a student, I’m eligible to get a GitHub Student Developer Pack, which offers me over 15 free and paid development tools from GitHub and its partners at a huge discount. Now, I should point out that I’m still in the verification process at the time this article is published. This process could last for weeks! But, I should also point out that a guy called Alex Fernandez from GitHub staff has personally apologized to me for that. The reason why this process lasts for so long is because they have to review each request manually, which does take quite some time.

GitHub Has an Amazing Support

I’m a developer. I use a lot of stable and unstable software and services on a daily basis and it is important to me to get the support as fast as possible. I had an issue with a certain GitHub feature so I decided to contact GitHub support. I’ve got an email response in like 20 minutes, and they’ve been very helpful in the process. They’ve managed to explain to me why I had this issue and what I had to do to resolve it. I have to give them a straight 10/10 for their support.

So, if you are a developer, is there a reason not to use GitHub?

Honestly, I don’t think there is. If you’re developing a proprietary software, there are plenty of reasons why you should not post the source code of your application on GitHub. But, that should not stop you from working on open source software in your free time. By doing so, it will benefit you (once you start looking for a new job), it will benefit the developers behind a project that you’ve decided to be a part of, and it will benefit every single user of that open source project. GitHub offers you a wide variety of opportunities and you should take advantage of them!

My Manifesto

Across my Reddit feed, I came up with this great article titled Why You Should Write a Personal Manifesto, published by Wiseism. I feel like this is a great way to keep yourself motivated, so I’ve decided to do just that: to write down my own manifesto.

I’m pretty confident that this manifesto really represents who I truly am, so I’ve decided to share it with you guys.

At the end of the post, there’s a picture with the manifesto that I made because I wanted to use it as my wallpaper. From time to time, I really enjoy reading Hacker’s Manifesto, and I made this Manifesto to replace that occasional reading with something I wrote myself. This Manifesto is not new, it’s saved on my computer for a long time now and I had a different reason to write it. After reading this article, I’ve just rearranged it a little to look more “manifestish” (whatever that means).

I’m not like most of you.

I do not have emotions. I don’t feel the same way as most people feel. I don’t get hurt easily. I don’t believe I’m going to go to hell if I do something. I don’t believe I should be forbidden to do something I would like to do.

I’m not a role model of any kind and I’m not trying to be a role model to anyone. I’ve tried most of the things people consider bad. I don’t think that anyone could help me if I don’t want to help myself. I don’t believe anyone will be by my side until death do as apart. I realize I’m on my own in this world and that’s the way I like to live my life.

When I meet someone, all I see is a game. A game that I can win or loose. I don’t get attached to people, all I see is a way to exploit them. A way to manipulate them to get what I want. And you know what I want? I want to be happy. And I am just that.

You wanna know why? Because I have something that most of the people surrounding me do not have. I have my mind and I know how to use it. I know how to make the best out of any situation and I’m perfectly happy in every situation I can possibly run into. I’m not saying I’m any more intelligent that you. I’m not saying that I think of myself as some higher species than most of the people. I’m not saying I’ve read more books than you. I’m just saying that I know how to be happy. I know how to feel alive…

PNG version:

The font used in the picture is my new favorite font called Ubuntu Mono. If you like the design used in this picture, you should thank Tom Brewe (GitHub username: nylki) for creating this awesome syntax theme for Atom called pen-paper-coffee-syntax. The wallpaper is basically a screenshot of the text (using that syntax theme and Ubuntu Mono font) slightly edited using GIMP.

I’m also thinking about creating a dark version of the wallpaper. If I decide to make it, I will update this post immediately.

Kako mladi u mom okruženju koriste društvene mreže?

Uvod

U ovom tekstu neću da pričam o statistici. U koliko vas zanimaju statistike o tome koliko se koja društvena mreža koristi, vrlo lako ćete pronaći sve potrebne podatke na internetu. U ovom tekstu ću da objasnim kako mladi u mojoj lokalnoj zajednici koriste koju društvenu mrežu, gledajući prvenstveno svoje vlastito iskustvo i iskustvo mojih prijatelja (onih van društvenih mreža).

Šta smatram pod pojmom mladi?

Pod pojmom mladi u ovom tekstu smatram osobe između 16 i 20 godina. Dakle osobe stare da bi se nazivale tinejdžerima, ali premlade da bi se shvatile ozbiljno u svijetu odraslih osoba.

Facebook

Sve više se primjeti da Facebook gubi moć među mojim prijateljima i poznanicima. Većina ga koristi samo zbog chat opcije, koja je mnogo zastupljenija od bilo koje druge IM opcije. Primjeti se da sve manje ljudi objavljuje statuse. Objave se većinom svode na postavljanje novih fotografija, koje u većini slučajeva budu dijeljene sa Instagrama. Takođe se primjeti i da sve manje ljudi iz ove populacije zapravo čita početnu stranicu, te su korisnici sada većinom fokusirani na Facebook grupe, prvenstveno zbog toga što tu nema filtriranja vijesti. Korisnici sve više odustaju od objavljivanja sadržaja baš zbog tih algoritama. Vrlo je teško da će neki vaš post postati popularan ako ništa prije toga niste objavili u posljednjih mjesec dana. Potrebna je predanost i aktivnost da bi bili čitani. Zbog toga je većina mojih prijatelja počela da traži alternativne metode da bi bili čitani.

Koristi ga oko 95% osoba koje poznajem.

Twitter

Twitter je vrlo specijalna društvena mreža na našim prostorima. Nema ogroman broj korisnika među nama, međutim oni koji ga koriste, to rade u ogromnim količinama. Provođenje nekoliko sati bez prestanka čitajući “lajnu” i postavljajući tvitove je postala sasvim normalna stvar. Uopšteno, ljudi ga koriste kao neku vrstu dnevnika, sa određenom dozom želje za pažnjom i sticanja “uticajnosti”, slike su rijetkost, a većina ljudi koje poznajem ne koriste svoj pravi identitet prilikom korišćenja ove društvene mreže, te se zbog tih razloga mnogo češće susrećemo sa govorima mržnje nego na ostalim društvenim mrežama. Govori mržnje su prvenstveno fokusirani protiv pojedinaca koji ne koriste ovu društvenu mrežu. Međutim, ukoliko mislite da bi se uklanjanjem anonimnosti riješio govor mržnje, želim da vas podsjetim da uklanjanje anonimnosti nije rješenje za borbu protiv govora mržnje. Evidentno je i da je novoj osobi koja se pridruži ovoj mreži potrebna ogromna količina truda da bi bila prihvaćena od strane “iskusnijih” tviteraša.

Koristi ga oko 50% osoba koje poznajem.

Tumblr

Nešto između vlastitog bloga i Twitter profila je upravo Tumblr. Mjesto gdje osobe koje poznajem pronalaze inspiraciju, maštaju o nekom idealnom životu, te objavljuju uopšteno slike stvari koje im se sviđaju. Početna na Tumblr-u je obično prepuna slika, a kao ultimativni razlog zašto se toliki broj mojih prijatelja i poznanika okreće upravo ovoj društevnoj mreži ispred vođenja vlastitog bloga smatram lakoću vođenja bloga preko repostovanja stvari koje nam se sviđaju.

Koristi ga oko 20% osoba koje poznajem.

Instagram

Ne koristim ovu društvenu mrežu i, da budem iskren, ne razumijem u potpunosti poentu ove društvene mreže, međutim sasvim je očigledno da ovaj servis sve veći broj mojih Facebook prijatelja koristi kao način za dijeljenje fotografija na Facebook-u.

Koristi ga oko 40% osoba koje poznajem.

9gag

Iako cilj ovog sajta nije da postane društvena mreža, evidentno je da uvođenjem 9gag profila i količinom komentara ispod svakog viralnog posta 9gag ide prema tom pravcu. Posjetioci 9gag-a se u velikoj mjeri drže zajedno i vrlo je lako novoj osobi da postane dio te zajednice.

Koristi ga oko 20% osoba koje poznajem.

Reddit

Poznajem još samo dvije osobe koje su aktivne na Reddit-u. Iako vrlo nepopularan među osobama koje poznajem, evidentno je da ga osobe koje ga koriste koriste u vrlo velikoj mjeri. Smatra se vrlo “zrelom” socijalnom mrežom, sa mnogo konstruktivnih i objektivnih rasprava o trenutno aktuelnim temama.

Vlastiti blogovi

Ova metoda društvene pripadnosti je vrlo rijetka među mojim poznanicima. Pored mene, poznajem još samo dvije osobe koje vode svoj blog, međutim, za razliku od mene, te dvije osobe svoj blog vode anonimno, bez želje da ih čitaju ljudi ih poznaju van društvenih mreža.

Zaključak

Smatram da je za uspijeh neke društvene mreže vrlo važno uzeti u obzir način na koji bi ga potencijali korisnici koristili. Iako je bitno ponuditi nešto novo korisnicima, vrlo je evidentno i da korisnici neće prihvatiti tu društvenu mrežu ukoliko je ne počne koristiti određena doza poznanika.

Takođe, evidentno je i da društvene mreže koje su bazirane na to da budu ultimativno rješenje za vođenje društvenog života počinju da propadaju, što bih naveo kao razlog sve većeg nezadovoljstva korišćenjem Facebook-a i potpunoj propasti Google+-a kao društvene mreže. Moglo bi se reći da moji poznanici pri korišćenju društvenih mreža prate Linux filozofiju, tako što traže jedan servis preko kojeg će da rade tačno određeni zadatak umjesto da koriste ultimativna društvena rješenja.

Napomena: Tekst je napisan po uzori na ovaj tekst.

Best (Linux) Programs and Services I’ve Started Using in 2014.

In this post, I’m going to share with you a couple of programs / web services / apps that I’ve started using regularly in 2014. I’ve discovered some of them in 2013, but in 2014 I really started to use them on a regular basis. I hope that you will find something for yourself in my list.

Best operating system: elementary OS Freya

I’ve been using elementary OS since 2013. But it definitely became my primary operating system in 2014. I haven’t used Windows in months now and I’m not missing anything. Plus, It’s a real joy participating in the development since the release of Beta 1 version. I’m also translating elementary OS to Bosnian language in my free time. Too bad I haven’t finished my job by the end of 2014, but I think that the translation is pretty much usable by now.

Best text editor: Atom

This is a hackable text editor for the 21st century, as advertised by worldly-known GitHub. I’ve been using it for a couple of months and loving every single aspect of it. In fact, I’m writing this and every single other article in it using Markdown as a styling language before posting them to WordPress.

Best productivity apps: Todo.txt, Gitit and RescueTime

I’ve been using Evernote for a couple of months, but the clunky interface of the desktop version for Windows and the fact that there is no official Linux client really started to annoy me big time.

So I’ve started looking for the alternatives and Todo.txt in a combination with Gitit looks like a perfect alternative to me. So, what I’ve started doing is writing my notes inside a wiki that I’m running on my local machine (using Gitit as a platform).

I’m using Todo.txt as my to-do list natively in Linux using QTodoTxt and so far it works great! Been using it for a couple of months now and I see no reason why I won’t be using it throughout 2015.

RescueTime is not really a productivity app. It’s more of a way to see how productive you are really. With the native application running in the background, I can see how much of my time has been spent doing something productive. Native Linux client and Firefox add-on are a perfect combination for me.

Best tools for communication: Pidgin, my blog and Twitter

I’m really loving the way Pidgin is integrated in my operating system. I’ve been using it since 2013, but now I’m using it exclusively to chat with my Facebook friends. In fact, I’m opening Facebook no more than once a day now, which means that most of my time is spent doing something a little bit more productive.

I really found myself in the management of this blog. I’m enjoying every second of writing stuff for my audience and I’m pretty satisfied with the support I’m getting from you guys.

Twitter has been my primary social network since the end of the 2013. But, in 2014, I’ve started running two Twitter profiles, one personal, and one for my business communications. I’ve managed to bond with some awesome people and learn a lot by reading articles other people are suggesting to me through their Twitter feed.

Best cloud service: MEGA

Although I have 1 TB of space on OneDrive and one more TB of space in Mail.Ru Cloud, I have to select MEGA as my favourite for 2014. Unlike Mail.Ru Cloud and OneDrive it has a perfectly integrated Linux client and 50 GB of space is enough to satisfy my needs for now, although I’m planning to switch to some premium plan in the near future.

Best reading services: Kindle and Digg

It’s been a while since I’ve discovered Kindle ebook readers. I’m still thinking about whether should I buy one or not. In the meantime, I’m really enjoying reading books through the online interface of the Kindle reader. I have over 150 books in my library now thanks to the Free eBooks subreddit and a simple IFTTT recipe which sends me the daily digest of new posts. I haven’t payed a dime for any of the books in it and I have books that are probably worth more than $1,000 dollars by now.

Digg is the perfect way for me to stay in touch with the latest news from my favourite blogs (such as those in my blogroll in the sidebar).

Best multimedia services: Popcorn Time, Spotify and Clementine

Even though I’m not a huge fan of pirating (I’m all about open source software and creative commons), the fact is that I live in a country where most of the movies and TV shows are not available. Popcorn Time really helps me to be in touch with my favourite TV shows and I’m loving the simplicity and the design of the application itself.

I’m from Bosnia & Herzegovina, a country with no music streaming service at all. That’s why I’ve had to wake the hacker inside of me and found a solution to run Spotify as my choice. Basically, I’m using OpenVPN once every 15 days to log into my Spotify account and then I enter a “vacation mode”, which enables me to run Spotify for the next 15 days. And Spotify does have a Spotify for Linux Preview client which, although a bit unstable, does the job perfectly for me so far.

And now, why am I including Clementine in this list? Well, it’s because of the Internet streaming option. I’m a big Digitally Imported fan for quite some time and recently I’ve started listening to SomaFM in the background while I’m doing something productive. I’ve chosen Clementine because it’s the perfect out-of-the-box solution for streaming those two services. In fact, I’m listening to my favourite Digitally Imported station called Bass & Jackin’ House right now.

Games: 2048, 0h H1 and South Park: The Stick of Truth

I don’t have any desire to play any complicated graphical game anymore. I’ve started to be a fan of logical games such as 2048 and Oh H1. The reason why I’m loving these two games is because they’re pretty simple to play, and the fact is that I’m not playing them for hours like I’ve used to play games like World of Tanks and NBA by 2k Sports.

From time to time, everyone needs a good amount of laugh. That’s why I really enjoyed playing South Park video game. Simple graphical interface + a good amount of humour is the winning combination in my case. I really wish that there’s a Linux version of it.

You might also enjoy reading the Top Motivational Quotes I’ve Discovered in 2014.

Top Motivational Quotes I Discovered in 2014

So, everybody is sharing a list of something they came up with in the year behind them. I’m going to step it up a little. I present to you a very special list of mine. I represent to you the list of quotes that kept me motivated and inspired in 2014. This list is very special to me and I’ve decided to give it to you guys as a reward for reading my blog.

So, here we go:

• Latin:  Imperare sibi maximum imperium est. – To rule yourself is the ultimate power.
• Duane Michals:  Trust that little voice in your head that says “Wouldn’t it be interesting if…” And then do it.
• Friedrich Nietzsche: In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
• Joseph Brodsky: There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
• Oscar Wilde: Give a man mask and he’ll tell you the truth.
• Jim Morrison:  There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.
• Napoleon Hill:  Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.
• Mark Twain:  Never let your school interfere with your education.
• Mark Victor Hansen:  Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.
• Michael Jordan:  I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.
• Mae West:  You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
• Frank Zappa:  If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.
• Will Smith: You don’t try to build a wall. You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say, “I’m gonna build the biggest baddest greatest wall, that’s ever been build,”, you don’t start there. You say, “I’m gonna lay this brick, as perfectly as a brick can be laid,” and you do that, every single day. And soon you have a wall.

Now, I’m going to represent to you a list of quotes taken from the book called What The Hell is Saint Louis Thinking? (2014). It’s a book written by the city itself. It’s written by hundreds of citizens of Saint Louis and there are some quite interesting quotes there.

• We all drive on, walk past each other, not really knowing who we are. We’re all just strangers passing in the street, never stopping or taking the time.
• There is no reason to simply exist. You need to exist for a reason. That reason can be silly to everyone but you. Hold it dear to your heart. Never forget it and never deny it for it is the reason to keep sucking oxygen.
• What you do in your life changes what someone else does in theirs, and that changes everything.
• We are all raindrops. We might seem small and insignificant but together we have the power of the world.
• Fear keeps me from dreaming so I will not live my life in fear!

Now, I’m going to share with you a song that kept me motivated in the 2014.

Happy 2015. guys! Feel free to share some quote in the comments that influenced you the most in the year behind us!

You might also want to check out Best (Linux) Programs and Services I’ve Started Using in 2014.

Every One of Us Changes the World in One Way or Another

We are all raindrops. We might seem small and insignificant, but together we have the power of the world.

This is a quote by an unknown author from a book called What The Hell is Saint Louis Thinking? (2014). It’s an excellent book and I suggest you to read it. Oh, and did I mention that it’s free?

I really think that this quote really covers it all. We all shape the world somehow. Maybe we did something important today, and maybe we didn’t. But even if we didn’t, we might have influenced the world in some indirect way, by bothering someone with our problems and taking their time that might have been spent doing something that might influence the world in a much larger way, or by giving some kind of a motivation to someone which will help him to do something significant.

I keep hearing that “I want to change the world” cliché and frankly, I’m sick of it. It’s not about changing the world, changing the world is something that you do while you’re thinking about changing the world. It’s about changing the world as much as you can. It’s about broadening your change to a much higher spectrum than the average person.

Every action that we take our ancestors took helped to the design the world we live in today. And we need to be quite careful because actions we do now will design the future for our future generations. And every action counts, be it a coffee with someone, writing this, programming something, going to a conference, spending the night drinking, or anything in between.

I’m going to end this with one more quote. I can’t remember where I read it and searching for it on the Internet did not gave me any usable result.

A man has two deaths. The first time when he physically dies, and the second time when his name is mentioned for the last time.

Ljudi vam dosađuju pitanjima tipa kako postati haker? Evo rješenja

Uvod

Svako od nas se bar u jednom trenutku života zamislio kakav je osjećaj biti haker? Možda ste i pokušali da istražite malo tu temu, a nemate dovoljno dobro znanje engleskog jezika da bi pratili engleske tutorijale? Možda imate druga koji je vidio da koristite Linux i odma je pomislio da ste haker? Možda vodite blog post i dobijate konstanta pitanja tipa “Kako da hakujem Fejsbuk od svoje bivše”?

Ukoliko spadate u bilo koju od ovih skupina, velike su šanse da nemate baš dovoljno živaca, motivacije i želje da objašnjavate svakome šta znači ovaj pojam. Zbog toga sam odlučio da sve postove domaćih autora sakupim na jedno mjesto, tako da od sada kada god dobijete slično pitanje možete sagovorniku poslati jedan link i završiti sa diskusijom.

Predstavljam vam kako-postati-haker repozitorij

Ideja ovog repozitorija jeste da se na jednom mjestu objave linkovi prema svim tekstovima domaćih autora (bili oni na “našem” jeziku ili na engleskom) na ovu temu, da se poređaju smisleno i pravilno grupišu. Na ovaj način se kreira jedinstvena lista tekstova preko koje nove osobe mogu da nauče nešto više o ovom pojmu, te se na taj način skida teret sa nas ostalih da prelazimo iste teme više puta i oslobađa nam se vrijeme da radimo neke bitnije stvari (tipa rekompajliranje kernela).

Repozitorij sadrži samo linkove prema teksovima. Na taj način piscima nije uskraćen broj posjeta na njihovim web stranicama. Pored svakog teksta se nalazi i naziv autora, te link prema njegovoj službenoj web stranici.

Budući planovi

Trenutno imam samo jedan plan za budućnost ovog projekta, a taj plan jeste da listu postavim na sopstveni host umjesto da se listi pristupa GitHub repozotorij. Pošto trenutno nemam iznajmljen vlastiti host, kreiraću GitHub stranicu za projekat i predstaviti ga tamo u međuvremenu.

Kako doprinijeti projektu?

Doprinijeti projektu možete na više načina. Prvi način svakako jeste da pronađete tekstove na ovu temu i dodate ih na listu (ukoliko ne znate kako, jednostavno me kontaktirajte i ja ću to odraditi umjesto vas). Možete da dijelite ovaj repozitorij ili pišete o njemu pa da na taj način više ljudi sazna za njega. Možete da pišete originalan sadržaj na ovu temu da popunite praznine. Možete da mi pomognete da napravim web stranicu projekta učestvovanjem u izradi HTML verzije stranice ili dijeljenjem svojih hosting resursa za ovu svrhu.

Tekstovi koji neće biti primljeni

Dozvoljeni su samo tekstovi prema kojima čitaoc nije dužan da se registruje na neki sajt da bi ih pročitao.

Through the Algorithm (2014) To a Free World

I like watching movies about hacking. There are only two possible outcomes of me watching this kind of movies: they’re fantastic OR they’re terrible. If the movie is fantastic, I’m going to enjoy it of course. But, if the movie is terrible, I’m going to laugh my ass of how stupidly hacking is displayed in that movie.

Well, this movie goes into that other group. It’s called Algorithm (like you haven’t seen that coming from the title of the post). I’m going to start my story by talking about how I found out about this movie.

A couple of hours ago I was just browsing my Twitter feed like I usually do. But this time, there was a certain link to a blog post that got my attention. It’s a post by Jonathan Schiefer, a writer and a director of this film. In a post titled The Free Future Starts Now, he talks about how piracy changed the way he looks at his movie. He didn’t earn much from the movie (not even enough to compensate the money he spent making the movie), but still, he did something marvelous. He shared his movie with the world for free for 24 hours. He knew that after those 24 hours are over, the pirating of the movie is going to be unstoppable, but that didn’t stop him from doing that. Now, his movie is all over the internet, and he feels damn proud about that.

I’ve never done a movie review before (hell, I don’t remember even reading any), especially not in English (I’m just saying this because I’m not a native English speaker as you probably notices by now), but I will give it a go. That’s the least I can do for Jonathan and his excellent piece of work.

This is the first movie I ever rated on IMDb and it got a perfect 10 from me. The movie is a perfect example that you can make a movie about hacking without making something up. Everything I saw in this movie is possible, and that’s something that really impressed me. It’s something that made this movie stand up from the rest of the similar movies I saw. Everything seems possible. Although I didn’t like the way hackers are represented in the movie (I think of a hacker more in an ideological way, as someone who thinks outside the box, not as someone who breaks computer systems), I completely understand why Jonathan decided to represent hackers in such way.

This movie covers a story about a hacker (or if you’re like me, the term cracker might work better for you) who will try to break into anything he wants. He went out of line once and broke into some government database, which was a big mistake (of course). His friends were tortured by the government because of that and in the end he himself got tortured because a friend of his betrayed him. After they tortured him, the government did offer him a job, something that would probably happen if this was a real life situation (think of Sabu as a perfect example). I don’t want to spoil everything so I’m not going to say anything more about the story. I highly suggest you to pirate the movie if you’re interested.

What I liked even more than the story was the way the technology was described in the movie. He talks about Linux, about Tor browser, the disadvantages of the open WiFi network, the disadvantages of proprietary programming languages, and the main ideology of every hacker: that the information should be free.

Jonathan even went one step ahead as he adopted those words from the movie in the real life by sharing the movie with the world.

As he said in the blog post I linked, it all started with the software. Then came the books. Next stop was sharing the music. Now, we’re at a stage where sharing movies is something we encounter with on a regular basis. And the next stop is going to be sharing small physical objects (by using 3D printers).

I’m going to end the post by sharing the last couple of sentences from the post Jonathan published, because I really think that those sentences cover it all:

“When everything is free there won’t be any poor. There won’t be any wealth inequalities. There won’t be people starving because anyone can just print food. People won’t go into debt for the rest of their life to go to college because we’ll have equal access to information and art. There will be no tricking the ignorant because people won’t be ignorant because information will be free.

I’m crazy enough to believe I can help change the world. And the world I want is when the future is free!”