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An Introduction to ASCII Art

Written by Gwen
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    _    ____   ____ ___ ___      _         _   
   / \  / ___| / ___|_ _|_ _|    / \   _ __| |_ 
  / _ \ \___ \| |    | | | |    / _ \ | '__| __|
 / ___ \ ___) | |___ | | | |   / ___ \| |  | |_ 
/_/   \_\____/ \____|___|___| /_/   \_\_|   \__|

Artwork that is made up of nothing more than carefully-arranged keyboard characters — 95 American Standard Code for Information Interchange characters, to be precise — is called ASCII art.

I have already shared a few examples of ASCII art, without going into detail about them being ASCII art, in my post about having fun with the Linux command line, where Asciiquarium, Banner, Cowsay, Figlet (which produced the above example), and Sl were all featured.

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An Introduction to Internet Shorthand (With Free Cheat Sheet)

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Internet ShorthandLTNS; HRU? GR8? G2K. ZUP?

Have you ever run across gibberish like this and wondered just what, exactly, it means?!?

This is an example of internet shorthand, or “text speak”, “chatspeak”, “cyber slang”, “chat acronyms”, “SMS texting language”, “netspeak”, etc.

As you can see, it is in no way confined to the internet, but is also extensively used when texting, and even pops up in our everyday spoken conversations.

Internet shorthand is little more than an attempt save time by reducing keystrokes, although there are cases in which it actually increases the number of keystrokes.

The concept primarily involves using acronyms for commonly-used phrases, and can result in absolute chaos for those of us unfamiliar with the language.

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An Introduction to Emoticons & Emojis (With Free Cheat Sheet)

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Emoticons EmojisIf you’ve used the internet, received text messages, or engaged in any other form of electronic communication, it’s highly likely that you’ve run across the existence of emoticons.

Emoticons started out as representations of facial expressions, making use of punctuation and alpha-numeric characters available on the common keyboard, and have since evolved into an extensive, varied collection of graphical representations of… just about everything, really.

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Having Fun With the Command Line – Fedora Linux Edition

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Tux Having Fun With the Fedora Linux Command LineWhile learning of all the useful commands on the Linux command line, it can be difficult to remember how much fun the command line can really be.

There are several commands whose sole purpose is to entertain, and these are the topic of the day.

The first two commands are not so much “fun” as they are useful and interesting… and there I go already.

There are some fun ones coming up — I promise!

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The Linux Command Line Cheat Sheet (Free Download)

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Linux Command Cheat Sheet PreviewThis year had been — much to my brother’s chagrin — very Linux command-line-intensive, at least on the blog front.

The good news — if you’re not Linux-oriented — is that I’m winding down to move on to (mostly) other topics.

The bad news — because of course there had to be some! — is that this week and the next are still focused on Linux.

(If you’re my brother, you don’t have to read this!)

If you’re not my brother, can I interest you in a Linux command line cheat sheet?

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How to Install New Fonts on Windows & Linux

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FontTypography refers to the style and appearance of a written language, and/or the art and study of arranging and displaying a written language.

Let me just say (from the perspective of not being an artist) that typography is truly is an art-form that can add to or subtract from just about every language I’ve ever run across.

In this digital age, typography relies very heavily upon the usage of one main component: font.

Font is the graphical representation of text. Each font is a set of characters in a specific style, typeface, or design.

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The KDE Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet (Free Download)

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KDE Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet PreviewThere are many keyboard shortcuts that remain unchanged across operating systems and applications alike.

These normally include shortcuts that aid in general functioning, editing and navigation.

There are many other shortcuts that differ from one operating system to another, and even vary by desktop environment and/or application.

With this in mind, I present to you today a cheat sheet of KDE-specific keyboard shortcuts, some of which may overlap other applications, but all of which I have tested and confirmed as of KDE version 4.14.25.

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An Introduction to KDE Virtual Desktops & Activities

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Virtual DesktopVirtual desktops are an old concept, centered around the thought of operating multiple applications on each of several separate desktops that are running in unison.

This allows for a separation of tasks to the degree that, for example, a web browser, email client and other social activities can be open on one desktop, work-related documents in another, and image-editing in yet another.

Virtual desktops are called workspaces in many distributions of Linux, and have also been known as multiple desktops.

Activities are, as of now, unique to KDE, and are very similar to virtual desktops, but allow for a greater range of options, customizations, and task-orientation. Unique activities are often set up on each virtual desktop so that the two can be utilized together.

To summarize the difference between these two options, I would say that virtual desktops are like working with multiple monitors all lined up on one desk, while activities are like switching to another PC entirely, on a separate desk — maybe even in a separate room!

(That may have made more sense in my head than it does on the screen, but stick with me, and it should all clear up as we go.)

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All About KDE Widgets

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KDE LogoKDE widgets are utilities that provide ease-of-use, functionality, or just plain fun to the KDE desktop environment.

Widgets can be added to either the desktop or the task manager; the available widgets are usually identical in each case.

Currently, over 50 widgets are packaged with the KDE desktop, and more can be downloaded/installed (from trusted sources!)

Let’s jump right into some details on how to set up and customize KDE widgets.

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