Tar + SSH

This would be the best way to recursively copy a directory over SSH.

tar cf - dir/ | ssh host.com tar xf -

Steps to make encfs work on Debian GNU/Linux

Compile or install a kernel with support for FUSE (found in `make menuconfig` under Filesystems).

sudo apt-get install fuse-utils
sudo vigr && sudo vigr -s # add yourself to the fuse group
su - `whoamì` # alternatively you can logout and login again
              # to update your group
mkdir $HOME/.crypt $HOME/crypt
encfs $HOME/.crypt $HOME/crypt

Answer the questions (pass phrase etc), go with default settings in most cases.

DONE!

NTFS on Linux

Use ntfs-3g to get good support for read/write on NTFS. FUSE is required.

Out Amarok, In Songbord

I've been looking for a replacement for Amarok. I don't like the idea of depending on KDE software unless I really need to.

I've settled for the really nice Songbird, which has a very active development team (blog) and is based on Mozilla (xulrunner). For me, it's perfect. I have a fairly large music library and it's nice to once again have the ability to discover it. One big playlist is actually a huge advantage compared to Amarok's design where your playlist consists only of a small, manually selected subset of your music collection. I know there are dynamic playlists in Amarok and blah, blah, but those features just didn't cut it for me. Plus it's nice to see there are quite a few plugins for Songbird.

It's not faster than Amarok but it's not slower either. There are a few bugs, most notably one regarding handling of symlinks in watch directory. I guess it'll be fixed in due time.

Unfortunately, it's not packaged for Debian GNU/Linux yet. You can still download it and run it from your home directory though. I urge you to try it out!

Get songbird.