http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2007/08.php .
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Last night, to celebrate some really good news, my wife and I went out to eat with our next-door neighbors and good friends, Mike and Annamarie, and two of their grandchildren, Sierra and Ethan. I sure appreciate them. They continue to be the best next-door neighbors we've ever had, and through our many adventures together in the past 3 years, I've come to think of Mike like a brother.
It's a very subjective decision, based on many subjective factors, so your choice may be totally different than mine. Still, you may get some good information to help you decide by reading Linux Vs. Mac: Which Is The Better Alternative To Microsoft Windows?
Speaking of alternatives to Windows, "Fewer businesses are now planning to move to Windows Vista than seven months ago, according to a survey by patch management vendor PatchLink Corp., while more said they will either stick with the Windows they have, or turn to Linux or Mac OS X." Is anyone here surprised? I didn't think so. In the meantime, IBM is saving $250 million by consolidating 4,000 small computer servers that took up about 140 football fields-worth of space, into 30 refrigerator-sized Linux mainframes.
I think this web site is unique in the way that it combines many aspects of my personal life with information about computers and many other technologies, with a wide variety of other subjects, like science, medicine, education, domestic abuse, entertainment and more. I always enjoy getting email messages from people who "get" this site. Here's a debatable list of indicators that you "get" the worldwide Web.
A popular expression used to be, "I'll believe it when I see it."
Not any more.
Regular Journal reader and fellow Linux user, malspa, sent me an email, recommending two good Linux support sites: Linux Clues and Tips For Linux Explorers. It looks like both sites have a lot of helpful specific tips and useful general information that would be valuable to anyone who uses Linux.
When the "dot-com bubble" burst a few years ago, a lot of people who had invested in high-tech companies lost a lot of money very quickly, as many "dot-com" companies went belly-up almost overnight. It was as though someone had announced, "Hey! The emperor has no clothes!" and everyone suddenly agreed and instantly changed from worshipping the emperor to laughing at him. Now John C. Dvorak predicts that another bubble is going to burst soon. Are you worshipping any naked emperors?
Some day soon, instead of having to remember passwords and PIN numbers, and carry credit cards and other ID cards, you may be able to identify yourself to secure systems by just showing your face. I can imagine the new credit-card commercials already: "Your face — Don't leave home without it."
Pop star Elton John says that the Internet is a bad thing and
it should be shut down. That does it — I, for one, am no longer going to look to Elton John for expert advice about computer topics.
Last night, while looking through my server logs, I was happy to see that several people have been reading the articles in this site's Abuse Info section. Then I discovered something that suddenly made me feel very sad. One visitor had arrived at this site after doing a Google search for the words, "change name escape abuse." Knowing that this site doesn't have any information on how to change your name, I felt sort of like someone was in real trouble and had called me for help, but they had gotten my answering machine instead of me. So, this morning, I wrote Changing Your Name To Escape Abuse, and added it to this site's Abuse Info section. It's a description of how the name-change process worked when my wife and I legally changed our names last year. I hope that it will provide at least a little bit of help and guidance to someone who is looking for that type of information. Please note, however, that while my new article will give you an idea of what we had to do to change our names, the name-change process and requirements in your particular state or county may be very different than they were for us, and depending on how complicated your particular situation is, you may need to hire an attorney to help you change your name. At the very least, you should call your local women's shelter, to see if they have anyone on staff who can help you through the lengthy and often-difficult name-change process.
As part of its new push to become a huge player in the advertising industry, Microsoft plans to have free, ad-supported copies of its Works office suite preinstalled on some new PCs within months. Please don't tell me that you are surprised.
New research indicates that monkeys learn best the same way that humans learn, through active learning strategies.
Rhesus University has heralded the news as "a significant breakthrough in the field of monkey education."
I got a great night's sleep last night, and was wide awake at 5:00 this morning, so I did a little work on this site. As you can see, I replaced my page-translation text links with little national-flag icons at the top of each page. If you're interested in using them on your site, they're called Pixel Flag Icons and you can download a free zip file that contains 174 of them.
During the continuing aftermath of this past week's bridge-collapse disaster in Minneapolis, it has become clear that traditional methods of bridge inspection can no longer accurately and adequately judge whether or not the nation's bridges are safe. That's why it's good to see that new sensor technologies are being developed to supplement or replace the old-fashioned "eyeball" inspection techniques.
Remember that Washington D.C. administrative law judge who sued his dry cleaners for $54 million, claiming that they had lost a pair of his pants? As you may recall, he lost that case. Now, he's about to lose his job, too. It seems like you don't see it very often nowdays, but I think that's what they call "justice."
Here's a fun little quiz that has only ten questions. See how many of them you can answer correctly.
If you're a fan of the old TV show, The Wonder Years, you'll probably be happy to see that
Winnie is doing really well.
Sometimes, it takes a lot of courage to try something new, even when you've heard lots of good things about it. Those of us who went looking for something that could replace Microsoft Windows on our home computers know that many of the most popular Linux distros (versions) can do the job, but I'll bet that most of us wouldn't be willing to use Linux instead of Windows at work without telling anyone, just to prove that it can be done.
Every day, I spend several hours on my home-office computer. I use it for my work, but I also use it to do several things that I enjoy, like maintaining this web site, helping people with their computer problems via email, and hanging out in several different online forums. In contrast, my wife uses a computer at her job, but when she comes home, she has no interest in doing anything "fun" on our computer. She tries to leave me alone when I'm using it, and I leave her alone those occasional times when she has to do some work on it. As a couple, I think we've achieved a happy balance in our computer usage that some couples struggle to find.
We all know that most of the energy that powers our homes and infrastructure comes from underground coal and petrochemical sources. If some researchers get their way, in the future, it may come from an underground source that's "clean, quiet and virtually inexhaustible, (and) could fill the world's annual needs 250,000 times over with nearly zero impact on the climate or the environment."
In an effort to reduce the number of road deaths and injuries, "Nissan Motor has installed in a car
three prototype high-tech systems designed to stop drink (sic) driving." That reminds me of the old saying that if you build a better foolproof system, the universe will build a better fool.
For the past few weeks, I noticed that the news aggregator service that I was using to provide Linux news headlines in the Headlines section of this site's home page kept showing the same tired old headlines day after day. I checked into the problem and figured out that that particular aggregator automatically scans various Linux sites, looking for newly published headlines. The problem with doing that automatically is that if Site A publishes a story on Monday, and then Site B links to that story on Wednesday, and Site C links to it on Friday, and Site D links to it on Sunday, and Site E links to it a week later, the automated news aggregator puts that headline on its front page each time it finds it on those other sites, because it isn't intelligent enough to realize that it's publishing the exact same headline over and over.
To solve that problem, I'm now using LXer as this site's Linux news aggregator. Since LXer's headlines are chosen and posted by humans, they'll always be fresh and relevant, and you won't see the same headlines over and over.
At least a few times in the past year, I've recommended that you download the free, bootable GParted LiveCD, because it does an excelent job of creating, moving, maintaining and deleting hard drive partitions. Unfortunately, the GParted LiveCD's future is currently uncertain, since its developer has stated that he no longer has time to maintain it, and so he is seeking someone to take his place. The good news is that if you liked the free, bootable GParted LiveCD, there are several reasons why you'll probably love the free, bootable Parted Magic LiveCD.
Physicists have figured out how to reverse the Casimir force. Yeah, I didn't know what that meant, either, until I read about how reversing the Casimir force could enable the development of machines that are nearly frictionless and make it possible to levitate objects. Hey, maybe we'll finally get those flying cars that they predicted we'd all be driving by now.
No matter how many times a story like this comes to light, the underlying problem that it describes never gets solved. A recent U.S. government study reveals that
61% of IRS employees
"ignored security rules and turned over sensitive computer information to a caller posing as a technical support person." Since "education" efforts have repeatedly failed to stop highly trusted government employees from continuing to put all U.S. personal financial records at risk, maybe it's time to consider motivating them by instituting an immediate termination policy and pursuing criminal penalties against employees who are caught practicing such reckless behavior.
Don't worry — there's no conspiracy and I haven't given up on those of you who still use Windows. It just so happens that today's news is mostly about Linux.
Every once in awhile, it's nice to review some of the reasons why so many of us have made the switch from using Windows to using a Linux-based operating system. In my case, I've been using Linux full-time for over a year now, and have been using Mepis Linux for almost that long. Here's a long, detailed trilogy of articles that describes Ten Reasons To Dump Windows — Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3. If you already use Linux, you'll probably find yourself nodding your head in agreement with much of it. If you use Windows, you might learn some things that will make you want to give Linux a try.
While there are hardly any exact, one-to-one equivalents between Windows and Linux software applications, it's true that pretty much anything that you can do in Windows, you can also do in Linux. One main difference is that, in Linux, you can do almost all of it for free.
A self-described Linux evangelist says that when it comes to "selling" Linux to Windows users we've been doing it all wrong. Then, to drive home his point, he issues an interesting challenge to all Windows users.
A lot of people don't know what their hard drive's MBR (Master Boot Record) is, yet it's often one of the first things that people advise them to try to fix when their computer starts refusing to boot up. Whether you use Windows or Linux, you should backup your hard drive's MBR, because if you ever have problems with it, it's a lot faster and easier to restore it from a backup than it is to try to re-create it. Here's
how to backup your MBR.
It appears that Microsoft is succeeding in its efforts to fracture the open-source and Linux community. As we all know, the company has been using implied threats of patent-enforcement lawsuits to pressure several open source vendors into signing patent indemnity agreements with them. However, in a perfect example of "the law of uninitended consequences," the companies that entered into those agreements appear to be suffering as a result of "making a deal with the devil," while other open-source and Linux vendors continue to be strong and united in their opposition to Redmond's bullying tactics. Ironically, I think the Microsoft deals have been a good thing, because they've shown us all which open-source vendors have remained loyal to the principles of open-source development, and which companies have "sold out" their own rights and jeopardized the rights of their open-source comrades by "paying protection money" to Microsoft.
I've seen a few conflicting reports on whether or not it always works, but it's been reported that there's one line of HTML/CSS code that will instantly crash Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 browser, if you visit any site that contains it. And that it will also reportedly crash IE7, but not until you try to visit any other web site afterward. If you're running IE6 or IE7, try visiting the demo site that is linked in that story, and see if it crashes your browser. If you're afraid to visit that site, then doesn't that tell you something about how little trust you have in your browser? If you're still using any Microsoft browser, do yourself a favor and switch to the free, secure and open-source Firefox browser that I've been happily using for the past few years.
As I reported here, my old 21" CRT monitor died several weeks ago, and I replaced it with a sharp new 22" LCD wide-screen display. Now comes word that LG Philips has developed a cheap, flexible, paper-thin display. Maybe I'll get one of those — several years from now, after my new display dies.
I think there's a lot of wisdom in finding out as much as you can about what someone is really like before you marry them. In that vein, one of my favorite people in the world, my old friend-and-mentor, Dr. Gene Poor, once said that couples shouldn't be allowed to get married until they've wallpapered a room together. I'm thinking that maybe a good alternative assignment would be to
build a PC together. On the other hand, I think I'm a much better man than I was even a couple of years ago, let alone way back when I first got married. If wallpapering a room together or building a computer together had been a pre-wedding requirement, then the wonderful, beautiful woman who took on the daunting task of being my wife would probably have never agreed to marry me in the first place. Yikes! That's a scary thought.
It's been several years since the current HTML web coding standards were introduced, and web developers have been clamoring for it to get new features for nearly that entire time. Now several major browser makers and the W3C are working on HTML 5, which will reportedly include new video and audio elements, as well as several other new structure and semantics features. To learn how HTML 5 may affect you and your web site, see this discussion by Slashdot's readers.
Regular Journal reader malspa has found another good site to recommend to us all. According to its FAQ page, "Lifehacker, the software and productivity guide, is a blog that covers tips and tricks for streamlining your life with computers (and sometimes without). Updated several times daily, Lifehacker points out software downloads, web sites, do-it-yourself projects, how-to's, tutorials, shortcuts and tips for going beyond the default settings and getting things done in the most clever, unexpected and efficient ways. Think of Lifehacker as self-help for geeks." Thanks for telling us about it, malspa!
If you, or someone you know, is a new user of the award-winning, free, open-source Firefox browser, you may want to learn about a new Firefox support site that targets your Mom.
With nearly unlimited earnings from advertisers at stake, the search-engine business is a highly competitive one. So you may be pleasantly surprised to learn that, in the latest search-engine war, the real winner is your online privacy.
If you could interview God, what questions would you ask? Here's
a short, thought-provoking video of one such imaginary interview. I switched off the repetitive music halfway through the video, but I think the images (and some of the thoughts) are beautiful.
What's going to happen next in Microsoft's war against Linux? Is it ever going to end, and if so, how? Microsoft vs. The Linux World has some answers to those and other questions. See if you agree with them.
Speaking of Microsoft vs. Linux, you may be surprised to see what one IT analyst at Dell Computers says has recently provided the biggest opportunity for desktop Linux to grow its market share. Come to think of it, you probably won't be surprised.
Even though only a miniscule number of viruses have ever been developed to attack Linux, some Linux users use antivirus software on their Linux PC anyway, oftentimes to catch any email-borne Windows viruses to protect Windows users to whom the messages may be later forwarded. I don't use antivirus software on my Linux PC, but if you do, you may want to make sure that the one you use is effective, because not all of them are. Happily, one of the free ones is.
Microsoft has reportedly released Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to small groups of testers. Don't expect them to be released to everyone else until some time early next year.
It won't help you go faster, but it could help you go faster while you... uh... go. If that doesn't make any sense to you, it will after you
take a look at this.
Yesterday, I got an email asking what I thought about software and sevices that allow a person to browse the web "anonymously." I responded that I don't use them, simply because I think they slow down my browsing experience way too much. Plus, I don't trust any of the individual anonymous-surfing sites to actually keep their word by not keeping any records of my surfing habits. On the other hand, if I really wanted to try to be completely anonymous on the web, I would probably use Tor (the Onion Router), which I think is the current gold standard for anonymizing services. Using software that you install and configure on your computer, Tor routes your browsing requests through an entire, constantly-changing, encrypted network of member computers, in a (mostly) untraceable manner.
I know what some of you are thinking, because someone brings it up every time anyone brings up the subject of anonymous web surfing: "If you're trying to hide it, you must be doing something wrong!" But common sense tells me that people have a right to keep their private things private, especially if they're not doing anything wrong. For example, if you don't want everyone on the Internet to have access to your personal financial records, email messages and medical records, does that mean that you must be doing something wrong? Of course not.
If you still believe that "If you're trying to hide it, you must be doing something wrong!" then let me know, and I'll be happy to send a crew over to your house to remove your bathroom door, your bedroom door, and all of the curtains and shades from your windows.
Is a guy who spends his own time and money to build PCs for disadvantaged kids a "hero?" He doesn't think he is, but he knows some other people who are.
I guess the lesson of this story is that, if you're a big-time drug lord, and you go through all of the pain and expense of having plastic surgery to avoid being recognized and captured by the police, then don't forget to change your voice, too.
Oh, no —
here we go again. If I knew that something could kill me if I ate it, I would personally make sure that everything I ate was safe before I ate it, instead of entrusting that tremendous responsibility to teenage, minimum-wage workers.
There's an old joke that says that if someone shows you a piece of artwork, and you really don't like it at all, then instead of saying what you really think, you should be diplomatic and just say that it's "interesting." I couldn't help remembering that when I read this recent interview with Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel. I know it probably doesn't mean anything at all, but when he's asked about controversial topics like open source companies' deals with Microsoft, count how many times he uses the word "interesting."
For the past year, I've used OpenOffice.org, running in Linux, to meet my needs for an office suite. In contrast, I've mentioned before that my wife occasionally uses Microsoft Office, running in the Windows XP side of My Hardware-Based Dual-Boot PC, simply because she feels like the documents that the free, open-source OpenOffice.org office suite creates aren't compatible enough with the closed-source, proprietary MS Office software that she uses at work. It turns out that she's not the only one who feels that way.
How can it be an error if the operation completed successfully? I have no idea. Maybe someone should ask Microsoft.
Many people blame humanity for messing up this planet — some say beyond repair. And with populations continuing to grow and people living longer than they ever have before, things may get even worse. So what's the ultimate solution?
Start spreading our mess to the rest of the universe, of course.
I often find myself doing a search of this web site, to re-find important information that I've written about in the past, when I discover that I need it weeks or even months later. In that sense, this entire site functions sort of like my own huge, private wiki, that also just happens to be available publicly. If you'd like to create your own private wiki, right on your desktop, you may want to consider using Zim. I'll bet it's a lot easier to use Zim than it would be to create an entire web site like this one.
Doesn't it seem like there's new bad news about Windows Vista almost every week? PCWorld reports that "Vista requires premium content like high-definition movies to be degraded in quality when (it is) sent to high-quality outputs." Here's what Slashdot's readers think of that. Sometimes I think that Microsoft must be bent on seeing just exactly how much of that kind of abuse Windows users will be willing to put up with. As for me, I gave up on Windows over a year ago, and I use Mepis Linux instead of Windows. As you can see, my Linux desktop looks pretty much like a Windows desktop. But it's far more secure, stable, powerful and configurable. And, like nearly all versions of Linux, it didn't cost me a penny — not for the operating system or for any of the many applications and utilities that I use.
Years ago, pundits predicted that the use of computers and other technology would create "the paperless office." Well, that idea never panned out, and now the stacks of paper are even taller than they used to be, especially for people who have
an iPhone.
Up until a few years ago, I had a long article on this site, explaining all of the different tools, technologies and services that I used to build it and to provide all of its services. I updated that article every time I added a new service or replaced an old one with something better. Over the years, several people wrote to thank me for providing that information, while others wrote to ask me specific questions about how to get some of this site's services to work on their sites. I felt good about it until one potential client "picked my brain" in two separate interviews, asking me to explain in detail my very specific suggestions for improving their web site, and also to explain parts of that article in detail, while they took notes about what I said. From the way they acted, I strongly suspected that they were planning to use the information from my interviews and my article to improve their web site, instead of hiring me. So I deleted that article from this site as soon as I got home from the second interview, and I never heard from them again. Now Built With says that it will tell you how your favorite sites were built. I didn't try it, because right now it is very busy and painfully slow, but I bet it won't give you any free advice on how to make other sites' services work on your site.
If you've been following the SCO vs. Novell courtroom battle, then you probably know that, this past Friday, a judge ruled against The SCO Group's claims. The vast majority of Linux users immediately began rejoicing over that news, concluding that it would essentially put the litigious SCO Group on the fast path to bankruptcy, while giving Linux a good boost in popularity, especially with corporations that had been waiting to see how the case turned out before making any commitments to use Linux. So far, it looks like most Linux users were right to celebrate. In fact, as of this writing, The SCO Group's stock price has plummeted to only 38 cents per share, and Linux is looking good to a lot of corporations.
Microsoft head Bill Gates is very smart. He's also very rich. But do you think he's sexy? I agree with the forum member who wrote, "THAT IS JUST NOT RIGHT."
It's sort of stupid. It's kind of annoying. But at the end, I laughed anyway. If you use any browser except Microsoft's Internet Explorer, you might enjoy
this little 30-second video.
A couple of days ago, I noted here that Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds seems to use the word "interesting" a lot, whenever he's asked for his reactions to controversial issues in the news. Now, on the third page of a long article, it's being reported that, a few years ago, when he was asked for his reaction to the SCO vs. Novell court battle, Linus said, ""Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women... Fairly entertaining." There's that word again.
If you remember the many significant accomplishments of guy who used to be widely known as "The Woz," you may be interested to see what he hopes to do next.
Do you trust Wikipedia to give you unbiased information? If so, you may want to think twice about that, and maybe use a new tool to see if any biased contributors have edited your favorite Wikipedia articles.
Computer programmers can get away with wasting time at work, as long as their boss doesn't know enough about programming to know whether they're wasting time or not. Here's a perfect example.
A few years before The Simpsons began appearing on TV as little animated shorts squeezed in between the skits on The Tracey Ullman Show, one of my brothers-in-law gave my wife and me a book of very primitive, very dark-humored comics, called
Love Is Hell, by Simpsons creator,
Matt Groening. Now I'm giving you a link to a brand new, primitive comic called
Why I Shouldn't Date, by Ilan Cohen. Don't forget — you saw it here first.
Regular Journal reader and fellow Linux user, malspa, isn't afraid to delve into the details of Linux command-line commands. In fact, over the past few months, he has shared many of his command-line discoveries with me in email messages. Now malspa has compiled information from several different sources to create a convenient reference list of commands, tips and information called How To Get System Info In Linux. You can find it in this site's Guest Articles section.
Linux operating systems are more secure than Windows. And more powerful. And more stable. And more configurable. And they don't contain any DRM "features" that restrict your ability to use them. And they usually include all of the software applications and utilities that any normal user could want. So why do the vast majority of computer users continue to use Windows instead of making the switch to Linux? Maybe it's because Windows Is Free.
Despite years and years of countless Windows security flaws and monthly security fixes, Microsoft appears to have still not learned the basic computer programming lesson that whenever you add a feature to your operating system to make it more convenient for regular users to use, you need to make sure that it doesn't also make it more convenient for bad guys to hack into everyone else's computers. For example, "Security researchers Billy Rios and Nathan McFeters say they've discovered a new way that the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) protocol handler technology, used by Windows to launch programs through the browser, can be misused to steal data from a victim's computer." I'm afraid that, once again, Microsoft does not make the Dean's List.
I don't remember the first time I saw it happen in a movie, but it seems like it has happened in nearly every action movie for at least the past twenty years. It's the scene in which the hero discovers that he has accidently "tripped" a nearby bomb. After the obligatory half-second close-up reaction shot of his terrified face, he turns and runs for the front door of the house just as the bomb starts to explode. Then we're treated to a dramatic, slow-motion steadycam shot of the hero, running for his life as the expanding explosion chases him to safety. He barely escapes with his life, but suffers only a small cut (usually somewhere on his forehead) as the building — now mysteriously a hundred yards behind him — is completely destroyed. The trouble is that anyone who knows anything about explosions knows that that's a bunch of garbage. The fact is that explosions happen instantaneously. If you're in the building when a bomb explodes, then you're instantly injured, maimed or killed. End of story. So what's the harm in movies portraying things in such an unrealistic way? It contributes to "the dumbing-down" of society. According to two University of Central Florida professors, "Movies such as Spiderman 2 and Speed generate excitement among audiences with their cool special effects. But they also defy the laws of physics,
contributing to students’ ignorance about science." Come to think of it, so does
Wile E. Coyote.
Now that a court has determined that Novell, not the SCO, owns the copyrights to Unix, the threat of lawsuits from the SCO is probably over. But should Linux users worry that maybe now Novell is going to start attacking Linux distributions for using Unix code? Nope.
Users of *NIX operating systems (Various forms of Unix, Linux and BSD) enjoy many advantages over users of Windows operating systems, but one author says that there are places where *NIX is behind the times, especially when it's used on desktop computers. The more you know about the inner workings of *NIX systems, the more you'll understand this article. I understood enough to agree with a couple of its points, but people who are more technically knowledgeable about *NIX systems than I am may take issue with some of its points, as demonstrated by some of the readers' comments that follow the article. What do you think?
Despite its constantly expanding list of discovered security flaws, Windows itself is reportedly more secure than a lot of the media players that people use in Windows. I'm not sure if that news is supposed to make Windows users feel better or not.
Here is yet another example of how Microsoft appears to be morphing from a company that earns its money by producing software and providing services into an advertising company that makes its money by controlling everyone's access to every possible form of entertainment.
This just in from the "Everything You Know Is Wrong" Department: Physicists claim to have
broken the speed of light. Those who understand quantum physics will be even more impressed to learn that they did it tomorrow. That reminds me of comedian Steven Wright's question: "What is the speed of dark?" And how come no one ever tries to break it?
Every once in awhile, it's good to see that not only is Linux good enough and friendly enough for experienced computer users to use, it's also good enough and friendly enough for their grandparents to use.
Over the past nine years, I spent a lot of time trying out different software applications and utilities and telling you about the best ones that I found, so you can trust that when I say that something works, I know it from experience. Apparently, that's not the case with some sites whose software recommendations are a money-making scam, and who never even try the software that they highly recommend.
This web site does not have any advertisements. Never has. Never will, even though I regularly receive emails from companies that would like to advertise on it. In fact, none of my web sites has ever had advertising. I have always paid for all of my sites' expenses out of my own money, because I don't want any ads to possibly hurt the credibility of anything that I say or any reviews that I do. And when I surf the web, I use the free, award-winning Firefox browser, along with Adblock Plus, a popular ad-blocking extension. If your browsing habits are like mine, then you're going to be intentionally blocked from viewing at least one web site.
It's been more than seven years since I first used this web site to comment on the need to Teach Kids Web Safety. Now, "The US National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) has
called on state leaders to work with schools and colleges to ensure that cyber-security, online safety and ethics lessons are integrated into every classroom." Needless to say, I think that's a really good idea.
The Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine is stepping down, and in his farewell piece, he takes some well-deserved shots at Windows Vista. In fact, he ends his piece by saying, "The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux." What does it tell you when someone's opinion of Windows changes as soon as they stop being paid to write about it?
A few days ago, I mentioned a thought-provoking article called, Windows Is Free. Since then, that article has gotten some thoughtful responses. Here are a couple of them: The Subtle Stories Behind Piracy and Why 'Windows Is Free' Doesn't Cut It For Me. Read what they all think and then see what you think.
This is a really cool idea: If you live in one of 16 major cities in South Africa, you can get free Linux operating systems, open source software and free literature, photography and music software from a vending machine.
On Thursday, one of the three nuclear power units in Athens, Alabama, had to be shut down in the middle of extremely hot and dry weather, causing electric bills to soar even higher than the temperature. Why? Because the nearby river got too hot.
I've been using Linux full-time for over a year, but I'm certainly no expert on the inner workings of its command-line commands. Still, I know enough to laugh at
this geeky comic. But, to be completely correct, shouldn't the second guy ask for the root password before agreeing to make that sandwich?
For anyone who's interested in seeing just how easy it is to set up a stable, secure, user-friendly Linux computer for their grandparents to use, here's Making My Grandparents Leet Linux Users - Part 2.
Hey, Linus-philes, here's another recent interview with Linus Torvalds, the father of the Linux operating system, in which he answers questions on several topics. Call me obsessive if you want, but I couldn't help but notice that, just like he did in every interview that I've seen lately, Linus uses the word "interesting" a lot. I noticed it ten times in this interview. Could it be that English isn't his primary language, so he doesn't know many English adjectives? Or is there some other deeper meaning to his repeated use of that word? Hmmm... interesting.
Have you noticed or even been a victim of sexism in the IT industry? It's reportedly a serious problem in at least a few parts of the Linux community, but I suspect that it is still present in all areas of IT and life in general. I tend to see sexism as a symptom and a warning sign of the much-greater underlying problem that many forms of abuse are ignored or tolerated in modern society, and I said so in my comment that appears after the article.
It's bad news for us all, but it will reportedly affect cable companies first: "The internet is heading for a crash unless it increases its bandwidth capabilities, according to an analyst report." How bad is the problem? Here's a clue: "Cisco found that American video websites currently transmit more data per month than the entire amount of traffic sent over the internet in 2000."
Here's what they're saying about a material that they call
frozen smoke: "A miracle material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars." But can it slice, dice and make julienne fries?
Regular readers of this Journal know that I've been using Linux full-time instead of Windows for more than a year, and have been using Mepis Linux full-time for almost a year. As I've said many times before, I spent a few years looking for a Linux distro (version) that could totally replace Windows for me, because I wanted to be totally independent of Microsoft operating systems and software. Why? For many technical reasons, of course, but also for some personal reasons, not the least of which was that I had read about and personally witnessed way too many Windows horror stories like this one. I still haven't quite reached my goal — I occasionally boot up the Windows XP side of My Hardware-Based Dual-Boot PC to use Microsoft Movie Maker to edit and convert a digital video to a web-friendly format. I anticipate that I'll have more access to Linux video software and finally won't need Movie Maker any more after the next version of Mepis Linux is released, probably within the next several weeks. I'll let you know if and when that happens. In the meantime, here's a guy who's been Microsoft-free for the past eight months, who now asks, Why Should I Care About Microsoft?
If your home computer uses a dual-core processor, that's about as high-tech as you're going to get these days — unless you buy Tilera Corp's new 64-core processor. "The Santa Clara, California-based company, founded in 2004, says its chip delivers 10 times the performance and 30 times the performance-per-watt of an Intel dual-core Xeon chip." And Tilera's CTO predicts that they'll have a 1,000-core processor by 2014. Dual-core suddenly doesn't sound very fast any more, does it?
Are you looking for ways to keep track of your hectic life? Take a look at 20 Great Tools To Keep Your Life Organized.
Here's the kind of problem that only a software giant can create: Computer users at MIT who used Windows 2000 and changed their login passwords needed to have
a lot of patience and a lot of free time on their hands. And Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 made the problem even worse. At least Microsoft finally fixed it in Service Pack 3.
Yesterday, I mentioned that digital video editing/conversion is the only task for which I still occasionally rely on Windows. And that I hoped that that situation will change soon. Here are some Video Editing Options For Linux. Actually, several months ago, I successfully used a couple of Linux video editing packages to edit a few videos in Linux. The problem was that when I tried to export them in Flash format to put on the web, they were completely silent. From the information that I've been able to glean, that's because, for licensing reasons, a Linux audio support file called ffmpeg ships without the ability to encode audio in the mp3 format that Flash video uses. Since all of the Linux video-editing software packages that I tried utilized ffmpeg to create the mp3 audio portion of Flash videos, they all created silent Flash videos. While you can find step-by-step instructions for recompiling ffmpeg with mp3 audio enabled, or even download and install an already-upgraded ffmpeg file for some Linux distros, I was unable to find either solution for Mepis Linux, the distro that I use. The upcoming Mepis 7 will be based on more standard file libraries than the current version that I'm using, so there's a real good chance that I'll be able to upgrade its ffmpeg file to allow me to edit my videos within Linux and export them to Flash format with audio. At that point, I will finally be completely "Windows-Free." At that point, the only times that I'll have to use Windows will be when I help someone with their Windows PC, and when I teach Windows-based corporate training courses for a local college.
The article, Windows Is Free, to which I linked last week, is still generating controversy. Here's another author's reasons for Why People Don't Switch Operating Systems.
Virtualization and virtual machine are terms that get thrown around a lot these days. You might be in a support forum, and someone asks, "How can I get both of these operating systems to work on my PC?" After a few people offer some advice on how to set up a dual-boot PC, invariably someone else adds something like "Set up a virtual machine." What are they talking about? What is a virtual machine and why would you want to use one? Where would you get one? How would it work? If you don't know, Best Of Many Worlds will explain it all to you in simple terms.
Have you posted your resume online? If so, you should know that "US job website Monster.com has suffered an online attack with
the personal data of hundreds of thousands of users stolen, says a security firm." I wonder if that means that there will be some job openings in the security department at Monster.com.
Tomorrow, I'll be teaching a Microsoft Word training course all day, which will make me incommunicado to most of the world. And since it will start early in the morning, I'll be writing tomorrow's Journal entry late tonight.
Yesterday, I linked to an article that explained what virtualization is, and how you could use it. QEMU: Virtualization The Easy Way gives a few more details about virtualization and describes another free way to set up virtual machines on your computer.
In Making My Grandparents Leet Linux Users - Part 3, the author describes how he configured his grandparents' computer so that he can support and administer it remotely. Then, in the comments that follow the article, someone suggests an even easier way to do it.
Here's another interview with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. In this one, Linus discusses Linux's past, present and future. And he uses the word, "interesting" eight times. Sorry, I just can't help but notice.
Let's say that you're a Windows XP user. You've heard that Linux operating systems are more secure, stable, configurable and powerful than Windows. And that most Linux distros (versions) come with nearly all the software that you could ever need. And that most Linux operating systems and software can be downloaded for free. And that some of the most popular Linux distros come on a LiveCD that allows you to boot up your computer from the CD and try Linux without installing anything or even touching anything on your computer's hard drive. And that some of the most popular Linux distros are faster and easier to install than Windows. Still, for some reason, you're just not ready to try Linux yet, let alone completely switch to using it like I did over a year ago.
On the other hand, you've also heard that Windows Vista has a lot of problems. Serious problems. So many serious problems that many huge corporations, organizations and government offices have chosen to continue using Windows XP instead of "upgrading" to Vista.
If you're not ready to switch to Linux, but you want to avoid using Vista, then you should learn How To Make Windows XP Last For The Next Seven Years.
I don't accept any advertising on any of my web sites, so when you read one of my reviews, you know that it's what I really think of something — not what some advertiser wants me to tell you about it. Of course, telling the truth in a review could
cause trouble if someone doesn't like what a reviewer says about their creation.
First of all, hello to my Microsoft Word trainees! Yes, that's me standing up in front of the room, and I can prove it. I'm wearing a white short-sleeve shirt with a tie that has dark blue diagonal stripes. See, I told you that this is my web site! Now get back to work — you have a lot to learn today.
Like most of the U.S., we've had a lot of very hot weather for the past month. At 8:30 AM yesterday morning, an elderly friend called to tell me that one of her neighbor's central air conditioning had broken down. The neighbor had called a heating and air conditioning company at 10:00 PM the night before, and they had charged her an arm and a leg to go out in the middle of the night and diagnose the problem. They told her that her home needed a new compressor and a new air handler, and that they would replace them both for $8,000 (USD). She agreed to that price, and they planned to return yesterday morning at 9:00 AM to do the installation. I told my friend that $8,000 sounded like way too high of a price to me — possibly twice as high as it should be — and that, by Federal law, her neighbor has 3 days to cancel her agreement without any penalties. My friend immediately called her neighbor, told her what I had said, and gave her the name and phone number of the air conditioning company that I trust. At 8:40 AM yesterday morning, her neighbor called and cancelled the agreement, and then called the company that I had recommended. Yesterday afternoon, the trusted company installed a brand new, commercial-brand compressor and air handler in her home. Their price: $3,500. Every once in awhile, the good guys win one.
A former administrator of a file-sharing service "pleaded guilty to two charges — ‘conspiracy to commit copyright infringement’ and ‘criminal copyright infringement’. Both charges relate to him uploading ‘Star Wars: Episode III’ onto the internet hours before the theatrical release, earning him 5 months in jail and 5 months home confinement." The terms of his probation require that he either give up using a computer or allow the government to monitor his computer usage. But he's a Linux user and the government's monitoring software only works in Windows. So, if he wants to use a computer, he'll be forced to give up Linux and use Windows. I generally don't have much sympathy for criminals, but that seems like cruel and unusual punishment to me.
In the past ten years, U.S. cable TV prices have more than doubled. Cable TV companies claim that the price increases are because they offer more channels than they used to, but "a Nielsen Media Research study pointed out that an average cable subscriber was paying for 85 channels when in reality that consumer only watched 16." That's why the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission likes the idea of letting consumers to pay for only the channels that they want. I know it sounds like a good idea, but don't forget that the FCC is part of the U.S. government. I won't be surprised if we all end up paying more to get fewer channels.
In Japan, there's an arm-wrestling machine that "lets gamers advance through 10 levels battling, among other opponents, a French maid, a drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua before reaching the final showdown with a professional wrestler." Unfortunately, the machine's maker has recalled 150 of them from arcades after three people
broke their arms while wrestling with it. I guess those Japanese Chihuahuas must be pretty strong.
As you may already know, I've been using Mepis Linux for nearly a year, instead of Microsoft Windows. During that time, I've spent a lot of time at the Mepislovers forums, to get and give support, and because I enjoy the camaraderie. Every once in awhile, someone posts a list of their favorite Linux software, and I've noticed that they often mention Midnight Commander, so I was happy to find an article that describes Midnight Commander in Action.
More and more storage companies are offering solid-state drives that are beginning to rival traditional hard drive capacities. Should your next drive be solid state? Before you decide, be sure to read this review of the two technologies
From now on, whenever I'm tempted to feel sorry for myself about how hard my life is, I'll try to remember that at least I don't have to deal with evil wild monkeys stealing my food and harassing my family.
If you remember the Alfred Hitchcock thriller,
Psycho, then
this news item is probably going to seem awfully familiar.
Microsoft shady marketing department can call it anything they want, but the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) "feature" has proven over and over to be a genuine disadvantage to Windows users. If you're familiar with WGA, you know that it occasionally "phones home" to Microsoft to check and make sure that your copy of Windows is "genuine." If it determines that a copy of Windows is not genuine — which it has been known to do to legal copies of Windows by mistake — it disables several of that copy's important functions, supposedly to make it hard on anyone who is using a pirated copy of Windows. Unfortunately, pirates discovered ways to defeat WGA a long time ago, so now WGA serves mainly to cause problems for legal Windows owners. Take for instance a couple of days ago, when Microsoft's WGA servers suffered worldwide outages and problems. Actually, to be more accurate, it was Windows users all over the world who really did the suffering.
Long-time visitors to this site know that it used to contain forums, where hundreds of people left thousands of messages over the years. One of the best things about having forums was to see college students that I had taught years earlier come back to my forums and answer questions that were posted by my current college students. I shut down my forums when it became too time-consuming to deal with the many spammers who registered for the forums every day and then filled them with advertisements. Over the years, I used several different forum software packages, and all of them had great features, but none of them had enough anti-spam features. Fortunately, most forum software packages have added more anti-spam features since then. Based on what I know now, if I wanted to add forums back to this site, I'd probably use Simple Machines Forum (SMF) software, "a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes." If your site already uses SMF, you should be aware that SMF 2.0 Beta 1 has been released to charter (paid) members. That almost makes me wish that this site needed forums again.
By working in the U.S. public education system at both at the elementary school level and the college level, I've witnessed both its "before and after" effects on students, and can understand both sides of the many arguments that disparage it. Here's a thought-provoking summary of a recent article in Harper's magazine. Got a problem? Ask the public schools to solve it! See what you think.
The bad news is that there's another dog-food recall, and this one can even affect the person who feeds the dog. The good news is that it only affects
a couple of brands in five U.S. states. Still, it's worth checking, to make sure that it doesn't affect your dog and you.
Here's a perfect example of thinking "outside of the box" to solve a perplexing problem. After I moved my PC up onto my desk (it used to be on the floor under my desk), it intermittently refused to power down my monitor when it is supposed to — after 4 minutes of inactivity. For several days, I thought that it might have something to do with my Firefox browser doing something that my PC thought was "activity," but shutting down Firefox didn't solve the problem. After thinking about it on an off for several days, I finally decided to just sit and watch my PC for several minutes, without touching it. What I saw was that, a couple of times each minute, my infrared mouse's infrared light flashed on and then back off, as though someone had moved it a tiny bit. I watched that happen several times over several minutes, and realized that it was the cause of my PC not powering-down my monitor. So what was moving my mouse? A few seconds of thought made me realize that when I had moved my PC onto my desk, it had resulted in there being a lot of slack in the mouse cord, hanging down under my desk. The weight of that extra length of mouse cord was constantly pulling on the mouse, causing it to move a tiny bit every several seconds. I solved the problem by duct taping the extra length of mouse cord to the underside of my desk.
Here's something that you don't see every day: "To make flying more enjoyable for its passengers, Singapore Airlines Ltd. is adding bigger screens, more in-flight movies and a PC, running Red Hat Inc.'s distribution of the Linux operating system, in every seat on its newest planes."
Its site says, "Dance on the grave of DRM with this awesome cartoon requiem video mashup challenge." Yeah, it's all artsy and folksy and cute and clever, but I think it's way too abstract and confusing to make any kind of point to most people. I just don't get it. See if you do, and then see if you think you would have understood it if you hadn't known what it was supposed to be about before you watched it. In my case, I didn't figure out what the characters represented until after I watched the whole thing and re-read the description. Still, judging by the mostly glowing comments that appear under it, I'm in a very tiny minority.
Is your resume saying things about you that you don't want it to say? Maybe you should take a look at
Baby Boomers, Beware! Don’t Let Your Resume Date You!
Through many email messages over the past few months, I've developed an ongoing friendship with regular Journal reader and fellow Mepis Linux user, malspa. Although he lives on the other side the country from me and we've never met, I've come to really appreciate his scholarly, "monk-like" approach to computing. While I have a mostly pragmatic interest in learning what I need to know in order to do whatever I want to do with my computer, malspa is interested in learning everything about computers, operating systems and software applications, as well as the intricate details of things like Linux command-line commands — whether or not he actually needs to use them. As such, even though he's happy to be a Mepis Linux user, he meticulously tries other Linux distros and even keeps Windows XP running on one computer. That is to say, he used to keep Windows XP running on one computer. Here's part of what malspa wrote in response to a recent Journal entry that described problems with Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage: "It looks like this household is completely Windows-free again. I went through the trouble of reinstalling XP on my other computer, but now it never gets used. Just seems like a hassle and nobody wants to bother with it. That computer is headed towards being another Linux computer soon. Not really how I was expecting things to turn out. I think I should give some serious thought to getting one of the low-end Macs. Maybe by the end of the year or in early 2008. Seems to me that Windows is dead here. We can go down to the public library and use XP if we really miss it. When you commented on the Windows Genuine Advantage problems, and then I read up on it a little bit today, it was like, you can only kick a dog so many times, ya know? We don't need it anymore. I hate that the money that I spent on XP will go to waste, but that doesn't mean that I have to see any more of my time going to waste. Just fed up, Bob." I think a lot of us know exactly how he feels.
UPDATE, 10:15 AM: Malspa wrote again, to add the following to what he had said above: "Also I would add, even the distros I haven't liked much have been more stable and trouble-free than XP. That includes Linspire and Xandros. If I can get Linux installed and get things set up, it always seems to just run and run, even with very little maintenance. And the longer you stick with a distro, you keep tweaking things a little here and there and things just keep looking better and better. Anyone who sticks with Linux for a year or two, unless there are games or other apps that they absolutely have to have, I think Linux just blows Windows away. And I guess it's the same for folks who switch to Macs. I don't know if I would really buy a Mac; I said that because I know they really catch my son's eye, and also I said it just out of frustration with Windows. I don't know if I would really be happy with Mac OS-X because I enjoy Linux's freedom so much. It would be only to play around with and would primarily be for my son to use. I think I'd feel like my hands were tied if Mac OS-X was my primary OS. Because you can't just go and get free software like you can with Linux. And I don't think you have the freedom to change things around like you do with Linux. That's why I think I should really look into a used Mac, if anything. That way I won't feel so ripped off by Apple. I found some info and I think I know where to look for used ones around here!"
If you've ever wondered about the real reason why closed-source software is closed and proprietary, you'll enjoy reading What's So Precious About Bad Software?
Anyone who uses file-sharing software and services should be aware that a judge has ruled that making copyrighted songs available for others to download is the same as distributing them, and is a violation of copyright law. A possibly very expensive violation of copyright law.
Here's one from "the Al Gore/Arnold Schwarchenegger Do As I Say, Not As I Do Department": An organization that advocates the strict enforcement of copyright laws reportedly
violates copyright laws on the home page of its web site.
Is it possible to install Linux on an older Dell laptop PC, and for it to meet the computing needs of a new graduate student, while still allowing her to run specific software applications that she needs to run in Windows XP? Of course.
It's causing a storm of controversy, as computer users dutifully line up to debate the main point of Linux User - You Have The Right To Remain Silent, Anything You Say... Personally, I suspect that the real purpose of the article may be to create controversy that drives traffic to the author's blog and to the Linux promotion site that he wants everyone to join. In fact, when I read it, my first reaction was to think of the old children's fable, The sky is falling! The sky is falling! What do you think?
Last week's downtime of Microsoft's worldwide Windows Genuine Advantage servers disabled a lot of Windows computers around the world. More importantly, it caused some people to rethink whether it's a good idea to use online software services. Read Don't Trust the Servers, and think about how your business could be hurt by server and network downtimes at its online services company. Excuse me for being a little confused, but I thought that we already answered this question decades ago, when we decided to use PCs instead of dumb terminals connected to a central mainframe computer.
In China, starting on September 1, computer users are going to see animated characters appear on their computer screens. They won't be there for entertainment — they'll be there to remind everyone that the Chinese government is watching everything that they do on their computers.
Speaking of China, I'm sure glad that I don't live there: "In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from
reincarnating without government permission." Insert your own witty and sarcastic punchline here.
People who administer many Windows computers and others who chose not to connect to the Microsoft's Windows Update site have long appreciated the AutoPatcher site as a valuable place to quickly obtain Windows Updates that could be installed locally, instead of having to make each computer connect to the Microsoft site. Unfortunately, Microsoft has shut down the AutoPatcher site. Slashdot's readers have a lot to say about that. I already said what I thought of Microsoft's strong-arm tactics by switching from Windows to Linux more than a year ago. What do you say?
If you're thinking of using online software services, here's a scary thought to consider: "The Terms of Service posted on the Google Docs and Spreadsheets site assigns content rights of anything saved on Doc and Spreadsheets to Google." Yes, you read that correctly.
Have you heard? Brazen, sadistic thieves are now robbing stores over the phone.
It could end up being really good news for anyone who's planning to get older: "Genetically engineered cells implanted in mice have
cleared away toxic plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease." Let's hope that it ends up working in humans, too.
Not too many years ago, when you bought a new Windows PC, it came with a separate CD of Windows itself. If you messed up your new computer, you could boot up that Windows CD and reinstall Windows. At some point, PC manufacturers stopped including a Windows CD with their new PCs. Instead, they included a recovery CD. If you messed up your new computer really badly, you couldn't reinstall Windows by itself, but you could boot up the recovery CD and it would automatically reinstall the entire system, with Windows and software and everything, just like new again. Then, at some point, manufacturers stopped including a recovery CD with their PCs. Instead, they copied the recovery CD files to a hidden partition of the hard drive, where you could access them through a secret menu if you needed to restore your entire system back to like-new condition. Then, at some point, manufacturers stopped including a recovery partition on their PCs. Instead, they gave customers the option to either create the recovery CD themselves or to pay to purchase a recovery CD. Are you sensing a pattern here? Anyway, now it's been reported that some Circuit City and Best Buy stores push customers to buy expensive store-made recovery CDs by lying to them about the cost of the manufacturers' recovery CDs, and about the fact that customers can also create them themselves pretty easily. Can you believe that computer salespeople would actually lie to their customers? That reminds me of when I'd go into a computer store and ask the salesperson some questions about what I wanted to buy, pretending like I didn't know anything about computers. If I asked a difficult question and the salesperson told me s/he didn't know the answer, that was fine. But if they lied to me, or if they made up an answer, I'd leave without buying anything and go to a different store.
If you've got a lot of money eating a hole in your pocket, you may want to buy a flying car. Just remember, you'll need a pilot's license if you drive it higher than 10 feet off the ground. Oh, and one more thing — a few years ago, the guy who's selling them was found guilty of making "false and misleading statements" about his flying cars.
In the U.K., they know Rowan Atkinson as a brilliant, accomplished comedian who has played many roles over the years. In the U.S., I'll bet most people just know him as
Mr. Bean. The truth is, he's also quite an accomplished drummer, even when he's
playing an invisible set of drums. I wonder how many months he had to practice that routine.
