http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2008/01.php .
.
.
With less than two weeks until its official release,
KDE 4 is looking pretty good.
Sometimes, people who help others with their computer problems
get really frustrated with the people that they help. And sometimes, maybe the people who help others with their computer problems need to take a break. A nice, long break. A nice, long, peaceful break. Away from other people. In a nice, warm, safe, quiet place. With nice, warm, safe, padded walls. Until they feel better.
Looking back, it's easy for a technology news web site to summarize what it thinks are
the biggest security news stories of 2007.
Looking forward, it's hard to say what changes 2008 is going to bring for developers and users of free software, but that doesn't stop people from trying. Here are one tech journalist's
11 Predictions For Free Software In 2008.
If you've ever dropped your cell phone into some water, you probably instantly became the proud owner of a non-functioning device that looks just like a cell phone. Those days may soon be over, thanks to
a new waterproof coating that even works on tiny electronic devices.
I had installed and used them in Mepis Linux, so this morning, I installed the
Kim (KDE Image Manipulation) service menus in Debian Linux. At first they wouldn't work, but once I figured out why, it was an easy fix, as I described at the (current) bottom of My Debian Adventure's Debian To-Do List.
You know how Windows applications never let you do anything without making you confirm that you really, really, really want to do it? Well, one aspect of Microsoft Office Service Pack 3 reportedly takes the exact opposite approach: "In Service Pack 3 for Office 2003, Microsoft
disabled support for many older file formats. If you have old Word, Excel, 1-2-3, Quattro, or Corel Draw documents, watch out!... Naturally, they did this by default, and then documented a mind-bogglingly complex workaround..."
How many of Softpedia's
Best Ten Open Source Desktop Applications of 2007 do you use? I use five of them. I'd probably use all ten of them except that I don't have any need for the other five.
How many of Download Squad's
5 Most Annoying Programs On Your PC do you use? I'm very happy to say that I don't use any of them. In fact, I didn't even use any of them for the last few years that I was a full-time Windows user. Here's
what Digg's members think of those five programs.
Did you make any New Years resolutions? Are you sticking with them? According to a piece in the New York Times, "Four out of five people who make New Year's resolutions... will eventually break them. In fact, a third won't even make it to the end of January." I hope that you will be that fifth person.
I've gotten a lot of email lately, asking me for weight-loss tips. So, last night, I wrote
How I Lost More Than 100 Pounds, and added it to this site's Personal Stuff section. I hope that it helps and encourages other people who know that they need to lose some weight.
Lately, I've been getting lots of email messages from friendly Debian Linux users who have read
My Debian Adventure. Yesterday afternoon, one of those messages asked me five follow-up questions about that article, and I thought that they were such good questions that I expanded the article to include my answers to all five of them.
If you are a Linux user who needs to use desktop publishing (DTP) software, you owe it to yourself to take a serious look at
Scribus: Professional Page Layout For Linux.
If you think that "hackers" only mess around with computers, you're still living in the past. Here's Dark Reading's list of
The Five Coolest Hacks of 2007.
It's tiny and lightweight. It uses three lasers, but it's reasonably priced. They're calling it
the World's Smallest Projector.
I'll leave it up to you to decide if you think this is a good idea or not: "The federal government will soon offer passport cards
equipped with electronic data chips to U.S. citizens who travel frequently between the United States and Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean. The cards can be read wirelessly from 20 feet, offering convenience to travelers but raising security and privacy concerns about the possibility of data being intercepted."
Do you hate it when you have nightmares? The good news is that nightmares might actually serve a good purpose. In fact, after you read
Dreams: Night School, you may want to eat a double-pepperoni-and-anchovies pizza right before you go to bed tonight.
Yesterday, I told you about my new article that tells how I recently lost a lot of weight. Several people have asked me to publish more details about exactly what my typical meals consist of, and to also list exactly which vitamins and nutritional supplements I take. I wrote a response to those requests in today's update to
How I Lost More Than 100 Pounds.
Even if you don't user Linux commands very often, you may want to bookmark
this list of Linux commands, to keep it as a general reference guide.
Why doesn't this news surprise me?: "Thousands of customers are paying almost $120 USD per year to Microsoft for an Internet subscription service that includes e-mail, security, and other features. But Microsoft
gives away almost identical services absolutely free in Windows Live and the Windows operating system itself, while neglecting to inform those who pay through the nose."
Newegg has been one of my favorite online vendors for many years. In fact, about five years ago, I bought everything I needed to build my current PC from Newegg. Here's
the story of a long-term Newegg customer who recently became a former Newegg customer. See if it changes how you feel about Newegg. Then, after you've done that, see if you agree with what many of
these readers are saying about the situation.
If you have an encounter with a police detective, are you allowed to secretly tape that encounter? What if your tape ends up proving that the detective lied in court while under oath? See what you think about those and other privacy questions after you read
Opinion: I Want To Live In A Surveillance Society.
I hope that I'm not alone in thinking that it's tremendously and hilariously ironic that the company that gave us
Clippy and the Windows operating system has
patented a frustration-detecting help system.
Last night, I finally solved the problem of Debian Linux insisting on keeping my PC's hardware (BIOS) clock set to the UTC time zone, no matter what I did to tell it to use localtime. It turned out that all I had to do was create one symlink, which apparently should have been automatically created when I installed Debian, but never was. I put the details in last night's update to my Debian To-Do List in My Debian Adventure.
If you or someone you know is thinking of trying Linux for the first time, make sure you do some research first, to increase the chances of success.
Flipping The Linux Switch: 5 Tips Every New Linux User Should Know has some great information and tips.
If you're already a Linux user, you've probably learned more about your PC, and discovered more freedom and control over your PC than you ever thought was possible. Still, I bet you could learn even more from
68 Linux-Related Free E-books.
Windows Vista users and people who support Vista users should be aware that Microsoft has released
a lot of information to help them evaluate and deploy Windows Vista Service Pack 1. This new information comes on the heels of Redmond's latest technical manual: How To Rearrange The Deck Chairs On A Sinking Ship.
Some analysts are calling it the the end of the HD DVD format and the DVD format war: "Warner Bros. Entertainment will release its high-definition DVD titles
exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year." Insert your own lame VHS vs. Betamax joke here.
Those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it. But with fuel costs skyrocketing, it looks like the maybe the best new method for moving heavy cargo might be
a really old idea.
The IT department is dead! Long live the IT department!
Who knows what will — and won't — happen in 2008?
The Magic 8-Ball knows.
A few days ago, I mentioned a guy whose recent experience with Newegg.com caused him to decide not shop at that online store any more. While I would have made a different decision in that situation, I had no problem with the fact that he had communicated his story on a popular Linux news site. On the other hand, at least few people were highly critical of his decision to do that, and of the news site's editors' decision to allow him to do it. Today, in his personal blog, he gives
a thought-provoking response to those critics.
I'm always on the lookout for stories about new, environmentally-friendly energy technologies, so I was happy to find the story,
Scientists Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2. But after reading the whole article, I can't see how the numbers add up to make it worth pursuing. See what you think.
Call it a brilliant idea. Call it a crazy whim. Call it a stupid waste of time and money. I guess time will tell which one it is: After thinking about it for several weeks, this morning, I registered the domain names DiamondLinux.com and DiamondLinux.org. I explain why in a very short piece, titled
Diamond Linux.
If you're using Linux on a laptop, congratulations on your chosen combination of portability and power. But since the FBI says that 97% of stolen laptop computers are never recovered, you would be wise to take a look at
Securing Linux Laptops.
Ooops! We've all known it for months, but it's been reported that, at this week's Consumer Electronics Show, the emperor
accidently admitted that he has no clothes.
Maybe we should all just stay off of the Internet for awhile, until it's safe: "Tens of thousands of Web sites have been compromised by an automated SQL injection attack, and although some have been cleaned, others continue to serve visitors a malicious script that tries to hijack their PCs using multiple exploits, security experts said this weekend."
Archeologists have discovered proof that, long before we all had email accounts — in fact, long before the creation of the Internet itself — ancient humans were looking for
ways to avoid spam.
Readers who enjoy knowing what's going on "behind-the-scenes" on the KDE project will enjoy a KDE developer
Talking Bluntly about KDE 3.5 and 4.
When I first started creating web sites, Network Solutions was basically a government-approved monopoly as a domain registrar. Back then, I had to pay $35 per year (minimum 2 years) to register each of my domain names — then I had put up with NSI's incredibly frustrating and uncaring bureacracy every time I needed to make even the slightest changes to my domain records. In one case, I had to spend a few weeks burning in NSI purgatory, making phone calls, writing letters and faxing various extremely personal, identity-theft-prone papers to numerous robotic NSI employees before I was allowed to move my web sites to a different web host when my chosen web host suddenly shut down its servers and went out of business. Fortunately, competition developed and thrived in the domain registrar market, and for the past several years I've been happily paying
NameCheap less than $9 per year for each of my domain names.
Now comes word that "Domains searched via NSI are being purchased by the registrar thereby preventing a registrant from purchasing it at any other registrar other than NSI." And to make matters even worse, it doesn't cost NSI anything to do it. You know, none of that surprises me at all.
Here's one from the "Don't-Do-The-Crime-If-You-Can't-Do-The-Time Department": "A former Medco Health systems administrator was
sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $81,200 in restitution for planting a logic bomb on a network that held customer health care information." I forget — is planting a logic bomb one of those computer crimes that gets you blacklisted from ever working in the computer industry again, or is it one of those computer crimes that you brag about on your resume, to help you land an obscenely high-paying security consulting job?
If you need even more than the 8,500+ randomly chosen quotes that appear near the top of this site's home page, take a look at
100 more quotes.
About a week ago, I told you How I Lost More Than 100 Pounds and gained complete control over my diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol. Basically, I completely changed my eating habits and began taking several specific vitamins and nutritional supplements that I had personally researched on the web. As I stated in that article, my doctor has been 100% supportive of my efforts, astounded by my progress, and has even encouraged me to write a book to tell other people everything that I've learned in the past 10 months.
Written by a doctor, Is There A Doctor In The Mouse? discusses the need for doctors to be willing to learn from their web-savvy patients.
Nearly a century ago,
a popular song from World War I asked, "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" Those 90-year-old lyrics perfectly describe how I've felt while using Linux full-time instead of Windows for the past 1.5 years. One of the things that appeals to me about Linux is that it gives me tremendous freedom and choice. But is it possible to have too much choice?
The Choice Of Linux helped me clarify how I think and feel about choice, and also gave me an even better appreciation of
Thank [Deity of Your Choice] For Choice.
When they see FUDD, some people believe it without thought or question. Others disregard it without thought or question. But a few people take the time to
dissect it, to help us all understand it better.
Question: Which of the following statements would you guess is not true about Lonnie Johnson?
Answer: It was a trick question —
all of those things are true.
Windows users often leave comments on Linux blogs and forums, bragging that it's a lot easier to install software in Windows than it is in Linux. Whenever you see comments like that, rest assured that the commenter doesn't know what they're talking about. First of all, a typical Linux installation comes with hundreds of free software applications already installed, filling just about every software need that most users have. In contrast, a typical Windows installation comes with almost no applications at all, which forces Windows users to find and then install several pieces of (usually expensive) software before they can even start to use their computers productively. Plus Linux users have immediate access to thousands of additional, totally free pieces of Linux software that are already organized into a few, huge, online libraries called "repositories." That makes it extremely easy for Linux users to find whatever they want extremely quickly; while Windows users have to search all over the Internet to find every single piece software that they're looking for, and then they have to worry about whether they're downloading it from a malicious site or not. In Linux, all it takes is a few quick mouse clicks to tell your system to automatically download and install however many new software packages you've chosen from a repository — and you don't have to reboot your computer afterward. In Windows, you have to manually download each piece of software separately, manually "unzip" it, manually scan it for viruses and other malware, manually install it, and then reboot your computer after every single installation. I hope you're starting to understand that it's much faster, easier and safer to install new software in Linux than it is in Windows.
Flipping The Linux Switch: Package Management 101 tries to explain Linux package management in detail. Unfortunately, because it describes several different ways of doing the same tasks, it ends up making a really easy task sound pretty complicated. In fact, I think that many of the readers' comments that follow it do a much better job of explaining just how fast and easy it really is.
Do you use free software? If so, do you have all of what one writer calls the
9 Characteristics Of Free Software Users? I was a bit skeptical of that article at first, but after reading it, I think I have all of those characteristics.
Is this an early sign of an upcoming global shift that will eventually touch the lives of all IT workers?: Sun Microsystems hopes to
eliminate all SunIT data centers by 2015.
Here's some incredibly good news in the world of medicine that could eventually improve the lives of millions of people, and give hope to millions more: a pilot study done in the U.S. reportedly reveals that "a drug used for arthritis can
reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's in minutes."
Ever since I wrote the first chapter of My Debian Adventure about a month ago, I've been getting email messages from other Debian users, welcoming me to Debian, and sharing their Debian tips and experiences with me. I've even heard from a few people who switched to Debian after reading my article. That makes me feel great.
If you've recently switched to Debian, I'd love to hear from you, too. I may even mention your experience here or somewhere else on this site, so when you write, be sure to let me know if it's OK to use your name or other identifying information. You can find a Contact ComputerBob link at the bottom of every page of this web site.
We've seen this type of story often enough that it doesn't surprise us at all any more: "The agency that governs educational technology in the United Kingdom has advised schools in the country to keep Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system and its Office 2007 software
out of the classroom and administrative offices." Read the article to see what they're recommending instead.
If you've been following the long saga of Microsoft's efforts to get its OOXML document format certified as an international standard, then you just may have "the right stuff" to read and understand the long and detailed
OOXML Questions Microsoft Cannot Answer In Geneva. Just don't ask me to explain it all to you.
I have to admit that it often works best for me to do the exact opposite of a few of the suggestions in
27 Tips To Conquer Your E-mail And Improve E-mail Productivity. Still, I think they're all probably good ideas for most people. See what you think of them.
I remember seeing a few of them. A few of them I know I've never seen before. See if you remember any of them, and if you agree that they're the
Best Vintage Tech Commercials.
I originally wrote this entry to call attention to a blog in which a guy describes how he successfully switched his girlfriend's computer from Windows to Linux. Then I found myself adding a sentence to that entry, saying that I like what he says, but I wish he would say it without peppering his prose with nasty language. To me, using vulgar language is like wearing torn shorts and a beer-stained T-shirt to a professional interview. So I decided that, because of that nasty language, I didn't even want to link to his otherwise-interesting story.
He chose to write the way he does, and I chose not to link to his writing. Like I always say, Linux is all about choices.
Will 2008 finally be "The Year of the Linux Desktop?" And how will anyone know if it is or not?
The Linux Desktop Paradox reminds us that Linux's wealth of choices means that there is no single "Linux Desktop" by which to judge.
As you probably already know, KDE 4 was released this past week. But did you know that what was released was a developers' version, not a "ready-for-prime-time" release for end users? No wonder so many reviews of KDE 4 say that it seems incomplete and unpolished. For more info on KDE 4, and to give your feedback about it, see
The Start Of Something Amazing With KDE 4.0 Release.
You practically need a scorecard to keep track of all the changes that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project has gone through in its short life. Its original stated goal was to build a $100 laptop for children of disadvantaged countries around the world. As it was being developed, its price crept up to its current price of around $200. Then it was offered to North Americans in a temporary "buy one, get one" deal that provided a free laptop to a child for every laptop that was purchased for personal use. Then its former CTO quit to start her own, competing company, and its CPU builder and project partner, Intel, quit the OLPC Project after being accused of trying to convince countries to purchase Intel's more expensive, competing laptop instead of the OLPC laptops that they had already agreed to purchase. In addition, there have been reports that Microsoft is working with the OLPC Project to create either a dual-boot (Linux and Windows) OLPC laptop or a Windows-only OLPC laptop that would compete with the OLPC laptop — of course both of those machines would require much more expensive hardware than the current Linux-based OLPC laptop contains. Now comes news that the OLPC is going to be distributed to U.S. students, and that the OLPC project's former CTO's company plans to build a competing
$75 laptop computer.
I wonder how many of the players in those stories ever even think about the children who live in disadvantaged countries any more.
It sounds like the past
may be the future for audiophiles
Regular readers of this Journal know that, after looking for a few years for a Linux distro that could replace Windows 98 SE/XP for full-time use, I finally found
Kubuntu Linux in July of 2006, followed closely by
Mepis Linux. I happily used Mepis full-time for 15 months until I switched to
Debian Linux early last month — a move that I painstakingly documented in My Debian Adventure.
On a related note, a couple of weeks ago, Mepis 7 was released, and it is based on Debian Linux (which some users find a little daunting to install and configure). Though I'm now a full-time Debian user, I still highly recommend Mepis to recent Windows converts and to anyone who wants to enjoy the power of Debian Linux without having to know much about what's "under the hood." Here's
a very positive review of the new Mepis.
If you're a Windows user, you're probably already painfully aware that you need to protect your computer from viruses, trojans, spyware and multitudes of other malware. But did you know that your computer could become infected by even seemingly "safe" devices like a new iPod or a digital photo frame?
Malware Distribution Through Physical Media Is A Growing Concern, and one that Windows users really should choose to learn about before they end up learning it through experience.
Researchers at one of my graduate alma maters "have created
a beating heart in the laboratory." In a case like this, I think the proper pronunciation is "luh-bore-a-tory," like in the old horror movies.
Poe would be so proud.
It's used in "nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectroscopy, welding, fiber optics and computer microchip production, among other technological applications. NASA uses large amounts annually to pressurize space shuttle fuel tanks." Plus it plays a very important role in children's birthday parties. So it's really too bad that
we're running out of it.
If you have your own web site, there are a number of things you can do to optimize it to load as quickly as possible for its visitors. A good place to start is to install Yahoo's
YSlow add-on for the Firefox browser (YSlow requires that you also have the
Firebug add-on). YSlow will suggest ways to reduce your site's speed bottlenecks. For more explanation and specific examples of YSlow's options, take a look at
Web Site Optimization: 13 Simple Steps and
YSlow Review and
Sending Cache-Control Headers Using Apache 2.x And Mod_Expires.
After trying several of YSlow's suggestions on this site, I believe that it works and that its suggestions are basically good ones; however, I think that a few of them are totally unrealistic for a personal web site to try. As you read up on what YSlow suggests to you, you'll figure out which ones are realistic for your particular site.
Finally, please be aware that YSlow's suggestions are the digital equivalent of tuning your car's engine — depending on what you do and how you do it, you could make your site run better or you could make it stop running all together. For example, this web site became instantly and completely unreachable several times when I tried some of YSlow's suggestions that my web host doesn't allow. Of course, I had backups of everything, and restored my working settings within a few seconds each time something went wrong. So, if you're going to try YSlow's suggestions, make sure that you're prepared to quickly fix any problems that might come up.
If you've ever seen the movie
Antitrust, then it probably won't surprise you at all to hear that NURV — uh, I mean Microsoft — wants to
sit in your shopping cart and push video advertisements at you every time you go to the grocery store.
There they go again: With the viewpoint that "Privacy and security are a zero-sum game," National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell
"is drawing up plans for
cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a 'walk in the park.'"
It's about time: It appears that 49 of the 50 U.S. states have reached an agreement with MySpace that will
let parents block their kids from joining that "social networking" site. Next year, they hope to give parents the right to tell their children what time to go to bed at night.
Recently, I reached my goal of losing 100 pounds. I'm so completely in control of my diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol that my doctor wants me to write a book. I'm healthier than I've been in decades. So why have I been so stressed out? The answer is in my new article, In And Out Of My Mind, that appears in this site's Personal Stuff section.
Not too long ago, it cost $1000 or more to buy a new computer with Windows preinstalled. Nowadays, you can buy a brand new, low-end computer with Linux preinstalled for less than $200, or a used computer with better specs and Linux preinstalled for around $150. That makes a lot of people wonder
How Low Can You Go And Still Run Linux?
Some people see a competition between companies that sell expensive, proprietary software, and companies that create free software and try to make their money by providing additional and/or specialized services.
One author says that no matter what people think,
Free Software Will Win. Eventually.
If you run Windows, you're probably tired of waiting a few minutes for your computer to boot up, just so you can do a little browsing, send a quick instant message, or check your email. Fortunately, several companies are developing new ways to run simple tasks, or even view a DVD, within a few seconds after turning on a PC — all
without waiting for Windows.
Here's some good news for anyone who uses a laptop, cell phone, or other portable device: "Stanford University researchers have made a discovery that could signal the arrival of laptop batteries that last
more than a day on a single charge."
The U.S. government has declared that food from cloned animals
is perfectly safe to eat. "We found nothing in the food that could potentially be hazardous," FDA food safety chief Dr. Stephen Sundlof said. "It is beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be unsafe."
The U.S. government has declared that food from cloned animals
is perfectly safe to eat. "We found something in the food that could potentially be hazardous," FDA food safety chief Dr. Stephen Sundlof said. "It is beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be unsafe."
The U.S. government has declared that food from cloned animals
is perfectly safe to eat. "We found something in the food that could potentially be hazardous," FDA food safety chief Dr. Stephen Sundlof said. "It is beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be safe."
I've always appreciated hearing from people all over the world who've written to encourage me in my efforts to take control of my health issues. A few days ago, I wrote a long Journal entry, describing how I've been doing since I passed my goal of losing 100 pounds last month. To make it easier for everyone to find that Journal entry, I turned it into a separate article,
In And Out Of My Mind. It appears in this site's Personal Stuff section.
UPDATE: If you're a Debian Linux user who wants to be able to use your Windows NTFS partition from within Debian, you may have had some trouble trying to get it to work. Fortunately, experienced Linux user (but new Debian user) "burdicda" has written
How I Got NTFS To Work In Debian Linux to help you through the the steps that he did. You can find his new article in this site's Guest Articles section.
As a computer user, you have far more freedom and choices than you've ever had before. Over the years, Linux grew from being a graduate student's project to running the servers of many of the world's biggest, most prestigious companies. It used to be that if you wanted to try Linux, you had to be able and willing to install it yourself — now you can buy a brand new computer for around $200, with Linux preinstalled on it, at Wal-Mart
and Sears. Excellent.
A lot of older people assume that young people know a lot about the Internet, but "A new study
overturns the common assumption that the 'Google Generation' — youngsters born or brought up in the Internet age — is the most web-literate."
They've been on the market for several years, and my wife and I keep saying that it would be really nice to buy a DVD recorder to replace our old VHS recorder. But every time I go out and compare DVD recorders, I end up not buying one, either because they still aren't cheap enough for my budget, or because the ones that I like are missing one or more features that I'm looking for. Now I understand even better
Why Americans Don't Buy DVD Players That Record. In fact, Slashdot's readers have
even more reasons why they don't like DVD recorders.
Here's some
shocking news about Dell laptops. Absolutely shocking.
I thought that I was way too young and way too healthy for it to happen to me. But on February 13, 2007, while watching TV, my left hand suddenly went to sleep, followed quickly by my whole left arm. It took about 30 minutes for the numbness to creep throughout my entire left side, leaving me weak, incredibly dizzy and speaking with a slur.
Today, I combined all of my separate Journal entries about my stroke and my long battle back to health into a new article, My Previous Life Is Over, which you can find in this site's Personal Stuff section. I hope that my new article will help and encourage others who are recovering from strokes and other catastrophic medical conditions.
The recent release of KDE 4 has earned the new desktop environment both praise and criticism.
KDE 4.0, A Call for Perspective compares KDE 4 to Windows Vista and Gnome, and tries to refute a few of the anti-KDE arguments.
If you thought that cybercrime only affected individual computers and computer users, think again: "The CIA on Friday admitted that cyberattacks have
caused at least one power outage affecting multiple cities outside the United States."
Thanks to the wonders of modern science, robots are becoming
more and more like humans every day
Do you smell that? Be afraid.
Be very, very afraid.
This web site has seen a flurry of activity lately. Just in case you missed any of the recent additions, here's a recap. About six weeks ago I wrote My Debian Adventure, a continuing article that describes how I installed and configured Debian Linux (with KDE) on my computer for the very first time. Then, a few weeks ago, I wrote How I Lost More Than 100 Pounds, to share some details of how I took control of my diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol. After that, I wrote In And Out Of My Mind, which explained why I've been feeling incredibly stressed out ever since I reached my weight-loss goal. Then burdicda wrote a new step-by-step Guest Article called How I Got NTFS To Work In Debian Linux. And yesterday, I wrote My Previous Life Is Over to combine all of my previous Journal entries in which I describe my long journey from my stroke last February to the good health that I'm enjoying today.
Many people eagerly download and install the latest Windows updates and upgrades as soon as they hear about them — or even allow their computers to automatically get and install them without even asking for permission. Those of us who've had to deal with serious update or upgrade problems in the past often take a much more conservative, wait-and-see approach to Windows updates and upgrades — or we switch to Linux and stop using Windows altogether. I don't agree with everything that it says, but here's an article that asks you to consider
Why You Shouldn't Upgrade Your OS.
Do you suffer from headaches, confusion or depression? Do you have trouble getting to sleep at night? A new study says that the cause may be
radiation from your cell phone. Even more surprising — and undoubtedly embarassing — is the fact that the study was sponsored by several cell phone companies.
It seems to me that there have been so many important breakthroughs in Alzheimer's research in the past few years that someone's probably going to figure out how to put all of those separate pieces together to find a solution pretty soon: "A new device developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University may allow patients to take a brief, inexpensive test that could be administered as part of a routine yearly checkup at a doctor's office to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI) — often the earliest stage of Alzheimer's."
Despite the fact that it's made tremendous inroads onto the desktops of computer users around the world, there are still a lot of people who haven't even heard of Linux, and that's not surprising. What is surprising, however, is that there are reportedly members of Best Buy's Geek Squad who not only haven't heard of Linux, they incorrectly assume that Linux is probably illegal, because
"Microsoft would not allow it." It's an eye-opening piece (on an often infuriatingly slow web server) that may change your perception of the true value of open source software — and make you want to help change others' perception of it, too.
From everything that I've read about it so far, it appears that KDE 4 is not "ready for prime-time" yet.
But that's OK — it has a lot to offer, and appears to be a very good base upon which to build for the future. Whether you're a techno-geek or a newbie user, if you've been looking for a really complete, fully illustrated review of KDE 4, you're going to like
Ars Technica Reviews KDE 4.0. And for those of us who've been wondering, this review confirms that:
As the candidates in the U.S. Presidential election campaign get more and more desperate to pander to voters — uh, I mean "communicate their messages of hope to constituents" — we're undoubtedly going to see a lot more mud-slinging and "dirty tricks" that will be designed to make various candidates look bad to voters. In much the same way, as Linux continues to become more and more popular with computer users, the self-serving, anti-software-freedom forces will use more and more FUDD to try to convince normal computer users that Linux is too scary or too difficult to learn or too un-Microsoft-like. To prepare yourself for the inevitable questions and misinformation that your Windows-using friends are going to have, be sure to read
Top 10 Linux FUD Patterns.
I use my own rsync-based custom script to do my backups, but based on the number of questions about backups in most Linux support forums, many Linux users are either too inexperienced or too busy to figure out how to set up a backup regimen. Linux has many, many options for creating backups, but very few of them are as easy to use as rsync-based
FlyBack.
You'll know you're getting old when a TV show talks about five different "Hollywood stars" and you've never heard of any of them. You'll know you're mature when you don't care.
You may not fully agree with all of them, and you may think of more of them that you would add, but
13 Reasons To Go Linux! is a pretty good place to start when you're telling your skeptical friends why you use Linux.
Most reviews of Linux compare one or more specific Linux distros to Microsoft Windows. One author says "This doesn't make much sense in the grand scale of things, because most-if not all-of Microsoft's advantages come from being the long-time market leader, not the better OS." That's why he "decided to right a few wrongs by creating a review of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (which is arguably the best Microsoft OS to date) as if Linux were the market leader, and Microsoft, the upstart." See what you think of
Analyzing Microsoft's OS By Linux Standards. Be sure to also read the comments that follow the article.
Well at least they're not trying to sneak this one out secretly: "Microsoft has warned corporate administrators that it will
push a new version of Internet Explorer 7 their way next month, and it has posted guidelines on how to ward off the automatic update if admins want to keep the older IE6 browser on their companies' machines."
Here's an
article that
refutes the U.S. government's apparent belief that privacy and security are mutually exclusive outcomes.
Over the years, I've installed, maintained and administered several of my own online forums, served as a moderator on other web sites' forums and participated in many, many others. Each of those experiences can teach you a lot about how to deal with strangers. But whether you run your own forums, moderate someone else's forums or just enjoy occasionally posting in one forum, you can probably learn a lot from
Top Ten Lessons I've Learned About Managing an Online Forum and
10 Mistakes That Will Kill A Forum
I've said it many times before: I am a man of faith. I would no longer be here if it weren't for my faith in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Nowadays, I think that stylish cynicism has shoved faith out of many people's daily lives. While bending over backwards to fully accept all sorts of harmful and antisocial behaviors, today's society tends to ridicule, look down upon, and dig for signs of hypocrisy to point out in anyone who expresses strong beliefs about anything positive. Maybe that's why it's so hard to find individuals who really, truly believe in anything — and are willing to share their beliefs publicly.
I have no idea what his religious beliefs may or may not be, but by his words and actions, I have no doubt that "helios" is a true believer in the freedom and power that Linux brings to its users — especially to children. And he's demonstrated that he's willing to take controversial public stands on issues and then stand up to the resulting heat in ways that I think few religious people would be willing to do for their faith. So, as a man of faith, I urge you to read an interview with helios, Linux For The Masses? Bet On This Winner. Be prepared to be challenged to act upon whatever beliefs you have.
Many Linux users and potential Linux users depend on
Distrowatch for detailed information about hundreds of Linux distributions. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Distrowatch, but I learned a thing or two from
Distrowatch — If It Didn't Already Exist, Somebody Would Have To Invent It.
Even if you're not concerned about other people connecting to your Internet connection without your permission, there's a new, very important reason to change your wireless router's password from the default one that it came with:
drive-by pharming.
Now that science has unlocked some of the secrets of the human genome, it's nice to think that gene-replacement therapy could end up curing a lot of diseases, but it's not that simple. There are so many genes and so many combinations of genes that it takes a long, long time to find the trigger gene for any particular disease. That's why "An international research consortium today announced
the 1000 Genomes Project."
I currently use a few of KDE's KIO Slaves, but I might use a few more of them now that I've learned how to
Master The KIO Slaves.
Anyone who has watched TV crime shows is familiar with the stereotypical drug pusher's marketing strategy: The first one is free. Of course, after the user is addicted, the price goes way up. I'm reminded of that strategy whenever I read stories about Microsoft dumping free copies of its software and operating systems into developing markets, or offering sweetheart deals to schools and governmental organizations that agree to use Windows exclusively.
Windows XP Takes Linux Away From Our Children is another one of those stories. So where is
Tony Baretta when we need him?
Whatever happened to honor among thieves? In a deliciously ironic twist, phishers are starting to steal data
from other phishers. Of course, the original owner of the data will still be the one left with a bad taste in their mouth.
Do you ever watch TV programs on your computer? "The number of broadband users who watched full shows online weekly doubled in 2007 from 8% to 16%, says market research firm Horowitz Associates." If the Hollywood writers strike has disrupted your TV-watching schedule,
Websites Make It Easy To Catch A Missed TV Show.
Whew, I've been busy. Just a second, while I take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and then let it out slowly... This week, I juggled my normal work load plus I worked out of town all day two separate times, plus I did some web development and behind-the-scenes work for a local charity. In between those tasks, I got two detailed price estimates for having our entire house professionally hurricane-proofed with strong-but-lightweight removable aluminum panels, plus possibly getting a new garage door and a new door for the side of the garage — all of which would meet or exceed Florida's most stringent Miami/Dade standards for both wind and impact resistance. So far, both of the estimates that I've gotten have looked really good. I'll get the third and final estimate next week, and then I'll compare each vendor's various options and crunch all of the numbers. No matter which options I choose, I will no longer need to carry around the huge, monstrously heavy, 3 1/2-year-old, 3/4-inch-thick, removable plywood panels that I cut and installed right after we bought this house in 2004. Unfortunately, even the cheapest professionally installed hurricane-proofing options are so expensive that one company offers a free 37-inch LCD television set as a purchasing incentive to its customers. Still, I think that it will be money well spent, since getting the job done by professionals will:
If you've written to me lately and I haven't gotten back to you yet, now you know why. Time for another deep breath...
Over the past year or so, I've read lots and lots of articles that compare "The GIMP," the free and open source Linux image manipulation package, to Adobe's Photoshop. So I was pleasantly surprised that
Fie On Photoshop: Image Editing In Linux readily admits that The GIMP does not compare very well to Photoshop — but it suggests that another piece of free and open source software might. It also taught me a lot about the differences between Pantone, CMYK and RGB color systems.
Despite the fact that Windows Vista has been a dismal failure in many ways, "Microsoft signaled confidence to a rattled stock market by raising its full-year earnings outlook above Wall Street targets and reporting
a 79 percent rise in quarterly profit on Thursday." So should you invest in Microsoft?
I wouldn't.
Yes, they're convenient. Yes, they're easy to setup and use. Yes, they allow you to access your email from any online computer. And most of them are totally free of cost. But I will never trust any online email system to be my main email provider. Why? One reason is that I've read way too many stories like
this one.
"US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever
artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria, according to a study published Thursday." I don't understand why that's news — Anyone who has heard of the self-indulgent escapades of countless celebrities is already very familiar with artificial life.
A smart person learns from their mistakes. A wise person learns from others' mistakes. Yesterday, I told you one reason why I would never trust an online email provider with my important email messages. I would also never trust any online provider to keep any of my private data secure. Why? One reason is that I've read way too many stories like
this one.
Solid state storage devices have no moving parts to wear out, and are much faster, use less power, and have a much greater "cool factor" than traditional hard drives. So
why aren't consumers buying them?
Wow, that was fast! Several days ago, I told you that Warner Home Video had decided to stop using the HD DVD format and concentrate on only the Blu-ray format. It looks like that defection has already
nearly killed sales of HD DVD hardware.
Nearly everyone I know who uses a Bluetooth device does it to talk to their friends. Here's a guy who uses Bluetooth devices for a much more important task: They
allow him to walk.
Some medical breakthroughs are so incredible that they're hard to swallow. Here's a medical breakthrough that's
easy to swallow.
Yesterday, I spent most of the day shooting a video of a friend of mine at three different locations, to send to a friend of theirs who is dying. It turned out beautifully, and I'll be sending it out by overnight mail tomorrow. By the time I went to bed last night, I was exhausted, but I feel really, really good about doing something that will mean so very much to someone else.
If you're still running Windows, then you already know all of the things you have to buy, install, configure and do to try to secure your computer. While Linux is far more secure than Windows, there are a few simple things you can do to
make your Linux computer even more secure.
How would you like it if everyone — corporations, government, law enforcement, individuals — suddenly had the ability to track your exact location all day, every day, without your knowledge or consent? What if everyone could also electronically snoop through your purse, wallet, pockets, luggage and medicine cabinet? I'm very sorry to say that
that day may be here soon.
It's estimated to weigh around 20,000 pounds and be about the size of a small bus. Right now, it's up in space, but there's a good chance that pretty soon, it's going to
fall to earth. And no one knows where.
The wording of the story line is very, very poor, but here's potentially good news for Alzheimer's patients : "An experimental
helmet which scientists say could reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease within weeks of being used is to be tried out on patients." It's nice to see that after he finished working on the Star Wars movies,
Yoda found work as a medical reporter.
Okay, enough with the jokes: Bill Gates Is Not Satan, Says Satan.
I'm very happy and relieved that the video that I shot this past Saturday is on its way to its recipient by overnight mail, and it's guaranteed to be delivered by noon tomorrow.
This morning, I got the final estimate for hurricane-proofing our home, from a company that actually manufactures its own aluminum hurricane panels. Their advertising says that they will not be undersold. The company owner/salesman seemed like a really nice guy, and he spent a lot of time measuring each window and door and writing down all the same measurements that the other companies had written in their estimates. But when he was all done working with his calculator, instead of giving me a detailed written estimate that included the breakout of all of the various costs, like the other companies had done, he took out one of his business cards, wrote a dollar amount on it, and handed it to me. After he left, I crunched some numbers and quickly determined that his price was right between the two estimates that I had gotten last week. I was actually a little bit relieved that he wasn't the lowest bidder, because I was turned off by him presuming that I would be willing to agree to enter into an agreement to pay his company thousands of dollars with nothing to show for it but a business card with a dollar amount written on it.
So I called the salesman from the company that had offered the best price, to clarify and confirm several things about the very detailed, very professional estimate that he had given me last week. During that phone call, I learned a few things about how his company installs the aluminum panels that further convinced me that I want his company to do the work. When we finished talking, he told me that, within a few hours, he will email me a new estimate that includes all of the details that we discussed on the phone today. If everything goes the way that it looks like it's going to go, his company is going to:
In short, our entire home is going to be professionally hurricane-proofed to Florida's most stringent hurricane-proofing standards, for what I am now convinced is a very fair price. I can live with that.
Personally, I have no interest at all in playing games on my computer, but if you're a Linux user who enjoys playing games, be sure to check out
20 Most Popular Linux Games.
Two security researchers managed to infliltrate the phishing underground so that they could "expose the tactics and tools that phishers use, illustrate what happens when your confidential information gets stolen, discuss how phishers communicate and even how they phish each other."
I'm very happy that over 5,000 pages on other web sites currently have hyperlinks that link to this site. In fact, most popular web sites work really hard to try to get other sites to link to them. Then there's
Business Week.
If for some reason, you're one of those poor, tortured souls who is required to use Windows Vista, you may want to see what Slashdot's readers are saying about
vLite: "vLite is a configuration tool that lets users automatically delete a lot of unnecessary Vista components — such as Windows Media Player and MSN installer — to pare the OS down to a reasonable size."
Every once in awhile, a friend or relative forwards a "the sky is falling"-type email message to me, thinking that they're doing me a favor. I always check out the truth (or lack of truth) of such stories by going to The Urban Legends Reference Pages, and for eight years,
I have recommended that others do likewise, instead of forwarding email hoaxes to their friends and relatives. That's why I'm very disappointed to hear that the Urban Legends site has reportedly been
serving adware to its visitors for at least the past several months.
Our dream home uses a pretty efficient heat pump to provide both its heating and cooling needs. But one of these days, it's going to wear out, and when it does, we may have the option to replace it with
an ingenious new type of heat pump.
I told you about this story back when it first broke, and now it appears to have a happy ending: "In
a victory for privacy advocates, a federal judge has ordered a US company to pay almost $200,000 and barred it from selling the phone records of individuals' phone records without their permission."
Here's a bright idea. A
very bright idea. But it's a very bright idea that lasts only fifteen minutes.
I carefully reviewed every line and every number in the paperwork that my chosen hurricane protection company emailed to me, and everything looked perfect. So, yesterday, my wife and I signed a contract to have that company completely hurricane-proof our dream home, as I described the other day. By late yesterday afternoon, they had already ordered all of the parts and materials that they'll need, and they'll start the job in 3-5 weeks. They expect that the whole job will take only a couple of days — one crew will install the aluminum panels and replacement door, while a different crew will simultaneously replace our garage door.
It's certainly easy to find a lot of information about Linux; in fact, there's so much information (and misinformation) out there that it can be a little overwhelming to someone who's considering switching to Linux. That's why I like to occasionally link to good Linux-overview articles like
Flipping The Linux Switch: Myths About Linux.
Linux users can find out all kinds of information about a PC's hardware from within Linux itself. You may want to bookmark and/or print
Get Information About Your BIOS / Server Hardware From A Shell Without Opening Chassis for future reference. (Thanks for the link, malspa!)
The article is called
MythBusters: 7 Tech Headaches — And How To Fix Them. I agree that some of the things that it mentions are annoying, but it really doesn't say much about how to fix them.
It makes perfect sense to me. In fact, I always assumed that it was the case: "So how did primates learn to use tools in the first place? A new study in monkeys suggests that the brain's trick is to
treat tools as just another body part." That seems to have a lot of physical and psychological implications for ventriloquists, too.
If you're a Linux user who's looking for a comparison of the various Linux-based video editing software packages, you'll find a lot of good information in
The Grumpy Editor's Video Journey Part 2: Video Editors. See if you can ignore the author's annoying and tedious habit of repeatedly referring to himself as "your editor." I guess the capital "I" on his keyboard doesn't work.
I've mentioned this possibility before, but now it's finally happening: "The Russian government is actively pursuing the development of a 'Russian OS' to be available to every school in the country. While government-sponsored, the Russian operating system will be
based on Linux and will be open source."
The whole point of the creation of the Internet was to provide a fault-tolerant system that would allow diverse sites to continue to communicate even if one or more of the connections between the sites was interrupted. So it's pretty discouraging to see that "Tens of millions of internet users across the Middle East and Asia have been left
without access to the web, reportedly due to "a fault in a single undersea cable."
Lately, it seems like there's been a medical breakthrough every week or so. This one could be more good news for those who suffer from Alzheimer's: "Scientists have stumbled on a world first in helping a man
improve his memory."
If you think some of this planet's animals look pretty weird, you'll want to take a look at
Extinct Animals, From An Elephant Bird To A 10-Foot-Long, Four-Eyed Spider.