http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2008/02.php .
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It ended up being a pretty easy thing to do, but if you've followed
My Debian Adventure, you know that I made several frustrating attempts over several weeks, with several different NTP clients and configuration settings, to try to figure it out: About 2:00 this morning, I finally got NTP time synchronization working correctly in Debian Etch. For the details of what I did, see my February 1, 2008 update to My Debian Adventure.
I've said it here myself in the past, but this spoof says it better:
Microsoft Is Like The Matrix. I would have enjoyed it a little more if the author hadn't felt the need to explain his use of symbolism — to me, that's like telling a good joke and then explaining to your audience why it's funny.
UPDATE: In related news, Microsoft surprised the market today by offering to buy Yahoo for 44.6 billion dollars — 62% more than what Yahoo is worth, according to its closing stock price yesterday. Yahoo's stock price almost immediately rose by almost 50 percent, while Google's stock price dropped.
Bad news for companies that run Windows servers: "In a change from its earlier statements, Microsoft now reports that some versions of Windows Server 2003 have
a security flaw rated 'critical' rather than merely 'important.'"
Time will tell if they're accurate or not, but if you like to see what the future may have in store for all of us, take a look at PCWorld's predictions for
The Next 25 Years In Tech. It's either interesting or scary stuff to think about — maybe both — depending on your point of view.
As a protest against the war in Vietnam, a very popular 1970 song by John Fogerty asked
Who'll Stop The Rain? Thirty-eight years later, it looks like the Chinese
are going to try.
I'm posting today's Journal entry late last night — actually, it's tonight as I type this, but by the time most people read this tomorrow, tonight will be last night. So, I'm writing this from the past and from the future, depending on when you end up reading it. That makes sense, doesn't it? Anyway, the reason I'm posting this earlier than normal is because today, my wife and I will be leaving home early and driving a few hours away. We'll be visiting a couple that we've known since the early 1970's, but we think we haven't seen since the early 1980's. Yikes, are we really that old? Anyway, they're here in the Sunshine State visiting relatives, so we're happy to make the trip to see them for a couple of hours before we'll have to turn around and head back home — later today or tomorrow — or maybe we already did it by the time you read this. Cool, huh? The pen is mightier than the time-travel machine.
I haven't had the time to read it carefully enough to fully understand how it works, but if you have an older PC, you may want to learn more about
Smart Boot Manager — An OS Independent Boot Manager.
I had forgotten all about some of them, so it was kind of fun to read
Dot-Com Pioneers — Where Are They Now?
I'm sure you probably own some pretty impressive gizmos, but how would they compare to
History's Greatest Gadgets?
I rarely ever fly anywhere, but I've read and heard many, many horror stories from people who do: Ungodly delays, embarassing inconveniences, and absurd-and-contantly-changing rules seem to be the norm for airline passengers nowadays. At least now the TSA
has launched its own blog, where disgruntled passengers can post their complaints. Insert your own lame joke here, about how everyone who complains will wind up on the TSA's "no-fly" list.
Consider yourself to be very, very blessed if you have a relationship in your life in which you feel absolutely comfortable visiting with someone every time you see them — even if it's been years since you saw them. My wife and I are incredibly blessed to have five or six relationships like that. Yesterday, we drove 120 miles away to visit with Hugh and Linda, who were in the Sunshine State visiting relatives. Though we had kept in touch by letters, Christmas cards (and later email messages), as far as any of us could remember, we hadn't seen each other in more than 30 years. From the minute we hugged each other, to the minute we left, we laughed and talked and had a wonderful time catching up on each other's lives and enjoying each other's company. It was as though we had gotten together every week for the past 30 years. In fact, our joyful, rejuvenating 3 1/2 hour visit felt like it only lasted about an hour. It was one of those rare visits that make me think that that's what it'll be like seeing long-lost loved ones in Heaven. My wife and I reminded each other of snippets of the visit all the way home, and several times all last night. Someday, I hope that Hugh and Linda will choose to retire to the Sunshine State, so that we can see them on a regular basis and be able to support and challenge each other in our shared faith.
There are few things that bring as much joy to my life as time-tested relationships. I sincerely hope that you have at least one relationship like that in your life.
I've been a full-time Linux user for more than a year and a half, and I have used
Debian Linux full-time for
the past two months. Debian is well-known to be an extremely powerful, extremely stable, extremely secure operating system for both servers and desktop PCs, and it runs great on my 5 year-old PC with its Athlon XP 2100+ CPU and 1 GB RAM. But how does it run on even older hardware? According to one user,
really well.
As a Linux user, I never, ever worry about viruses, trojans, botnets and other malware. If you're a Windows user, I hope that your PC has updated versions of a good anti-virus package and all of the various other anti-malware software that's required to attempt to plug its many security deficiencies — especially since "A new botnet... has overtaken the notorious Storm worm botnet as the 'largest single source of the world's spam', security vendor Marshal has warned."
About 4 1/2 years ago, I tore my right bicep while clipping some hedges. It was extremely painful, and ever since then, that muscle has resembled one-half of a mountain, with the other half-blown away. After it happened, it took over a year before I could even lift a gallon of milk with that arm. It's much stronger than that now, but it still has a little "catch" in it all of the time and aches for several hours if I overwork it. Still, I'm glad that I don't need to use a huge
bionic arm.
My friends all know that I couldn't care less about which team will win tonight's Super Bowl. In fact, every year, I barely even remember which two teams are playing in that game. Professional sports have absolutely no impact on my life — and I'm often baffled as to why millions of people get so excited about them. On the other hand, if you're interested in tonight's game, you may also be interested in
Football Physics: The Anatomy Of A Hit.
The fact that a lot of people believe something doesn't necessarily make it true. In fact, if you do a little digging, you'll often discover that the truth is exactly the opposite of what many people believe. For example,
Microsoft's Security Claims Don't Stand Up To Scrutiny.
In the past year, Microsoft has made significant moves to evolve (devolve?) from being a software company to being a marketing company, so this news doesn't surprise me at all: "With Apple gaining significant market share, Microsoft is
finally acknowledging that it needs to do a better job of selling Windows." It's good to see Redmond finally admit what we've known all along: The real problem with Windows Vista is that Microsoft doesn't do a good enough job selling it. And the real problem with the Titanic was that the White Star Line's cruise brochures weren't in full-color.
If you're a Windows user, you may want to
Clear Space On Your Hard Drive By Deleting Old Windows Uninstall Folders. Of course, more and more smart computer users are saving even more space on their hard drives by deleting Windows altogether and replacing it with a stable, secure, powerful Linux distro.
I often get the impression that astrophysicists are really just frustrated science fiction writers who can't find publishers: "Gateways to
parallel universes or distant parts of our own cosmos may be found if astronomers look for the right signs, a Russian physicist claims." It turns out that he formulated his theory after reading an old book titled
To Serve Man.
I recently surpassed my goal of losing 100 pounds, but I was very careful to do it by eating very healthy foods, without using any weight-loss drugs. How important is nutrition to your overall health? Amazingly, people apparently didn't really realize the important connection between the two until
the early 1900s.
A very dear friend called me last night, looking for advice on what to buy to replace her old Windows 98 PC. She knows little-to-nothing about computers, and she doesn't want to have to know much about them, but she'd like to learn how to create newsletters and do other graphics-oriented tasks as easily and transparently as possible, with as little frustration as possible.
She trusts me that, as her friend and as a computer professional, I want her to have the very best solution to fit her particular needs.
So, as a very enthusiastic, full-time Linux user and Linux "evangelist" for the past 19 months, I explained to her that I could find her a great deal on a new PC, and I could set it all up for her so that it would run just like mine, with a highly stable, secure and powerful Linux distro on it — and that the Linux operating system and all of the software that she would need would be totally free.
Then, knowing her computing needs, her lack of computer skills, her budget and her non-technical personality, I recommended that she buy an iMac. That's exactly what I would do if I were her.
In the past 4 1/2 months, thousands of people have read
Why I Won't Use Kmail Or Kontact, and Google's Webmaster Tools tell me that 2491 web pages currently hyperlink to it. I doubt that it's because of my article, but I'm very pleased to see that there's
a flurry of new comments in the KDE Bug Tracking System for the KMail HTML bug that I described in my article.
If you've been following Microsoft's often-shady manipulations to try to get its OOXML document format recognized as an international standard, you may be very interested to see that IBM is calling OOXML
technically inferior. Tell it like it is, IBM.
When I was a kid, growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, a message used to appear on TV at night that said "It's 10:00 PM. Do you know where your children are?" It's too bad that nowadays, many parents don't bother to keep track of where their children are — either physically or online: "A new Tel Aviv University research study has found that, despite what parents might believe,
there is an enormous gap between what they think their children are doing online and what is really happening." For a sobering reason to pay close attention to what your children are doing online, see Teach Kids Web Safety.
During the current U.S. presidential campaign, we've gotten used to hearing politicians make long, impressive-sounding speeches — without ever saying much at all. Somehow, they end up moving and inspiring millions of people, although I haven't had the pleasure of being one of them.
GNU/something reminds me of those politicians. It may move and inspire you.
When a laptop computer gets stolen, the cost of replacing the laptop itself is often a tiny fraction of the value of the private information that is stored on it. That's why, if you use a laptop, you should consider using encryption software to protect its data. Here's what Slashdot's readers are saying about the new version of
TrueCrypt, the free, open source privacy tool for Windows Vista/XP , Mac OS X and Linux.
A couple of weeks ago, I passed a house that was throwing away three PCs by the side of the road. Of course, I immediately pulled over and put all three of them in my trunk. But when I got home, I discovered that whoever had thrown them out had already scavenged everything that could possibly be useful out of them. So now I have three mostly empty PC cases sitting in my garage. I'm thinking that maybe some day I might try to turn the smallest one into a novel mailbox. If you've got some PC junk to get rid of, but you don't know anyone like me, and you don't want it to clog up some landfill,
Recycling Old Computer Stuff will give you two other options to consider.
I guess this is pretty exciting news to a lot of people, but to me it seems like pretty obvious common sense: "University researchers are studying a ground-breaking theory that young children are able to learn large groups of words rapidly
by data-mining." Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's just a fancy, grant-funded way of saying that children learn language by hearing other people talk.
I'll bet a lot of people have had the embarrassing experience of sending an email message to the wrong recipient. I'll also bet that there's an attorney who's
never going to make that mistake again.
I've been "riding the Harley without training wheels" (using Debian Linux full-time) for the past two months, and it just keeps getting better and better. Late last night, I solved the problem of having to manually restart the NTP time-synchronization service after each reboot because it was automatically starting too early in the boot process — before my Internet connection was running. Now that I fixed it, NTP is successfully running all of the time like it's supposed to, automatically and continuously synchronizing my PC's clock to several online time servers whenever it wants to, without me ever having to do anything manually — even after I reboot my PC. For the details on how I fixed the problem, see
today's update to My Debian Adventure.
I'm sure that some of my readers were surprised when I told you that I had recommended that a dear friend should buy an iMac computer. But anyone who really knows me, knows that I'm an idealistic pragmatist. I'll always try to find a way to use my philosophical choice but if I determine that it's not an acceptable solution for a given situation, I will use whatever solution works best for my needs, taking into account my knowledge, skills and preferences. For example, I idealistically choose to maintain this web site in Linux, even though it would be easier to do it in Dreamweaver (which I still own) within Windows XP (which I also still own); but I pragmatically choose to occasionally do quick video edits and conversions in Windows Movie Maker because I haven't found a suitable Linux-based replacement yet. As a former Mac user, a Windows user and tech-support guy for decades, and a full-time Linux user for the past 19 months, I'm really happy that my computer tool belt has more than one tool from which to choose. Of course, I would have been happy to set up a new Linux computer for my friend, but in her case, an iMac is the best tool for the job.
If that leaves any of my Linux readers feeling bad, here's the story of a guy who was able to successfully switch his mother to Linux.
There are always exceptions to the rule, but overall, I've generally found people on Linux online support forums to be much, much friendlier and helpful than they were five or more years ago. Still, if you're a new or prospective Linux user, you'll probably want to read
A New User Guide to Linux Communities.
My 5-year-old Athlon XP 2100+ PC was middle-of-the-line when I first built it, but it's practically an antique nowadays. Still, it does the job, which is all I need it to do — I can't afford the luxury of PC bragging rights. On the other hand, IBM apparently can afford it. That company is reportedly "working on a computing system capable 'of
hosting the entire internet as an application.'" Insert your own lame Windows joke here.
If you had more money than God, what technologies would you build? Give it a little thought and then take a look at Wired's choices for the
ten best, unaffordable Sci-Fi Techs.
Yikes! I was so busy until now that I almost didn't have time to do today's Journal entry! My wonderful next door neighbors, Mike and Annamarie, are nearly done expanding and renovating their home, so yesterday, they bought new toilets for two of their three bathrooms. Knowing that they were going to do that, I "called dibs" on one of their old toilets two years ago. So I spent much of the day today getting the toilet, buying some parts to install it, and then carefully replacing our guest bathroom's newer 1.6 gallons-per-flush toilet with Mike and Annamarie's 1964, 3 gallons-per-flush model that does a much better job. I just finished installing it a little while ago, but it's already mid-afternoon, so I'm writing today's Journal entry before I do a final cleanup and put away my plumbing tools.
I guess it's just one more example of the old adage: One man's trash is another man's... new toilet.
Regular readers of this Journal know that I've been happily using Linux full-time instead of Windows since July, 2006, and I've been a full-time Debian Linux user for the past two months. As I've said before, Debian gives me a perfect balance of challenge and reward — enough challenge to keep things interesting and teach me about Linux without frustrating me, and when I solve each challenge, it gives me enough reward that I don't dread whatever the next challenge might end up being. If you'd like to know some of the many reasons why Debian is
an extremely popular Linux distro, take a look at
In Defense And Praise Of Debian.
When you uninstall software in Windows, you expect it to be completely uninstalled. Unfortunately, a lot of Windows software doesn't completely uninstall. For example, the following news comes as a disappointment: "Like most Windows software, Norton security products, published by the Symantec Corp., come with an uninstall option to remove the software from your computer. Unfortunately, neither Symantec's bundled uninstaller — nor a little-known, special utility from the company —
removes every single thing."
You will probably be a pretty impressive candidate in your next job interview if you do the opposite of many of the
35 Things To Avoid At Your Job Interview.
She's the daughter of a domestic abuse survivor that we met at church. My wife and I helped raise her older sister and her for 6 1/2 years, and I came to love her like a daughter, but we haven't seen her since we moved to the Sunshine State 4 years ago. I feel like I'm the same age that I was on the day that I took her mother to the hospital to give birth to her, so it's really hard to believe that she's 19 years old today. Happy Birthday, Ana!
Windows users know that every time there's a new version of Windows, you have to spend a lot of money to either upgrade or replace your computer in order to be able to run it. Luckily, that's not the case with Linux, because many current Linux distros
run just fine on older hardware.
It makes sense to me: "Its (sic) ironic how there are so many users who cling to Microsoft Windows and then proudly tout that the first thing they do is run out and load up on free or open source applications. Every year, we see lists of "best free apps" or "essential apps" for Windows, and every year, the apps become more and more like watered-down versions of what is available on almost any Linux-based system." That just goes to show that
Windows Still Isn't Linux.
It appears to defy the known laws of physics, but the college drop-out who invented it is careful not to call it
a perpetual motion machine.
My fellow
Debian Linux users — and people who use Debian-based Linux distros like
Mepis and Ubuntu — may find some really useful software that they weren't aware of at
Debian Package of the Day.
Most Windows users spend a lot of time and go to a lot of trouble to try to keep their PCs free of viruses, trojans, adware and other malware. Unfortunately, many of them then spend a lot of money on Microsoft Office, which behaves in such a way that one writer asks
Is Microsoft Office Adware? See the facts and then judge for yourself.
If you look hard enough, we're surrounded by alternative sources of energy — if we can just figure out how to use them efficiently and economically, and what may seem like crazy ideas right now, may make perfect sense in the future. When I visited a beach as a child, I wondered why coastal areas don't utilize the power of oceanic wave activity to generate electricity. Nowadays, some places are successfully doing that. To me, what's even more amazing is that "Researchers have developed a technique that harvests energy from
rain showers and converts it into electricity."
Soon, you might not have to replace the batteries in your portable electronic devices (both external and internal devices) any more. Instead, all you'll have to do is
walk around.
The U.S.
National Do Not Call Registry went into effect in 2003, giving Americans the ability to "opt-out" from receiving telemarketing phone calls. Unfortunately, the DNCR was originally set up to drop people from its database after only five years, forcing everyone to re-register if they wanted to stay in the database. Fortunately, it looks like the U.S. Federal government is now going to
make Do Not Call Registry registrations permanent.
If you agree with me that a person's level of happiness can affect their health, do yourself a favor and read
20 Simple Ways to Get Happy.
For years, we've all heard about (or experienced) all kinds of annoying-to-computer-disabling problems caused by the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy feature. In fact, WGA was one of the main reasons that I started looking for a version of Linux that could replace Windows on my computers several years ago. As a full-time Linux user since July, 2006, I don't have to deal with WGA, but those of you who are still using Windows may be at least slightly relieved to hear that Windows Vista
SP1 Brings With It A Softer, Gentler, Naggier WGA.
No wonder so many Windows users are completely confused about how to maintain their systems: it seems like almost every time someone offers any Windows advice or tips, someone else refutes them with completely different advice. So, who are you going to believe? For example, take a look at
Five Quick Windows Speedup Tips — then read the comments that follow it.
As a man of faith, I try to maintain the very highest standards of ethics in everything I do. Do ethics play a role in your day-to-day life? Do you consider yourself to be an ethical person? How should ethics influence IT workers? See how others respond to questions of
ethics in IT.
It wasn't very long ago that biofuels appeared to be a great long-term solution to the problem of developing renewable energy sources. Unfortunately, new research suggests that
they aren't such a good idea.
Last night's Grammy awards offered a few surprises to those who follow the music industry. But you may not have been aware of one of the biggest surprises of all — the awarding of a Grammy to
a mathmetician.
Every once in awhile, I link to a site that has a useful "cheat sheet" of Linux commands. Today's link may be the mother of all Linux "cheat sheet" sites:
Linux-Unix Cheat Sheets — The Ultimate Collection That gives me a great idea for some geeky new office wallpaper.
If you're sick and tired of spending hours manually downloading and installing hundreds of individual Windows Updates on your computer(s),
Project Dakota could be just what you need.
This appears to me to be another example of Microsoft shooting itself in the foot: "A revolt among IT professionals and developers is brewing over Microsoft Corp.'s decision to
hold the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), with some admitting that they've downloaded pirated copies to begin testing and others claiming that the delay scuttles their Vista deployment plans."
Everyone agrees that encrypting your company's data makes it safer, right? Now it turns out that
not everyone agrees.
It's income tax season in the U.S. again. I haven't done ours yet, but tomorrow I'll be doing them for a friend. Thanks in large part to
The Mouse, we in the Sunshine State don't pay any state income taxes. So, this morning, I downloaded and printed all of the Federal tax forms, schedules and instructions that I'll need for tomorrow. If you need any Federal tax forms, schedules or instructions that didn't come with the tax booklet that the government sent you, you can find PDF's of them all at
The U.S. Internal Revenue Web Site — but I found it faster and easier to get them at
UncleFed's Tax Board.
Ten years ago, I told you that I have psychic power. Now there appears to be some evidence that
maybe we all do. But you already knew that, didn't you?
My wife and I will be going out for dinner tonight, to celebrate the fact that I'm still here, one year after my stroke.
Thank you to all of you who have written to me in the past year, to express your concern for me and to encourage me on my long journey back to the good health that I'm blessed to enjoy today.
Regular readers of this Journal know that, last week, I recommended that a dear friend buy an iMac to replace their old Windows 98 PC — even though I've been a full-time Linux user and vocal Linux promoter since July, 2006. I don't see a conflict between those two things — a lot of
Linux users buy and recommend Macs.
If you're a Linux user and you've ever paid attention to the command-line messages that scroll by as you install or upgrade software, you may have been lucky enough to see some snippets of humor like those in a collection called
Tux Love.
A few years ago, I removed more than 750 viruses, trojans, adware and other types of malware from a friend's Windows computer. Are you sure that you're the only one using your computer's browser? "According to IBM, by attacking the browsers of computer users, cybercriminals are now stealing the identities and controlling the computers of consumers
at a rate never before seen on the Internet."
I'm very happy that this site has always been purely a labor of love. I've always maintained it on my own time and paid for it out of my own pocket. And it's never had any advertisements, because I didn't want to take the chance of tainting the credibility of my published opinions about the things that I've reviewed. Now, new research appears to show that
online advertising is no longer very effective. Wouldn't it be nice if that information reduced the number of online ads that we all have to deal with? But I have a feeling that if online marketers give up the current types of online ads, they'll just end up replacing them with some new types that will be even more distracting and annoying.
"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance... There are three things that will endure — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love." (The New Testament, First Corinthians 13:4-7, 13.) When I think of those words, I think of my wife. I hope that you have someone like that bringing joy to your life. And I also hope that, through your words and actions, you tell them how you feel about them every day of the year, not just on Valentine's Day.
It's short and sweet, but its writer wants everyone to know about
Debian & APT — Why I Love It. Actually, as simple and powerful as it is, APT is just one of a few different command-line tools that users of Debian and Debian-based Linux distros can choose to use to install and uninstall software and upgrades — plus there are also some GUI-based tools that make those tasks even easier for those of us who prefer to point and click.
Are you pretty confident that your computer is completely secured and protected against all of the possible ways that bad guys could attack it? That's good! But I hope you know that you also have to secure your
multifunction printer.
Who's the most technology-enabled geek that you know? I'll bet that they're nowhere near as "wired" as
this guy.
The good news is that scientists have found a place that has "hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth," The bad news is... well, you'll see.
Yesterday morning, two guys came and installed our new hurricane-resistant garage door. In a little less than 2 1/2 hours, they:
They were both really nice guys who seemed to really enjoy their work — more importantly, I couldn't be any happier about the wonderful job that they did. Before they left, I gave them $10 to get themselves something to eat. Then as soon as they drove away, I went to Home Depot and bought 30 feet of white nylon trim that comes with a white rubber gasket, and installed it around the outside garage door opening, to "finish" the job and completely seal the sides and top of the new door when it's closed. It all looks and works great. Our new solid-fiberglass-with-steel-insert door for the side of the garage has arrived from the manufacturer, and they expect our aluminum hurricane panels to arrive any day now, so two other workers may come some time next week to finish the whole rest of the job. I'm really looking forward to it.
Is there such a thing as "undelete" software for Linux? Yes, but
Magic Rescue sounds like it's a pretty geeky thing to use, so you may not want to have to go to all the trouble of figuring out how to use it unless you really, really need to recover something that's really important.
Personally, I think it's much, much faster, easier and smarter to just make regular backups of my important files, but I know that a lot of people aren't going to get into the backup habit until they "get burned" once or twice. If that describes you, then I recommend that you read the instructions for running Magic Rescue and then ask yourself if you really want to have to go through all of that just to recover an accidently erased file, or if you'd rather just make regular backups of your important files.
What should you do if you spend billions of dollars creating an operating system, but it turns out that hardly anyone likes it? Maybe you could
bribe them into "learning" about how wonderful your operating system is.
Whenever you see anyone use the words "worm" and "computer" in the same sentence, you know that the "worm" is going to turn out to be something bad. Unless it's a
friendly worm. No, on second thought, it's always something bad.
"Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech researchers envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels." So what's the catch? There's always a catch. Oh,
there it is.
All Debian-based Linux distros use a built-in firewall called IPtables. IPtables is very fast and very powerful, but it requires you to create cryptic rules if you want to configure it manually. That's why many Linux users use one of several different graphical firewall tools to configure IPtables by simply pointing and clicking. The one that I've always used in both Mepis Linux and Debian Linux is
Guarddog. I like Guarddog because it's unobtrusive — I can "set-it-and-forget-it."
On the other hand, some people like a GUI firewall tool that provides a lot of feedback about what's going on with their Internet connection. If that's what you're looking for, you should take a look at Howto: Setup A Software Firewall In Linux Using Firestarter.
The important thing to remember is that whether you use Guarddog, Firestarter, or one of the other GUI firewall tools, they're all just different interfaces that allow you to easily configure IPtables.
Whether you use Linux, Windows or a Mac, you can use free and open source
Parted Magic to partition, repartition, backup, restore and recover data from your computer's hard drives.
If you're a Windows Vista user, you may want to avoid upgrading to Vista Service Pack 1 until Microsoft finds a way to fix an SP1 installation problem that's
completely disabling some PCs. Of course, Redmond will first have to acknowledge that the problem even exists.
Sometimes it seems like the Internet is like the U.S. back in the days of "the wild west," with cybercriminals doing anything they want, including setting up their own
rogue DNS servers. And, according to some experts, the problem is getting worse.
In yet another example of cybercriminals infiltrating every facet of our online (and offline) lives,
"An insidious computer virus recently discovered
on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games — and its designers might have larger targets in mind."
I've never read it, but several years ago, a friend up north told me that talking with me reminded him of the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I took that as high praise, since the only things I had ever heard about that book were complimentary. And from what I understand, I think one of its underlying lessons parallels my feeling that I'm not "running on all cylinders" unless I'm doing something that allows me to exercise both the logical and creative sides of my brain. (By concentrating on the directionally-ambiguous place where her legs cross for 5-20 seconds, I can make
the dancer spin in either direction.)
Then, yesterday morning, I got an email from a friend who's currently re-reading that same book. He wrote, "By the way, at times in this book, when the author talks about taking care of a bike, his 'voice' reminds me of yours when you're talking about computers! Maybe I'm imagining things, and probably you wouldn't think it's anything like you, sort of like when someone says they know someone who looks 'just like' you and you end up thinking that person looks nothing like you... But I think it's the slow, systematic approach he takes to things, the attention to detail, and the love he has for the machine... In many ways, it's like working on a computer. I'll be looking forward to you next book: Zen and the Art of Computer Maintenance."
Curiosity finally got the best of me, so yesterday afternoon, I went to the library and checked out a plastic-coated, paperback copy of Zen and the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. Then, I lay on my back across the love seat in our Florida room, my head on a throw pillow, my legs jutting out past the other end, and the book in my hands glowing from the warm sunlight filtering in from over my right shoulder. Max left the comfort of his little padded doggie bed in a sunny spot five feet away to jump up and lay on his side against my side. Suddenly, I was twelve years old again, crawling into the long-familiar cocoon of reading purely for enjoyment.
When I woke up, the cooling room contrasted with the reassuring warmth of my trusty sidekick under my right hand, and it was time to feed my pets their supper. But I had really enjoyed that first page and a half.
Most people would assume that Microsoft's recent offer to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion means that Microsoft wants to own Yahoo. But it's very possible that the opposite is true, and the purchase offer is the same
dirty trick that Redmond used on other companies in the past. If that's true, then maybe the anti-Microsofties are right, and Bill Gates really is pure evil.
The leap-frogging struggle continues with a small victory for our side: "Researchers this week detailed a prototype system to
identify and eradicate botnets in the wild."
This could turn out to be incredible news for those of us who breathe: "Scientists have created metal-organic crystals capable of
soaking up carbon dioxide gas like a sponge, which could be used to keep industrial emissions of the gas out of the atmosphere."
Years ago, at a huge outdoor Christian music festival, my wife and I felt sorry for our fellow audience members because the event's vendors were charging ridiculously high prices for food. So we went to a store, bought several loaves of bread and jars of peanut butter and jelly, and then went back to the festival, set up a table, and made fresh PB&J sandwiches, which we gave away for free to anyone who wanted them. We were surprised that not very many people wanted them. In fact, some people looked at us like they suspected that we were trying to slip them some LSD or get them to join the Hare Krishnas. Looking back at the experience now, I realize that maybe, for some of them, our sandwiches weren't very popular for the same reason that
Linux isn't more popular than it is.
If you maintain your own web site, you may want to consider making your job a little easier by using
a few specific Firefox extensions.
No official word yet, but several sources are reporting that Toshiba is finally going to
give up on the HD DVD format.
This is like a ten-year-old boy's greatest dream come true: "If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of
a new laser beam made in a University of Michigan laboratory."
"Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted." No word yet on when humans will reach that goal.
I've spent over 10,000 hours working on this web site since 1998, so I'm always very happy to hear about it when someone finds it useful. Yesterday, I received an email message from Barbara E. Irwin, saying the following:
"I've recently included the ComputerBob website on the Loads of Linux Links project website, which can be found at http://loll.sourceforge.net/linux/links/index.html.
I have classified your link under: General Interest (as well as) Nerd News and Linux Portals.
The purpose of the Loads of Linux Links project is to collect, organise, classify and maintain important URLs about Linux and the Open Source movement for all levels of Linux users. It features special link collections: 'Latest 100 Links,' Cool" and 'Must See' links. There is also a 'Linux News Highlights' Atom feed.
This project has been reviewed on NewsForge — see http://www.linux.com/articles/40960.
I welcome all suggestions for additions, corrections, and deletions. Just send me an email."
I encourage all of my readers to check out Loads of Linux Links. LoLL includes a "submit" page to allow you to suggest links to be included, and if you'd like to send them an email message, there's a contact link at the bottom of each LoLL page.
If you've got your finger on the pulse of technology, you probably already know why the worst commercial operating system to plague the world in recent memory may be
the best thing to happen to the PC industry.
Here's the problem: "Nearly ten years ago, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) made its ruling in the State Street Bank case, effectively allowing patents on business models and greatly expanding the scope of software patents in one single move." Here's possibly the beginning of a solution: "CAFC has agreed to a full court hearing
to examine the scope of what can be patented. It may sound like a technicality, but it could be a very big deal."
I really hope that one of these days, a new technology like this one is going to improve all of our lives: "Some Penn State researchers are taking a cue from nature and have built the first solar cell that can effectively
split water to harvest the hydrogen."
If one man has his way, then some day soon, NASA may hear the following tranmission from the Space Shuttle: "Uhh... Houston, you're not going to believe this, but, uh... we just saw
a plastic Coke bottle go by."
I have tiny cuts and scrapes all over my hands, cuts and bruises on my knees and legs, and it feels like every joint in my body aches, but it was worth it — my house is all ready for its hurricane shutters and new hurricane-resistant door in the side of its garage. For two days, I removed all of the permanent lag screws that I had installed around all of our windows and doors nearly four years ago, to hold 3/4" plywood panels in place during hurricane threats. I had installed them so well, and they were so tight in the cinder block walls, that while removing them from the first three sides of our house, I ended up stripping out three different sockets. That forced me to manually unscrew the last 35 of them with a very pinchy pair of vice-grip pliers — a painstaking process that took up to 20 minutes per screw. The next day, I filled all of the holes with 50-year white caulk, to make them disappear into the house's white walls. Then I trimmed back the thick bushes from around all of the windows, to give the workers plenty of room to install the hurricane shutters. I hope to hear from them soon, to schedule a day to do that job.
For the past few years, I've been using the free
OpenDNS service to make my Internet browsing faster and safer. Now there's another new free DNS service, but
How Does OpenDNS' New Competition Stack Up?
One of the best things about being a technophile is that cool new technologies are constantly being developed. Some of them don't make much of an impact on our lives, but others are important enough to be called
The 10 Emerging Technologies Of 2008.
It's pretty depressing, but I learned many years ago that no matter what new technologies I may imagine, someone has probably already got working models of them in a laboratory somewhere — and someone else has already figured out how to use them for evil. Here's
a perfect example.
Depending on how old you are, you may have hundreds of
mostly obsolete skills. Doesn't it make you wonder how many of today's "essential" skills will be considered obsolete by most people in a few years?
Our hurricane shutters have arrived, and now we're scheduled to have them (and our new side garage door) installed this coming Monday and Tuesday. I can't even describe how good it makes me feel to know that our dream home will be as prepared as it can possibly be to protect us from any future hurricanes.
Here's some very important news if your Windows PC doesn't have a firewall and anti-virus software: "Police raided several homes across Quebec on Wednesday and arrested 16 people in their investigation, which they say uncovered the largest hacking scam in Canadian history. The hackers collaborated online to attack and take control of as many as
one million computers around the world that were not equipped with anti-virus software or firewalls."
Years ago, lawyers discovered the many advantages of using expensive online services to access legal records. Now they can access legal records
for free. I think it's about time someone made it easier for the world's financially destitute lawyers to finally make a profit in their practices.
I had to add a new "Miracle" story category just for this story: "Carly Fleischmann has severe autism and is unable to speak a word. But thanks to years of expensive and intensive therapy, this 13-year-old has made a remarkable breakthrough. Two years ago, working with pictures and symbols on a computer keyboard, she started typing and spelling out words.
The computer became her voice." If you know anything about autism, I guarantee that this story will amaze you and touch your heart.
Many years ago, I did my Masters thesis on the topic of creativity training. As I've said before, one of my favorite definitions of creativity is "Looking at something and seeing something else."
This video is a perfect example of that.
Regular readers of this Journal know that I was very happy to use
Mepis Linux full-time instead of Windows for 15 months before
I switched to "its father,"
Debian Linux this past December. Yesterday, I received a couple of messages from
handydan918, telling me about a script that does the opposite — it helps Debian users switch to Mepis. Here's what he said:
"It's a script that 'converts' a Debian Etch KDE install to Mepis. Why? The Debian installer will run on darn near anything. Mepis, not quite so much. Also, the Debian installer allows more install-time options, like installation of /home to a different drive than /, full filesystem encryption, and a few other niceties not supported by the Mepis installer.
Credit goes to UnicornRider (formerly) of the Mepislovers forums. This is really only intended to be a 'Plan B' for someone who just cannot get Mepis to install on their hardware. It takes a long time, too, depending on your connection speed, because you end up downloading over 900 packages! All in all, if you can install Mepis from the live cd, do it that way. If you find yourself stymied by one kind of hardware/kernel issue or another, this might help you get it done."
Thanks, handydan918!
This comes as no surprise, but it's disappointing anyway: "Microsoft has
stopped automatically distributing a prerequisite piece of software for Vista Service Pack 1, following some customer complaints that it had caused system problems." Other than the tobacco companies, has any other company in the world ever gotten away with causing so many catastrophic problems for so many people over so many years as Microsoft?
It seems like nothing is secure any more. New research by Princeton researchers proves that "disk encryption, the standard approach to protecting sensitive data on laptops,
can be defeated by relatively simple methods."
No matter what your political view are, and no matter what you believe is "the real reason" they did it, I think you have to agree that
this is very impressive technology.
Two of my very favorite people in the world have always been my identical twin cousins, Micki and LuAnne. Though they look the same, I've always been able to tell them apart by the way they each look at me. Now new research indicates that "Contrary to our previous beliefs, identical twins
are not genetically identical." But you know the old saying, "Close enough for government work."
We all know that Windows suffers from the constant threat of tens of thousands of viruses, trojans, adware and other types of malware, while no more than a tiny handful of those things has ever been created to target Linux. So why would a Linux user want to run anti-virus software on their PC? Find out in
Do I Need An AntiVirus Program On Linux?
Linux users often leave comments in support forums, saying that if they had to give up using Linux, they would buy Macs. And a couple of weeks ago, I reported to you that I had recommended that a dear friend replace their old Windows 98 PC with a new iMac. What is it like for an experienced Windows and Linux IT professional to switch to a Mac? One guy shares his experience in
Why I Switched To Mac And What I Have Learned.
I think that the most I ever spent for a computer keyboard was $30-40 (USD), for the Microsoft ergonomic keyboard that I've been using for many years. How much would you be willing to pay for a new keyboard? $30? $50? $75? Apparently, someone thinks there's a market for a keyboard that costs
$1564. (Incredibly, one of them recently sold on eBay for $2750.)
My wife and I are tired of hassles and security threats that come from receiving piles of unsolicited credit card offers, catalogs and sales pitches in the mail. And we're tired of having to call company after company, to ask them to please remove us from their junk-mail mailing lists. So last night, I went to
The Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service and removed our names from the DMA Member Prospect Lists. Then I went to
OptOutPrescreen.com and opted out of receiving any unsolicited credit card offers.
To me, it looks like it got squished between two semi trucks, but I would still consider buying one some day if a new air-powered car really does end up getting
100 miles per gallon.
We all know that Windows Vista has had highly publicized compatibility problems ever since its release more than a year ago. That's one reason why many people have been looking forward to Vista Service Pack 1. Now comes word that SP1 is even more incompatible than Vista itself. "Microsoft has confirmed that some third party applications are either
blocked or lose functionality on machines that have Vista service pack 1 installed, including products from Trend Micro, Zonelabs, BitDefender, and Novell." If you're a Vista user, just keep remembering Microsoft's motto: It's not a bug; it's a feature.
Breaking news from the "If You Can't Trust Microsoft, Then Who Can You Trust?" Department: "In a blow to Microsoft Corp., a federal judge
granted class-action status to a lawsuit late Friday alleging that Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as 'Windows Vista Capable' even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system, called 'Vista Home Basic.' The slogan was emblazoned on PCs during the 2006 holiday shopping season as part of a campaign by Microsoft to maintain sales of Windows XP computers after the launch of Windows Vista was delayed."
More bad news for Windows users: "If you use Internet Explorer (versions 6 or 7) to browse the Web, listen up: Criminals are starting to exploit
security holes in several widely installed IE plug-ins to plant invasive software when users are coerced or tricked into visiting one of several Web sites."
Hans Reiser's defense attorney admits that the evidence appears to indicate that he killed his wife and was stupid enough to do nothing to hide his guilt. But says that it only looks that way because his client
is a really intelligent computer geek, and "Being too intelligent can be a sort of curse."
Raise your hand if you're not getting older. No hands? I guess everyone's getting older — it doesn't matter if you're a king, a queen, or a
prince.
Saturday morning, I found the time to read some more of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Again, I found myself getting very sleepy as I read, and I was only able to finish the first chapter. So, Saturday afternoon, I went back to the library and checked out an audio copy of it on six hour-long CDs. This is first time I've ever listened to a book instead of reading it but I've already listened to the first three CDs. I haven't enjoyed a book this much since I read Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy four-book "trilogy" many years ago. I find it to be a delightful, thought-provoking mix of poignant adventure, pathos, logic, mystery, humor, psychology and philosophy — a sumptuous buffet of colors, flavors, smells and textures in which the more I eat, the hungrier I feel. I only wish that I wasn't eating alone; I'd love to listen to it with a small group of friends who would turn off the CD player every 10 minutes to discuss it for an hour or so.
I don't like the idea of "cold-call" Linux evangelism, as described in
this article. To me, throwing free Linux CDs at 100 "random people," hoping that a few of them will try Linux is counter-productive — I think it cheapens the perceived value of Linux and exponentially increases the odds that people will have a bad experience with it that could innoculate them against ever wanting to try it again. Instead, I would be happy if fewer people tried Linux, but 100% of the ones that did ended up having a great experience with it. Of course, that would take a lot more work, hand-holding and dedication on the part of experienced Linux users than simply giving away free Linux CDs.
That's why I have a lot of respect for anyone who takes the time to help out with this effort.
How many people have access to your private information? How many of them will misuse that information?
You may be shocked and disappointed to find out.
They cost $1.2 billion (USD) apiece, so it's an expensive shame that
they're currently grounded, to diagnose a problem that recently caused one of them to crash.
A lot of people would really like to find out if they're genetically susceptible to certain diseases, but they refuse to take the DNA tests that hold the answers.
Here's why.
As a lifelong learner and teacher, it makes me feel great to know when I've changed someone's life for the better. Sadly, I've known many teachers who
don't feel that way.
John is here installing our home's hurricane shutters as I type this. Yesterday, he cut all of the upper and lower tracks for the new shutters. Then early this morning, he and I removed the old door (with its frame intact) from the side of my garage, and I carried it next door to replace Mike and Annamarie's, which is in really bad shape. Mini and Max are sleeping in their little padded doggie beds a few feet away from me, with classical music from the public radio station helping to mask the loud, high-pitched whine of John drilling holes into the stone front of the house above and below the living room window. At the rate he's going, he's probably going to be working here all day tomorrow, too. Even though we're paying a boatload of money to have him do it, I still feel sorry for him, because I know from experience that it's an awful lot of really hard work.
A quick Google search will turn up scores of reviews of Linux distros — nearly always written by a reviewer who has a lot of Windows experience. It's a lot harder to find a review of Windows Vista, written by a reviewer who has a lot of Linux experience.
Here's one of those.
By now, you've probably heard of KDE 4, the newest update to one of the most popular Linux desktop environments. But since it's not really ready for prime-time yet, you may not have tried it yet. Here's
a review of KDE 4 that says, "The much-anticipated new version of KDE is finally here and it has arrived with a bang. Fitted with a new desktop shell, application launcher, artwork, and desktop widgets; the first word out of your mouth may very well be wow."
Regular readers of this Journal know that although I am a staunch defender of copyrights, I think software patents are usually ridiculous. Here's yet another example of what I consider to be
a huge abuse of the existing laws in a software patent case.
I think it's tragically sad, but apparently, even when you're telling them life-or-death information, people won't listen to you
unless you make it sound interesting to them.
I'm feeling really, really bad today. And really, really tired. There's an old saying that says "If you want to enjoy eating sausage, never go back in the kitchen to see how sausage is made." Well, all day yesterday, I ended up "watching the sausage being made." After doing a good job installing the new hurricane-resistant door in the side of our garage, John did a horrible job on the hurricane panels. If you recall, the entire job was supposed to take all day Monday and Tuesday, and possibly half of the day today. Instead, after two full days of work, John only finished installing the side door and the hurricane panels on two of our home's twenty-four windows. But that's not the worst part. I'm completely exhausted from catching many, many of his mistakes, and surreptitiously correcting several of them — I felt sorry for him and didn't want to embarrass him because he's a five-year stroke survivor who still goes to rehab to relearn fine motor skills — and his employer doesn't know anything about his stroke. It was also exhausting to watch him make mistakes that can't be corrected without completely redoing some things, and it made me wonder how many more mistakes he made during the many times that I had to come back into the house to work on other things.
John's mistakes are a very long story that ended up taking up an entire page of separate notes, but one perfect example is that the very first piece of panel-mounting railing — the one that he mounted permanently into our front stone wall above our living room window — was three inches to the right of where it should have been. He didn't notice it until I pointed it out to him. Then he re-measured it three times, to "prove" to me that he had measured it correctly. It was only on the fourth time of re-measuring that he finally discovered his mistake. At that point, he had no choice but to remove all ten of the bolts that held the railing to the wall and redrill new holes into it every 12 inches, 1.5 inches to the right of his original holes. But instead of carefully measuring and marking the places for the new holes, he eyeballed them and made large red marks on the edge of the white railing with a permanent red marker. Then he balanced the entire railing on a small step stool, and held it down with one foot and one hand while he wielded the drill, which wandered all around the rail, with the other hand. As he drilled, the drill bit made new holes in the top of the step stool. When he finally finished drilling the new holes, he remounted the railing back onto the wall. Of course, a few of the new holes didn't line up with the permanent anchors that he had already drilled into the wall, so he angled his drill into the railing to try to elongate the new mismatched holes, and then forced the securing bolts into them at an angle that prevented at least one bolt from going all the way in. Of course that resulted in the sides of the spinning drill chuck scraping the nice white enamel finish off of the side of the railing that sticks out from the wall. If you think that it would be frustrating to watch someone do all of that, keep in mind that those are just a few of the many mistakes that I saw him make on just the first of the two windows that he finished working on yesterday.
John left a little after 4:30 PM, but I was so stressed out that I kept thinking of things to add to my notes and didn't get to sleep until after 2:00 this morning. Then I woke up, still stressed out, only four hours later, worried about what I was going to do about the situation. At 7:00 AM today, I called his project manager to tell him the bad news. But no, I didn't mention anything about John's stroke. John seems like a really nice guy, but his work on those first two windows was extremely unprofessional. I read my entire page of notes to the project manager and then asked him to send someone else to do the rest of the job. He was very apologetic and repeatedly promised me that they will make things right. After I got off the phone, I printed a large-print note and taped it to the outside of the garage, telling John how to get into the garage. By doing that, I hope to avoid the awkwardness of having to talk to him when he comes back this morning to retrieve his tools and clean up. It sounds like the head installer will end up finishing our job — and hopefully correcting John's mistakes — but he probably won't have time to start working on it until this coming Friday or next Monday.
At least that will give me time to get some sleep.
John came back yesterday around lunch time. As I had hoped, he cleaned up, packed up his tools and left, without me having to talk to him. A few hours later, I finally had a sense that this whole adventure is going to turn out just fine. I'm hoping that the company sends their very best worker to finish the job, but I'm confident that whoever they send will know that they'll have to make things right to salvage the company's reputation, so they'll to be motivated to do their very best work.
A few days ago, I told you about an "undelete" utility for Linux. But, especially now that it's tax season, you may also want to know
how to use "shred" to securely delete files.
A few decades ago, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois said, "A billion here, a billion there — pretty soon it starts to add up to real money." Though it can probably afford to pay for it out of petty cash, I'm guessing that Microsoft isn't very happy that the European Commission has fined it
another 1.4 billion dollars.
For ten years, I had a ponytail that reached down past my butt. Do you think maybe that's why 3M never asked me to join its board of directors? Here are some
Gaffes Keeping Geeks Out of the Board Room.
Wow! This could end up being very big news: In the near future, hydrogen fuel could be easily extracted from water, making it
cheaper than gasoline.
Hmmm... I wonder what they named
her.
Well, if you put it
that way, of course people will choose Linux.
As a very happy Debian Linux user, I have no desire to use Ubuntu Linux. Still I'm glad to see that Ubuntu now has a
brainstorming site, where users can suggest and rank the improvements that they'd like to see. As the old saying says, a rising tide lifts all boats.
We've all known for more than a year that Windows Vista has a lot of unhappy users — many who bought "Vista Capable" PCs that weren't capable of running most versions of Vista. Now, newly court-compelled internal MS documents seem to indicate that
the company itself was unhappy with Vista, and knew that it was lying to consumers about those PCs.
In the U.K., the latest high-tech method for stealing people's credit card information starts with
a paper clip.
When the RIAA began suing music downloaders, they claimed that they were doing it to stop people from ripping off the musical artists. Now it appears that
the RIAA is ripping off the artists.
