As part of my school work I need a Windows machine to run Microsoft programs. The good thing is that our school provides us with XP or Vista for free. I went ahead and requested Vista since it is suppose to be the latest and greatest. On Friday night I finally got it installed.The first problem I ran in to was partitioning my hard drive. Partitioning a hard drive is the process of breaking your hard drive up in to separate logical hard drive. So my 500 gig drive can be split up in to smaller drives. My Ubuntu install is on a 200 gig partition. In the Vista installer it starts out with letting me add partitions. I added a 20 Gig partition, but when I selected to have it Vista installed on the partition is just made it told me that it couldn't find a partition that met it's requirements. It did not mention what the requirements where. On my laptop I searched the MS website and it said the requirements where that it was an NTFS partition. The partition was in fact an NTFS partition so that didn't leave me with an answer.I have a CD that Stephen gave me that will boot Windows XP off of a CD. I did that and partitioned the 20 gigs using the XP partitioner and than rebooted. Vista liked XPs partition and continued.Aside from that blunder, the rest of the install was amazingly easy. When I say amazingly, I mean in the sense of a Windows install. In the past, to get even basic functionality out of your Windows computer you had to search around for the disk that comes with all of your hardware and install the drivers. This can take a lot of time and be very frustrating. This is not a problem in Ubuntu. In Vista all of my hardware worked out of the box except my scanner. My graphics card needed it's drivers, but functioned quite well without them. I consider this a major improvement.Next came configuring my system. Just like XP, a lot of the defaults are crap. The default Start menu is the worst. It's very difficult to navigate and I find that it confuses many computer users I help. That was changed to default first.As I moved on to change other settings I found that the settings where very scattered.One problem of any operating system or program that has enough functionality is that it's difficult to place settings in a logical and easy to find manner for the users. This is a problem in both Windows and Linux. But it is much worse in Vista. This is definitely a rollback. It's not a matter of I don't know where things are, it's that trying to find the logical place it may be is more confusing than ever.The look of Vista is very nice. It is sleek and very pleasing to look at.Stability has not been a problem so far either. I have had no crashes or hickups so far. Of course, it hasn't been running for very long either. It's currently only used for school work, and for video games. Being able to break out my old PC games has been fun.The one thing I am left wondering is what does Vista offer that XP doesn't? The only answer I can give to that is the look. Aside from that, the hundreds of dollars Vista is going to cost you is most definitely not going to be worth it. I can't even imagine paying for Ultimate. You also still have to have antimalware on your PC to keep it from being infected.On a business perspective there is actually incentive to not go Vista. With Vista you need a more powerful PC just to get the base system up. This means chucking the old PCs and purchasing new ones. I have heard of horror stories from people trying to just have Vista simply run on PCs that are not top of the line. So business will need all of their PCs to be top of the line just to make their OS run stable? That seems pretty crappy. If business choose XP they get to keep their hardware (saving themselves hundred of thousands of dollars) and still get all the functionality they get from XP.Of course, businesses could be smart and run Ubuntu which will run well on both old computer and new computers. This eliminates the need to worry about malware, allows for great remote management, allows security updates to be installed in a more manageable medium, and provides the satisfaction knowing that your current hardware will enjoy a much longer life cycle than if you used Windows.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Crazy two-weeks
The last two weeks at work have been nothing short of crazy. I'm not exactly sure what I am and am not allowed to say, so I wont' say much of anything other than the Florida Parole Comission has needed an immense amount of help from us.
Keep in mind officially I am a contractor who's job is to do tech support over the phone with Department of Corrections employees. Phone support is the bare bottom run of the IT ladder.
I have found myself interfacing with the FPCs CIO and networking admin as well as our CIO, head of security and other people in top positions. We also had an outside person from another agency come in to give us a hand. Last Friday was her last day helping us.
She was a really nice lady named Jane. She thought I was really smart. She would say things like, "We have this really smart guy helping us out on this" and things like that. I quickly became the smart guy, which is a tough position because then all of a sudden any time you don't know something or forget something people say, "Oh, the smart guy doesn't know." The good thing is that Jane was always backing me up. There where plenty of thing that I knew that others where questioning me on. Jane would always back me up. She was pretty smart herself. She knew many things nobody else did.
I was asked to work the weekend, but I already had plans to go out of town for Rachel's kid's first birthday. Rachel is a very important person to me and it would going to the birthday party was something that would have been hard for me to miss.
I was in charge of documenting all the procedures necessary to get our work done. This week we e-mailed the instructions out to technicians across the state to get the work done in their respective offices. I have been issued a laptop that is setup in my bosses office and I have been taking calls from the techs answering questions and making sure everything is going well, which so far it is.
Later this week we will roll out stage two of the task at hand which should have the Parole Commission where they need to be and we will be done.
I will be pretty relieved when this is over as every other thing we have been working on has been put on halt. I've got other projects that have just been sitting dormant trying to get this worked through. One of the projects is showing off a Ubuntu laptop I was asked to setup to show them how this whole Linux thing worked. I was really excited about integrating it with Active Directory but I was told not to put it on the network.
I was actually very happy with how well the Ubuntu install went. Some things I find myself having to finagle went without a hitch. I'm pretty excited about showing all that it can do to my boss. Our organization is very MS friendly so the fact I was even asked to install Ubuntu to show it to them is pretty exciting for me. It is extremely unlikely that they will actually choose to do anything with it though.
Keep in mind officially I am a contractor who's job is to do tech support over the phone with Department of Corrections employees. Phone support is the bare bottom run of the IT ladder.
I have found myself interfacing with the FPCs CIO and networking admin as well as our CIO, head of security and other people in top positions. We also had an outside person from another agency come in to give us a hand. Last Friday was her last day helping us.
She was a really nice lady named Jane. She thought I was really smart. She would say things like, "We have this really smart guy helping us out on this" and things like that. I quickly became the smart guy, which is a tough position because then all of a sudden any time you don't know something or forget something people say, "Oh, the smart guy doesn't know." The good thing is that Jane was always backing me up. There where plenty of thing that I knew that others where questioning me on. Jane would always back me up. She was pretty smart herself. She knew many things nobody else did.
I was asked to work the weekend, but I already had plans to go out of town for Rachel's kid's first birthday. Rachel is a very important person to me and it would going to the birthday party was something that would have been hard for me to miss.
I was in charge of documenting all the procedures necessary to get our work done. This week we e-mailed the instructions out to technicians across the state to get the work done in their respective offices. I have been issued a laptop that is setup in my bosses office and I have been taking calls from the techs answering questions and making sure everything is going well, which so far it is.
Later this week we will roll out stage two of the task at hand which should have the Parole Commission where they need to be and we will be done.
I will be pretty relieved when this is over as every other thing we have been working on has been put on halt. I've got other projects that have just been sitting dormant trying to get this worked through. One of the projects is showing off a Ubuntu laptop I was asked to setup to show them how this whole Linux thing worked. I was really excited about integrating it with Active Directory but I was told not to put it on the network.
I was actually very happy with how well the Ubuntu install went. Some things I find myself having to finagle went without a hitch. I'm pretty excited about showing all that it can do to my boss. Our organization is very MS friendly so the fact I was even asked to install Ubuntu to show it to them is pretty exciting for me. It is extremely unlikely that they will actually choose to do anything with it though.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
7 Reasons Why Windows Won't Succeed On My Desktop
The closed-source operating system is destined to stay stuck with Viruses and all forms of nasty malware endlessly filling up our inboxes with crap, blogger David Baucum opines. Read why he believes Windows hasn't--and isn't--going to be used on his PCs, then join the debate by posting your opinion in the discussion section at the article's end.
It is inarguably accurate to note that, while Microsoft is a success on the desktop market, the closed-source operating system has been a dismal failure on my desktop. There are at least seven solid reasons, which I'll detail below, why Microsoft Windows has not been installed on any of my PCs since 2006, and never will by my operating system of choice.
Microsoft's failure to to be stable, reliable, or secure is all the more mystifying when you consider that it has billions of dollars in capital to throw at the problems.
Average PC users have been swayed by vehement marketing and FUD campaigns from Microsoft that it's so clearly superior to anything and everything from any other vendor. It seems clear that more users have been bamboozled by the outright deception hurled at them from Microsoft and their legions of suckered users.
While Vista, the newest implementation, has overhaul its security and stability, user reports across the web have shown that it's not as stable as many had hoped and anti-malware is still necessary for anyone who wants to keep their PCs clean. Even if it did do a good job, it's too little too late.
One caveat: While I believe all the arguments I lay out below are valid, I don't give a flying flip what you run. Use what you like. Honestly, I JUST DON'T CARE. If you ask my opinion I will give it to you, but I'm not a Jahova's witness, and my operating system choice is not a religious one. It's simply a matter of personal preforance.
Before I dive into the seven reasons Linux on the desktop will remain an also-ran, let's frame the debate with a quick analysis of the current market share of the open-source operating system...not really. I don't care. So let's move in to the reason why Windows will not succeed on my desktop.
Prohibitive Applications
In case you don't know, Linux is a free and open source operating system. This means that the source code used to write the operating system, and most of the program that run on it, is made freely available. This gives me, or anyone else with programming skills, the ability to make whatever changes to the program I want.
For most people this means nothing because they are not programmers. But the non-programmers still win because when the community says, "This program needs to be able to do X" someone out there will write the code to make it do that. This is why Linux is so feature rich.
This also means that you don't pay anything. That's right, it's all 100% free. The operating system is free, the Office suite is free, everything. You simply don't pay anyone any money. For me, that is a real deal breaker.
Another prohibition that Windows and most of it's software developers put on its software is that they use proprietory formats. This might sound like another thing that the average person really isn't going to care about, but it actually affects us in very many ways.
Let's take for example Microsoft Word. It defaults to saving files in a .doc format. The specifications for this format are closed so that only Microsoft, and people who sign deals with Microsoft, have access to the knowledge to implement software that can work with .doc files. This restricts the ability of developers to create applications that work with .doc files, and indeed Microsoft Word is the only program that allows you to succesfully open and edit .doc files. Other programs try to "reverse engineer" the format, but with hit-or-miss success.
This doesn't stop with .doc files. Most closed source programs implement their own proprietory formats that only work with their own program. While this is great for the software provider and their profit margins, it is bad for everyone else, especially the user who is stuck with "vendor lockin."
Open standards are very important in any industry. In the 80's networking relied on closed-source protocols that other vendors could not implement. This meant that business had to pick one provider, pay them loads of money, and could never switch to anyone else without completely replacing their whole entire network.
Once open standards hit the cost of networking went dramatically down because of competition. That's right, open-source created jobs galore and reduced prices. IBM et. all suffered, but to the benefit of everyone else. Microsoft and co do not want this to happen to them. They want you to use only their product and be stuck there. This only benefits them, not you. It's economics 101. Monopolies only hurt.
The Fanboy alienation factor
There's nothing worse to a Linux user than a Microsoft fanboy. This is the problem they pose, I don't care what they use, but they seem to care immensely about what I use. I don't know why this is. The Microsoft fanboys are always there to taunt me and try to make me "see the light." What do they care what light I see? It doesn't affect them at all. It's not even that big a deal to me. I just want my PC to work well and that's what Linux provides me. It's not like this is a major life ordeal.
It's like Coke vs. Pepsi. Who cares. Find which one you like and it get it. I'll drink both, but I prefer Pepsi. Please don't try to tell me to do otherwise. I don't care enough.
Open-Source creates jobs.
I touched on this previously. Closed source created monopolies, which is bad for the market.
Free isn't bad either. Corporations spend hundred of millions of dollars a year on software. The majority of this money is pocketed by the company in a way that they can maximize profits. This means they implement as little as possible on the leanest staff they can get away with and use the rest to increase their bottom line. This is all at the expense on the consumers that purchase their software.
Open-source allows those companies to free up a significant part of their IT expenses.
The obvious problem is that this puts programmers out of business. As a prospective future programmer this of course concerns me.
But there is a caveat, the businesses need programs. People clearly aren't going to program 40 hours a week just because. But, when there is a community of developers (paid or unpaid) this allows them to pool their resources together to hire programmers to work on applications. When just a portion of those millions saved are put towards hiring a (relatively) small group of programmers to contribute to the software that they rely on on a day-to-day basis, we all win. Companies save money, we all get to use the software, and lastly, companies get to use the software the way the want it.
Let's take for example Open Office. Let's say a company is using the software but their are feature that they need. They can bring this up their programmers. Their programmers can then put those ideas out to the community. If the community accepts these ideas then they will all work in collaberation to implement them. This reduces the programming costs for all parties involved while allowing them to collaberate to produce a better product because more ideas and muscle is put behind the project. If the community rejects the idea, or likes it but wants to implement it in a way that isn't quite what the company wants or needs, they can still implement it. They simply fork the code and go from there.
This model currently exists in both the corporate and private sector, though clearly not as the defacto standard. What does this mean to me? It means I get to use corporate grade software for free. I have free access to database toosl, office suites, programming environments, games, and more for free. The companies develop it beceause they need it, the individuals develop it because they want it, and I use it because it rocks.
Resistance from me
This is one thing I mus admit. I love alternatives. Alternatives are usually more fun and represent a lot of the way I run my life. Music found on MTV or the radio has rarely represented my musical tastes. I voted for Nader the last two elections. My clothing selection can't be found at the mall. Even my kids have alternative names, Aurora, Athena and Arianna. There's a saying that it's always the non-thinkers that always come in droves.
Using this rule it's easy to come to the assumption that because most people use Windows that there must be a better alternative, and I'm right. Even the closed-source and even more proprietory MAC is a more stable, reliable and secure choice.
Linux isn't simple, but "It Just Works"
This isn't really 100% true. On the software side of things the market sucks really bad. We are just now starting to see the real potential of software, but we still haven't implemented good software. It is still buggy and not very user friendly. Apple is just starting to make a lot of headway in usability, but the amount of usability they are able impliment should be the technoloy of yesteryear, not cutting edge.
I'm sorry to say that there just isn't an OS out there that really is good. All require the end user to learn and learn lots before they are able to use their PC without having to call up their geeky cousing, or God forbid have to take it to the Geek Squad on a regular basis.
BUT, and this is a realy big BUT, Linux "Just Works" much better than Windows. I was always having to reformat my Windows drive in the past. And when I wasn't reformatting because I had given up, I was researching problems and trying my hardest to squash them.
With Ubuntu I'm using my compuer more than I am fixing it. It is true that it does break. Sometimes things don't work like they are suppose to. But when I look back at my Windows days I know that I have the good life in comparrison.
This is especially important for my wife who doesn't like to have to go through complicated work-arounds to get things done. She hits the power button, logs in, and runs with whatever it is she wants to do.
Linux can do so much
Linux is really just a kernel (the software that handles the hardware) with a bunch of software built around it to give the user an interface to work with. All that extra software is not necessary for a Linux distribution. This gives programmers a lot of power to be creative. Linux can do almost anything. It can run cell phones, networking equipment, electronic toys, portable music players, and of course, your computer.
And you don't have to settle with one of doing things. With Windows there is one desktop and if you don't like it, or it's too much or too little for your PC, tough.
With Linux this is not true. There is a distro that will boot of a 3.25" disk. There's others that will boot off of a CD, no hard drive neccessary. Some distro are made for old computers. With Windows you either have to either upgrade your PC, buy a new PC, or stick with a version of Windows that no longer has security or bug fixes being supplied by Microsoft. With Linux you simply install a distro that was made for older computers and you still get vendor support. Why replace your computer every two years unless you are a gamer? How much PC power and hard drive space do you really need to browse the internet and read your e-mail a couple of times a week?
On the other hand, if you have a brand new computers there are distros that come with all the bells and whistles you expect in a modern operating system. This choice providers power to the end user.
It also provides power to companies. As Vista is being rolled out corporation will have to upgrade their perfectly good hardware to stay up to date. This upgrade is really superficial and unnecessary. The hardware is good and can do all the things that are required of it, the software (Vista) is just too bloated to be any good.
For me this means I can run Linux on all of my PCs. From my 2.0Ghz dual core, 2 Meg RAM, 256M Video Card desktop to my 600 Mhz 384M ram, 64M Video Card laptop. And they both run great. The experience is the same so I don't have to do any relearning.
The community
The Linux community is awesome. They are always willing and able to work with people to help them with their needs. From the grandma to the MCSE looking for another way.
The community is always looking for feedback, and that feedback can result in programmers hacking away at your latest ideas. If you notice bugs the developers are usually on-hand to take a look at what's going on and seeing what needs to be done to fix any problems you may have.
There are forums of Linux enthusiests ready to help scoured across the Internet. For businesses that rely on professional support there are multitudes of companies out there willing to help (for a fee of course.)
The community is also extremelly nice. From the developers to the people browsing the forums you couldn't ask for a more nice and open mined group of people.
Closing thoughts:
i really would like to restress the point that I'm not that concerned with what you use. My computer is very use-friendly, secure, safe and stable. I don't run any anti-malware programs, I'm not constantly trying to fix things, and I really just enjoy using my PC. The available software allows my to do all sorts of neet things. When i want software it's usually pretty easy to find what fits my needs. Software packages are incredibly easy to install and I don't need to shell out money at a store full of people who don't know what they are talking about *cough* Best Buy *cough*.
And if anything speaks volumes about it's ease-of-use, my wife can use it. She's very smart, but she is not a computer geak by any means. She expects things to work and doesn't put up with me providing her with things that don't.
It is inarguably accurate to note that, while Microsoft is a success on the desktop market, the closed-source operating system has been a dismal failure on my desktop. There are at least seven solid reasons, which I'll detail below, why Microsoft Windows has not been installed on any of my PCs since 2006, and never will by my operating system of choice.
Microsoft's failure to to be stable, reliable, or secure is all the more mystifying when you consider that it has billions of dollars in capital to throw at the problems.
Average PC users have been swayed by vehement marketing and FUD campaigns from Microsoft that it's so clearly superior to anything and everything from any other vendor. It seems clear that more users have been bamboozled by the outright deception hurled at them from Microsoft and their legions of suckered users.
While Vista, the newest implementation, has overhaul its security and stability, user reports across the web have shown that it's not as stable as many had hoped and anti-malware is still necessary for anyone who wants to keep their PCs clean. Even if it did do a good job, it's too little too late.
One caveat: While I believe all the arguments I lay out below are valid, I don't give a flying flip what you run. Use what you like. Honestly, I JUST DON'T CARE. If you ask my opinion I will give it to you, but I'm not a Jahova's witness, and my operating system choice is not a religious one. It's simply a matter of personal preforance.
Before I dive into the seven reasons Linux on the desktop will remain an also-ran, let's frame the debate with a quick analysis of the current market share of the open-source operating system...not really. I don't care. So let's move in to the reason why Windows will not succeed on my desktop.
Prohibitive Applications
In case you don't know, Linux is a free and open source operating system. This means that the source code used to write the operating system, and most of the program that run on it, is made freely available. This gives me, or anyone else with programming skills, the ability to make whatever changes to the program I want.
For most people this means nothing because they are not programmers. But the non-programmers still win because when the community says, "This program needs to be able to do X" someone out there will write the code to make it do that. This is why Linux is so feature rich.
This also means that you don't pay anything. That's right, it's all 100% free. The operating system is free, the Office suite is free, everything. You simply don't pay anyone any money. For me, that is a real deal breaker.
Another prohibition that Windows and most of it's software developers put on its software is that they use proprietory formats. This might sound like another thing that the average person really isn't going to care about, but it actually affects us in very many ways.
Let's take for example Microsoft Word. It defaults to saving files in a .doc format. The specifications for this format are closed so that only Microsoft, and people who sign deals with Microsoft, have access to the knowledge to implement software that can work with .doc files. This restricts the ability of developers to create applications that work with .doc files, and indeed Microsoft Word is the only program that allows you to succesfully open and edit .doc files. Other programs try to "reverse engineer" the format, but with hit-or-miss success.
This doesn't stop with .doc files. Most closed source programs implement their own proprietory formats that only work with their own program. While this is great for the software provider and their profit margins, it is bad for everyone else, especially the user who is stuck with "vendor lockin."
Open standards are very important in any industry. In the 80's networking relied on closed-source protocols that other vendors could not implement. This meant that business had to pick one provider, pay them loads of money, and could never switch to anyone else without completely replacing their whole entire network.
Once open standards hit the cost of networking went dramatically down because of competition. That's right, open-source created jobs galore and reduced prices. IBM et. all suffered, but to the benefit of everyone else. Microsoft and co do not want this to happen to them. They want you to use only their product and be stuck there. This only benefits them, not you. It's economics 101. Monopolies only hurt.
The Fanboy alienation factor
There's nothing worse to a Linux user than a Microsoft fanboy. This is the problem they pose, I don't care what they use, but they seem to care immensely about what I use. I don't know why this is. The Microsoft fanboys are always there to taunt me and try to make me "see the light." What do they care what light I see? It doesn't affect them at all. It's not even that big a deal to me. I just want my PC to work well and that's what Linux provides me. It's not like this is a major life ordeal.
It's like Coke vs. Pepsi. Who cares. Find which one you like and it get it. I'll drink both, but I prefer Pepsi. Please don't try to tell me to do otherwise. I don't care enough.
Open-Source creates jobs.
I touched on this previously. Closed source created monopolies, which is bad for the market.
Free isn't bad either. Corporations spend hundred of millions of dollars a year on software. The majority of this money is pocketed by the company in a way that they can maximize profits. This means they implement as little as possible on the leanest staff they can get away with and use the rest to increase their bottom line. This is all at the expense on the consumers that purchase their software.
Open-source allows those companies to free up a significant part of their IT expenses.
The obvious problem is that this puts programmers out of business. As a prospective future programmer this of course concerns me.
But there is a caveat, the businesses need programs. People clearly aren't going to program 40 hours a week just because. But, when there is a community of developers (paid or unpaid) this allows them to pool their resources together to hire programmers to work on applications. When just a portion of those millions saved are put towards hiring a (relatively) small group of programmers to contribute to the software that they rely on on a day-to-day basis, we all win. Companies save money, we all get to use the software, and lastly, companies get to use the software the way the want it.
Let's take for example Open Office. Let's say a company is using the software but their are feature that they need. They can bring this up their programmers. Their programmers can then put those ideas out to the community. If the community accepts these ideas then they will all work in collaberation to implement them. This reduces the programming costs for all parties involved while allowing them to collaberate to produce a better product because more ideas and muscle is put behind the project. If the community rejects the idea, or likes it but wants to implement it in a way that isn't quite what the company wants or needs, they can still implement it. They simply fork the code and go from there.
This model currently exists in both the corporate and private sector, though clearly not as the defacto standard. What does this mean to me? It means I get to use corporate grade software for free. I have free access to database toosl, office suites, programming environments, games, and more for free. The companies develop it beceause they need it, the individuals develop it because they want it, and I use it because it rocks.
Resistance from me
This is one thing I mus admit. I love alternatives. Alternatives are usually more fun and represent a lot of the way I run my life. Music found on MTV or the radio has rarely represented my musical tastes. I voted for Nader the last two elections. My clothing selection can't be found at the mall. Even my kids have alternative names, Aurora, Athena and Arianna. There's a saying that it's always the non-thinkers that always come in droves.
Using this rule it's easy to come to the assumption that because most people use Windows that there must be a better alternative, and I'm right. Even the closed-source and even more proprietory MAC is a more stable, reliable and secure choice.
Linux isn't simple, but "It Just Works"
This isn't really 100% true. On the software side of things the market sucks really bad. We are just now starting to see the real potential of software, but we still haven't implemented good software. It is still buggy and not very user friendly. Apple is just starting to make a lot of headway in usability, but the amount of usability they are able impliment should be the technoloy of yesteryear, not cutting edge.
I'm sorry to say that there just isn't an OS out there that really is good. All require the end user to learn and learn lots before they are able to use their PC without having to call up their geeky cousing, or God forbid have to take it to the Geek Squad on a regular basis.
BUT, and this is a realy big BUT, Linux "Just Works" much better than Windows. I was always having to reformat my Windows drive in the past. And when I wasn't reformatting because I had given up, I was researching problems and trying my hardest to squash them.
With Ubuntu I'm using my compuer more than I am fixing it. It is true that it does break. Sometimes things don't work like they are suppose to. But when I look back at my Windows days I know that I have the good life in comparrison.
This is especially important for my wife who doesn't like to have to go through complicated work-arounds to get things done. She hits the power button, logs in, and runs with whatever it is she wants to do.
Linux can do so much
Linux is really just a kernel (the software that handles the hardware) with a bunch of software built around it to give the user an interface to work with. All that extra software is not necessary for a Linux distribution. This gives programmers a lot of power to be creative. Linux can do almost anything. It can run cell phones, networking equipment, electronic toys, portable music players, and of course, your computer.
And you don't have to settle with one of doing things. With Windows there is one desktop and if you don't like it, or it's too much or too little for your PC, tough.
With Linux this is not true. There is a distro that will boot of a 3.25" disk. There's others that will boot off of a CD, no hard drive neccessary. Some distro are made for old computers. With Windows you either have to either upgrade your PC, buy a new PC, or stick with a version of Windows that no longer has security or bug fixes being supplied by Microsoft. With Linux you simply install a distro that was made for older computers and you still get vendor support. Why replace your computer every two years unless you are a gamer? How much PC power and hard drive space do you really need to browse the internet and read your e-mail a couple of times a week?
On the other hand, if you have a brand new computers there are distros that come with all the bells and whistles you expect in a modern operating system. This choice providers power to the end user.
It also provides power to companies. As Vista is being rolled out corporation will have to upgrade their perfectly good hardware to stay up to date. This upgrade is really superficial and unnecessary. The hardware is good and can do all the things that are required of it, the software (Vista) is just too bloated to be any good.
For me this means I can run Linux on all of my PCs. From my 2.0Ghz dual core, 2 Meg RAM, 256M Video Card desktop to my 600 Mhz 384M ram, 64M Video Card laptop. And they both run great. The experience is the same so I don't have to do any relearning.
The community
The Linux community is awesome. They are always willing and able to work with people to help them with their needs. From the grandma to the MCSE looking for another way.
The community is always looking for feedback, and that feedback can result in programmers hacking away at your latest ideas. If you notice bugs the developers are usually on-hand to take a look at what's going on and seeing what needs to be done to fix any problems you may have.
There are forums of Linux enthusiests ready to help scoured across the Internet. For businesses that rely on professional support there are multitudes of companies out there willing to help (for a fee of course.)
The community is also extremelly nice. From the developers to the people browsing the forums you couldn't ask for a more nice and open mined group of people.
Closing thoughts:
i really would like to restress the point that I'm not that concerned with what you use. My computer is very use-friendly, secure, safe and stable. I don't run any anti-malware programs, I'm not constantly trying to fix things, and I really just enjoy using my PC. The available software allows my to do all sorts of neet things. When i want software it's usually pretty easy to find what fits my needs. Software packages are incredibly easy to install and I don't need to shell out money at a store full of people who don't know what they are talking about *cough* Best Buy *cough*.
And if anything speaks volumes about it's ease-of-use, my wife can use it. She's very smart, but she is not a computer geak by any means. She expects things to work and doesn't put up with me providing her with things that don't.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
New truck and camping
Zeke's girlfriend, Vicki, gave us her 97 Dodge Dakota. I have been spending a lot of time on it. Probably too much time as
there are much more pressing chores around the house to get done.The first thing I accomplished was just throwing away garbage. That was the easy part. It paid well too as this truck seems
to be stocked up pretty well with spare change.One of the first things that had to be fixed on the truck was the headlights. The worked intermittently. The windshield
wipers were busted too. The wipers where as simple as a trip to the Autoparts store. The lights took more digging.Following wiring around a vehicle is not an easy task. I started by checking the connections to the lights themselves.
Playing with that didn't seem to affect whether or not the where on.I then checked the wires leading up in to the truck and I couldn't find anything obvious.I then decided to check from the switch inside the truck and see what I could find. After unscrewing a bunch of stuff I
discovered that the assembly you use to turn the lights on and off had a burnt out plug.I first took the part up to Discount Auto Parts. The guy there said it was a dealer item and they where likely to charge me
over $100 for it. I was hoping this was just the kind of advice you would get at a discount store and headed up to NAPA.
The guy there seemed skeptical they would have it and told me that I may have to go to the dealer and pay over $100 for it.He searched on his computer and wrote down a bunch of number. After a while he came back with the exact right part.when I plugged it in I still had problems as one of three wires that had been crimped together had come undone. I bought
some new crimps at Wal-Mart and promptly lost them so I fixed it with a little electrical tape.The same day I fixed the lights one of the lights went out. After I replaced it I was in good shape.Now that the truck was in a condition that I could drive it without having worry about it raining or being dark I started
using it a lot. The girls really love riding around in it. It's a very family-like fealing having the two girls piled up
next to me (with their seatbelts on of course) in the bench seat.On an attempt to leave town for a camping trip the truck stalled out and wouldn't crank. The engine would turn over but it
wouldn't start. After a 30 minute dinner at Burger King it cranked back up and took us home. It has never done it again
since then, but now I don't trust it.For good measure I changed out the spark plugs. This turned out harder than I expected only because the wires did not easily
unfasten from the plugs. It was a real pain getting each one off. The rest of the work was very simple.One problem is that a lot of Zeke and Vicki's stuff is in the back. It has a cover over the bed, but it wasn't sealed
properly and leaked when it rained. I had to unfasten all of the clamps and push it right up against the cab, but after I
refastened the clamps it stopped leaking. I tested it by taking a water hose and drowning it. Not even a drop came through.The cigarette lighter doesn't work either. This is a big deal as I use my laptop to play music while I'm driving because it
doesn't have a radio in it.Using a voltometer I narred the problem down to the lighter-unit itself. A positive and negative wire leads up to a plug,
which the lighter-unit itself plugs in to. I verified good current on the two wires.I went to three different stores and none of them had the lighter-unit that goes to this truck. I found one that has to
plugs, in the wrong position. It also came with some cables that you can easily use to just fasten to any hot & ground
wires. As soon as I plugged that up and plugged something in the fuse blew. I have no idea what would have caused that. I
am going to have to get a new fuse and do some more playing in that area.In the middle of this I did all sorts of cleaning. I scrubbed the floors with generic lysol and made the dash shine with
some generic Armor All. Aside from the wires hanging out where the stereo system goes it looks really good from the inside.On the outside it is in good shape too except for some dents in front and back passenger side from an accident by a previous
owner.Next month I will get a much needed passenger-side mirror. The parking break also doesn't work well on steep inclines and I
will have to look in to that. The tires are getting near their time to be replaced and they drag pretty hard to the right.One of the deals of taking on this truck is that I don't want to poor money in to it. If I want to fix it up, buying parts
is unavoidable, but I am going to do all of the work myself. If at any point this truck starts costing too much we are just
going to get rid of it. So far all of the work has been pretty simple. I feel pretty good that I can tackle the parking
break problem. I'm not so confident about the alignment issue. The mirror will be fairly simple. I've replaced a few of
them before.I think instead of getting a new CD player I am going to right the wires up to run in to an RCA plug that I can simply plug
anything in to like an MP3 player. I don't have an MP3 player but it would make a nice Christmas or birthday gift.
there are much more pressing chores around the house to get done.The first thing I accomplished was just throwing away garbage. That was the easy part. It paid well too as this truck seems
to be stocked up pretty well with spare change.One of the first things that had to be fixed on the truck was the headlights. The worked intermittently. The windshield
wipers were busted too. The wipers where as simple as a trip to the Autoparts store. The lights took more digging.Following wiring around a vehicle is not an easy task. I started by checking the connections to the lights themselves.
Playing with that didn't seem to affect whether or not the where on.I then checked the wires leading up in to the truck and I couldn't find anything obvious.I then decided to check from the switch inside the truck and see what I could find. After unscrewing a bunch of stuff I
discovered that the assembly you use to turn the lights on and off had a burnt out plug.I first took the part up to Discount Auto Parts. The guy there said it was a dealer item and they where likely to charge me
over $100 for it. I was hoping this was just the kind of advice you would get at a discount store and headed up to NAPA.
The guy there seemed skeptical they would have it and told me that I may have to go to the dealer and pay over $100 for it.He searched on his computer and wrote down a bunch of number. After a while he came back with the exact right part.when I plugged it in I still had problems as one of three wires that had been crimped together had come undone. I bought
some new crimps at Wal-Mart and promptly lost them so I fixed it with a little electrical tape.The same day I fixed the lights one of the lights went out. After I replaced it I was in good shape.Now that the truck was in a condition that I could drive it without having worry about it raining or being dark I started
using it a lot. The girls really love riding around in it. It's a very family-like fealing having the two girls piled up
next to me (with their seatbelts on of course) in the bench seat.On an attempt to leave town for a camping trip the truck stalled out and wouldn't crank. The engine would turn over but it
wouldn't start. After a 30 minute dinner at Burger King it cranked back up and took us home. It has never done it again
since then, but now I don't trust it.For good measure I changed out the spark plugs. This turned out harder than I expected only because the wires did not easily
unfasten from the plugs. It was a real pain getting each one off. The rest of the work was very simple.One problem is that a lot of Zeke and Vicki's stuff is in the back. It has a cover over the bed, but it wasn't sealed
properly and leaked when it rained. I had to unfasten all of the clamps and push it right up against the cab, but after I
refastened the clamps it stopped leaking. I tested it by taking a water hose and drowning it. Not even a drop came through.The cigarette lighter doesn't work either. This is a big deal as I use my laptop to play music while I'm driving because it
doesn't have a radio in it.Using a voltometer I narred the problem down to the lighter-unit itself. A positive and negative wire leads up to a plug,
which the lighter-unit itself plugs in to. I verified good current on the two wires.I went to three different stores and none of them had the lighter-unit that goes to this truck. I found one that has to
plugs, in the wrong position. It also came with some cables that you can easily use to just fasten to any hot & ground
wires. As soon as I plugged that up and plugged something in the fuse blew. I have no idea what would have caused that. I
am going to have to get a new fuse and do some more playing in that area.In the middle of this I did all sorts of cleaning. I scrubbed the floors with generic lysol and made the dash shine with
some generic Armor All. Aside from the wires hanging out where the stereo system goes it looks really good from the inside.On the outside it is in good shape too except for some dents in front and back passenger side from an accident by a previous
owner.Next month I will get a much needed passenger-side mirror. The parking break also doesn't work well on steep inclines and I
will have to look in to that. The tires are getting near their time to be replaced and they drag pretty hard to the right.One of the deals of taking on this truck is that I don't want to poor money in to it. If I want to fix it up, buying parts
is unavoidable, but I am going to do all of the work myself. If at any point this truck starts costing too much we are just
going to get rid of it. So far all of the work has been pretty simple. I feel pretty good that I can tackle the parking
break problem. I'm not so confident about the alignment issue. The mirror will be fairly simple. I've replaced a few of
them before.I think instead of getting a new CD player I am going to right the wires up to run in to an RCA plug that I can simply plug
anything in to like an MP3 player. I don't have an MP3 player but it would make a nice Christmas or birthday gift.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Camping
On Firday I took the girls camping. I took the day off so that I could get everything ready. I was having a great day and was pretty excited. The plan was to stay at Torreya State Park in one of the primitive camping spots that is only a one mile hike in to the woods. The camp site sits right on the Apalachicola River and is absolutely beautiful.I did what I could to pack only the essentials, or those things that you probably won't use but don't want to be without, such as a first aid kit. I was able to fit it all in an army backpack and a much smaller travel bag, though both where still pretty heavy. All of the clothes, and anything else that I absolutely did not want to get wet found their way into plastic bags. I picked up some fishing poles and worms so we could fish in the lake. The poles where brim busters that collapse into ~4 foot sticks.I picked Aurora and Athena up from school with the plan to eat at Burger King so that we would only need snacks for the rest of the night. I took the Dodge Dakota because the girls really like to ride in the truck. It is pretty fun, even if it does lack A/C.When I went to pull in to the Publix parking lot where the Burger King sits the truck stalled out in the left turn lane at a red light. Out of the kindness of my fellow citizens hearts they decided to go around and cut me off in stead of helping me push the truck in to the parking lot when the light turned green. After about three light changes I managed to get the truck parked. I called Kim, who was luckily still at work and not elsewhere where I could not reach her.I left a note on the truck that read, "Gone to BK" and the girls and I got some food. Realising that Kim should have been there after a while we headed back to the truck. Kim was there quite frustrated. When she saw the truck she didn't see the note and was looking for us for quite some time.The truck started back up and Kim followed me home.I was pretty frustrated too thinking that camping just wasn't going to happen. When I got back home I chilled out as much as I could. The A/C was broke so chilling wasn't very easy. We decided we would still probably have enough time to make it out to Torreya and camp at a regular camping spot, so we loaded everyone up in the grey van and headed out.When we got there the ranger said he thought we could probably hike out with plenty of day light left so that's what we did. The hike was very pleasant and the girls didn't mind at all. The very slight rain helped as it didn't get us wet, but it did keep us cool. We set up tent with enough light to eat snack.Because of the rain everything was wet but I was still able to get a fire going without much hastle. The new "2-person tent" I bought that day was a dud. One of the poles came broken, there was chex mix and a straw inside of the tent, and it wasn't long enough for me to lay down in. And with the stuff in there it was barely enough room for the girls. My three person tent, on the other hand, easily sleeps Kim and myself with all of our equipment. I thought going down one person wouldn't be a big deal.The girls where having a good time, but would not listen to a word I said. This is very uncharacteristic of them. I was worrying they where not having fun, but they did seem to enjoy everything, they just wouldn't listen.Our first attempt to sleep was a disaster as Aurora was tired and Athena was not. Athena spent all of her time annoying Aurora which made it impossible for her to sleep.My plan was to try and wear the girls out. The girls and I hunted around for twigs and sticks. I started the fire back up in full force and put the tent close enough to it that we could all watch it and lay down. After a while the girls finally went to sleep and so did I.We where all up at the very crack of dawn. It was probably ~7AM. We started by Athena and I going down to the river and getting some water. Aurora stayed and watched the fire. I gave her the air horn and showed her how to use it. I told her if she had any problem to blow it.When we came back I boiled the water in a small frying pan I brought and made oatmeal from some instant oatmeal packs the girls always love. This is when the girls started acting up again. Aurora made a big scene about how gross it was, before she even tried eating it. I was not interested in her complaining later that she was hungry, and I also had no intention on bringing out the bowls, spoons, and the frying pan until lunch. So I made her eat it which she made a really big fuss about it.After breakfast the two entertained themselves by finding millipedes and jumping on roots. This also involved the two of them pushing each other and just in general being bad.For myself I had brought some MREs I purchased at the Army Navy store. One was an omellette. It was completely disgusting. For the same reason I made Aurora eat her oatmeal, I ate most of the omelette. It also had some soda crackers and a fruit bar that I ate and shared with the girls.Once everything was cleaned up we headed down to the river to fish. The girls whined the whole way to the river and in general wouldn't listen to anything I said. We did see an oak snake which the girls where pretty excited about. I showed Aurora how the snake tastes it's surrounding by flicking out its toungue, since it cannot see very well.At the river our worms where dead and stinky. The where some other people in their boats fishing around and they were talking about how poor fishing was going today. We fished with our dead stinky worms for a while. The girls swung their poles around a lot and kept almost sticking others. They have both been fishing numerous times and have caught many fish. They are also very good about being careful, so it was unexpected for them to do everything wrong.I finally gave up, dumped the worms away down the river and had the girls swim. They wanted to go naked, but with all the people around fishing I told them they could only take off their shirts. This was the only time they where good. They played, had fun, and did a great job listening. They swam for over an hour and a half and then we headed back to camp. Once we started walking back the attitudes came back. Around this time the overcast went away and the sun was out in full force. I had asked them many times throughout the day if they where sure they wanted to keep camping. I didn't want them to be camping if they didn't want to. They insisted that they did so we kept on. Right as we where leaving he river Auroa took her hook and kept poking herself with it. I told her four times not to do that and she just looked at me and kept doing it.At that I decided we where going home. I didn't want to spend all of this time yelling at them when we were suppose to be having fun. Back at camp I packed everything up and we started our walk back.The walk back was much worse than the walk to the camp. Without the clouds covering the sky, it was extremely hot. We stopped about five times and we where all pretty worn out by the time we finally made it back to the van.Despite their bad behaviour the girls insist that they had a good time and want to do it again.Next time we do it will be with better weather and we will probably only plan to stay one night.
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