I've finally done it. I've managed to successfully install Ubuntu on a computer that runs at a decent speed. That said, I thought I'd give you my opinion of Ubuntu. Yes, I am a Linux guy, and I may always support Linux, but that doesn't mean I can't criticize it!
First I must say that the install process was pretty simple. I did test both the text-based and graphic-based installer, and the graphic-based installer was much easier to use. I found that the keyboard detection in the text-based installer was not always correct, and more configurations were asked about the host computer in general. The common user may not know the answer to all the questions asked.
Setting up DHCP might not also be easy for the common user. I forgot to plug my ethernet cable in, and Ubuntu obviously gave me an error, along with a few things to check before retrying the DHCP setup. None of them even included checking if the ethernet cable was plugged in. Sure, it may be common sense, but not all users have common sense.
When I first started up Ubuntu, I was pleased. It was very simple and easy to use. However, installing programs was another story. Ubuntu uses Synaptic to manage its programs, but also has an ?Add/Remove Applications? button under the applications menu. I thought this was a direct link to Synaptic, but it turned out I was wrong. ?Add/Remove Applications? does not list all of the software in the selected repositories, only the ones that this Ubuntu program manager can support. Synaptic does the rest. I wish I was told this before I became frantic over looking for wxWidgets in Ubuntu's repositories.
The next thing that I found complicated was setting up screen resolution. I never really got what I wanted, because whenever I tried to change the resolution, my screen would just go black. I don't know if this was just my monitor, but Linux has never had the greatest support for video.
Although I hate to do it, I must give credit to Microsoft for adding a high level of customization to the window manager in Windows. Microsoft allows you to get rid of certain features to speed up your computer, like having shadows under windows, smooth scrolling, and smooth text. Ubuntu does allow you to change the complexity of the window manager, but only offers three levels of customization. I could not find an option to enable or disable specific features.
Ubuntu does satisfy all of my needs, but is not a perfect operating system like some people claim. Windows and Mac clearly dominate over Linux in certain areas, but I personally prefer Linux because of what I do. The world will never see a perfect operating system. Perhaps the closest we will ever get is Singularity. Oh, and it's made by...Microsoft!?!?!
Matthew Mikolay (matt.mik<AT SYMBOL>hotmail.com) is a software developer and student in New Jersey. He has interests in open source software, Linux, and security.
Would you like to be a Community Voices blogger? If so, please send a letter of interest and a sample blog entry (what you would post here if you were already a blogger for us) to forums@pcworld.com. We'd love to hear your perspective.
As you may or may not know, retailers can no longer sell computers with Windows XP preinstalled. Microsoft designated June 30, 2008 as the end-of-life for Windows XP. However, if you absolutely have to have Windows XP on your next computer there is another option. Through the end of December 2008 you can take advantage of Windows Vista Downgrade Rights.
With Downgrade Rights, customers can purchase select versions of the Windows Vista operating system, including Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate, but have Windows XP Professional installed instead. Businesses that choose this option will receive a backup disc for Windows XP Professional and an installation disc for Windows Vista. Plus, as long as the vendor has installed the operating system, you'll be able to receive technical support for the duration of the system's Limited Warranty.
Ryan Williams
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I haven't visited Google's headquarters, but I've heard about the various cafe's (i.e. cafeterias) on their corporate campus. If I were to visit the Google campus, I would ask to be directed to Cafe Thoreau. This cafe doesn't yet exist, but maybe it should.
Cafe Thoreau serves healthy, low-cost vegetarian food cooked primarily by solar cookers. The variables that are maximized at this cafe are low-cost and health. Taste, however, is not sacrificed.
Meals at Cafe Thoreau can be cooked using the Villager Sun Oven, which can cook as many as 1,200 meals per day. On weekends, when Googlers are presumably not working, the Villager Solar Oven could be loaned to different community events in San Francisco and surrounding areas.
At Cafe Thoreau, all served dishes have detailed listing of their ingredients. Why? People out there have different food allergies. They're entitled to know what they're eating.
Here's the interesting part. Google can harness the wisdom of the crowds to come up with the best recipes for foods served at Cafe Thoreau. I've got a couple of great recipes to submit. Honest. Check in at http://www.google.com/cafethoreau in a few weeks to submit your own recipes.
By this point you might be wondering why this cafe is called Cafe Thoreau and not Cafe Gandhi. I've been wondering about that, too.
By any measure, Gandhi is who the cafe ought to be named for. Gandhi's gift to the world is so huge, we are just beginning to appreciate it.
But look who Gandhi read. (See the fourth paragraph down.) Henry David Thoreau latched onto ideas eternal in value and resonant within the hearts of all who walk the Earth (as well as those who crawl, swim, and fly.)
Last year the editor-in-chief of PCWorld, Harry McCracken, walked off his job rather than bow to pressure from someone who told him what was permissible or not permissible to write in the magazine. It's almost guaranteed that Harry McCracken has read Thoreau. I'm going to thoroughly enjoy sitting down for a meal with Harry sometime at Google's Cafe Thoreau.
To walk into the future you need vision, courage, smarts and a good cafe. At this cafe the food needs to be well done. Not just "cooked" well done. Well done in thought, too.
And then we all move forward.
Phil Shapiro
The blogger is an adjunct professor of education and a technology commentator in the Washington DC-area. He studied engineering and philosophy in college and is the author of a chapter titled, "Some Thoughts on the Economics of Education Delivery" in the new book Education Technology: Critical Perspectives and Possible Futures. He can be reached at: philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
Prior blog postings -
YouTube Reaches a Billion Video Views per Day
After Lightning Strikes, One iMac Becomes Two
It Feels Like Freedom is Coming
Book Review - Google SketchUp for Dummmies
I am often asked what is the best way to backup work and home computers. Today, just about everyone understands the importance of backups. If you don't, consider this: 100% of hard drives will fail at some point. They are mechanical devices with moving parts. They will fail.
In my opinion, the only way for a backup scheme to be successful over the long run is for it to be automated. A program you might want to consider for this is Cobian Backup. Cobian Backup is a FREE simple backup program developed by Luis Cobian. The program can be executed as either a normal application or as a Windows Service. (Normal applications have to be initiated by a user, either by logging onto the computer or by manually launching the application. Windows Services, on the other hand, do not have to be initiated by the computer user. As long as the computer is turned on, the program is running.) The program can schedule automatic backups for files and directories locally, to shared folders on other computers or to FTP servers, and it can use file compression and encryption.
You can download Cobian Backup here: http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/programz/cbSetup.exe
I recommend backing up to external USB hard drives or file servers. For laptop users, I recommend having two backup jobs scheduled. One to backup to a USB drive in your office during lunch, and one to backup to a USB drive at home when you bring your laptop home in the evenings. This way you have multiple copies of your data in the event something happens to either location.
The most important thing is to get at least one backup every day with the process being automated. There are other automated ways to backup office computers which require a network administrator to implement. However, even if you have one of these solutions in place, I still recommend having personal backups of your own. You cannot have too many backups, and I have had to fall back to them too many times to leave anything to chance.
If you have never implemented anything I have recommended in this blog, please do this. Backup your computer daily. Hard drives do fail. I see it all the time.
Happy teching,
Ryan Williams
Ask Me A Tech Question
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I have long wondered if I would be able to correctly guess what operating system a person uses just by knowing their personality. In this post, I will attempt to guess what celebrities and famous people use Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
Microsoft Windows
Windows is well suited for the common user, even if they are horrible at using computers. However, for the advanced tech user, Windows may cause many problems. Windows excels in gaming and the office environment, and is currently the most common operating system in the world. Some Windows users may include Leeroy Jenkins, Biz Markie, Donald Trump, and Rick Astley.
Mac OS
Macs are known to be extremely stable, but come at a higher price than computers with Windows. They are well suited for musicians, writers, web bloggers (and vloggers) and those people you see sitting in Starbucks that are trying to look cool, even though they might not be doing anything in particular. Some Mac users may include (or may have included) Moby, Leonardo da Vinci, Dave Barry, Ralph Nader, and Daxflame.
Linux
Linux is well suited for the advanced tech user. It is commonly used on servers and for scientific applications, but it is horrible for gaming. It has been known to cause problems for many users, and often over-complicates things, but if setup correctly, will prove quick, efficient, and stable. Some Linux users may include (or may have included) Albert Einstein, the inventor of Ghostbusters for NES, that guy at your office who tries to suck up to your boss, and Doc Brown from Back to the Future.
Matthew Mikolay (matt.mik<AT SYMBOL>hotmail.com) is a software developer and student in New Jersey. He has interests in open source software, Linux, and security.
Would you like to be a Community Voices blogger? If so, please send a letter of interest and a sample blog entry (what you would post here if you were already a blogger for us) to forums@pcworld.com. We'd love to hear your perspective.
Personally, I'm not a Mac user, but my wife has an iBook... and i don't really see the point in Linux. Why not just switch to a Mac, where Apple already went through this "nothing works" and finally beat it. Theoretically, for those people that whine about Windows being like this or like that, don't buy Linux, buy a Mac. If you do, you support a major competitor of the Windows developers. If Apple has more money, they can make better stuff. If they make better stuff, MS will have to compete and make better stuff. So for those Math heads out there 50% of market share + 50% of market share equals 100% of market share. If in some unknown universe, there came a time where Apple's & MS's OS's were able to co-exist... we would have some lean, mean machines on our desks & laps.
The only time I'll switch fully to Linux is if Mozilla starts developing their own. Otherwise, they are all the same. Not worth it! And YES, I have a 20gb Ubuntu partition sharing space on my main PC with Windows XP!
I have recently have debated (three times now) with a person I know over why open source and community developed software is better than software that you buy or that comes pre-installed on a computer. Our debates included Linux versus Windows versus Macintosh, Gimp versus Photoshop, and Internet Explorer versus Firefox versus Opera versus Safari. Wow, that's a lot of web browsers.
Anyway, just in case anyone was wondering, we are still arguing over which software is better, and I don't think we will ever stop, even if it is clear open source software has several advantages. What kind of advantages? Many: portability, enhancement, minimization, security, and dedication.
To begin, since the source code of open source programs is out in the open (hence the name), if one person wants to use the program on a platform that it is not available on, they might port the program to that new platform, and eventually a whole group of dedicated people will to manage the port will arise. This is all possible because certain sections of the code (which is available to everyone) are compatible across platforms, and the few sections that aren't might easily be changed.
Since anyone and everyone (with an interest) will view the source code, the internal workings of an open source program will inspire developers to enhance the current program, or create a new program completely based on the internal workings of a current program. Basically, open source programs produce other programs.
Since everyone who wants to is helping develop these programs, you can be guaranteed that the software you are getting successfully does what it has to in the least amount of code. The more people that work on a program, the more likely it is that there is going to be less useless code.
Yes, it's true that being able to view the source code of a program may allow hackers to develop bugs more easily for code, but this openness will also allow security programmers to more easily develop patches for the software and find the errors before they are exploited. What should minimize security actually increases it. The population of dedicated developers working on an open source program will also provide benefits when a bug is found: patches for this type of software will become available more quickly than patches for commercial software would.
Also, because the community is managing all this open source software, we will not have reluctant programmers creating this software. The people who are developing Linux, Firefox, and every other piece of free software are dedicated programmers who are doing this for their own personal satisfaction and the enhancement of computing all over the world. A person getting paid will not put their heart into the program. Sure, money helps in some aspects, but money can't buy love. (Wow, Beatles' references sound cheesy!)
So that's why open source and community developed software is better. I still don't see how my friend can argue with me. But I don't even care anymore. He can continue using Windows Vista, Internet Explorer, and Photoshop. Even if he has to pay a buttload of money for it all. Most people just pirate it all anyway.
Matthew Mikolay (matt.mik<AT SYMBOL>hotmail.com) is a software developer and student in New Jersey. He has interests in open source software, Linux, and security.
Would you like to be a Community Voices blogger? If so, please send a letter of interest and a sample blog entry (what you would post here if you were already a blogger for us) to forums@pcworld.com. We'd love to hear your perspective.
Two responses based solely on emotion, not fact. Still not a word about the technical benefits of open-source versus proprietary.
Oh, and by the way - SUSE, Redhat, and Ubuntu distros are put together by PAID employees. The Debian fiasco is a perfect example of why open-source software will never succeed without commercial support - the politics and emotions get in the way. (I could also point out that even Linus is paid, but I don't want to demolish your beliefs all at once. He's a paper millionaire - did you know that?)
Most of the "premier" open-source apps are merely copies of Windows apps, OpenOffice being the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) example. Even online apps do the same. Where is the innovation? The only innovation I've seen in office suites is iWork from Apple.
And yes, I have installed Windows 3.0, 3.1, 85, 98, 2000, XP, Vista, Home Server, OSX, SUSE and Ubuntu. And guess which two took the longest time and the most interaction?
Okay, so SUSE and Redhat are put together by paid employees. You're forgetting how many volunteers helped in the process. And yes, Ubuntu is managed by Canonical, but it is a PRIVATE company. This cannot compare to the likes of Microsoft and Apple.
Many of these companies are just sources of money. How else is Ubuntu supposed to get money to give away free CDs, stickers, and everything else? How are they supposed to run their servers?
Oh, and when interviewed, Mark Shuttleworth (go look him up) said that Canonical was NOWHERE near breaking even. So basically he's donating time and money to open source software.
And you're right that many premier open-source programs are copies of other commercial programs, but this is because coders do not feel like paying $700 for a program that they could make themselves, so they do just that and get feedback from the community. If you want to pay $700 for a spruced-up version of MS Paint, you can, but personally, I don't.
No matter whatever you people say
East and West
Opensource is the best
About six months ago I wondered when YouTube would reach a billion video views per day. In that blog posting I included a poll listing four possible dates. The second of these choices listed August, 2008.
Well, wouldn't you know it, YouTube is ahead of schedule. The Wall Street Journal announced this week that YouTube currently receives about a billion video views per day. Admittedly, a billion is not a large number, but it points in the direction of a trillion video views per day.
Now, that would be an interesting milestone.
So I ought to throw up a new poll asking people when they expect the trillion video views per date milestone to be reached. This is an exercise in extrapolation.
Currently, most YouTube viewers view about 5 to 10 videos per day. (I recall reading that figure somewhere -- sorry, I don't have a source.) Can you imagine that rising? Yes, the daily views per person might well rise -- perhaps even by a factor of two or three.
YouTube video is much more diverse that watching television. Diverse means there are more interesting surprises. People now have a choice between watching boring old television or YouTube. Some will continue watching television with all its predictability, stereotypes and monotony.
A mouse-click away will be the allure of YouTube, where admittedly there are a lot of videos not worth watching. But within that large amount of chaff is some very fine wheat. It's fun separating the wheat from the chaff. YouTube gives you good tools for doing that, including subscribing to your favorite YouTube uploaders and browsing thru the subscriptions of other YouTube members. Not to mention browsing thru the videos of people who subscribe to the videos you yourself make and upload to YouTube.
You mean you haven't made any videos and uploaded them to YouTube? For shame! That would be roughly equivalent to saying that you hadn't taken any photos in the year 1910 -- ten years after Kodak introduced the Brownie camera in February, 1900.
I haven't forgotten the poll I promised you earlier in this blog posting. What's your best estimate on when YouTube will reach a trillion video views per day?
I wish I could report the names of the people who correctly estimated the previous poll. I'm putting in a request to PollDaddy for them to add that feature.
Maybe they'll add the feature before the trillion video views per day milestone is reached. They shouldn't dawdle, though. Mark my words, that day is going to reach us sooner than anyone expects.
Phil Shapiro
The blogger is an adjunct professor of education and a technology commentator in the Washington DC-area. He stopped watching television two years ago and invites others to enrich their lives in a similar way. He can be reached at: philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
Prior blog postings -
YouTube Reaches a Billion Video Views per Day
After Lightning Strikes, One iMac Becomes Two
It Feels Like Freedom is Coming
Book Review - Google SketchUp for Dummmies
As Everett Dirksen was attributed to say (about money, anyway), "A Billion here, a Billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."
To reach a trillion videos a day every person on the planet would have to watch more than 147 videos a day. Not to mention only a small portion of the world population own computers or have access to the internet. My prediction is that youtube will reach a trillion videos. . .never.
Greetings all. This is a special summer vacation product review tech tip. My family and I just returned from a weeklong vacation in which we spent a lot of time driving. I'm sure every rational person reading this is already thinking that with gas prices being so high I must have a screw loose. So if I told you I did so with two children ages four and one, you'd probably think I was really nuts. Then, if I told you about halfway into the first day's drive, we realized our one year old had a stomach virus and proceeded to pass the virus to each of us over the next couple days, you'd just begin to get an idea as to how much fun we had on our vacation. But that is a story for another blog. :-)
In this tech tip, I'm going to discuss one technology and two software applications that were a rare bright spot in this year's vacation. The technology was GPS. Now, I realize GPS is old news, but the two software applications I relied on are still relatively young. The software apps were TeleNav (http://www.telenav.com) and Google Maps (http://www.google.com/mobile/default/maps/index.html) both running on my cell phone. A TeleNav subscription runs $10 per month, and Google Maps is free. The combination of the two made this year's vacation road trip a breeze. Here are the highlights:
The beauty of TeleNav is that you can plan your trip itinerary on TeleNav's website, and when it is finished, you can easily synchronize the itinerary with your cell phone. This allows for easier searching and inputting of addresses and points of interest along the trip. Another feature TeleNav offers that Google Maps does not is spoken directions. If configured to do so, TeleNav will verbally prompt you when and which direction to turn as with most vehicle navigation systems. However, unlike most other vehicle navigation systems, both TeleNav and Google Maps are always up-to-date with the latest maps because the maps are downloaded real-time from the internet via the cell phone's internet connection each time a route is planned.
Now, you may be wondering where Google Maps fit in to the summer vacation plans. I'm sure the suspense is killing you, so I'll tell you. Google Maps will also provide real-time driving directions, but unlike TeleNav it will not speak to you. You have to pay attention to the screen which can be dangerous. For this reason alone, I use TeleNav while driving. Google Maps does do two things better than TeleNav in my opinion. If you want to search for an impromptu place of interest, Google Maps' search feature seems to be a bit more robust and accurate, not surprising since searching is Google's bread and butter. The most used Google Maps feature for me on this trip, however, was the "favorites" feature. Since cell phone GPS is accurate to within about 3 meters, each time we parked the vehicle to walk I pulled out the cell phone and marked the vehicle's location in Google Maps using the favorites feature. This placed a star on the map which I labeled "vehicle." We then set out to walk the town, the nature trail, the mall or whatever. When we were ready to leave, I just pulled out the cell phone and found our current location in relation to our vehicle. We didn't need this feature all the time, of course, but it sure came in handy when we did need it.
Well that's about it for this tech tip. If you are considering using either or both of these apps for your next road trip, I highly suggest purchasing a windshield suction cell phone holder. This way you can position your phone above your vehicle's dashboard, and you won't have to take your eyes off the road. It is also helpful to have a cell phone with built-in GPS. You can use an external GPS receiver but having the GPS built into the phone is much more convenient. I use a BlackBerry Curve however there are many phones that offer built in GPS.
I hope you found this tech tip useful. As always, if you have anything you'd like me to address in future tech tips, please contact me using the information below.
Ryan Williams
Ask Me A Tech Question
http://www.techbetter.com/question.aspx
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Don't forget the popular LifeInPocket free phone app and services. It's navigation is much bette and easier to user than Telenav.
If you are not familiar with it, you can download it at LifeInPocket .com
Summertime is the time for big thunderstorms here in the Washington DC-area and elsewhere around the country. With every big thunderstorm comes the woes of computers damaged by lightning strikes. I've had lightning take out the Ethernet port of a lovely iMac DV Special Edition I bought in 1999. In the old days, the only way to fix that kind of problem was to purchase a replacement motherboard -- to the tune of several hundred dollars.
Today, though, there's a neat little trick you can do if lightning fries an Ethernet port of your iMac or other desktop Mac. Through the magic of Firewire networking, you can bring Internet connectivity back to a Mac which otherwise would be sent off to computer recycling.
Last week a friend of mine called me to say her iMac G3 had been struck by lightning. It no longer worked on the Internet and she desperately needed to be back online.
Happily, I had picked up a donated iMac G3 computer a day before from a school that was no longer using it. I took a 6-pin to 6-pin Firewire cable with me when I headed over to her house. A quick Google search brought me instructions on how to share an Internet connection using a Firewire cable via the Sharing Systems Preference.
The only small hitch was the warning message I came across where Apple explains, "Your Internet service provider might not approve of your sharing Internet this way." How on Earth an Internet service provider would know that Internet is being shared via Firewire rather than via an Ethernet hub or switch is beyond me. Why an ISP would even care about that also is beyond me.
Soon after I proceeded past that warning my friend had two iMacs surfing the web, including the donated one I had brought over and her beloved other one, with a considerably faster processor.
With a wink of the eye I explained to my friend that the next time lightning strikes I'll be bringing over another donated iMac. Firewire lets you chain up to 63 devices together.
My friend laughed and said, "Well, we don't have room for a huge number of iMacs in our small house." "Okay," I replied with a smile. "The next time you hear loud thunder, kindly unplug all your iMacs -- and don't forget to remove the Ethernet cable between your DSL router and your iMac. Lighting loves to travel down that Ethernet cable."
Incidentally, if you'd like to buy a 6-pin to 6-pin Firewire cable, do me a favor and stay away from Radio Shack. They'll gladly sell you a Firewire cable for $40. Pick up a $7.75 Firewire cable (including shipping) from this outfit, which I found by searching DealMac for Firewire cable. PCWorld.com readers outside of the United States can share their favorite vendor of Firewire cables in the comments section below.
Keep in mind that when you're using Firewire cable to network to Macs, you probably do not want to use a 4-foot cable or 6-foot cable. Those are rather short. A 10-foot or 15-foot cable gives you more breathing room.
Also, both Macs need to have Mac OS 10.3 or higher on them.
For Windows users whose Ethernet port has been fried by lightning, one solution is to use the USB cable that came with your DSL modem. Most DSL modems can use either an Ethernet cable or a USB cable. Note, though, that this option is only available to Windows users. Mac users are not able to connect their computer to a DSL modem using a USB cable -- unless they are running Windows on their Mac.
Yes, this all gets a bit complicated. The important lesson, though, is that if lightning harms your computer, you might have more options than appear at the surface to have your computer back up and running on the Internet.
Phil Shapiro
The blogger is an adjunct professor of education and an education-activist in the Washington DC-area. He adores MAKE magazine and is a charter member of HacDC, a group of talented makers in the Washington DC-area. He can be reached at: philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
The above tip may be freely reprinted in any Apple user group newsletter. Kindly credit the source as the Community Voices blog on PCWorld. http://blogs.pcworld.com/communityvoices
Prior blog posting - It Feels Like Freedom is Coming
Wouldn't a USB Ethernet adapter be quicker and simpler?
In this post, I will discuss a variety two topics: sound card buzz and the MINIX operating system. I felt neither of these topics were long enough to make a single blog post, so I thought combining them would be a good idea.
For all the producers and musicians out there: have you ever connected all of your audio equipment to an internal sound card, started recording, and then heard an incredible buzz in your recording? Well, this happened to me, and since I do not plan on getting a new sound card anytime soon, I quickly researched a solution to this problem. Basically, the buzz is caused by a ground loop (an unwanted electrical current). The ground loop is a complex topic, so I'm not going to explain what causes it or anything, but all you need to know is that the buzz problem can be solved. All you need to do is buy a ground loop isolator from your local RadioShack. Their model connects like a normal RCA (red/white) audio cable, and when you record, there is no more buzz! Keep in mind that it might not be too common for people to buy a ground loop isolator. When I went in to my local RadioShack, the guy had no clue what one was. He had to ask his manager if they still carry ?ground loops?, and his manager then dug through a large box to find one. But they had it! You can also order ground loop isolators online at http://www.radioshack.com/sm-buy-the-ground-loop-isolator-on-http-wwwradioshackcom--pi-2062214.html.
Do you hate Windows? Are you tired of Macs? Do you not want to use Linux for some strange reason? Well, there is another operating system that you can use! Although not many people know about it, MINIX is a popular alternative to Linux. MINIX, a POSIX-compliant UNIX clone, is extremely small (4000 lines of code in the kernel!) and contains a stable system for managing drivers to prevent various errors.
MINIX has been around for a while now, and to all of those who think that Linux is better, just remember this: MINIX is older than Linux! In fact, Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) used MINIX as inspiration and a guide when writing Linux.
If you are interested in MINIX, and don't feel like dual-booting or getting rid of your current operating system, MINIX can be run on a virtual machine. See http://www.minix3.org/doc/faq.html#simulators for more details!
Would you like to be a Community Voices blogger? If so, please send a letter of interest and a sample blog entry (what you would post here if you were already a blogger for us) to forums@pcworld.com. We'd love to hear your perspective.
Nice
I agree w/you. There is ALWAYS room for improvement as with just about anything in life. Linux and Ubuntu Linux, for that matter, definitely needs to become more of your average PC user "Friendly" O/S. Most Linux O/S(s) are STILL designed for the computer Geek or IT type versus the average PC user.
Ubuntu needs to use more Windows-like Install Wizards and the like. Its needs to have more audio & media codec drivers already installed, etc.
However, II do believe that each version of Ubuntu that comes out is INCORPORATING more GUI installers and standard features that most people expect and want. Its slowly becoming more Average PC User Friendly.
Larry Martin
Austin, TX
With the historic events of early June, 2008, here in the United States, it feels as if freedom is coming. When I woke up and saw the newspaper headline on Wednesday, June 4, 2008, my initial reaction was: "This is a fine day for freedom." And so I composed this song whose opening lyric is: "Freedom comes on one fine day."
Freedom has many facets. I tried to address many of these in this song. Thanks are owed to YouTube for making it so easy to add the lyrics underneath the song. It took me about two hours to add the lyrics and synchronize them. The process for doing so was rather fun.
The melody for this song, incidentally, is an old English melody from a song titled, "Mary Hamilton." This song also goes by the name Four Marys. The prettiest rendition of this song is by Rebecca Pidgeon. You can hear it on the iTunes Music Store by searching for: Rebecca Pidgeon. Choose her album titled: Four Marys. The eighth track on this album is: The Four Marys
I learned this song from the very wonderful Joan Baez version. Baez knows a thing or two about freedom.
Phil Shapiro
The blogger is an adjunct professor and education-activist in the Washington DC-area. He can be reached at: philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
Other blog postings by this author - After Lightning Strikes, One iMac Becomes Two
You are a "Linux guy" and you say you had difficulty setting up Ubuntu? I'm just an ordinary computer user and I must say Ubuntu is far easier to set up than Windows XP. I installed it (Hardy Heron) on my Lenovo 3000 laptop and everything worked and I mean everything. No driver issues at all. Even the webcam worked beautifully. No drivers needed. I had problems with Vista Home Basic. The laptop would hang often and otherwise crawled. I've been using Ubuntu 8.04 since the past 3 months for surfing the net, word processing, spreadsheets, multimedia and it's working great. NO VIRUS OR SPYWARE which is constant headache with windows. So I'd say this is the thing for me.
Step up to Vista!!
G-Man
Yea, i must agree... the sentance "I've finally done it. I've managed to successfully install Ubuntu". You've managed? As in you've managed to pop the disk into the CD-ROM drive and restart your computer?
Linux guy?