Quite frequently on the Ubuntu Forums, someone will make a suggestion that Ubuntu (and/or Linux distros in general) adopt a feature or approach that Windows has to handling a task. Inevitably, someone else will counter that Linux is not Windows and then link to the appropriately titled article “Linux is not Windows.” The problem is… Continue reading Linux can be Windows sometimes, can’t it?
Category: Ubuntu
Without education, it doesn’t matter which OS is “more secure”
In Linux online communities, oftentimes there are debates about which operating is the most secure—Windows or a Linux-based distribution. The debates usually go something like this: Do I have to worry about security in Linux the way I did in Windows? No, you don’t have to. Linux is much more secure. But isn’t that just… Continue reading Without education, it doesn’t matter which OS is “more secure”
From MP3 to Ogg and back again
When I first bought my Cowon iAudio 7, I was excited at the prospect of finally moving to Ogg from MP3. It was a nice sentiment to be moving in the more open direction for music file formats. Sadly, I have switched back to MP3 for several reasons: While it’s easy to switch from .doc… Continue reading From MP3 to Ogg and back again
I’ve gone to ads
In The Ethics of Adblocking, I talked about not liking obnoxious ads (Flash and banner ones). When I started getting close to exceeding my bandwidth allocation for the Psychocats web hosting, I started moving the images to ImageShack, which worked for a while, but their image hosting can be a bit unreliable. I’ve considered switching… Continue reading I’ve gone to ads
Cowon iAudio 7 Review Addendum
Last week, I wrote a review of the Cowon iAudio 7 player, which I had just received. Now that I’ve used it for a week, I have a few things to add. In the past week of using the Cowon iAudio 7, I’ve discovered: There are absolutely no PDF manuals online explaining how to use… Continue reading Cowon iAudio 7 Review Addendum
File Recovery Fun
She thought she was doing everything right. She wanted to departition her computer and reinstall Windows. So she backed up all her files to an external hard drive, deleted all the partitions and reformatted as NTFS, then reinstalled Windows. She didn’t remember she still had her backup drive still plugged in, though, when she was… Continue reading File Recovery Fun
How can preinstalled Linux be successful?
Even though the big hoopla was supposed to be Dell’s new Ubuntu offerings, the Linux sleeper hits of 2008 were Everex’s gOS “green” PC and ASUS’s Eee PC mini-laptop—$200 and $400, respectively. I’m amazed that these two models seem to be doing well. After all, the cheap Linspire-loaded PCs Wal-Mart used to sell made no… Continue reading How can preinstalled Linux be successful?
All it takes is one annoying user to spoil the fun
Do you know when old people talk about the good old days? Do you know when they talk about not having to lock their doors at night? That’s what the Ubuntu Forums used to be like. Sure, we had the occasional crazy troll, and we definitely had lots of advertising spam (cell phones, porn, viagra,… Continue reading All it takes is one annoying user to spoil the fun
Keeping a perspective on Automatix
Two months ago, Matthew Garrett made a LiveJournal post on the technical deficiencies of Automatix. Since then, Automatix-haters have had actual ammunition in their “Automatix is dangerous” crusade, and Automatix-lovers have still held to the “But I’ve installed it on X number of machines and have had no problems” line. Could they both be right?… Continue reading Keeping a perspective on Automatix
Let’s have the CLI cake and eat the GUI too!
I’m really sick and tired of people on the Ubuntu Forums arguing about which is better—command-line or graphical user interface. Why does one need to be better? Can’t we have both? Alas! Not only can we have both, but we do have both. That’s the direction desktop Linux is heading and has been heading the… Continue reading Let’s have the CLI cake and eat the GUI too!