Technology-Bytes

I just emailed them and asked to buy a cup. Only reason I am posting this is in case they look at my non populated blog site.

New computer acer 6293 has ubuntu ultimate edition installed

A ubuntu with everything installed. Works a treat. The 6293 has bigger keyboard than 6292. However I still don't like the fonts of linux. Unfortunate, but cool OS.

Latest edition Mepis won't work on new acer 6292

Well it will really but I can't get online. Therefore being a webaddict it is basically usless

Debian Testing yes then no, Mepis is back

I tried for months to use debian testing. Somewhere along the track the team made some sort of error with the kernel or its modules. On a sytem which had wireless, ethernet and modem working, after an update the wireless and modem stopped working. I searched for answers, couldn't get one which worked so I installed latest 32 bit mepis. Mepis works fine. Pity, would have preferred to stay with debian.

Kubuntu came and went.

After full upgrade,-no wireless, no modem, no mouse. No kubuntu. Kanotix cebit edition reinstalled.

I'll get to Linux eventually!

Almost a year later and I have installed kanotix 32 and 64, suse 64, fedora 5, attempted to install ubuntu, kubuntu 5.04 , knoppix 5 dvd sled 10 and a few other linux distros. I couldn't get past the bootup for sled and kubuntu. My msi s270's ati xpress200 video card was probably the problem. I managed to install kanotix, fedora 5 and kubuntu 6 in the 64 bit versions but I couldn't get my ipn2220 to run or the modem to work. Apparently slmodem is only written in 32 bit. There is a fix but it is too hard for me to do. Hopefully linmodem will create a 64 bit version sometime, then I will go 64 bit. My ipn2220 should have worked but it just wouldn't with 64 bit. Unfortunately although I don't like it much I have managed to install kubuntu 6.06 32 bit. For some reason known only to ubuntu I have had to download ndiswrapper and slmodem and install them. Why they just didn't load on the installation of kubuntu has me bemused. Oh well, it runs on both telephone and wireless now. So be it. Ubuntu doesn't load much software, not even some bare essentials. Luckily there is a heap of software available from a sources list I got from distrowatch Trevino's Blog. Lots of stuff I will never use but I will probably have a look at everything I can use in place of windows programs. Gnucash or Kmoney for starters. The minimum specs for windows vista 64 are probably beyond this little laptop. In spite of it being a mt37 turion with 2g ram. I also don't want to pay a bucketload for an iffie os. If I can just learn how to make this computer run wine properly I will be ok.

Bugger, back to Mepis

I downloaded and installed 2 newish debian distros. One wrecked my mbr(underground) and quit half way through install the other(debianpure), although a new release had old software and needed too much of an upgrade to install my wireless card. So I am temporarily back to Mepis. I partitioned my hard disk first then put the cd in and installed. On reboot all I had to do to get on my lan was type in my net address change 2 switches and away I went. Much easier than straight debian. No abnormalities compared to kubuntu either and fast. I will be happy with this for a little while.

Ralink RT2500 chipset working but 7202g is crap

I finally realized my RT2500 wasn't working because the ethernet card wasn't disabled and pinched the possibility of connection. So turned it off and my linux is up and running. Very cool. Unfortunately the 7202g router is a piece of crap. I need to send it back to Darren and buy something else I think. But what? The netgear pre n seems the most powerful for the dollar but I would have to buy a modem to go with it. Oh well back to the drawing board.

Ralink RT2500 chipset

When my household went wireless I bought a tcx100 pci card for the server and similar card for my laptop. They have run with a dsl200 modem on an old desktop for years. I decided I needed the security of a router so bought a billion 7202g. I never had a drop out prior to this. Now I have plenty. Bought myself a rt2500 pccard to go wth it as I already have a 3com officeconnect card which just runs, badly. So I decided I wanted to get another 54m card which is guaranteed to work with linux and cheap. After searching the net I found the Ralink RT2500 hardware list which has around 70 manufacturers whose hardware with this chip is working in linux. I bought a Belkin F5D7010v2/3000au which works fine in W2kpro and almost gets to work in Kanotix. Oh well a bit of tweaking coming up. Works fine in windows, almost there in linux. I checked out oztechnologies shop first as he has lots of good deals. I was going to buy another brand from him as it was cheap, a LevelOne but I needed it now, delivery was days away. So I bought it from my local Dick Smith's for less than I could have bought the levelone from ozcableguy's shop. Ozcableguy has an excellent site on networking. There are several communities working on this chipset's drivers. Linux has serialmonkey and ural-linux . BSD has Damien Bergamini's ural driver. RAlink gplled the software so there are 3 lots of drivers for linux, RAlink also has mac drivers, it seems for 9 and 10, as well as intel ixp. Cool.

Kubuntu goes Kanotix arrives

I tried Kubuntu and although it is going to be great, it ain't yet. I have had my computer slow to a halt while using it so I got myself a copy of Kanotix and installed it instead. So far so good. Runs more quickly and seems better integrated. I will find out later if I am right or wrong. Once Kubuntu runs quicker I will most likely go back to it. I see Knoppix is up to version 4 and has incorporated software from other distributions including Kanotix. Maybe I will go back there. Wait and see what the reviewers say as Knoppix is very good.

HVD

Interesting, while blu-ray versus hd-dvd battles on HVD is announced. I bought a red ray dvd burner which I haven't used as the media is too expensive. Maybe one day the cost will come down. Probably when the other 2 first mentioned are released on to the market. Oh well, more money wasted I guess.

Goodbye Mepis, Hello Kubuntu.

I have stopped playing with mepis now and am now trying to use Kubuntu. It is free, now and forever. K/Ubuntu is a community project not a one man show. I think some of the debian guys and gals are part of both distributions so lots of debian expertise seems to be on board which is good for everyone who wants to use a debian distro. OTOH Knoppix is still a cool distribution. If I could have got that to update easily (to unstable) I would have used knoppix. I upgraded my Kubuntu to breezy and lost almost everything. I had to reinstall almost every gui program. It is now starting to look like kubuntu hoary did before I futzed around with it. My move to linux is taking longer than I wished. Some of the programs I use don't have a linux equivalent. I wanted to use wine so I could use my legacy stuff but it seems I may have to buy Win4lin to get compatibility without hassles. But, being a miser I will probably keep on trying to get wine working.

Firefox is getting better, so is Thunderbird.

My webpage which points here I can no longer update. Since then I have changed my full time browser to Firefox. I use an extension with it called Tabbrowser Extensions, which adds more functions for the tabs. There are over a hundred other extensions to add to it giving many more functions but I use other programs instead of having them as part of my browser. If Firefox is used there are seldom bits of malware dropped into the computer. Occasionally I go back to Myie2(released as Maxthon now) if I need to use activex which isn't in Firefox.
Also, the antivirus, anti trojan, anti spyware programs I recommended need to be updated regularly. Adaware has a new program for home users. Spybot is now version 1.3. Spywareblaster is rewritten. A2 free has a new edition. I need to visit the home page regularly to make sure I have the latest program. They all regularly update the malware programs for which they are looking, so to stay reasonably safe I need to hit the update button in each program before I scan for malware. When I find no more updates it is probably because the program has been changed. (If unsure of how to use the programs read the help file.)
Lots of these programs have a switch to turn on auto updating, so turn it on if it exists.
A long time ago I bought a cd burner and got nero version 5 for free. However Nero haven't let me update for free forever. I found a very good freeware program called CDBurner XP Pro. Not quite up to Nero yet but getting closer with each release. I have used it with my dvd burner to back up my hard drive and I regularly burn isos with it. It is very good.
Although I love Pegasus mail I am using Mozilla Thunderbird at present because I am having trouble getting Pegasus to handle spam well enough. I may stay with Thunderbird as it is good enough with Spam but I want to go back to Pegasus. I have been advised to add programs to help Pegasus like mailwasher but I want to run one program for mail not a bunch. So until I can get Pegasus spam handling up to Thunderbird's standard I will use Thunderbird. Years ago the browsers in use were Mosaic and Netscape. I was a Netscape user. It's cool to go back to netscape via Firefox and Thunderbird. Apparently some government body in the USA has recommended that Internet Explorer no longer be used as it's a security risk. Another good reason to go Firefox.

Back to Debian

Well almost. There are a few debian distributions around which are much easier to set up than the original. I saw a review of one called Mepis which was a 2 CD download for the lot. After downloading and burning I found I didn't need the 2nd cd as it allows all the usual debian downloads which is a huge selection of software. Mepis installed almost more easily than Mandrake. I didn't need to do anything with the video or my mousepad and my trackball. On Mandrake I had to search the net and install software to get mousepad and trackball to work, as well as play with xfconfig settings. Looks like I go back to debian. Mandrake isn't any longer as pleasant to use. Although I am a mandrake club member it is a pain to get software. I am updating from debian experimental which might mean crashes, but not so far.

Why use free email?

I have changed my isp every 1-2 years. My first isp folded after around a year, a year later, so did my second. Each one since then has become more expensive in relation to the rest over around 18 months. It has been cheaper to change than stay, so I did. The most stable part of my internet experience has been my email. Some people recommend free email is best for unnecessary mail, spam and stuff. That, too, is true in lots of cases. But not so with me, isps come and go. Yahoo remains.

Swen.a

Very annoying worm. A google search, or any of the other engines most likely will find many fixes you can download and run. Don't forget to apply the fixes after rebooting and hitting F8 on a windows computer while doing so. That way the fix programs are more likely to take effectively.

Free online Virus/Trojan scanning

Lots of companies will scan for viruses and trojans for free online. If I can't get rid of malware with the programs on my computer I go to one of these. A google search will find heaps.

Operating Systems I would prefer to use instead of Windows

Mandrake is a Linux distribution which I use as my alternate operating system to Windows. If I could get my XP programs to work on it well and cheaply I would use it instead of XP. Now I have a dual boot system and I am only playing with linux instead of seriusly moving over to it. Mandrake started it's life as Redhat with Kde installed instead of Gnome and some other differences. Since its acceptance on the opensource network it has become a separate entity. Kde and Gnome are gui(Graphical User Interface) desktops. At the time Kde was older and more developed than Gnome with a different licence. Kde wasn't opensource, Gnome was, I think they are more equal in standing and capabilities now but I have an idea Kde is used by more people and is a better desktop. Kde became opensource at least a year ago, more likely 2.
I have tried many Linux distros including Debian. Debian's philosophy is wonderful but I had too many problems trying to install it. I spent 3 days and nights trying to install it a few years ago without success. I hope it is easier now. Mandrake 9.1 took me 45 minutes to install, with gigabytes of additional software, compared to around 1 1/2 hours for win XP, with nothing.
There are many distributions of Linux and at least 2 other OS around. Freebsd and the rest of the BSD clan, with the Mac OS too. Mac is also released as an opensource OS called Open Darwin, based on FreeBsd I believe. If I could get the brilliant graphics which is part of mac popularity and XP programs to work I would use Darwin. VMware may present my opportunity to do so.

Pegasus, one of the best email clients and free too!

Pegasus is one of my favourite programs. I tried lots of email clients before and while using Pegasus. I started using it a long time ago, around version 2. Probably around 1995-97, whenever it was released. It was one of the best email clients then and remains so now. It has every feature I need except a pim. I am waiting for David Harris the owner/programmer to include one. I have been waiting a year now so I may as well settle in for the long haul :-). Pegasus is a 4 meg download and uses 6 meg of memory on my machine(A dell c640 with 512meg ram 2g p4 chip). Brilliant. Outlook and Outlook Express slowed my computer and gave me a less pleasant environment in which to work. They use too much memory(my outlook uses 24 meg), I had to move my mouse to look at each item in a digest then I had to close each item and open the next, how tedious. In my opinion Pegasus is cleaner, better, at its only function, email.

Free and Great Software continued!

I meant to write more on my webpage but I ran out of space on my very first webpage. I had no room on page 1 and I didn't know how to make page 2 so here I am making my first weblog. Cool, two firsts in 2 days.
I wanted to write about another program, YahooPops this I use to get my mail from Yahoo. I only had to use my mail program(Pegasus-free, reliable, small, doesn't usually get viruses) until Yahoo decided to make it a pay service. I have had this account since their service came into being. Oh well it was a great service while it lasted. It remains a good service, but no pop3 without dollars paid. However my new email is another freebie from Yahoo in Oz and it has pop3.
The place where I got YahooPops is Sourceforge another great place for free software. Sourceforge has free software, usually copylefted. The free software philosophy sits well with me.
There is very little commercial, as in bought, software on my computer. If it is commercial it came with the computer, new hardware or magazine disks, eg., Win98, Win XP, scanner software. Magazine disks provide lots of commercial software with free rego. Often as a leg in to get people to buy new software. Consequently most of my commercial software is often the last but one version. OTOH I got Quicken years ago for free off a mag. I don't need more than that program provides. Sometimes software companies offer a freebie or a paid version of their software. Trillian for example, have a multi client IM program in free and paid versions. The freebie is excellent, the paid version doesn't offer enough more to convince me I need to buy it. Hard to better excellent. If Trillian put up a paypal donation link I will donate but not $30(In Oz that works out closer to $60 than $30), like I said, Trillian is excellent. There are a bunch of other very good to excellent free IM programs too. I am sure there are review pages for them all over the net.