Recently several people asked me about trying Linux without actually installing it. Obviously the first thing that came to mind is to try versions via LiveCD. For those not familiar, LiveCD means:
"A CD-ROM that contains a working copy of an operating system or other application that is run without installing it. Used for demonstration and evaluation as well as system recovery, the software runs intact from the CD." Source: http://dictionary.zdnet.com/definition/LiveCD.html
While I was fast to mention and ...
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It's funny how some people react when I tell them I use Linux. Sometimes they express the sentiment that I must be very computer savvy. Other's get caught up in all the brand loyalty hype and still some have never heard of Linux! I kid you not! 
The truth of the matter is that I switched partly because Windows no longer offered me any challenges and reliability became an issue. The most common question I get asked whenever I present a public speaking seminar is "Why did you switch to Linux?"Well... for all those wh...
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Last month we posted a great idea "Make Your Own Plug ‘N Play Zone Using Ubuntu Linux!", discussing and introducing the concept of a "zone" where laptop (or other) users could plug their units into and have Linux automatically installed upon boot up.
"...It’s a simple 3-step method. Users plug their laptop into one of the two ports and boot off the network. Go away, come back later and it’s all done..."
Some readers have asked me about the actual "code" or parameters - this means the PXELinux Boot Lo...
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Last month we posted a great idea "Make Your Own Plug ‘N Play Zone Using Ubuntu Linux!", discussing and introducing the concept of a "zone" where laptop (or other) users could plug their units into and have Linux automatically installed upon boot up.
"...It’s a simple 3-step method. Users plug their laptop into one of the two ports and boot off the network. Go away, come back later and it’s all done..."
Some readers have asked me about the actual "code" or parameters - this means the PXELinux Boot Lo...
read more
Some time ago, my father switched to Linux (Ubuntu). I think in some of the contributing factor to his switching was my excitement. I remember when I first tried Linux, it was an earlier version of Red Hat (with the blue install screens). At that time it was a real pain in the behind, and I found it horrible. 
I gave up and didn't return until Fedora, at which point I was hooked. Fedora knocked my socks off as it was a smooth sleek OS and far more stable than Windows was then. A few years later I tried Gentoo, but ...
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One of our articles was posted on Reddit (Top 10 Must Have Applications for Ubuntu.) and one user, made the following comment on:
"Anyone know how to speed up Amarok when trying to listen to a library on a share? My Music library is about 17,000 songs which is stored on my NAS. It takes about 10 minutes to start listening to music from start up of Amarok. I've switch Amarok to use MySQL instead of SQL Lite which helped a bit but nearly enough."
One thing to consider, that will help, is to "Improve Ubuntu ...
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Occasionally I receive a file in .docx format, which for me was useless; and I've had to ask the sender to give me the document in .doc format instead. However, there's a better solution for those of us who encounter the .docx format. It does take a couple of minutes to set up, but is easy to use thereafter.
There are two ways to do this. The "Long" way and the "Short" way.
The Long Way:
We'll need three tools:
OpenOffice. The premier open source office suite.
An odf c...
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Last month we posted "Does Ubuntu Linux Really Need Antivirus Software?" Where there was a bit of discussion as to whether Linux needed antivirus software installed.
There were some very informative comments from readers, which showed that in reality it would be very difficult to develop Linux based viruses, and that the real use would be to protect Windows users. After some thought and a bit of playing, I was introduced to ClamAV. For those not familiar, their site description says:
"...Clam AntiVirus is an op...
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Just got another message, this time from Louis. A in Florida. He asks:
"...I have kubuntu installed in my laptop computer, and everything was fine until yesterday, 4/6/08, when I was installing some additional programs from the settings menu. One of the updates that I installed created another user and also gave it admin control!!! It has now locked me out of signing into MY computer!!! Is there anyway that I can break into signing onto the system..."
There are a couple approaches you can take.
1) read more
A question from John.P in Texas:
"...About the poll called "Are you considering a switch from Windows to Linux?" I see that almost 47% of visitors say "Yes" (so did I). I am an XP user and was wondering if you can post a short note for advice about switching to Linux?..."
What's surprising, is when I examine the web stats for the blog, the month of March 2008 showed 41% of visitors used Windows XP! (The first week of April shows 48.8% used XP). Also, for mere interest 88.3% of browsers for the first week of...
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