Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Alien Abduction

Some say that I've lost my sense of humor others say that I'm not the same. My writers constipation is greater than the Hoover Dam. All the symptoms point to me being abducted by aliens, like Betty and Barney Hill, although I remember none of it. I found an electrical implant embedded under my skin. Dug it out using self trepanation with a dremel tool. It was hard as a rock...Oh, wait it is a rock...from some long forgotten head plant that I did in a motorcycle accident. Well anyway, I hope to do little bit more writing. Some of my writing will be about different operating systems (not self trepanation) on computers.

In addition to my 2 other computers, I decided to create another box. I gathered up miscellaneous computer parts and junk that I had kicking around and built a Micron/Dell/Compaq. An Intel 733mhz PIII, with 512MB RAM and 2 hard drives. Each drive having a different operating system, which I plan on reviewing in future blogs. One of the operating systems is a cloud computing system and this blog is composed using Google Docs. Google Docs has a cloud dictionary and thesaurus, word counting, grade level and readability analysis. A real decent word processor.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Ubuntu OS

I have been using Ubuntu Operating System for about 2 and half years now. If you are using Windows 98 or older, you should consider a newer OS. Ubuntu is a Linux based OS and is the most popular, at least for now. Even if you are using XP, you should think about a new OS. Most Linux distributions have more up to date drivers, features and software programs. Also it is great on-line, worrying about malware and viruses is minimal. Using Firefox on a Linux OS is no different than on Windows.

The biggest draw-back is what to do for Windows programs. There is a decent windows emulator called Wine, in which many programs will run. My favorite Windows program is Ancestral Quest, a genealogy program. Unfortunately, I can only view the people and families on AQ. If I make any changes or click on any web links it crashes when I exit the program.

I haven't quite given up my XP machine. I use two machines with a KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switch. It allows me to jump back and forth between computers. Its especially good for surfing genealogy sites on my Ubuntu computer and jumping to my XP to compare family info. Listening to music on one and downloading on the other. I can do true multitasking without lagging down a single processor.