All SQA materials I’ve had to work with are Windows, or Microsoft based. Understandable given the products are probably in more use, however, promoting free GNU (General Public License) software gives people the opportunity to be aware there are alternatives out there that cost only a download. Open Office is a prime example. Its a free and comprehensive office package. Perfect for students and home users. Part of any Office Suite education should be the introduction to alternative applications, even if not in depth. I admit that Microsoft Office is in my opinion a better package than Open Office, but not by much. Office 2007 is still new to me so i find it a bit of a hassle to find things still, however, those who are familiar with it (those I’ve talked to about it at any rate) have sung its praises.

What I’m getting at is this. Business users going back into training should have the choice to use the software they use at work (generally MS applications). Home users who may not be happy or able to shell out on expensive software would benefit from training into freely available alternatives. Any tutor who can search the web and understands Office can adapt and instruct with very little difficulty, on similar alternative packages; the concepts are the same.

Can anyone comment on training centers who have also adopted, or fully converted to Linux, or have adopted and promote free software on Windows platforms?

Microsoft would seem to have redeemed itself with Windows 7, but its really too early to say. One thing is for certain, a new OS will always run smoother. Reinstalling XP from scratch after a couple of years gives your PC a new lease of life, so how will Windows 7 fair with the test of time? How many issues has it inherited from Vista? Are training centers going to upgrade to Windows 7 and splash out more valuable cash, or will they think of looking at free alternatives? If the education centers promoted freely available software then, obviously, more people would be using it. Education is about guiding and being guided, not pushing, and not being pushed. Lets stop pushing Microsoft down peoples throats and provide some options. Let your students choose and learn about the alternatives off the tutors, and off each other.

Anyone with comments, please share them.

Have a good Christmas,

Allan.

I’ve heard various combinations of the above many times, and taken to a solution that blows all these problems out of the water; depending on what you use your computer for.

If your computer use falls into any of the following, this is a solution to all your troubles:

Web browsing, Email, Chat, Writing letters or essays, Managing digital photos, Printing, Listening to music, Watching DVD’s

Most of this comes ready to go with Ubuntu, and what isn’t, can be easily added. Some minor tweaks need doing to get it to play DVD’s and mp3’s, and of course the web browser flash player needs to be added before I’m happy.

There are lots features of Ubuntu that make it a breath of fresh air to people tired of Microsoft Windows. Vista is a disaster. Microsoft knows it was a flop, and are trying to recover with Windows 7 but why pay for something you can get for free?

I recently replaced a laptop operating system running Vista with the latest version of Ubuntu. Without going into much detail, the install was so smooth it was back up and running within minutes, slick as you could ever like. Almost everything my customer needed was in place from the get go. When you want to install an application, you pick it from a list, click apply, and then after it’s finished, it says, your application is installed. No questions. No, where do you want this, do you want this and that. It just does it, and puts your program in a logical, simple to operate menu.

The Ubuntu Linux footprint on your computer resources is far smaller than the likes of Vista, which I’ve seen increasingly soaking up almost all resources on some laptop deals. These tend to become slow and full of error messages after a couple of months of use; with the primary problem being RAM. RAM, or Random Access Memory is your computers short term memory; what its doing at the moment is stored in RAM microchips. Without enough ram, it starts to spill over in the hard drive (long term memory storage) which results in the slow down. I’ve seen lots of laptops which look great, but have a deadly combination destined to fail. Vista, with 1gb of RAM. Sure, you can tweak vista for a few hours to get the RAM back, but you end up with something that looks like Windows 95, and still it uses up most of your computer memory.

Ubuntu still understands it’s a tool that allows you to use other applications. Its an Operating System that facilitates the use of programs, and thus, your RAM, and harddrive usage is quite acceptable from the get go. In fact, I find myself turning on the desktop effects with Ubuntu, rather than turning them off with Vista.

I’ve to date, never come across a Linux virus; designed with security in mind, rather than security being added as an after thought. Imagine a world without viruses. It exists in Linux.

Nothing is perfect, so where does Ubuntu fall down?
Well, I had masses of bother accessing my phones Micro SD card using the USB cable I got with my phone. This was an LG Secret, and as it happened, my customer had the same one. I spent an entire weekend trying to make it read the phone as a USB drive using the cable that came with the phone. Luckily there was a card reader, so sticking the Micro SD into an SD card adaptor, then into the slot on the computer, and hey presto, it was readable. The pain with this method is you need to transfer your pictures and videos to the memory card to get them out of the phone. Some phones are supported in this way I believe, but if not, there is the memory card work around. Actually managing the phone contacts and messages is supported however, and is quite good.

If you’re a gamer, there are lots of games for Linux (Ubuntu is a Linux distribution). Many of your windows games will work on Linux using something called Wine (http://www.winehq.org/). Use the appDb link to find out if your games will work. Not all are supported fully so you will find problems here if your big on gaming with windows.
An additional problem is your graphics hardware. I found that graphics intensive 3D can be a bit ropy. I work with an old Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop most of the time, and support for its inbuilt ATI Mobility Radeon was a bit lacking. This may have been improved since then. In fact, just looked up the AMD website, and they have indeed released a driver update for my device in mid August, so this is on the way up.

Another big issue is Apple IPhone and IPodTouch. These to date, wont work with your computer without some hassle. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPod
Again, call in someone like me who can set it up for you if your not able.

USB sticks, SD cards and printers have all worked magically for me to date. No disks, no fuss. One thing that is needed for Ubuntu is broadband. It handles its software updates via the internet, talking to repositories which provide it with everything you need to do your thing. Plug in a new printer, and if it doesn’t know how to talk to it, a quick check online and it will fetch and install what’s needed in a few moments, and presto, its working. No stupid path or icon questions.

Ubuntu is free. Linux is free. There’s little advertising for it. It spreads by work of mouth, by magazines, and by the web. So spread the word. Google ubuntu and look it up. Microsoft has the majority in Operating Systems, because of various factors including advertising and media, and distribution deals with computer manufacturers. Being the best at what it’s for is not one of them. Microsoft is however loosing ground to Apple and Linux

All in all, if you have an older machine which is sluggish and needs a good overhaul, rather than splashing out on a new computer, try Ubuntu. Give me a shout and I’ll stick it on your old computer for £20. You may end up the envy of some of your friends who spent more and got less.

For most people who use the internet, at some point you may use a blog, a forum, or have a website which allows for comments and posts.
For those who don’t know, spam bots and programs which scour the internet looking for email addresses and web forms they can access, and bombard them with adverts and links that most of us do not want.
I haven’t sat down and worked out how much spam I get, but it’s a serious amount; far greater numbers than the legitimate emails I get.

For the record, spammers, I don’t want your pills or potions. I’m happy with myself. I’m not overweight, and not interested in purchasing wives from foreign lands, or anything else.

Green thinkers talk about how much energy is wasted in day to day life. How much energy is needlessly wasted delivering billions of worthless spam messages to people who don’t want them.

Is there anything out there in place to hunt down and prosecute the people who do this?
This is supposed to be the job of the Information Commissioner’s Office (in the UK), however, as far as I’m aware, no prosecutions have been made.
The ICO seem more publicised for there focus on trying to collect information about us with a national ID card and database, rather then protecting us from unsolicited communications or illegal activity. Like the government dosnt have enough information about us already. Hang on, isnt that what viral advertisers do? collect information about you and your internet activities? Anyway, I think this was abandoned. Focus on protecting your public, not monitoring them!

Lets draw a line in the sand.
We need our beloved internet policed, without the same organisation impinging on our human rights. Just because someone tries to target us with scams and unsolicited mail via the post office, this does not mean the police tap our phones and read our mail, or record our movements.

The same applies to the internet.

If we have an open and known public service available which we can forward our unsolicited mail and dodgy messages to, the government body responsible for prosecuting internet misuse can then double check its unsolicited, look up the IP address, find the owner, and locate the site using that IP at the time the message was sent. From there they can investigate a single location and prosecute if necessary, or proceed until they find the culprit. There is no need to monitor all internet activity in order to do this.

If all spam was to stop right now, how much faster could the internet be?
How much happier would we be as internet users?
How much energy, electrical, physical, and otherwise, would we save?

I’m betting a heck of a lot for all three.

All the best,

Allan.

Many developers have to write web content that strives to provide the usability and responsiveness of an application running on an operating system like Windows or any of the many cool Linux distributions, but I really don’t think its going to happen.
Some have built plugins which operate embedded in the html in order to enhance the experience, some use clever little tricks like AJAX; but for me, it’s just not enough.

We are in the digital broadband age, and network speeds are only going to get faster. Isn’t it time we had a new protocol for our browsers to take sensible advantage of this?

HTTP is what it says, HyperTEXT (Text with hyperlinks in it) transfer protocol.
FTP gives us File Transfer Protocol.
There are oodles of protocols out there, but so far, nothing that really delivers applications from the web in a way that’s easy to develop and easy to deploy, without http or any hanger-on plugins or embedded doo-dahs.

Let’s call our new toy ATP, Application Transfer Protocol.
We want to deliver applications to our users over the web, but we want them to be as good as an OS application. We want our work to be secure and compiled.
How cool would it be to write an application, compile it, and upload it; then open a browser to atp://www.my_web_app.com (whose default app would be myapp.exe or myapp.iap or whatever the extension would be).

We don’t want to download the whole thing remember, so the protocol would interact with the application on the server side, and deliver the application in an ‘on demand’ bases.
Use the OS libraries available for standard OS applications, to build and manage the program GUI with event handlers, and all the nice things that benefit a locally running application.

Now were delivering REAL cloud applications straight from our servers without the need for local installs. The applications can have a local folder on the users computer to store settings etc, and write user files to the users folders just like a regular app.

Let’s stop talking about it. Somebody built it. Heck, maybe I’ll find the time over the next few years to build it myself. This would be the real internet revolution.

Happy browsing,
Allan Mackinnon

Anyway, it was time my site was reinvented to go with the times and trends. What better way to make a new web presence than in the form of my very own WordPress blog. Go me!

I’ll have a bit more time on my hands over the summer holidays now the college has closed. Maybe I can make some progress with one of my own projects (anything’s possible).

I’ve been lazy and used a ready made theme for the site. As time goes on I’ll have this site hebware-ised and it will be web business as usual (hopefully a little less quite).

all the best,

Allan.