Ubuntu

I thought the title might intrigue some of you. Ubuntu is the name of a "flavor" of the Linux operating system. I'm actually blogging from it right now. Other notable operating systems are Mac OS X and .... man, I forget the name.... oh yeah... I remember....Microsoft Windows.

The most notable difference between the three operating systems are these:

Mac OS X - cost = buy a Mac $1200, the Mac OS X only works on Apple computers. It's a really pretty and fun system to work in. Hardly any support for computer games.

Windows Vista - cost $300, works on most computers, has bugs and security flaws, plays tons of games, and "just works".

Ubuntu Linux - cost $0, works on most computers, can run windows software and "just works" (usually)

That said, I've been messing around on Ubuntu Linux (version Feisty Fawn) and I think it's a great. It's not quite as easy to install programs as Windows and it can be tricky to set up, but I think most people could do pretty well using this version of Linux. At this point, Linux can now be used by 2 our of 3 types of people (as opposed to the 1 type about 2 years ago). The two types are 1) People who never download new programs or try to install anything new and 2) People who are pretty knowledgeable with computer software / programming.

I don't recommend it to people who don't have high speed internet access or anyone who doesn't have a computer expert nearby to help with problems.

It's got some really great, free programs though. GIMP is an image editor that is really robust and comparable to Adobe Photoshop (a very expensive program). OpenOffice.org is the equivalent to MS Office (another very expensive program). It comes with Firefox as an internet browser and Evolution for e-mail and calendar stuff. It has GAIM for instant messaging that allows you to talk with people in all other messenger applications (MS Messenger / Yahoo IM/ AOL instant messenger).
K3B will burn CDs and DVDs. Rythmbox will play all your audio files.

Best of all, it's all free.

Now for the fun part. I installed Beryl (an awesome desktop application that lets me do this.

Four Desktops (Windows only has one) / Rotate a cube to see and use them

Windows don't just close when you click the little red X to close the window, they go up in flames now :)

Thumbnail views of your minimized windows before you maximize them

A window manager called "slam"...bump your mouse cursor up against the top right corner of the screen and Beryl will display all your windows in an easy page (below) so you can select the one you want to use

A nifty little feature called peek allows you to peer underneath a window you are currently working in. Also notice when you do that, it makes the window slightly transparent.

Last but not least, the Jello effect when you drag windows around the screen they stretch, then snap into place.

You can turn all these features off or install many more, it's all up to you.

If you want to give Ubuntu a try, just let me know :)

It wouldn't be fair if I didn't write this today

According to videobusiness.com

"Sony fixes problem DVDs
Copy-protection glitch reported on Casino Royale, Pursuit of Happyness others
By Jennifer Netherby 4/17/2007
APRIL 17 | Sony Corp. of America says it has fixed a glitch on recent DVD releases including Casino Royale, The Pursuit of Happyness and Stranger Than Fiction that prevented the movies from playing on some DVD players."


I'm still glad they're not in the paperback business... :)

Sony's way of increasing electronic sales

There has been a small buzz the past couple weeks about Sony's new DVD protection and I was affected by it last night (and a couple nights ago).

A few nights ago, Kristen and I sat down to watch Casino Royale (the new James Bond movie). I grabbed the DVD that we rented from Netflix and stuck it into our Mitsubishi DVD player (which has been working great for almost 5 years). Nothing came up on the screen. So I took it out and looked at it to see if I could see any scratches. It looked pretty good except for a the funny reflection. So I proceeded to put the DVD into our computer and it seemed to work fine.

Hmm.... says I .... this be a strange predicament, says I.

So, I reported it as a broken DVD to Netflix and got them to send us a new one. This one worked for about 15 minutes of the movie, then bombed out on us. Could have been scratched, but it didn't look it.

It turns out that Sony has implemented a new copy protection (The Holiday / Stranger than Fiction / Casino Royale). A copy protection that's sOOOOO good that (on some DVD players) you can't even "copy" the video from your DVD player to your TV screen.

Sony says they have no plans of changing their copy protection. Another interesting fact is that their new disks won't even play on some of their own manufactured DVD players. I'm guessing that they probably spend more to "protect" their software and information than would ever be lost by people copying stuff.

We consumers better hope and pray that Sony never gets into the paperback book business. I can see it now...

NEWS
Sony implements new copy protection for their division of paperback books. Upon opening the new print run of Harry Potter, readers were surprised by a blinding light emanating from the inner binder of the book. Unfortunately, no one can read the new book because of the light. This was Sony's newest release in a long line of paperback book copy protection. When senior executives were asked about the matter, they commented "we have no intentions of changing our copy protection... at least no one will be copying them. We suggest you purchase our copy protection sunglasses for 299.99 from your nearest best buy."

I know it seems ludicrous when you talk about paper books, but for some reason digital "paper" is different. Really....they've done the same thing... they've blinded my DVD player so that it can't read the DVD. What's the difference? A book is a book, why can't a DVD be a DVD.

You better be sure you want that software

I recently purchased a piece of software (an hardware) for our home computer. I really didn't buy the thing for the software. I bought it for the little piece of hardware that comes in the package that is supposed to convert video streams to computer files. Well, after I bought it, I figured out that it doesn't actually convert video streams to computer files, it only converts video streams to USB format, then it lets your computer do all the work of creating the computer file.

Well, the hardware that I bought doesn't work on our computer. But there's a silly rule at Target / Walmart / BestBuy... to prevent software piracy and it doesn't let you return your product for anything except the exact same product. It's a pretty good idea, but now I'm stuck with a $50 product that doesn't work and I can't get my money back.

I need to find a business that allows me to sell things to people and not give money back for faulty product. Sounds like a good deal.

Dell's "Express" Vista Upgrade

Many of you know that Kristen and I purchased a new desktop computer from Dell back in December of 2006. It came with a "free" upgrade to Windows new operating system, Windows Vista. I say "free" because it actually costs $10.50 in shipping and handling charges, a very cheap price to pay considering you can actually buy a brand new computer for cheaper than you could buy Windows Vista.

Windows Vista came out on 1/29/2007.

January 13th
I ordered my upgrade disk from Dellvistaupgrade.com At that time Dell showed on the "order status" screen...

"Dell expects to ship all upgrade disks by the end of February."

February 25th
I went back to check on the status of my order.....

"Dell expects to ship all upgrade disks by the end of March." Grrrr, frustrating....

March 25th
I went back to the Dell website to check on my order....

"Dell expects to ship all upgrade disks by the end of April.".... Ahhhh I can't stand it!

April 7th - just for fun
I decided to check the Dell upgrade website. Do you know what it said

Yup, you guessed it "Dell expects to ship all upgrade disks by the end of May."

Turns out that Dell shipped "Vista capable" computers that weren't actually capable of running Vista.

So, Dell has learned their lesson to never again sell a free upgrade to the new system and I have learned my lesson to never buy from Dell anymore. At a minimum, they should not charge the $10.50 and really they should figure out something more that they could do to make up for their error.

Ok Enough complaining for me today. Thought you might all like to know about my "express" upgrade :)