The Next Window

Are you a Windows user who has been wondering about this Linux thing? Now’s your chance. Several of today’s Linux distributions are designed to be easier for Windows users to make the transition to Linux. Some of them even let you boot a CDROM and try out Linux without installing it on your computer.

Check out Linux for Windows Users for a quick view of Linux.

Today, Google added the long-awaited Adsense referral program for web site publishers to refer other web site publishers to Google’s Adsense program — and get a referral fee as a result.

After the new Adsense affiliate earns $100 (and is, then, at the level for his first payment!), the new Adsense affiliate gets paid his earnings. Plus, the referring publisher gets paid $100! Google’s other new referral program is a $1 referral for new Firefox users.

Here are two referral links, which come in a number of different sizes and formats, such as:

The referring web site publisher, who referred via his Google-Firefox referral link, will be paid $1 after a brand new Firefox user downloads Firefox using the Firefox referral bar, installs it, and runs it the first time.

OpenOffice.org, the free software suite from the organization the same name, is now available for download as version 2.0 — not just a beta version, not a "pre-release" version — but the real thing!<br />
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OpenOffice.org includes a word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentations (Impress), graphics editing (Draw), formula writing (Math), and a database (Base). New to OpenOffice.org v2.0 is the ability to import WordPerfect files.<br />
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The database is a new component in OpenOffice.org, while the other functions have been included since earlier days. The file formats, through, have changed from its own specialized formats to OpenDocument XML.<br />
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Price, of course, is one of the driving forces in the market place. With a price of *FREE* and a quality product, OpenOffice.org is poised to grab market share from Microsoft's lucrative product line "Microsoft Office."<br />
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<a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=875&amp;entry_id=163" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com/computers/openoffice.php" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com/computers/openoffice.php';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Read more about OpenOffice.org</a><br />
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<center>Original article posted to <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=876&amp;entry_id=163" title="http://www.thenextwindow.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.thenextwindow.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">www.TheNextWindow.com</a></center>

What do you do when your hard drive fails? I mean, after you finish the vocabulary test…<br />
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If it is your personal machine, hopefully, you have a recent backup. Worst case, you reinstall from the original disks and lose all your data.<br />
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But, what if the data was your checkbook? Or worse, your business' checkbook? Or the book you've been writing? Or your unbilled work-in-progress for a client?<br />
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Read more in my <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=740&amp;entry_id=150" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com/computers/data-recovery.php" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com/computers/data-recovery.php';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Data Recovery</a> page at <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=741&amp;entry_id=150" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Terry's Computer Tips</a>.<br />
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<b>WOW!</b><br />
Fred Langa's <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=699&amp;entry_id=147" title="http://www.langa.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.langa.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">LangaList and LangaList Plus!</a> newsletters mentioned my <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=700&amp;entry_id=147" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Terry's Computer Tips website</a> in last Sunday afternoon's issue.<br />
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My visitor count for Sunday was about <em>5 times normal</em>. My visitor count for Monday was about <em>12 times normal</em>.<br />
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Many of these visitors signed up for my free <i>Terry's Computer Tips </i> weekly newsletter while they were there — they also visited my advertisers, too.<br />
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THANK YOU FRED!<br />
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All this was the result of Fred's reciprocal link program — I put a link on my site, he puts a link on his site and he mentions my site in his "Loaded the Code" article. This section is simply a listing of about 10 sites, without descriptions, that added links to Langa's site recently.<br />
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<center>Original article posted to <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=701&amp;entry_id=147" title="http://www.thenextwindow.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.thenextwindow.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">www.TheNextWindow.com</a></center><br />

In a recent Slashdot article, I found the link to an IBM article <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=571&amp;entry_id=130" title="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-bootload.html?ca=dgr-lnxw01LILOandGRUB" onmouseover="window.status='http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-bootload.html?ca=dgr-lnxw01LILOandGRUB';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Boot loader showdown: Getting to know LILO and GRUB</a> that discusses the two Linux boot loaders.<br />
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After a high-level explanation of what a boot loader is, the article continues to discuss LILO and its features, GRUB and its features, and a brief comparison of each.<br />
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In Sunday's entry, I wrote about the latest worm — I also wrote about it in my <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=556&amp;entry_id=122" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com/archives/newsletter_20050815.php" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com/archives/newsletter_20050815.php';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">newsletter</a>, which was published on Monday, warning readers to get patched before it was too late.<br />
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It looks like way, way too many folks aren't doing their Windows updates automatically or fast enough.<br />
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Today (Tuesday), CNN reported that CNN, ABC, The New York Times were hit by Zotob. According to the <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=557&amp;entry_id=122" title="http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/16/computer.worm/index.html" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/16/computer.worm/index.html';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">CNN article</a>, the worm primarily affects Windows 2000 systems and <b>early</b> versions of Windows XP. <br />
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One other kicker in the article — there are several versions of the Zotob worm circulating. This means that Antivirus programs aren't going to be updated fast enough to prevent the infections. You have to patch Windows to prevent infection.<br />
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Play it safe — <b>if you haven't done your Windows Updates yet, do them now</b>.<br />
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By the way, Microsoft has now made the "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" validation tool <b>mandatory</b> in order to do your Windows Updates. That tool, which does not appear to have any advantages for anyone other than Microsoft, makes sure you are not running a pirated copy of Windows.<br />
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<b>You will have to run Windows Updates twice — once to install the validator and confirm your Windows OS is not a pirated copy, and again to get the real security patches you need.</b><br />
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<i>Thanks a lot, Microsoft, for your perfect timing.</i><br />

<b>ALERT — The U.S. Copyright Office is planning Internet Explorer-only site functions!</b><br />
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The U.S. Copyright office has posted a request for comments — <b><i>and they need to get them!</i></b> Consistent with old pre-computer ways, and of course to limit comments that would pour from computer users, email comments are not accepted. <br />
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<b><u>Their posted requirements are that you send an original and 5 copies of your comments by hand delivery, commercial courier or mail — and FedEX, UPS, Airborne and such are specifically excluded. I imagine that they would be surprised to learn that they are not commercial couriers!</u></b>!<br />
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Anyway, I sent them the following email via their website — but I'm sure it will go nowhere. <br />
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SUBJECT: IE-Only website plans are UNACCEPTABLE!<br />
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I just read this notice about IE-only support for copyright preregistration — <br />
<a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=555&amp;entry_id=121" title="http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.html" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.html';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.html</a><br />
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You people must be living in a different world. It is totally unacceptable to require the, let's say, security-challenged Internet Explorer for any use other than processing "Windows Updates."<br />
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I have used anything other Internet Explorer for years. I avoid it because of its history of security problems, proprietary Microsoft technologies and non-standard "extensions" to HTML.<br />
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I object strongly to your intent to create an Internet Explorer-only system. If this is not the intent, but is the unintended result, then FIX THE BUGS. IE-only is not acceptable.<br />
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Terry Stockdale — Baton Rouge, LA</blockquote><br />
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It's time to put it to paper, sign it and scan/copy 5 copies for the mail.<br />
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<blockquote>Comments are due no later than August 22, 2005… If sent by mail, an original and five copies of any comment should be addressed to: Copyright GC/ I&R, P.O. Box 70400, Southwest Station, Washington, DC 20024-0400.</blockquote><br />
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The full notice, which is available at the Federal Register's website indicated above, is quoted in the "Continue Reading" section. <br /><a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/index.php?/archives/121-IE-Only-website-plans-are-UNACCEPTABLE!.html#extended">Continue reading "IE-Only website plans are UNACCEPTABLE!"</a>

I've just finished downloading and installing the lastest version of CentOS, version 4.1, on my home Linux box.<br />
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At this point, it has SimplyMepis 3.31 bootable from one partition and CentOS 4.1 bootable from another. There is a common partition that I use for file backup from my Windows boxes. I still have to solve the issue of the Promise Ultra100 controller card — if I recall correctly, it was actually sold by Maxtor under their name and model#Ultra100, but Linux recognizes it based on the Promise IDE controller that is built into the card. That may help me solve the problem.<br />
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Anyway, <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=458&amp;entry_id=96" title="http://www.centos.org" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.centos.org';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">CentOS</a> 4.1 is interesting so far. I've got a bit of setting up to do before it will handle my backups from the Windows computers, but that shouldn't be too hard — just a matter of changing the "permissions" on the /files directory to be writeable by members of the user group and not just by the owner — naturally, CentOS follows the standards of <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=459&amp;entry_id=96" title="http://www.redhat.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.redhat.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">RedHat</a> and calls the first user #500, while <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=460&amp;entry_id=96" title="http://www.mepis.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.mepis.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Mepis</a> goes the <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=461&amp;entry_id=96" title="http://www.debian.org" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.debian.org';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Debian</a> route and calls him #1000. <br />
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This is significant because the user number for my login ID is different between systems. If I recall correctly, the easiest way to handle this was to log in as "root" and change the user number for my normal ID. Might have to change file ownerships, too, but it might go automatically.<br />
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We'll see. Tonight.<br />
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PS: Solved the hardware problem. The hard drive controller card was recognised by CentOS 4.1 right out of the box. So was my Kensington Optical Pilot Mouse. Now I'm just doing all the "new installation" little configuration things…

I've been fighting my Linux box for a couple days now. My problem is that I'm used to the professional distributions, like SuSE and RedHat, but I'm trying to use some of the free distributions instead. The problem is that they take tweaking and tweaking if you're doing anything weird — and that's the status of my Promise Ultra100 add-on hard drive controller card.<br />
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Mostly it runs, but I finally realized that my add-on hard drive controller card was not being recognized by the Linux distribution I've been using recently — SimplyMepis.<br />
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My old Linux OS was SuSE Linux 9.0 Professional, and it had no trouble whatsoever with that card.<br />
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OK, I thought maybe the two old drives were bad. I plugged in a new 160GB Western Digital hard drive. Still not recognized. A little Google research and I found that I could get it recognized if I put some particular parameters in the boot instructions.<br />
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Not quite — it booted ok, then I formatted it as ext3. Wrote some stuff on there. Thank goodness I didn't delete the original files, though. When I rebooted, the system could not fsck (file system check) the new drive partition. Round the horn some more. <br />
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Finally, I decided to install CentOS 4.0, a free clone of RedHat Enterprise Linux. Nope, wouldn't install. Both graphical install and text install failed. I'll check it out further. Probably there's a new version now, anyway.<br />
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But, I'm tempted to go right back to my SuSE 9.0 — or upgrade to SuSE 9.3. <br />
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I keep talking about how easy Xandros Desktop is to use, but it is designed for easy use by Windows users. It doesn't include all the server programs that I want to run for web development.<br />
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I think SuSE 9.0 will go back on tomorrow.