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updated February 8, 2010, category: Software & security

In tech lingo, Linux means geekiness. Even though Linux has been making some pretty decent progress toward becoming a people's operating system, spearheaded by Ubuntu, it is still a domain of computer freaks, savvy ego-centric hackers and advanced users with a knack for software. Most ordinary people soil their pants at the very mention of the word Linux.

But what does Jolicloud tell them? Nothing. First, it has the word cloud in there, and it's a new buzzword. Along with netbooks, cloud has been the defining word for 2009. More and more emphasis is placed on instant and permanent online connectivity, running in the cloud, with your programs and documents sitting on remote servers, with your mobile device nothing more than a fancy terminal to connect to these servers.

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updated February 6, 2010, category: Software & security

Do you have a boss who's easily impressed by fancy visual tricks, regardless of the content? Are you a marketing kind of guy? Do you own a website and would like to enliven the pages with some stunning flash graphs? Do you require online presentation tools that go beyond static Web pages? Then you ought to take a look at FusionCharts.

FusionCharts is a Flash charting software that lets you integrate aesthetically pleasant, animated Flash graphs and charts into your Web projects. FusionCharts offers a wide range of 2D and 3D charts, including area, bar, pie, column, scatter, and many others, all of which can be used with plain HTML files or ASP, PHP, Ruby on Rail, Python, and other web technologies. FusionCharts also works with databases, like SQL and Oracle.

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updated February 5, 2010, category: Software & security

Since I like this saying so much, I decided to write an entire article revolving around its message. And the focus of the message, once again, the much loved/hated and controversial Ubuntu, the Paris Hilton of the Linux world.

Ubuntu 9.10 has been around for some time, including several of my test machines. If you've followed the news and updates in the Linux world in the last few months, you have probably noticed that Ubuntu has been received as a hot potato; edible and tasty, but sometimes too hot to handle, especially for new users. Many condemned it, others found it flawless, others yet were disappointed, like myself, mainly by the lack of any major improvements combined with several serious regressions.

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updated February 3, 2010, category: Software & security

The credits for the catchy title go to legendary Thomas Dolby, but the real thanks go to the team of scientists, engineers and geeks at CERN, who developed this distribution.

If you're into science, you will, sooner or later, run into Linux. Any serious mathematical, computational work is done on Linux. From amazing 3D movies to simulating the Big Bang over to crunching sparse matrices in a cloud and folding proteins at home, it all comes down to using Linux. As a single host, Linux is merely a machine, but it starts to shine in its hundreds and thousands.

Scientific Linux is a distribution based on RedHat, designed to work out of the box and make the job of assistants and PhDs that much easier. As such, it comes with a few extras that you do not normally see in stock RedHat, without losing the heavy anchor of adamant stability that RedHat brings.

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updated February 1, 2010, category: Computer games

Last time I was in the States, I entered one of the Fry's mega stores and headed directly for the Computer Games section, hoping to find some decent bargains. Indeed, one of the boxen seated on the shelf was 1701 A.D., including the Sunken Dragon expansion pack, for just USD14.99. Not the latest and greatest game, but I have never cared for game age. Needless to say, I bought the game, not really sure if it were going to pay off its very humble price. It did. 1701 A.D. proved to be a really lovely game. Hence, this review.

1701 A.D. (also known as Anno 1701) is a real-time economy strategy, focusing around naval settlement and culture class expansion of a small village somewhere in the New World, governed by you and sponsored by the Queen. Your task is seemingly simple - make your colony prosper. Well, it gets a little more complicated than that.

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updated January 30, 2010, category: Life topics

Icons? Software related? Have you perhaps filed an article in the wrong section, mate? Not at all. This article is all about social issues, not software.

What I want to talk to you about are icons linking to various social networks and sharing services, like Digg, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Facebook, and others. For many users, these networks and services are an excellent, efficient and a fast way of sharing information with friends and would be friends. For webmasters, making your content easily available to users of these networks and services boosts the chances of quick exposure leading to increased traffic and possibly revenue. Placing icons linking to popular micro blogs, social news sites and community networks is a smart thing to do.

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updated January 29, 2010, category: Software & security

In my LKCD and Kdump tutorials, I've mentioned a large number of sequels, including tutorials showing how to work with kernel crash dump processing and analysis tools, how to debug applications and more. Well, one such sequel has just arrived and it's about the most important level II debugging tool available: strace.

Strace is a utility that can trace system calls. If you're wondering what system calls are, they are a translation mechanism that provides interface between a process and the operating system (kernel). These calls can be intercepted and read, allowing for a better understanding of what a process is trying to do at a given runtime.

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updated January 27, 2010, category: Software & security

Helena was the first femme fatale in modern culture who showed her destructive work on a national scale, brining the city of Troy to complete doom with her promiscuous charm. A tricky choice for a name, would you not say?

Now, following this pseudo-philosophical intro, let's focus on Linux Mint 8 Helena, the real subject of our topic. Linux Mint is a distribution very closely based on Ubuntu. At first thought, you may think the two would be virtually indistinguishable, save for some small cosmetic changes. Indeed, many forks are just that, a visual polish with little or no changes underneath the hood.

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updated January 25, 2010, category: Software & security

Let's say you really love how Windows 7 looks. But you don't have money to buy a copy or you do not wish to part from your sturdy, loyal Windows XP workhorse. No problem. Today, I will show you how you can make your Windows XP look smarter, sharper, cooler, more modern, all for free and about 10-15 minutes of your precious time.

There are millions of desktop customization and tweaking articles all over the Web. I will hardly be reinventing the wheel. Therefore, to make things simpler, I will refer to several popular and useful sources that served as an inspiration for this article, as well as provide you with a wealth of links and resources to even more customization and beautification guides.

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updated January 23, 2010, category: Software & security

Python is a general-purpose high-level programming language, much beloved in the geek community as the tool that you use to write utilities and applications. But Python is also the common name for the Pythonidae, a family on non-venomous snakes.

When you combine the two, you elevate the art of literal misinterpretation to a higher form of genius. In Dr. Pun's latest article, you will learn all about writing scripts using Python, just not the Python you may expect. The calembour or the equivoque is so potent here, that essentially a bad idea becomes fantastic. Follow me.

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updated January 22, 2010, category: Software & security

There are hundreds of Linux distributions available worldwide, kitted with an infinite number of kernel/desktop/applications combos, each offering a unique perspective and usage model.

Still, true to the Pareto principle, most of the Linux desktop belongs to a very small number of distributions, including mainly Ubuntu and its derivatives, Fedora, openSUSE, Mandriva, and a few more. Hop over to DistroWatch and see for yourself. So the big question is, what makes these distros so popular, or better yet, preferred over other candidates? Ultimately, which one offers the most complete all-round experience of all?

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updated January 20, 2010, category: Life topics

You all know I'm gifted. In fact, multi-gifted. One of the many aspects of my greatness is the ability to operate the digital camera at the right place at the right moment. I am not a photographer by all means, all those photons confuse me, but given a simple image-capturing gadget and some artistic creativity, I'll make some splendid photographs. And so will other people - then forward the images to me, so I can make this article.

In this article, I will show you a few rather interesting, spectacular images taken round the corners of the world. Not your typical Life section article, where the facets of humanity are polished rough with sandpaper, more of a freestyling expressionism with a rather positive note, which you should hardly expect from a diehard cynic like me. Anyhow, enjoy.

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updated January 18, 2010, category: Software & security

VMware Server is a powerful, free virtualization software that you can use to run multiple instances of various operating systems in top of your desktop, each a separate entity running its own virtual environment. We've talked about this concept, as well as many other, more specific and detailed features, at great length in quite a few articles.

We've had some general advice on virtualization and we've discussed some tips and tricks on how to enhance VMware Server, but we've never really focused on the power of VMware Server networking stack, which is probably the most advanced and fully featured virtual router of any desktop virtualization product available. Until today, that is.

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updated January 17, 2010

On January 12, a powerful earthquake struck Haiti, resulting in a terrible loss of human life and nearly total destruction of the country's capital city. The tragedy is far from over for millions of Haitian citizens, who are left without food, water or shelter.

Please consider donating to one of the help organizations providing relief to the disaster victims. Below, you will find the link to Google crisis response page. As the most popular website in the world, it seems the best source of information and help at the moment. The page provides news, updates and, most importantly, instructions how to donate.

Google crisis response

updated January 17, 2010

In the last few days, I have noticed that my own test subscription to Dedoimedo RSS feed via FeedBurner is not updating as frequently as it should. I am investigating this. Reading the FeedBurner troubleshooting guide, these kind of glitches happen sometimes and usually come and go without any intervention.

Now, if you have NOT noticed any problems, please ignore this post and continue enjoying the website. Meanwhile, if you did notice my RSS feed (via FeedBurner) has not been updated in the last 3-4 days, please consider one of the following suggestion as a temporary remedy until things get sorted out:

a) Visit the website directly and check for updates; I usually post four new items every week, sometimes more b) Use an alternative RSS reader method, including subscribing directly to my RSS feed rather than FeedBurner c) use Live Bookmarks in your browser.

If you have any questions about this subject, feel free to contact me.

Dedoimedo RSS feed

updated January 17, 2010, category: Software & security

Gnome Shell is the future window manager for UNIX-like operating systems running the Gnome desktop environment. It is slated to be part of the Gnome 3.0, which will probably be released sometime next year. However, this does not mean you cannot try Gnome Shell now and get the first impression of what it ought to be. Gnome Shell is available in the repositories of some of the recent Linux distribution releases, like Fedora 12 Constantine and Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, which I used to testdrive Gnome Shell. On older releases, you can try to build Gnome Shell from scratch, but this will take time and there's no guarantee it will work.

So follow me for a spin.

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updated January 16, 2010, category: Software & security

After I published my Linux ISO burning tutorial, I've received several emails from readers asking about the same thing in Windows. Apparently, this is not such a trivial task, it seems. Good point, which is why I decided to write this tutorial.

Today, I'm going to show you how you can burn ISO image files to CD/DVD in a variety of popular Windows CD/DVD burning programs. All of these applications are freeware, with one notable exception, this is in order to show you that there is essentially no difference between free and payware software.

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updated January 15, 2010, category: Software & security

For some strange reason, I keep going back to Open Solaris. Maybe it's the beautiful Gnome desktop, well arranged and streamlined. Maybe it's the belief that Sun, one of the great technology leaders in the past 30 years, can deliver a usable operating system intended for the home market. And maybe it's my desire to crack open the frightening secrets of UNIX, for Linux, Open Solaris is not.

Open Solaris 2009.06 is the current release, available for free download, albeit in 32-bit architecture only. I've tested both previous editions, having found the earlier 2008.05 to be rather frustrating and inadequate and 2008.11 to be reasonable if still a bit too difficult for the average user. Well, time to see what the latest build can offer.

So if you're in a mood for a rather non-Linux review, please take a few minutes to read the review. The repertoire includes live CD testing, installation and a handsome week of usage, covering tiny yet important details like Wireless connectivity, Samba sharing, multimedia support, usability, and more.

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updated January 13, 2010, category: Computer games

Would you like to play the latest and greatest Windows games? Sure. In Linux? Sure. Now comes the tricky question, how exactly do you do that? Linux uses OpenGL, whereas most Windows games rely on DirectX. No problem. That's what Wine is made for.

I've mentioned Wine in my Linux gaming mega howto, as one of the tools that allow you to run Windows games in Linux, for whatever reason you may want to do so. The results may vary and may not be perfect, but you can still manage a handsome array of games easily.

What prompted me to try running one of the Windows heavyweight games on Linux was the pure simple hardware limitation. The game in question was Tropico 3, a fabulous dictatorship simulation with some pretty hefty requirements, including 2GB of RAM and at least 256MB Nvidia 6600GT card. As it turns out, my two older Athlons both running Windows and equipped with Nvidia 6600GT and 7600GT cards were not exactly tailored for this game. But if you recall, I've just recently bought myself a shiny new laptop, with the powerful Nvidia 9600GS card with 512MB VRAM. So I figured, what the hell, it's worth a try.

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updated January 11, 2010, category: Software & security

If the title of this article sounds like something from Star Trek, you're not far off. It's a very geeky thing, which allows you to export X (GUI) applications as separate entities on top of your desktop. Indeed, Xephyr is an X server utility. As such, it allows you to manage your virtual consoles, without leaving the safety and comfort of your desktop.

What is Xephyr good for? Well, except for impressing girls with your omnipotent computing skills, you can use it for development of applications, demonstration of tools and secure forwarding of X sessions without VNC.

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updated January 9, 2010, category: 3D art

The design in this article is my version of the condo the finlists in the first season of From The Ground Up had to tackle. The challenge was to design a 600 sq. feet apartment, which is equivalent to 58 sq. meters of floor space. That's not a lot. You can barely squeeze in a small bedroom, an open concept kitchen-living-dining room and a very small bathroom, while providing bags of storage and the illusion of a bigger space. Yep, that's why it's called a challenge.

Well, the main issue with designing small spaces is keeping them open and airy, having a natural flow and lots of light. However, if the walls and furniture are to be kept to a minimum, storage becomes an issue. That's why I created the Interior Modern Basement (IMB), which consists of raising the floor in some areas and installing sliding drawers underneath. This is demonstrated later on.

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updated January 8, 2010, category: Software & security

I'm such a plonker. I've only recently realized that all these years, I've never tried openSUSE with the Gnome desktop. And having just done that, I must say I regret the omission oh so badly, because openSUSE 11.2 with Gnome is simply fabulous. Even more so than the KDE edition.

I have reviewed openSUSE 11.2 in great detail, but I must do it again, this time with Gnome desktop. Please let me share a wealth of supremely positive experiences, so you can enjoy them, too.

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updated January 6, 2010, category: Software & security

Would you like to have more control over the Web pages you are viewing? Would you like to be able to manage the content per site, disabling annoying or unneeded elements like perhaps certain images, ads or maybe scripts? Well, if you're a Firefox user, you're lucky. You have a whole bunch of extensions that do just that, with Noscript the most fully featured extension overall. But what about other browsers? What if you're running Internet Explorer, Opera, Google Chrome, or another browser? Well, this is where Proxomitron comes in.

Proxomitron is a powerful filtering Web proxy for Windows. Designed for Windows 95, it is still very much alive and kicking, thanks to a vibrant community of smart developers constantly improving the filters, the bread an butter of this program.

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updated January 4, 2010, category: Greatest Sites

Time for some glorious achievements. The Hall of Fame of the finest, greatest websites has just been expanded, with three new candidates, two filed under Humor one listed in the Unique category. We have a site dedicated to cars and humor, can you guess what it is? Then, we have a site dedicated entirely to Germans. And what can two MIT students do when you let them go wild with some camera equipment, Helium and a handful of dollars? Sounds kinky? It very well might be.

Fancy a read? Well, hop by and read about three more excellent online sources, which should keep you entertained, educated, and above all, amazed by their ingenuity and uniqueness. Have fun!

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updated January 2, 2010, category: Software & security

Virtualization is a beautiful, compelling world of software. It's like discovering an alternate reality behind the mirror in your bedroom or a door to another world inside your wardrobe.

Popular virtualization software like VMware Server or VirtualBox should be your top choice for desktop virtualization. The programs are rich and powerful and will do pretty much anything you need or want. They also have friendly, build-in wizard-like utilities that allow you to create new virtual machines quickly and easily.

But what if you want to have even more power over the administration and automation of your virtual machines? What if you're running VMware Player, which cannot create virtual machines? What if you want to tweak advanced settings or use scripts? And what if you're traveling, with your favorite software left behind, and still need to be able to create virtual machines?

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updated January 1, 2010, category: Software & security

Some time ago, I've received quite a few emails and open suggestions in several threads in a few forums I participate, asking, urging and requesting that I test the Turkish Pardus Linux. Having never used it before, I was intrigued by the popular demand and decided to take Pardus for a spin.

Pardus Linux is a distribution developed by the Turkish National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology, and as such, does not instantly fit into the known niches. The distribution aims to be usable out of the box for people with little Linux knowledge. Sounds interesting, especially since I was not able to decipher in advance the pros and cons of the distro. For example, I do not know if Pardus is based on any other distribution and whether the multimedia will play without any extra steps. Makes for a delightful late afternoon.

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updated December 31, 2009

Happy New 2010! The last year of the decade has been an interesting one, with lots of cool things happening. Finacial Crisis, my GSEC certification, a torrent of good reviews and tutorials, you name it. Hey, if you have any special ideas or suggestions, now it's time to make them before Santa's sleigh takes off.

Have a great one, enjoy your life, both for real and online, and hop by for a visit or three when you're in the mood. I'm looking forward to seeing you again in 2010. Happy New Year!

updated December 30, 2009, category: Life topics

I am not talking about skin color, so calm down. I'm talking about the concept of trust, widely used in the software security industry, and projecting it onto human society. For example, is there a reason why different societies have different levels of crime or different levels of wealth? Is there a reason why Internet has become such a great thing, widely used and accepted by the entire world? How does whitelisting or blacklisting impact political and financial stabilities of nations?

Let's try to understand what each concept means:

Blacklisting means you keep a list of items you do not like. One can argue that this is a racist term, so badlisting can be used instead. Anyhow, in the world of software, blacklisting is the de-facto current modus operandi, with security companies providing solutions based on long lists of bad items, whereas implicit trust is given all other items that cannot be found on the list.

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updated December 28, 2009, category: Software & security

What prompted me to write this article was the unveiling of first Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx alphas, the next Ubuntu edition and the upcoming Long Term Support (LTS) release. This article is not just a rant. It's truly an open question.

It all started when I came across a rather interesting article over at ghacks.net, showing off the new Ubuntu looks. Please spend a moment or two reading. Yup, the rumor has it that Lucid Lynx might ship with the new Windows-like looks out of the box. Smoked glass effects like Aero. What?!

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updated December 26, 2009, category: Software & security

When I wrote and published my extensive Ubuntu installation guide, I promised you many more step-by-step installation guides to come. Indeed, I have kept my word. You have had the Windows 7 guide and the new dual-boot guide for Ubuntu and Windows 7. Now, it's time for the openSUSE installation guide.

Currently, openSUSE 11.2 is the latest openSUSE release, which will be the focus of our article today. We will learn how to choose the right edition, download it to our computer, burn the image to a CD/DVD, and then install the distribution to hard disk.

We will do this two times:

The first time, from a full DVD edition, which comes both with Gnome and KDE desktop, where we will default to Gnome desktop, since we have already seen openSUSE 11.2 with KDE in great detail in my review a few weeks ago.

The second time, we will install openSUSE from CD, just like we did in the review. Only this time, we will focus on the installation in much more detail. We will install openSUSE with KDE, after having successfully booted into the live session.

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updated December 25, 2009, category: Software & security

I've been using Ubuntu for the past three and a half years and never really given Xubuntu much thought. Until this review, that is. Xubuntu is a member of the Ubuntu family, furnished with the lightweight Xfce desktop environment, on top of the standard Ubuntu stack. So, that means that it should be as easy and convenient to use as standard Ubuntu, right?

Well, things are not as transparent and obvious as they appear. In today's article, I will show you how Xubuntu fares against its bigger brethren, the Gnome-equipped Ubuntu and KDE-armed Kubuntu, as well as a range of other popular distributions, all come afresh with new editions this autumn. We will work through the live session, dabble in looks and usability, install Xubuntu, use the distro for a while and see how it feels. We will see how simple it is to get to Samba share, use proxy, connect to Internet via Wireless, install proprietary codecs so we can listen to music and watch Flash, test stability, performance and laptop modes, and so forth.

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updated December 23, 2009, category: Software & security

This sounds like a very interesting notion. The popular saying goes, you should never reboot your Linux, unless you have to, which is usually only when a kernel update comes. But maybe not even then?

For home users, the necessary for not rebooting is not really dire. Apart from a 20-seconds nuisance, you are not missing much. But if you are running a mission-critical service like a Web server, a MySQL server or perhaps a firewall machine, then reboots are a pain which you want to avoid.

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updated December 21, 2009, category: Software & security

Being a man of science myself, I am always in pursuit after new ideas and technologies. The Internet has really made this quest easier than ever before. Still, finding high-quality portals of science is not an easy thing. There are many science websites out there, but just like with any other category, you will dismiss most after a fleeting glance, while a select few will draw you in and make you stay.

Finding the right ones takes time and luck - and chance visits to Dedoimedo, where you will find solutions and answers to everything. In this article, I will make the science quest a little easier. If you like science and like reading, then here's a selection of interesting, science-related online sources that you should find useful, enlightening and fun.

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updated December 19, 2009, category: Software & security

Many Windows users feel they need to install and run all sorts of security programs on their system, regardless whether they know how to use these programs, or even worse, respond to real-time alerts, popup messages and notifications presented by these programs. It's a time bomb. Let me explain ...

Windows security is the greatest paradox of all - those who need it can't use it properly and those who can do not need it. Thus, when an average user is given an arbitrary set of tools supposed to him/her safe forever from the perils of the Internet, it's only a matter of time before the user makes the one cardinal mistake and undoes the entire security of his system, so un-meticulously assembled and so blatantly misused.

In this article, I hope to clear away some of the panic fog shrouding the world of Windows security. Furthermore, I hope to provide the Windows users with the most important security tool of all - reason.

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updated December 18, 2009, category: Software & security

Constantine is the name of a mediocre movie starring Keanu Reeves, the name of a few Roman imperators and also the name of the latest Fedora release. After having tested the tsunami of exciting new releases, starting with Ubuntu Karmic Koala and having recently published a Mandriva 2010 article, also known as the Autumn Distro Release Fever (ADRF), it's time for a Fedora review.

Fedora is a very intriguing distribution. It's unto RedHat what Ubuntu is unto Debian, an experimental, unstable branch where the bleeding edge of technology is tested, with you usually being the one that is bleeding. Seriously, Fedora is a distribution that combines all the dangers and thrills of the latest Linux advancements. As such, it is quite popular mainly with intermediate and more advanced users.

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updated December 16, 2009, category: Computer Games

Well, not really a million, but how about tens or hundreds? Good enough for you? Sounds too good to be true? Well, it's not. It'a reality.

Today, we will talk about two extremely useful applications that allow to you search for hundreds of games that run on Linux, sorted by category, popularity, license, or price, read game synopses, check out the screenshots, and then, should you decide that you like some of them, install them with a single mouse click.

Oh, by the way, do you understand what this means? This means that all and any other method of getting Linux games is virtually obsolete. You now have a Steam Valve style programs for Linux, capable of bringing hundreds of great titles to your desktop. Follow me.

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updated December 14, 2009, category: Life topics

Only about 1% of human population is truly deemed violent. It's this 1% that ends up committing 99% of all crimes worth bothering and punishing for. One of the more serious crimes the humanity has labeled is murder. Both from the religious and scientific perspective, taking life is contrary to the prolongation of society, which is why we look so harshly upon murder.

Yet, many of us have, if not in body, then definitely in soul, committed countless murders, while playing computer games of all sorts. In other words, many of us have e-killed. In this article, I will try to quantify the typical kill ratio of an average gamer and see how it reflects upon us as a society. Follow me.

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updated December 12, 2009, category: Software & security

Bombastic titles tend to draw the eye, but trust me, this is more than just a firecracker. Discovering new applications is fun - discovering great new applications is sublime. For people with old, acquired taste, finding new thrills is not easy. But every now and then, you stumble upon a remarkable piece of engineering, which simply blows you away.

Songbird is one such piece. I should not have been surprised; Mozilla people, the fathers and mothers of the famous Firefox, had a big say in its conception; and they know their business when it comes to software. But this time they really did it. The promise that Songbird is going to become the Firefox of music is not an empty one.

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updated December 11, 2009, category: Software & security

They do not really care about your old hardware - this was my first choice for the title, but then I changed it for the sake of clarity. But you must give me credit for attention-efficient pseudo-journalism. I was thinking about a provocative, eye-catching title and this is what I came up with. If you're wondering what the actual rant is going to be about, it's about running modern, popular Linux distributions on old hardware.

The popular saying goes, if you have an old machine somewhere that can no longer possibly run Windows, do not throw it away, Linux will do just fine. This may be true. But there's a catch.

Intrigued by my shameless self-promotion? Do read on.

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updated December 10, 2009, category: Software & security

We have learned how to install Windows 7 and we know how to handle its security. Now, it's time to configure the operating systems to look, feel and behave as we desire.

If your Windows experience stretches beyond one or two Windows latest releases, you will have learned by now that Microsoft people have a nasty habit of rearranging things each time a new edition is launched, making it somewhat difficult for existing users to adapt to new layouts and different notation. This can lead to a good deal of frustration, but worst of all, reduced functionality. And we want to be efficient.

In this guide today, I will show the basic tips in getting your Windows 7 to do the job it's meant to do, without harming the performance or making you relearn the desktop experience from the scratch. We will focus on the common desktop customization and workload balancing and create a better, smarter and frustration-free computing environment for us.

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updated December 7, 2009, category: Software & security

Before we dig into the heart of the matter, let me say that I won't be discussing politics here. There are many technical and pseudo-technical websites that have been orgying around the release of Google Chrome OS, debating the privacy, security and monopoly issues involved, contemplating the Satan's share and Big Brother's parcel in the lot.

I would like to give a not so humble man's perspective on a new Linux-based operating system available, which you may or may not like or may or may not want to use. It's entirely up to you to love, hate or worship Google. You will have to decide whether it's good for you, whether they want to steal your data and kidneys and what you want to do with your netbook. From the purely user-istic perspective, I'll give you a conservative, layman's view on what Google Chrome OS can do.

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updated December 5, 2009, category: Software & security

We rely heavily on our cellphones. We keep critical data stored on them. This data must be backed up often. In Windows, people use all sorts of synchronization suites to backup their cellphone data to hard disk. Most often, these suites are slow, bloated, poorly coded and work only with specific cellphone models. Oh, and they only work in Windows.

What about Linux users? How can Linux users back their cellphone data?

In this tutorial, I will show you how you can backup your mobile devices to hard disk, simply and easily. You will learn how to sync your data, so that if your device gets damaged, you will not lose important information.

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updated December 4, 2009, category: Software & security

Welcome to the GRUB 2 bootloader tutorial! You must have read my GRUB legacy guide. In the last two and a half years, it alone has garnered some half a million views, proving to be quite popular and useful to computer users worldwide.

I want to recreate the same success with my GRUB 2 tutorial. My goal is to provide people running any flavor of UNIX-like operating systems or multi-booting their computers and using GRUB as their bootloader with a simple, no-nonsense, step-by-step, proven and working tutorial that should allow them to quickly, easily and painlessly control the boot sequence of their systems.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to work with GRUB 2, add and remove menu entries, customize titles and boot options, dual-boot and triple-boot operating systems, combine legacy GRUB and GRUB 2, and we will even see how Windows fits into this scheme. After that, we will learn how to recover from errors and mistakes.

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