Be warned, this post is entirely about Linux and my plans for world domination.

Hurray! Feodora 7 is officially out.  I have already upgraded; hence the reason my site (and the other sites I host) were down last night and a bit this morning.  Everything is pretty nice and streamlined.  Now we’ll see if my parents like it

I had an idea that Linux is particularly well suited at the moment for two sets of people (however it is becoming the best choice of OS for anybody at all).  These two sets of people are on opposite sides of the computing spectrum.  They are “heavy users who also know a lot about computers” and “new or basic computer users who don’t necessarily know much about them.”  The first is obvious, but I think the second case is especially true as well.  What do basic users want from a PC?  They want to browse the web, send/receive email, do word processing,  save and organize information, share photos, watch movies etc… These are all things that Open Source Software (OSS) can do better than closed source software (think firefox) with the added benifit of it being free!  Additionally, what these people don’t want is spyware, viruses, advertisements and rip offs (which they will certainly get if they are new and using Windows no matter how diligent because that is simply the way Windows works.).  To be honest, the only type of user that I think would not be better off in Linux right now even is the gamer.  Gaming can be done in Linux, but high end 3D games are “somewhat” of a pain to get working – though, I do it all the time with cedega.  But, even applications like photoshop run quite easily and well now through wine and crossover office.

Anyway, the point of all that is to say I am going to build my parents a PC with Linux on it that I will administer from here to keep it up to date (something that would be extremely difficult if not impossible with Windows).  We’ll see how it goes – perhaps a side venture could be started in the future.

hmm, a bit extreme?:

‘”new Harry Potter book is being printed in eastern Germany amid Cold War-style secrecy,” and more dramatically, that workers “are forced to work in total DARKNESS to stop them reading the book, out July 21.”‘

I am pretty sure someone exaggerated in that report.

Also, there is a funny thread to read here.

I took a long walk today around some Berkeley neighborhoods, swinging by the tree sitting protesters, the Berkeley rose garden (which is amazing full bloom) and Holy Hill, home of the Pacific Theological School). It is nice to spend a day recognizing how beautiful the place you live is. I took a walk to the Berkeley marina a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot to bring my camera. This will be remedied soon. Anyway, you can see all the pics from today here.

MJ

Dell Ubuntu