Archive for June, 2010

Moving to Ubuntu

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

My desktop finally has broken down after 7 years of service. Yes, now I ordered my Ubuntu laptop! Our IT is going to be laptop only and as little Microsoft as possible. I have been annoyed by crashing programs, an operating system that is becoming slower as it gets older and software that thinks it can think for me but can’t. This has taken too long now and I am willing to take a plunge into cold water.

So it was going to be Mac or Linux. My wife was the first one to buy a new laptop and I told her she could choose anything she liked, but that Microsoft would not be supported by me. Surprisingly she chose Ubuntu and not Mac (apparently she didn’t go for sexy, makes me wonder how she ended up with me ;-)) Ubunty is off course also my favourite, because I need my laptop to operate at least 5 years and I do not count on a Mac to operate more than 2 years.

From what I have seen so far Linux has come a long way since I first started experimenting with it somewhere in 1997. Ubuntu 10.4 even looks good (!) and we can do anything we do on the Windows XP Personal desktop. I thought this in fact was not quite true, because there are some programs that are only available for Windows. One example is Aldfaer, a program to maintain your genealogical tree. But then there is Wine! Windows emulator. Aldfaer runs fine now on Ubuntu, though it still thinks it is running on Windows itself. I bet the sofware to program my Logitech Harmony remote control, which is also only available for Windows, will work just fine as well.

Considering al this the water proves to be nice and warm after all. Maybe there even is a water slide…

Complete Ubuntu laptops and desktops can be odered via www.fivemountains.nl

Backspace in Firefox Ubuntu

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

Going to the previous page in Firefox under Ubuntu does not work standard. In your Firefox address bar type “about:config” and filter on “backspace”. Set the value to “0” and backspace takes you to the previous page as you are used to.

Where is the party?

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

The party is always somewhere. You just have to find out where.

Gokje

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Nieuw woord van het jaar 2010: vuvuzela?