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Category: Tech

Windows Free!

Published by Will Chatham on 2/11/2006

I got fed up. Fed up with a bogged down operating system. I got tired of viruses, spyware, licenses, etc etc etc.

Tonight I made the switch.

No, not to Apple. To Linux. Full-time, full-on Linux. Ubuntu, to be exact.

Within two hours I was up and running a smooth desktop, playing music from my iTunes library, browsing with Firefox, checking all my email in Thunderbird, and enjoying the feeling of being free from Windows.

The remarkable thing is that almost all of my USB devices work. My webcam does not, but a quick lookup found a tutorial on setting it up. Transferring all of my files was easy too. I just mounted my WinXP hard drive and whammo – it’s all accessible.

It’s still very early to tell how well I will adjust to this in my day-to-day working environment at home, so I will report back here on the matter in a week or two.

Free Software Utilities Update

Published by Will Chatham on 2/1/2006

My favorite registry-cleaning tool EZCleaner is no longer free. Well, you now have to subscribe to their web site to download the ‘free’ software. However, I found a couple of great utilities that easily take its place. So without further ado, here is my updated list of free Windows utilities software that everyone should use:

  • CCleaner – cleans the registry, cleans up sloppy software.
  • WinASO RegDefrag 2.0 – Defragments the registry, compacts it and optimizes it. Run this after running CCleaner above.
  • WinPatrol – Let Scotty the watchdog monitor your system for applications trying to add themselves to your Startup. Works great.
  • AVG Antivirus – Free virus protection. Smooth, lean, and mean. Not bloated and slow like Norton or McAfee.
  • SpyBot Search & Destroy – Eliminate spyware.
  • 7-Zip – Like Winzip, but free and without annoying registration notices.
  • Foxit PDF Reader – We all know it takes Acrobat about 3 hours to launch, if it doesn’t lock up your system. Try Foxit instead.

Know of anything I missed? Leave your comments.

The Fall of the Roman Empire

Published by Will Chatham on 1/23/2006

I made the prediction a few months ago that the beginning of the end has already started for Microsoft. They have shot themselves in the foot too many times, and others are picking up the slack. Linux will only play a partial role. Google, Apple, Mozilla, and the open source movement are the driving factors behind the falling giant.

This article has a lot of good points as to why they have already started tumbling:

* Financial growth has slowed and its stock price remains flat
* It missed the trends in Internet search and music download
* It’s still fighting anti-trust in Europe and Asia
* AOL instant messaging continues to dominates the IM landscape
* The verb for searching on the Internet is Google
* Alternatives exist to Microsoft’s core business

Add to that the fact that Windows Vista won’t be debuted until the end of the year (if that), and we see ample time for the recent trends to develop. Google OS, anyone?