Tech and life

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I run a Windows 7 PC, an Ubuntu desktop PC and an Acer netbook with Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10. It’s important to keep my data and services synchronised between them so each machine is up to date with the latest files and cloud services, and so I thought I’d run through the software and services which I currently use:

Google Chrome

This is my browser of choice. You can use Chrome to keep your tabs, bookmarks and extensions synchronised. I’m using Chromium (the open source version of Chrome) on my Ubuntu netbook and Chrome on my Windows desktop and everything syncs just fine. To start syncing between Chrome/Chromium on your different devices, just go to the spanner/wrench icon at the top right of the browser on each of your machines and choose Options then the tab marked Personal Stuff. Click Set up sync and when it’s done you’ll see

At the moment you can choose to keep everything synced or choose to sync any or all of Apps, Autofill, Bookmarks, Extensions, Preferences and Themes.  Doesn’t have password sync yet but I believe this is coming in the next Chrome version. Of course, the Chrome Xmarks extension will also allow automatic synchronization of bookmarks, passwords and open tabs between Windows and Ubuntu machines.
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It’s possible to run a small office/home office (SOHO) set-up with a completely free operating system, software and internet services… but do you? Are there any commercial packages or paid online services you consider ‘must-haves’? I thought I’d quickly run through my paid/free stance and I’d love to hear your thoughts although I don’t think we need to get into a discussion on ‘acquiring’ commercial software for free.

Free operating system

If you run a Linux system, you’ll be familiar with free operating systems and open source software. I run Ubuntu Netbook Edition on my Acer Aspire netbook and I’m just about to try out Linux Mint on my second desktop. What holds me back from completely moving to Linux is my day job where I have to be able to work on Microsoft Word files. More on that later. I’m running Windows 7 on one desktop. Of course in the Windows world, once you’ve bought the OS, you can run a completely free set-up too.

Free software

I run a small office/home office (SOHO) set-up and work from home. Pretty much all the software I use is free or open source. However, I do some work in the publishing sector and they still rely very much on Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. Many authors submit work in Word doc format (rarely docx I find) and authors and publishers usually expect work to be returned in doc format with Track Changes turned on. It’s a real shame that open source software hasn’t really caught on in the publishing field yet. So I have to use Microsoft Office to cope with clients who use commercial software. Yes, you could convert Word doc format to Open Office Writer odt format, turn on track changes in Open Office Writer then convert back to doc format but there’s always a worry that some formatting/changes will be lost in conversion. So for work, I have to use MS Word on my desktop running Windows 7. There’s a good recent discussion on office software, free and commercial, at How-To Geek.

The only other paid software I use on my Windows system is an old copy of Serif PagePlus for DTP and Serif PhotoPlus for photo editing. I haven’t upgraded these in years – the old copies I have are just fine. But a quick look on the AlternativeTo website shows that I could move to Scribus as a free alternative for DTP and there are lots of free alternatives (software and online services) for photo editing.

But for many working from home on a Windows system, I’m sure it’s possible to find all you need if you look at free software alternatives and online services. By the way, I don’t believe it’s necessary to pay for security software either. If you’re running a Window system, Microsoft Security Essentials is free for you and is probably all you need for real-time protection. If you’re running a Linux system, you probably don’t need any antimalware software.

Free services

Every online service I use is free…so far, although I don’t expect it to remain that way in the future. We’ve had it good so far. Like many of you I’m sure, I use a good spread of Google apps. Yes, they’re free but the downside is targeted ads, which I don’t mind, and the knowledge that they’re building up a fair old archive of information on you. So I try to use good alternatives to Google services when I can.

So over to you. Do you use a free OS? Is there any commercial software you must have on your Windows system? What about online services – anything you’re paying for? Drop a comment below.

Do you pay for software and online services is a post from Tech and Life. If you’re reading it in full elsewhere, it’s been copied without consent. Please go to Tech and Life to read the original post and many others in the archive.

I’ve already done a post on Ubuntu and Linux blogs for beginners so I thought I’d round up some great resources for those starting out with Linux. I’ll do a follow-up post on Ubuntu Resources for Beginners a little later. I haven’t included many blogs here where posts are put up regularly, only if they’ve mentioned a good resource in a blog post. Mostly these are just Linux reference/resource sites with tutorials, guides, howtos, forums, etc.

General Linux resources

Maximum PC: The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Linux

Linux frequently asked questions for newbies

Get to know Linux: Terminology

Linux Migration Guide: Finding Linux Equivalents to Your Favorite Windows Programs

Best resources for Linux

Best Web Resources for Linux

Helpful Linux URLs

Linnewbies

Layman Linux

NewLinuxUser

Linux Home Networking

17 Essential Linux Resources That You Shouldn’t Miss

10 of the Best Online Resources for Linux Beginners

tuXfiles – the Linux newbie help files, tutorials and tips

Tuxfreaks: Tips for Linux Beginners (1st part in an ongoing series)

Linux for Beginners

Linux User Groups

Top 10 Linux Support Questions & Answers

Hardware for Linux: look up and report hardware compatibility and incompatibility with Linux distros

How to be Your Own Linux Tech Support

Linux cheat sheets

All the best Linux cheat sheets

10 Essential UNIX/Linux Command Cheat Sheets

Linux-Unix Cheat Sheets -  The Ultimate Collection

Linux command line

I know, this is a post for beginners so why’s he mentioning the command line? Don’t be afraid of the command line. You can get a lot of useful things done there quite quickly once you get the hang of it.

Linux command line directory

Introduction to Linux Commands

LinuxConfig

20 Useful Linux Commands

The 10 most useful Linux commands

Common Linux Commands

Highly Useful Linux Commands and Configurations

FLOSS Manuals

Linux ebooks

A Newbie’s Getting Started Guide to Linux

Top Nine Free Linux EBooks for Newbie

10 Free Linux Ebooks for Beginners

5 Excellent Downloadable eBooks to Teach Yourself Linux

The Linux Cookbook

Introduction to Linux – A Hands On Guide

Linux Forums

LinuxQuestions.org

Linux Forums

Linux Home Networking

Linux howtos and tutorials

The Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide

HowtoForge

5 Best Places to Learn Linux – Linux Tutorial Sites

5 Great Linux Tutorials

Linux Knowledge Base and Tutorial

Linux for Beginners Free Online Guides and Tutorials

ReallyLinux

Linux software

Softpedia

SourceForge

LinuxSoftware.org

Reference Guide to Finding, Installing and Running Linux Applications

Linux podcasts

Unfortunately, there isn’t much choice for beginners and intermediate users. Many Linux podcasts are quite geeky and just not aimed at beginners. These are probably the best around at the moment

Going Linux

Linux User Podcast

Linux magazines

LINUX Format This is the best I’ve seen for anyone just starting out with Linux through to more advanced users.

Twitter

Twitter accounts about Linux and free software

I’m sure I’ve missed many important Linux sites here. Just drop a comment below with any you’ve come across and I’ll add them.

Laptops and more recently netbooks have made us increasingly able to take our digital life on the road. I bought a netbook back in January but as I work from home, I don’t get much chance to go mobile. However, holidays are coming up this week and we’re all off to the west of Ireland. So I’m taking my Acer Aspire One netbook + Easy Peasy Linux with me, not to work, but to try and keep in touch with the tech blogs and hopefully to fire off the occasional tweet.

Problem is, I know there isn’t broadband where I’m staying in Ireland. I’m going to have to look out for wifi hotspots in cafes and bars in the area but I just don’t know how widespread they are yet down Ireland’s west coast. Googling and hotspot locator websites don’t seem to bring up many in the right areas for me. Guess I’ll soon find out.

So I may only be able to connect up say 2 or 3 times in 2 weeks and even then perhaps not for long. So what’s the best solution here to keep in touch? Googling ‘offline browsing’ bring up lots of possibilities but perhaps the most useful to me is Google Gears, particularly as there’s a Linux version for my netbook.

This will allow me to fetch the latest 2000 RSS items to Google Reader when I have a connection and browse through them later in offline mode. When I ran a test of what’s being downloaded by Gears, I noticed that for me, this seems to fetch about a week’s worth of posts. It’s a pity that there isn’t more control on this as I would have liked to fetch a few months worth to be able to browse back through stuff I’d bookmarked but hadn’t really had a chance to read.

So what about the occasional miserably wet days when it’s not possible to venture out into the great outdoors and you’re stuck without a connection? Well, I found this program called HTTrack, again with a Linux version, which allows you to download whole websites to your netbook to browse offline.

Installation was a breeze on the netbook. Just go to the terminal and type:

apt-get update
apt-get install webhttrack

Great, so I’ve picked out three or four great Ubuntu websites which I’ve discovered recently and downloaded them so now I can browse way back to my heart’s content and look at all the earlier posts offline.

So hopefully the combination of Google Reader+Gears and HTTrack will be able to feed my digital addiction while on holiday. What programs do you have on your netbook or laptop for offline browsing and keeping in touch on the road or on holidays? Am I missing anything useful here?

How do you discover great new blogs and content online? Well of course you can use your RSS reader, Delicious, Stumbleupon, follow links in tweets, or recommendations that a friend has emailed to you. But what about one-off posts from smaller blogs that may be of interest but which you’re missing? You could search for the keywords you’re interested in on Twitter. I blogged about this earlier. Or try subscribing to your topic of interest on Digg. I discovered this recently and it’s a great way to discover new content.

As some of you know, I’m starting out with Ubuntu at the moment and am trying to learn as much as I can from reading content online. I’ve subscribed to a number of Ubuntu and Linux blogs in my RSS reader but I’ve found it’s also really useful to subscribe to upcoming diggs in the Linux/Unix topic under Technology. There’s a button in the top left (not shown in the figure below) which allows you to subscribe to this category in your reader.

Many bloggers submit their latest Linux posts to digg and you’ll find a wide variety of content here ranging from how-to’s to reviews of Linux applications. A lot of it doesn’t get picked up by the larger tech blogs or by Twitter so it’s worth doing. Of course, you don’t have to subscribe to upcoming Linux diggs – pick whatever takes your fancy and add it to your RSS reader.

So how do you discover new content? I’d love to hear about it. Drop a comment below.

I usually try and go for a walk in nearby woods at the weekend for some exercise. We had some snow here a few days back and the main track through the wood (at the bottom of the picture above) was quite slushy today with footprints everywhere. But what I noticed was that, in quite a few places, people had obviously ventured off on unmarked narrow tracks here and there. It was only because of the tracks in the snow that I realized people had been trailblazing and discovering new routes through the woods. I took a mental note and decided to try some of these tracks on future walks.

But this got me thinking. Some people are trailblazers in tech too. Boldly going were no man has gone before, so to speak. By a coincidence, the podcast I was listening to as I walked through the woods was Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott. It struck me that he is one of the trailblazers in tech, constantly working with and writing about new developments in Windows, and currently focusing on Windows 7. I find he always talks with great authority on Windows and imparts great advice and tips in this podcast. Well worth subscribing to. I always take careful note of his advice and try to follow as best I can. Incidentally, he has been talking about ‘doing more with less’  lately. His tip in WW94 is simplify, simplify, simplify and I really must follow his advice. I confess, I am a bit of a packrat, and have finally made a decision to ‘let go’ a lot of the ‘baggage’ I’ve carried from years gone by. And clear a lot of software from my PC that I never use. It’s time for a big clear out.

So who are my other tech trailblazers?  People I sit up and listen to when they speak and whose advice I try and follow. Well I can think of two others. The first would be Carey Holzman from Computer America. I’ve talked about Carey before in an earlier post. The second would be Knightwise; again I’ve mentioned him before – been listening to his podcasts for a couple of years now and his trailblazing in Linux has got me started with this OS. Knightwise tells you ‘how to tune technology into your everyday life and let tech work for you’. Hopefully with his advice, over this year I’ll be able to take my Linux Ubuntu install up to and beyond what I currently have with Windows XP. I’ve been on the Windows trail for about 20 years now and I’m looking forward to exploring further along the Linux trail.

So who are your tech trailblazers, or indeed life trailblazers? Whose at the cutting edge of tech? Whose words do you eagerly listen to and whose advice do you gladly follow because you know it’s sound advice. I’d love to know. Drop me a comment below.

I’ve blogged earlier about how I tried Ubuntu 7.04 last year. It installed fine but I couldn’t get online as it was only configured for WEP protocol and my wireless router is set to WPA. Yes I know I could have probably solved it given time by searching and asking online but I figured that just shouldn’t be necessary. If Linux is to be a viable alternative to Windows, it should install without a hitch – indeed, it should be easier than a Windows install.

So with that in mind, a few days after Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex was released, I downloaded it to try again with some trepidation and not a little excitement. Was this to be the release where for me, Linux becomes a real alternative? Again I was determined that the install should be intuitive and I shouldn’t have to resort to online forums to sort out any problems.

Downloading from a UK mirror was fine on my slow (1MB) broadband connection. Took 1h 50 min. But that was okay. I let it work away during my lunch break and then into the afternoon. I burned the iso file to a CD using CDBurnerXP – that took 4 minutes.

I have a couple of removable hard drives on my old (back-up) PC. Windows XP on one drive and Ubuntu 7.04 on another. So I’ll just wipe away my old Ubuntu 7.04 install. No problem, I’ll just boot off the Linux CD and then reformat. Booted up fine to the GNOME desktop. I wondered if I could get online from the Live CD. Gave it a try. I clicked the Connect icon at the top right. As before, Ubuntu recognized my wireless Zoom router but this time gave me the option to enter my WPA passphrase. Yes I thought. We’re away this time. Sure enough after entering the passphrase I was connected. I fired up Firefox and confirmed that I was indeed online.

So far so good. Now to install Ubuntu on the hard disk. I booted up again from the Live CD and picked the option to ‘Install Ubuntu‘. When I got to the repartition menu, the choice for me was either keep the 7.04 install and add 8.10 in two partitions or to create a new single partition with 8.10. I couldn’t see an option to wipe 7.04 and install 8.10 in two partitions. So I went for the single partition. Anyway it’s only a test install. If I’ve messed up I’ll just reinstall again.

So I went ahead with the option Guided – Use entire disk, and Ubuntu installed flawlessly in 50 minutes. Again, I entered my WPA passphrase and I was online without a hitch. I grabbed the latest Ubuntu updates and that’s where I am at the moment. Quite painless really and having been through it, I know I can easily reinstall in less than an hour if I’ve messed up. In fact, all in all, it was easier than a Windows install so I urge anyone out there interested in switching to Linux to give Intrepid Ibex a try.

I hope to blog about Ubuntu now and again and let you know how I’m getting on. The burning question really is do I move eventually to Windows 7 from XP or can I take the fork in the road which says Linux?

Feel free to comment if you think I could have done things differently with this install.

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• A User’s Look at Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex [Ubuntu]

Well 12 posts down and no mention of Apple or Mac or Linux. Not good. Doubtless there are people surfing over here and who are dismayed (or stronger) to discover yet another PC oriented tech blog. I’m genuinely sorry. I better give a word of explanation and justification.

I really first came into contact with computers in the mid-80s when in college in the UK. I used the VAX mainframe there to produce some maps, diagrams and for word processing. In 1988, I wanted to get a computer to do the same things at work and by now Macs and PCs were really hitting the marketplace. The major factor in my decision to buy a PC and not a Mac at that time was the off-the-shelf third party map making software available for it which I needed for working with spatial data. So I bought a PC, learned how to use it, rescue it, upgrade it, and stuck with it. I’ve really nothing against Macs believe me. It’s just the Mac’s price and the PCs range of applications and upgradability which have been major factors for me through the years. Macs are perfectly adequate platforms, particularly for creative and graphical work. Indeed they’re probably a better choice for many people and are probably more reliable. Problem is they are premium products at premium prices. I’d really like to own one and perhaps one day I will. In fact, it would be nice to chart cross-platform computing on this blog.

Yes the observant readers will be saying but you haven’t mentioned Linux either. Well I tried Ubuntu last year. It installed fine but I just couldn’t get online. Seemed it wanted a WEP encrypted wireless network and I had WPA. There was a workaround mentioned on various forums but I just hadn’t the time to sort it out and it didn’t seem like an easy fix to me. I’ll try again with the new Ubuntu 8.10 release at the end of October (Intrepid Ibex) and hopefully document how I get on.

I wonder if the whole PC-Mac-Linux polarity is just becoming less important these days. Seems to me that computing is increasingly just about getting online to work in the cloud or communicate on social networks – and you can do that from any platform. They’re all increasingly just platforms getting you to a goal.

Photo credit: redjar