How Many Ways Can You Break Your Computer?

Sorting through my favorites list, I found one of my favorite sites (fancy that) which I figure some of you might enjoy.

Happy Laughing

Alternative Operating Systems: Linux

Linux has been a large news topic lately in the IT world. Linux is an opensource (free) operating system (like Windows/MacOS) that runs on just about any modern hardware. It is commonly found in routers and other "appliances". The Tivo is another Linux based device that many people have. Beside these embedded applications, Linux makes a great, very stable and reasonably fast desktop operating system. The problem is that unless you have some sort of Unix background, it can be hard to get started. A number of companies have tried to make Linux easier to use and install but work still needs to be done. As an alternative to windows, Ubuntu, SUSE or Linspire are among the easiest to install. The problem is that most people aren't ready to just give up Windows, so would prefer a dual boot setup. This is doable by just about any Linux distribution but you may need to know what you are doing. For playing around you can use a Linux boot cd (sometimes called a live-cd) such as knoppix but since cd/dvd drives are slow compared to hard drives, you will need some patience and a lot of memory. The last approach is a relatively new (at least to me) Linux flavor called Topologilinux which comes with a installer which is run from windows. It doesn't require you to reformat/repartition your hard drive like the others do, instead installing to an image file on your windows hard drive. Topologilinux can then be booted either from a bootloader (most dangerous, I wouldn't install it), from the bootable install cd or run in a colinux emulator. The colinux approach will be slow but it allows you to try Linux without even shutting down Windows. While I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, one of my friends is going to try it today, and it looks good from the website and some preliminary investigation on my part. If your curious about Linux, go download it, burn it to a dvd or a couple cds and give it a try.

Flash Memory

Well, three posts today, I guess I am enjoying this too much.

I have a warning for you:

As I was reminded today by the death of the SD memory card I use in my pocket pc, flash memory is very fragile. Memory Cards have a limited number of write cycles they can handle, and when you exceed that number, chances are the card is dead. They also corrupt very easily.

The moral of this story is, backup your memory cards if you are using them in a computer like me. If you are using them in a digital camera, download your camera to your computer regularly. Don't just leave your pictures on the card and buy a new one (people actually do, do this pretty often, walmart markets some of their SD cards as digital "film"). As with everything, Have a recent backup. (I was bad and had only a very old backup, oh well)

Music Suggestions

As posted on slashdot, the music genome project has released a tool to recommend music based on what you like to listen to. It didn't work too well for me, but I listen to weird music and the server is under heavy load right now, so go give it a try. It runs right in your web browser, and costs nothing.

Check it out here:
http://www.pandora.com/

Enjoy

Word Processing

This is something that irks me continuously. People who have a perfectly good, very powerful word processor, that insist on using spaces to indent, manually doing outlines/numbering, that sort of thing. This is all well and good, until you try to print on different sized paper, or make a change (like adding a new line, or more words), which will almost definitely cause everything to break. This forces you to redo all the formatting, which takes forever. This is why word processors have these features! to take some of the load off you. Even the post interface for this blog has most of these basic features.
So, some basic tips (these can and should be extended to other word processing tasks, but these are the ones I most commonly see):

1. People who tab with spaces. There is a key for this, for some odd reason, labeled "tab". In many word processors there is also an indent option. The size of the indent/tab can usually be controlled in the options (if you can't find it, look in the help file).
2. People who outline by hand. Rather than trying to number lists/outlines by typing every number, try the outline function. Its usually found in the tools or formatting menu, just click it. Depending on your word processor, you may even be able to choose what symbols/numbers/roman numerals, etc to use. Otherwise when you add a new line in the middle of a list, you have to fix all the numbers, if you use the outline tools, the word processor will deal with this for you.
3. People who don't use spell check. If you are an English professor this is acceptable, but if not use spell check. It usually makes your writing more readable. Just be sure you know what word you are picking, and it is the one you want. If your not sure, go look it up. Dictionary.com has a good online dictionary (and thesaurus for that matter)

There is also no reason not to have a word processor (no wordpad doesn't count). There are two great, fully featured, free word processors available (actually there are a lot more but these are the best).

1. Abiword which can be found at http://www.abisource.org/
2. Openoffice.org which can be found at (no surprise) http://www.openoffice.org/. Openoffice is actually an entire office suite, with equivalents to powerpoint (presentation) and excel (spreadsheet). It needs a bit faster a computer than abiword, but should still run on most computers. I recommend getting the 2.0 version. When asked, it doesn't matter which mirror you choose, but in the US I find that "pair" is pretty fast.
   

Hope this helps some of you.

Phishing

Slashdot is carrying an interesting story this afternoon about Phishing ("Phishermen" send emails that seem to come from legit companies, asking for personal information). The article claims that only 4% of internet users can detect a Phishing scam all the time. This is PITIFUL. It really isn't that hard, so I am going to make a couple suggestions:

1.) Watch for things out of the ordinary! Never give excessive personal information without reason. Why would a bank, where you don't have an account need personal info? Why would amazon need your SSN?

2.) Watch out for links that don't point where they should. Phishing works by fooling you into visiting a 3rd party website, so some of the links will be wrong. Look for addresses not from the correct domain (like ebay.com). You can often tell where a link points by holding your mouse over it and looking in the status bar (every email client & web browser is different).

3.) Watch for typos. When was the last time a real company had lots of spelling errors in a publication?

When you do find a phishing attempt, forward it to the company it claims to be from so they can warn people (most online companies have an address for the purpose)

You can find the original articles here:
http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3566071
And here:
http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/11/28/2239217.shtml?tid=172&tid=218

Well, I am typing this on a handheld, so enough ranting for now.

12/29/05 4:14 PM EST: Edited to make the links clickable

Open Source Software for Windows

I came across this link in a signature over on the gentoo forums. It has a very good, pretty all inclusive, list of opensource software for windows. Many people don't even know about opensource so I thought this might be useful.
Enough chat,
Go Check it Out!

Games

Well, to take a break from my math homework, I figured I would comment on the state of gaming:

If your not into FPS games (me), then you really don't have too many multiplayer options. The Age of Empires series is great, but the new versions are not improving (and have some pretty hefty system requirements). If anything Age of Empires 3 is worse (the whole home world thing reduces the fairness of multiplayer games by giving players who have played longer advantages) than the old versions. While I'm highly addicted to Age of Empires 2 (with the expansion), I would also like to find another good RTS for some variety. Empire Earth 2 is a potential candidate (and I have been meaning to play the demo), but a free alternative would be even better... Quite a while ago I tried a game called Globulation. I went and looked it up again (portage has been keeping it updated) and it looks like they have added networking code, and it is now quite playable. Globulation 2 is definitely worth a look, and can be found here. It is somewhat similar to Age of Empires but there are only a couple types of units and there is no micromanaging, you just assign so many units to a task and some nearby units (if they are boored) get to it. Glest, is another free RTS thats worth keeping track of, but it is only barely playable right now and has no multiplayer support.
The other alternative, if you don't like RTS there are a number of very good, open source, turn based strategy games, like Wesnoth and Freeciv (usually found at freeciv.org but the site seems to be down right now).

CPU Heat

Maybe I am too easily amused, but HackADay has a good example of how heat is getting to be a huge problem in modern computers.

HackADay is one of the few blogs I actually read regularly, and publishes "hacks" regularly. Now many of you probably think of a hack as a break-in on a network, but to many people, hacking is the process of making something do more than it was intended to, and can be quite fun as well as a good way to save a little money sometimes. In programming "hackers" are people who code with out much planning and organization

Enjoy the article!

Free Driving info and Itunes Credit?

Ford has a free driving information site, for those of us who are just learning. While right now the quiz is being "updated" techbargains.com claims that they are giving away credit for the Itunes music store if you do well.
Even if they are no longer giving away music a little extra information never hurts, right?

The site is here: http://www.drivingskillsforlife.com/elearn_menu.asp

Virtual Private Networking With OpenVPN

As promised, I wrote an OpenVPN HOWTO and posted it on my website (It's pretty long). It is written in reference to online gaming but should apply to most any vpn application. I also included some background for those of you who are not familiar with Virtual Private Networking.

Enjoy, and as always, I appreciate feedback.

On a Side Note I am pretty open to Age Of Empires Games (at least when I have some free time) So if anyone wants to challenge me feel free to email
More about me can be found here (I haven't bothered to figure out how to edit my blogger profile)

Voice Over IP

Well, I guess I like the blogger interface, so, while I am sitting here bored waiting for assorted video editing operations to complete, I give you my first real post (not to mention run on sentence):

I have been playing with VoIP (voice over IP) software for quite awhile to dodge long distance phone charges with some talkative relatives. Lately some new projects have been maturing, making things more interesting. For best results, you will want a reasonably fast computer and a good headset (a normal microphone will work but you will have an echo off your speakers unless you use headphones). The quality of your headset will greatly affect the overall audio quality. Most of the best VoIP programs are based on the sip protocol allowing you to use your own client if you want (maybe I will go over some of those later). As an alternative to software phones, hardware sip clients (linksys makes a router that you can plug standard phones into) can be used, replacing the computer completely.

Anyway, on to the different services:

Free world dialup is among the older, free VoIP services. I have been using it for quite awhile and it is my service of choice. One of the biggest advantages is that it allows you to use the client and codecs of your choice, allowing people on older systems to use it. Unfortunately, it is also among the most difficult to configure. Configuration is done by either using the pulver communicator client (I haven't tried it) or using your own sip client. The directions for doing this can be difficult to find on the new website so you will want to look here after signing up for a number on the front page. I strongly recommend the xlite client which can be downloaded for the three major oses here. At this point you just have to install xlite, fill in the values from the configuration guide (use the settings button in xlite) and try it out.
Start by calling 613 (type 613 and press the green button, just like on your cell phone) which is an echo tester (it repeats what you say). From there you can look at this pagefor some other test numbers or call another user. Toll free land line numbers are free (for 1800 numbers, put an * in front of the number you are calling). If you want to interact with the landline telephone network, the easiest thing to do is buy a phone card and call its 1800 number from your free world dialup softphone. If you explore the website further, you will find voicemail settings and peering numbers (more on these later). Many of the other features mentioned for the other services are also available, depending on the client you use.

Skype is another, less standards based service that has been taking the internet by storm. Skype has clients for all the major desktop operating systems (Linux/Windows/OSX) as well as a Pocket Pc client. Unfortunately, the windows client only supports the more recent NT based versions (but some versions do run on 98, see the forum for more info). Whatever client you use, you will need at least a 400 mhz celeron class machine. Setup is simple, just download the client from their downloads section and install it. The first time you run the client it will prompt you to make an account. I find that the audio quality is pretty good, but that since it is a P2P (peer to peer) based program, your contacts don't always show up as online. The client also requires you to authorize any new contacts, a procedure which can sometimes be troublesome. For a fee, skype can connect to the normal telephone network to send and receive calls. It also supports conference calls. The pocket pc client seems to work well (unlike most of the generic pocket pc sip clients), but is a bit slow even on my 624 mhz Axim. Skype claims to work over dialup but I haven't had good luck with this.

Project Gizmo is a relative of sipphone, run by the ceo of linspire. In the last few months it has matured greatly. The windows version works very well and the audio quality is great. The Linux version is a bit behind but has been become usable recently. Like skype, setup is very simple, just install the client and make an account the first time you run it. The nice thing about gizmo (as opposed to skype) is that it is still sip based. While you get a nice instant messenger like name, you can also get a number that can be used to peer with other networks (like free world diaup). Gizmo's peering numbers can be found here. Like skype, gizmo users can interact with the normal telephone network for a fee. Currently new members get 25 cents worth of credit to call normal telephones (just type a phone number in the box at the top of the UI and press the green call button).

Stanaphone is another sip based service, similar to Free World Dialup. There are preconfigured clients (based on sjphone) for Windows and recent Pocket PC operating systems, or you can use your own SIP client based on the setting given to you after logging in to the website. Before downloading the client, be sure to register and get a phone number on the website. The real advantage to Stanaphone over the others is that you get a free phone number that can be called from the normal telephone networks (you can choose from one of several area codes). Incoming calls and faxes from any phone are free, as are calls with in the stanaphone network, and calls to free landline numbers like 1800 numbers (for computer to computer calls you get a separate number to comply with the new 911 regulations). For diaup users, stanaphone supports some codecs that should allow VoIP even over dialup, although you will need to install them your self (there are some guides in the community forums).

Gmail Talk, is a light weight, jabber based instant messaging client that works with your gmail account and supports voice. It seems to work very well, and "sort of" works over dialup (maybe people with better phone lines would do better). The UI is very clean, and presents you with the option to call or instant message without all the extras of the other options. Unfortunately, it doesn't support communication with other phone networks right now and doesn't work with very many operating systems. That said it is still worth a look. If you need a gmail invite to try it out, feel free to email me.

YAK, is a new service that has only been around a few weeks (to my knowledge). I haven't tested it yet but it offers video along with audio. It looks to me like they are using some form of Xlite or Xpro for a client. Unfortunately, they want absurdly fast computers on both ends (1.7 ghz).

Something to keep in mind is that, if you pick one of the sip based services, almost all of them peer to most of the other major networks, allowing you to call your friends that use free world dialup from gizmo and vice verse (also applies to a huge number of other services). Look around on the website of whatever service you prefer for numbers to call other services (usually a couple digits in front of number you want to call).

For the gamers out there (me included), you might want to look at teamspeak. Teamspeak is a client/server voice program targeted at gamers. One user must setup a server (not hard) and the others just need to download the client and connect to your server. There are also some public servers. From a client's point of view, teamspeak does work over dialup and tunnels over vpns well. If you want more info on how to set it up, complain in the comments and I will see what I can do (it doesn't really fit well with this article)

Many of you may have noticed that all the major instant messaging protocols now support voice and video. In my experience it doesn't work well (if at all) so you are better off going with a dedicated voice service. It is worth noting that MSN's video service works even with a voice conversation using free world dialup over my slowish dsl connection. I have not been able to make the msn audio service work.

Feel free to comment. I am not sure of how detailed I should be since I don't have a preexisting audience yet. Please let me know of any errors also. The next post will probably be on Virtual Private Networks.

Well, First post. This is mostly to satisfy some of my curiosity about these blog services, for now, but maybe I will start posting for real at some point in the future (as I get more annoyed with the limitations of my current website setup). I'm still thinking about a name so the current one is very temporary. We will just have to see how it goes, maybe I will announce this sometime in the future and take it more seriously.