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As stated on the preceeding page, I just got through a teaching/learning experience by giving a course on computer basics to a group of students here on Manitoulin through Cambrian College.
I have to admit that it was my first time at the front of a classroom other than years and years ago when Christian Brothers called me up to the front of the class for a demonstration of corporal punishment. It was rather refreshing not having to bend over and have a goaltenders hockey stick applied to my bottomside.

Advanced Windows Care - Update Available: One of the security tools I tout here is this application. There is a new version available with a slightly different name and a whole lot of new features. The folks who make this freebie available may have gone too far. A good application is one that does one thing and does it well - this new version takes on a broad range of problems all under one umbrella. I'll have to wait to see if this has taken anything away from the overall package. As this tutorial/help page is for beginners, I have to emphasize that you can really screw up your computer if you go wild with your registry. BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING "registry-related" RUN ERUNT which backs up the registry and gives you the opportunity to revert to the previous registry if you have "gone too far" in your desire to clean up your registry. When installing this one you will install the Yahoo toolbar and make Yahoo your default search engine if you don't untick those options. Note that Erunt needs an XP operating system so you Win98 folks need not try using it.

Anti-Virus - I Jumped Ship: For as long as I can remember I have been using Grisoft's AVG for my anti-virus application, but that has changed - hey, you gotta go elsewhere when you find something that irks you about an application. Older versions of AVG had a feature that I liked. I could direct all my downloads to be checked by my anti-virus app so the procedure was automated. I also appreciated the fact that I could see this happening right in front of me and being such a stickler on security - I felt a lot more confident I was not downloading trouble. When AVG stopped me from doing this I started looking around. I tried Avira and then Avast and settled for Avast on my production machine. I'm running Antvir on two other systems that I have on a network - I'll get to them some day. Avast also does not allow me to automate my virus check, but I'll stick with it until something better comes along. I work on a lot of local people's computers and I'm currently recommending they go with Avast. One feature I find good about Avast is the way they do their updates. Some of the folks I help out are on dialup so they don't leave their computers on overnight - they can't have their updates run at four in the morning as so many of us do. So when these folks power on their machine Avast does the update in the background on boot up without them having to worry about trying to maintain a schedule. These are the folks that get infected as their definitions are not up to date.

Ubuntu ? You Betcha !: Anyone who has been around personal computers for a time has probably come to the same conclusion I have. And we're not alone - governments of foreign countries are gradually dumping Microsoft for open source alternatives. The latest I've heard about is Vietnam who has instructed its various agencies to switch from Microsoft applications to open source applications such as Firebird, Thunderbird, Open Office and the like. The next step for them will be replacing their Microsoft operating systems to Linux. Back here on Manitoulin I've had a copy of Linux on a spare computer for some time - it was my intention to get off my duff and learn Linux and not be reliant on The Folks At Microsoft who keep throwing out newer and "less improved" operating systems out every other year. You know if you have read my writings that I abhor Windows Vista and I have no intention of moving on in the neverending upgrades of Microsoft OS's - I'm sticking with Windows XP until I make the jump to Linux. Having said that, I was pleasantly suprised to read the following whilst browsing a linux website: The 10 Coolest Open Source Products Of 2008 - http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/ Ubuntu 8.04 A big difference between Windows and Ubuntu (besides that Ubuntu is free) is that Canonical, which oversees Ubuntu's development, provides new releases every six months. With Ubuntu 8.04, also known as "Hardy Heron," Canonical will provide support and updates through 2011 -- making it its "LTS" (long-term support release.) It's also the first Ubuntu OS that provided rich support for Wubi -- a Windows-based installer that writes the entire Ubuntu OS as a file on a Windows machine. With Wubi, there is no partitioning of the disk drive, so Ubuntu can be installed onto an existing Windows machine without losing any data. Just as Boot Camp brought the Mac to Windows users, users interested in Linux but uncomfortable about losing legacy Windows apps now have a painless option at their fingertips. I've known for some time that you can run Linux several different ways:      •  run it from a cd (run speed is hampered)      •  dual boot it with Windows (seperate partition required) So now you can load it onto your Windows machine (within Windows) and have the best of both worlds. Hmmm - worth investigating. Now downloading Ubuntu 7.10 to give this a try. Why 7.10? I came across a tutorial on the installation and operation of Linux 7.10 so I want to first aquaint myself with this operating system. If I can get around the unmicrosoftness of it I'll upgrade to 8.04 or whatever the latest distro is at the time. Linux Tutorial (PDF) - get it here. Ubuntu 7.10 - burn a cd from this iso. Latest Ubuntu distro - get it here. AND: you should know that websites you visit are hosted on Linux Servers because of their stability Historically, Linux distributions have mainly been used as server operating systems, and have risen to prominence in that area; Netcraft reported in September 2006 that eight of the ten most reliable internet hosting companies ran Linux distributions on their web servers. (As of June 2008, Linux distributions represented five of ten, FreeBSD three of ten, and Microsoft two of ten.) This is due to its relative stability and long uptime, and the fact that desktop software with a graphical user interface for servers is often unneeded. Enterprise and non-enterprise Linux distributions may be found running on servers. Linux distributions are the cornerstone of the LAMP server-software combination (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) which has achieved popularity among developers, and which is one of the more common platforms for website hosting. Linux distributions are commonly used as operating systems for supercomputers. As of August 2008, out of the top 500 systems, 423 (84.6%) run a Linux distribution.

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