Is e17 the killer app that Linux has been waiting for?

I downloaded the Ubuntu binaries for e17 last night, and I was blown away.  My computer’s specs are modest by most geek-machine comparisons, but the eye candy was brilliant.  The speed of the desktop was very good and everything was nicely arranged by default to give a pleasent view of this desktop manager.  Mac snobs like to gripe about how easy everything is to use and how well everything is laid out.  With the slight lurning curve of understanding how Linux packages work as opposed to the hunt, download, and install philosphy of Mac and Windows users, I think a well thoughtout Linux based on a clean e17 desktop could be the bridging point for those on the fence between the Mac’s and PC’s.  A Linux box will be, by design, will be cheaper than a Mac and runs on the same hardware as Windows, but has the same ease of use as a Mac.  In my opinion, the biggest problem with Linux going mainstream is native hardware support and 3rd Party software.

This belongs in Ham Radio Hall of Fame for cheesiest Ham Radio Promo video.

http://64.27.98.24/clip.ram

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V9Qkd3dElw

Thanks to AF4K

Come and join us on the airwaves…….. You’ll feel free and be happy too!

I haven’t been this excited about a video game system since the Super Nintendo. Not to mention, this will be the first video game system that I will buy new. With the exception of my family’s Original NES, every video game system that I have ever owned has been used.

http://wii.nintendo.com/home.html

Technorati Tags: wii

I finally bought one a couple of weeks ago. I got it off ebay for less that $10, though S/H brought it up to nearly $20. I also had to pick up three extra pieces of hardware. First, I got the programming cable and software, also from Ebay. Secondly, I got an alkaline (AA) battery pack and a rubber duck antenna from American Communication Systems.

The software is easy enough to use. However, it is very odd that the programming cable was not compatible with either of my two laptops. One is a P1 166mhz, the other a P4 1.7Ghz. However, it worked fine with my desktop. Also, if you are running Windows 2000 or XP, you must make an MSDOS boot disk to run this software unless you are a real guru and know about dual booting different partitions. For the majority of folks out there, that is not an option. Sorry Mac users, I’m not aware of any options for you.

I haven’t posted here in a while.  I just found some useful information on a radio that I am researching. 

Ebay has tons of these radios for dirt cheap.  According to several websites, they are sturdy and very reliable, but they are only programmable via PC.  Details about how to do this are scant.

The programming software is Icom CS-F3 software.  It is for MSDOS and Windows in DOS mode only.  If you take your time, you can find this software on Google for free rather than spending $35-40 for it.  It took me around an hour to find it.  I’m not going to say anymore than that Russians can be friendly.

So, I upgraded the memory in my laptop and decided to try something crazy. I installed Windows 98 on it.

Win98, required a lot of work to gather up drivers for my ancient hardware, but it does handle the hardware, namely my wifi card, better than Linux. However, there is a really big problem. It is nearly too slow to be useful. I’ve installed Firefox, Opera, K-Meleon, and the usual I.E., of all of them, Opera is the fastest, but it still sucks badly. Reading websites is painful. I’ve considered even installing Netscape 4.7, and even though that would be a faster browser, it lacks CSS capabilities. DSL Linux is just all around faster. One kudo for Windows is all of the software out there for it. I found a couple of programs that I am really enjoying. They are yBook and yWriter. yBook is a “paperback emulator” (LOL!) it can open txt, rtf, html, and pdb ebooks and display them as if you were reading them in a book. It’s a little slow, but quite usable. yWriter is a “novel builder”. I’m working on some fiction and this little program is very handy. If this software were made available for Linux, I would go back to Linux and never look back. So, I think I will keep a dual boot between Win98 and DSL for the time being. It’s sad that Microsoft doesn’t put more thought into being backwards compatible whith their operating systems, but that wouldn’t make them as much money.

From Lockergnome and Penguin.SWF.

My question is, will Flash 9 for Linux be available right in time to see Flash 10 for Windows?

What about shockwave?

Technorati Tags: linux, macromedia, flash

This article details the requirements for the new Windows Vista OS.

Minimum Requirements (Vista-Capable PCs): * 800 MHz Intel-compatible processor * 512MB of RAM * DirectX 9.0-Capable Graphics Processor * 20GB HDRecommended Requirements

(Premium-Ready PCs): * 1 GHz Intel-compatible processor * 1GB RAM * DirectX 9.0-Capable Graphics Processor, with 128MB graphics memory. (64MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor less than 1,310,720 pixels [no more than 1440x900]; 128MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions from 1,310,720 to 2,304,000 pixels [no more than 1920x1200]; 256MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions higher than 2,304,000 pixels [more than 1920x1200]). * 40GB HD with at least 15GB “free space”

Well, I’ve successfully installed DamnSmallLinux, and I like it. 50 Megs, and I have everything that I want. Right now, I am writing this using Flock, which does not come with D.S.L. It is being processed by my main pc and is being displayed on my laptop though something called X11 Forwarding. I’m just thrilled. This kicks some real butt!

technorati tags: damn-small-linux, linux

http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2006/04/28/2/

https://web.archive.org/web/20091220080410/http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2006/04/28/2/