Are you tired of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for your computer's software? Tired of having to buy upgrades, and new hardware to run the upgrades? Tired of crashes, security flaws, cyber-attacks, and worrying if your computer is safe to use? Had enough of license agreements, lock-downs, and restrictions on what you can do with your computer? Worried about your business being sued for making a careless copy?
It doesn't have to be that way. You can live your life free of Microsoft, and free of their thousand and one petty annoyances. And you can save money in the process.
This website is devoted to helping you say Goodbye to Microsoft, and to "Take Back the PC."
When I visited the Tech blog last week, for their reviews of lightweight Linux distros, I took the time to cast a vote for them in the 2010 South African Blog Awards. I'm pleased to report that they are now one of the finalists in the "Best Science and Technology Blog" category (g33q.co.za).
And I couldn't help noticing how2centos.com on that list, which is indeed a blog about the CentOS Linux distribution. That means that two of the ten finalists are blogs about free and open-source software. Not bad. Not bad at all.
(And yes, I have cast a vote for g33q.co.za in the finals. No disrespect to CentOS, but I can only vote for one.)
I've just learned that the Tech Blog has been running a series of reviews of lightweight Linux distributions. They're undertaking to review seven different lightweight distros in seven days:
Between the two of us we have come up with the following seven questions that need to be answered: 1. Is it reasonably quick on her laptop? 2. Can you use the Internet with ease (Youtube, Facebook, etc)? 3. Can you edit documents and spreadsheets? 4. How easy is e-mail use? 5. Are Codecs available for common formats (mp3, mpeg, avi etc)? 6. How hard is it to join networks? 7. Is it a swap in for a higher end distro?
These are clearly my kind of people! And this is particularly welcome now, because I've been meaning to find the time to re-review all of the lightweight distros and see which is best to install on the garage full of old PCs I have awaiting my attention. Now, perhaps, I don't have to. I haven't read their reviews yet; but I look forward to doing so.
Update:From the many informed comments at Bruce Schneier's blog I learn that the infected computer in the story quoted below was not an on-board computer. It was a ground-based maintenance computer. Which makes a lot more sense to me, since I don't think Windows has been qualified for avionics software.
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Again, in fairness, we don't know that this was a Windows-based system. As with the BP oil rig, those investigating are keeping carefully quiet. But when someone speaks of infections like this, Windows is the first thing that pops into my mind:
Authorities investigating the 2008 crash of Spanair flight 5022 have discovered a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft was infected with malware.
An internal report issued by the airline revealed the infected computer failed to detect three technical problems with the aircraft, which if detected, may have prevented the plane from taking off, according to reports in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais.
...The malware on the Spanair computer has been identified as a type of Trojan horse. It could have entered the airline's system in a number of ways, according to Jamz Yaneeza, head threat researcher at Trend Micro.
We do know that it was a Windows virus that got loose on the International Space Station two years ago. Fortunately for the astronauts, "Not all of the 71 laptop computers currently aboard the station run Windows".
Microsoft's 2010 software suites present "the most complicated lock-in decision in years," and many customers will be justified in sticking with the 2007 versions of Office, Exchange and SharePoint, Burton Group analysts said this week at the Catalyst conference.
Microsoft is pushing its weight around in 2010 by offering numerous tools that used to be provided only by third-party vendors, and embracing the virtualization and software-as-a-service delivery models, analysts said.
"Microsoft wants more of your money," said Burton Group analyst Guy Creese. "This is going to be a pretty complicated decision, one that may lead to lock-in. ... If you go forward with all of the 2010 products you will be a Microsoft shop for the foreseeable future because the offering is so monolithic."
It bears repeating: Microsoft is trying to lock you into their products -- and lock themselves into your wallet. If you are sticking with Microsoft because it is too expensive or too difficult to switch, consider this:
1. It will be more expensive and difficult if you adopt the 2010 Microsoft products. Microsoft is determined to make it as hard as possible for you to switch away.
2. When figuring the cost/benefit tradeoff, consider tomorrow's costs as well as today. Once you are locked in, you'll have to pay even higher prices for your Microsoft licenses.
It will never be cheaper to switch than right now.
Just last fall, at the Ontario Linux Fest, I picked up what looks like a very nice OpenSolaris distribution, which I've been meaning to try out on one of my refurb'd PCs. Well, I guess I don't need to bother with that now. According to EWeek Europe:
Oracle has effectively shelved OpenSolaris, the five-year-old open source version of the Solaris Unix operating system, according to an internal email sent to Solaris engineers and published on the blog of an OpenSolaris developer.
In the email, published on Friday, Oracle said going forward it will distribute open source versions of Solaris only after the release of the full, finished operating system.
...Oracle said it will continue to use the open source CDDL licence statement in “nearly all” Solaris source code files.
It sounds like Oracle recognizes that the code which as been released as open source can't be locked up again, but they're not going to let go of anything new they develop. So it's possible that someone could "fork" OpenSolaris, starting with the currently open code, and continue its development separately from Oracle/Sun:
Open-source Solaris development isn't entirely over, however. One new project that some programmers hope will carry the OpenSolaris torch is Illumos, sponsored by a company called Nexenta that packages some OpenSolaris and Linux elements into a storage-specific software product. Illumos has drawn partnerships from a variety of OpenSolaris-related projects, including BeleniX and Schillix.
But at this point I wouldn't count on it. If you need a Unix instead of Linux, I'd suggest you use one of the different versions of BSD Unix.
There are lots of reasons not to use Internet Explorer. Traditionally it has been one of the biggest security risks in a Windows PC. But now I learn, from the Wall Street Journal, that Microsoft deliberately chose to make it hard for you to get privacy as well:
In early 2008, Microsoft Corp.'s product planners for the Internet Explorer 8.0 browser intended to give users a simple, effective way to avoid being tracked online. ...
In the end, the product planners lost a key part of the debate. The winners: executives who argued that giving automatic privacy to consumers would make it tougher for Microsoft to profit from selling online ads. Microsoft built its browser so that users must deliberately turn on privacy settings every time they start up the software. (Emphasis added.)
So even if you set your browser for "privacy," it doesn't stay set. Unlike, say, Firefox or Opera, which remember the privacy settings you choose. I tell you three times: do not use Internet Explorer.
P.S. At this time, I won't recommend Google Chrome as an alternative. I haven't heard of any specific flaws, but Google is notorious for its disregard for privacy and trying to "monetize" user information, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Chrome is also advertiser-friendly.
Here's another glaring example of What Is Wrong With Microsoft Software. A few days ago I had occasion to write a simple little C program to fix a problem for a client. All that program had to do was change one byte in an existing binary file, though as a matter of course I wrote it to accept any number of input files. I sent the source code off to the client so he could compile it for his Windows system.
He sent me back the Windows executable. And here is the directory listing of the Linux and Windows executables:
In complete fairness, we don't know that this "blue screen of death" refers to anything that was provided by Microsoft. It's certainly possible that some other software vendor chose to use a blue screen when their product locks up. But still, one wonders...
A computer that monitored drilling operations on the Deepwater Horizon had been freezing with a "blue screen of death" prior to the explosion that sank the oil rig last April, the chief electronics technician aboard testified Friday at a federal hearing.
"Blue screen of death," or BSOD, is a term most often used to describe the display shown by Microsoft Windows after a serious crash that has incapacitated a PC.
...The machine had been locking up for months, Williams said, producing what he and others on the crew called a "blue screen of death." "It would just turn blue. You'd have no data coming through," Williams said today, according to the New York Times' story.
With the computer frozen, the driller would not have access to crucial data about what was going on in the well.
...While he did not identify the operating system running the balky computer, the phrase "blue screen of death" is typically used to describe a Windows crash.
Microsoft declined to comment on Williams' testimony and characterization of the crash screen. Transocean did not respond to e-mail seeking comment.
By the way, the buzzword (buzz-acronym?) for this category of computer application is SCADA: Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. SCADA is used everywhere -- power plants are one big example -- and there are frequent news stories expressing concern about viruses or foreign crackers getting into SCADA systems. In my humble opinion, no "mission critical" system should ever run Windows; but I have an admittedly dim view of Windows reliability. (I also think that SCADA systems shouldn't be connected to the Internet, but that's another subject.)
July 21 - The recently discovered Stuxnet malware, which takes advantage of a zero-day Microsoft Windows Shell vulnerability, is being used in targeted attacks to penetrate industrial control systems, particularly in the United States, according to security researchers.
The malware has been active for several days, targeting supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, which are used to manage operations at places such as power plants and gas and oil refineries, to obtain data. The United States, Iran and Russia have been hit the hardest, according to security firm ESET. Almost 58 percent of all infections have occurred in the United States.
Of particular concern:
The flaw permits a malicious .lnk file to be executed by simply plugging in an infected USB device, Randy Abrams, director of technical education at ESET, told SCMagazineUS.com on Wednesday.
The user doesn't have to click on anything at all, Abrams said. You can disable AutoRun, but that doesn't prevent this vulnerability from being executed.
Up until now it was thought that disabling AutoRun made it safe to put a USB memory stick into your PC. But now it's not. Only insert USB memory sticks from trusted sources. And by "trusted" I mean someone you trust to keep his computer virus free.
Highlights of Wine 1.2 include support for 64-bit application support and new graphics/icons. With the 23,000 changes is more than 3,000 bug-fixes. Some other features include support for symbolic links within their Windows registry implementation, better XDG support, sub-pixel font rendering, and greatly enhanced Direct3D support. When it comes to the Direct3D support, FBOs (Frame Buffer Objects) are used by default for off-screen rendering, a large portion of the DirectX 9.0 specification is now implemented, fog handling is improved, and many new OpenGL extensions are supported.
For those new to this site, Wine is a software package that lets you run Windows applications on a Linux/Unix/OS X system. It is not a way to run the Windows OS itself -- instead, it provides all of the functions that the Windows OS provides to applications programs. This is my preferred way to run Windows software under Linux, at least for those applications that work correctly under Wine.
I am so far behind the curve -- I'm still running Wine 1.0.
Access to this site is still erratic, thanks to continuing attacks by 'bots. Moving servers and changing software doesn't help; the attacks are directed at the domain goodbyemicrosoft.net, wherever it is located, and whatever software I run. So the obvious solution is to change the domain name.
Now, I first registered goodbyemicrosoft.net as a lark, after giving a presentation called "Goodbye, Microsoft" at a local computer conference. And I registered as ".net" because my domain registrar at that time was offering a terrific price for new .net registrations ($2.99/year). Since this site is purely a hobby, I was minded to pinch pennies.
But now I've invested some time in it, so I don't want to just shut it down. Hence the search for a new domain name. goodbyemicrosoft.com was taken, so I registered goodbyemicrosoft.org. (Not yet active...give me a few weeks.)
Then I began to wonder...was goodbyemicrosoft.com a kindred spirit? Visiting that web address just returns a Bing search page, so I figured the domain had been registered and parked. So I decided to try a whois search, where I found the owner is:
Domain Administrator Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond WA 98052 US
What's funny is that they've parked the domain name on a Bing search, where the second result listed is this site. (The first search result is goodbye-microsoft.com, which will install Linux on your Windows PC.)
I don't have access to the full whois history, but it looks like they registered the .com after I registered the .net. Did they notice this site and decide to grab the .com? Or was this just part of a routine grab of all "critical" domain names?
Hey, Redmond...make me an offer for the old .net domain name. No extra charge for the 'bots.
applications: The software that lets you do things with your computer (word processor, Internet browser, email, etc.). The programs you see and use.
distribution: Also called "distro." An operating system (usu. Linux) combined with a selection of application programs, in a ready-to-install form. Different distributions are customized for different purposes, e.g., desktop computing, music editing, Internet server, and so on.
FOSS: "Free / Open Source Software," a catch-all term. Sometimes F/OSS or FLOSS.
free software: Refers to free as in freedom, not free as in free beer. Specifically, the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software.
howto: A short tutorial telling "how to" perform some task. See, for instance, the Linux HowTos.
Linux: Strictly, GNU/Linux. A free operating system, modeled on Unix, developed since 1991 by volunteers around the world.
open source: Refers to software whose source code can be examined, modified, and redistributed. Similar to but not exactly the same as "free software."
operating system: The software that manages your computer's hardware (disk drives, display, network connection, etc.). The stuff "under the hood" that makes your computer work.
repository: An on-line library of application programs for a particular distribution, in a ready-to-download-and-install format. In many distributions, programs can be installed from the repository with just a few mouse clicks.
Unix: A computer operating system originally released by Bell Labs in 1970. It is still widely used in several commercial variants, and in the open-source BSD Unix.
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