Windows 7 vs. Linux
Information Week makes a comparison of the upcoming Windows build and the many Linux distros in general.
“While Windows 7 has been brewing in Microsoft’s labs, Linux has been maturing. We look at what each operating system is capable of today, and how they measure up against each other.”
The article gives you reports on hardware, performance, and software aspects; with both sides having their strong points.
Ossism update
Hello readers,
First, I would like to apologize for the slow updates. I know I’ve been neglecting this blog lately. But I regret to inform you that I can no longer guarantee anymore regular posts. I will embark on a full-time job soon and I won’t have too much time for this anymore.
Plus, all my knowledge here is a result of dabbling and that in itself takes time. I’m no professional. Heck, I didn’t even study computer science.
However, I am inviting anyone willing to contribute to this blog. This will be done out of passion and for passion only. Also, if there’s anyone who would like to buy this blog, I welcome bids. Thank you all.
Five things to do after a fresh Ubuntu install
The new Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope is out! I tested it and I love it. But its still not a full experience until you install some new stuff (which are free of course).
1. Change appearance
I’m the kind of guy who loves to find some GUI eye candy for my desktop. For a good short list, look here.
2. Install Flash
If you don’t, you can’t even view Youtube videos! There are three ways to do this.
- Go to youtube and click on the download link when trying to view a video. Download the installer from the official Adobe website.
- Go to Terminal and type “sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer”.
- Go to Applications>>Add/Remove and search for flash.
3. Install Wine
You can run Windows apps and even games on your Ubuntu system. Not all programs will work perfectly, but its worth a try.
Simply go to Applications>>Add/Remove and search for Wine
4. Install VLC Player
Plays almost any media formats. Again, Applications>>Add/Remove
5. Setup IM accounts via Pidgin
Ubuntu comes with Pidgin pre-installed. It consolidates your IM accounts (MSN, Yahoo, AIM) all into one. Very handy.
That’s it. There are plenty of other things to get of course (Songbird, AWN, OpenOffice, etc) but these are the first five things that I do. Any suggestions?
The complete guide to changing drive letters in Windows XP
If you interchange operating systems or hard disks frequently, you might find that your drive letters in XP are pushed around undesirably. Here’s how to fix them.
To change an ordinary hard disk drive letter, follow these instructions.
1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.
3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management*, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Click Change.
6. Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected, click the drive letter that you want to use, and then click OK.
7. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the drive letter change.
Courtesy of Microsoft. See this action with pictures or video. *or just right click My Computer>>Manage.
If you encounter the PageFile error trying to do this, simply turn the pagefile off. To do this:
1. Right click My Computer>>Advance>>Performance>>Change Virtual Memory
2. Set the paging file of the drives you want to change to No Paging File.
3. Restart.
4. After successfully changing your drive letters, go back to changing the Virtual Memory and allocate the space again (If you don’t know what it does, it basically makes your computer run smoother/faster)
To switch CD-Rom and hard disk drive letters, do the following:
1. Turn off your computer, and disconnect your cd-rom drives. (I could not find a different method, this is how I did it)
2. Boot into XP, go to Disk Management (refer to first set of instructions)
3. The drive letters that the CD or DVD-Rom drives took are now freed up.
4. When you’re done, restart your machine (just in case there is a conflict)
5. Turn it off again, and re-attach your drives.
If you find that your system drive (where your working WINDOWS folder is located) is something other than C:, follow these:
1. Make a full system backup of the computer and system state.
2. Log on as an Administrator.
3. Start Regedt32.exe.
4. Go to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
5. Click MountedDevices.
6. On the Security menu, click Permissions.
7. Verify that Administrators have full control. Change this back when you are finished with these steps.
8. Quit Regedt32.exe, and then start Regedit.exe.
9. Locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
10. Find the drive letter you want to change to (new). Look for “\DosDevices\C:”.
11. Right-click \DosDevices\C:, and then click Rename.
Note You must use Regedit instead of Regedt32 to rename this registry key.
12. Rename it to an unused drive letter “\DosDevices\Z:”.
This frees up drive letter C.
13.Find the drive letter you want changed. Look for “\DosDevices\D:”.
14. Right-click \DosDevices\D:, and then click Rename.
15. Rename it to the appropriate (new) drive letter “\DosDevices\C:”.
17. Click the value for \DosDevices\Z:, click Rename, and then name it back to “\DosDevices\D:”.
17. Quit Regedit, and then start Regedt32.
18. Change the permissions back to the previous setting for Administrators (this should probably be Read Only).
19. Restart the computer.
Courtesy of Microsoft.
If somewhere along the way, you lose your My Documents default location, just right click on My Documents on the start menu, Properties, then find the new location.
If your shortcuts are not working, then update the location by right clicking into Properties, just like with My Documents.
A little bit of trivia…
So why does your system drive letter have to be C? Well, developers (and software pirates) have worked around C as the default for programs and system files, as the all-important WINDOWS folder resides there, after all. What about A and B? Once upon a time, we used to have a floppy drive as A, and a second floppy drive (or the larger, older types of floppy) as B.
Review of Mac OS X by Windows Guru
Today’s link features an article written by a veteran in Windows operating systems who went two weeks with a Macbook Air. Read full article here.
The verdict? He likes it.
“There’s a lot more and I could spend more time writing about Mac OS X, but you get the point. While it takes a little bit of getting used to for a Windows user, it’s an excellent operating system.”
He covered the Networking, software, updating, word-processing, keyboard, and even the virtual machine aspects of it.
Apparently Preston Gralla was a notorious Mac-hater, according to a comment in Digg. Turns out he found OS X far from disappointing. Personally, if you haven’t known already, I prefer it over Windows.
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