A New Linux Distro

This is my interesting new project. I’m sure I will be heckled for adding yet another distro into the mix, but I think this could provide something a little different to existing distros. Applications The first major overhaul for me is package management. It’s the bane of the Linux world, and is often heckled for [...]

Advocate, but don’t Pressure

In the world of open source we’re often guilty of ‘over-advocating’, and friends can often feel threatened. If one of your friends seems to be acting irrationally or is openly hostile to your efforts, then often there is a good reason for it. Here is an analogy to explain. Imagine for instance that you’ve bought [...]

The Choice is Yours!

The first thing to consider: What is an operating system? An operating system is something you never see, but does the important job of listening to what you want to do then telling that to your hardware. The ‘kernel’ is like the system core that makes everything happen. Windows is what you actually see and [...]

2009: A Year in Review

I don’t usually go down for end-of-year reviews, but 2009 is a special case. It’s heralded huge shifts in the technology industry, and shows us there’s plenty of promise for the coming decade. Content On Demand This year has seen an explosion of on-demand streaming services making use of new high-speed broadband connections. Missed your [...]

Attack of the Macs

I’m sure you’ve seen the numerous blog-posts dotted around the net about the fact most university students these days seem to have a Macbook of some description (I can testify for instance in my flat that 3 out of the 7 students own one), and in that respect this is no different. What this article [...]

Don’t call proprietary software evil!

That may sound strange from someone who claims to be a free software advocate, but I say this in response to the Free Software Foundation’s recent gaffs, including motions to protest by holding up Apple store operatives by asking awkward questions,  setting up a site about ‘Windows 7 sins’ and sending letters to Fortune 500 [...]

Damned Linux Drivers

I’ve recently has a few driver issues I’d like to share with you. Printers I experienced a whole new world yesterday when I attempted to connect a Lexmark Z235 to a laptop running 64-bit Ubuntu (and another PC running 32-bit PCLinuxOS) – no drivers currently exist for it in the Linux world. I tried using [...]

A Tribute to Personal Computer World

It is strange to think that just last year this great magazine celebrated its 30th year. Founded in 1978 it was the first recorded coining of the phrase ‘personal computer’ (which was not used until the founding of PC World (computer superstore) and the IBM PC). You can view the cover of the first issue [...]

The Sims 3 – Another Hype-filled Review

I won’t lie here – this article is primarily about how awesome the Sims 3 is. But in the interests of fairness I will cut through my own enthusiasm and state here the pros and cons of the latest release. This review is not exhaustive and doesn’t cover all aspects of gameplay, but hopefully you’ll [...]

Triple-Booting Fun

My Sony Vaio was working perfectly well. I had the pre-installed version of Vista Home Premium (Sony remove a lot of crapware and install some genuinely useful stuff such as Microsoft Office 2007 (non-commercial edition) and Adobe Studio. Not so sure about VAIO media guide though…!) and Ubuntu Intrepid (toggling between KDE and Gnome depending [...]