Windows 7 support ends. So where to now?

Microsoft suggests upgrading to windows 10. That would be fine... if it worked. They offered free windows 10 upgrades. I tried that, and it was disastrous. It seemed to work well at first, but as time went on, updates would cause different parts or functions of the the computer (like SOUND) to stop working. Turns out, that unless your computer hardware -all of it- has been "Windows 10 certified", Microsoft does not guarantee that it will work on YOUR computer. Wish I knew that before I installed it. By the time I discovered this, it was too late to roll it back from Windows 10 to Windows 7.

So if you want to "upgrade" to Windows 10, you are probably better off getting a computer with it already installed and certified for that hardware. Then, the Windows 10 fun can begin. It has some good features. Yet, some things never change:

But... what should you then DO with your old Windows 7 machine? You can keep using it for a while longer of course, but as time goes on, without security updates, it will become riskier and riskier to use.

Personally, I found a solution with my aborted Windows 10 computer, that couldn't be rolled back to Windows 7. I'm using it with all my Windows 7 machines now. The solution is a Linux operating system called Linux Mint. It's a complete, free opensource operating system that you can download and install, free of charge.

There are several versions you can choose from. I prefer the Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), because it's a "rolling" distribution; you only have to install it once, then it updates itself continuously after that. Other versions use Ubuntu as a base, and major upgrades require a complete reinstall every three to five years.

It's probably the easiest Linux system for a novice to download and use, and easy to learn and use too. A perfect way to extend the life and usefulness of older computers that cannot be successfully upgraded to Windows 10. Highly recommended.
   

I've discovered "aTunes", and it's good!

It's a cross-platform music player and manager:


aTunes: GPL Audio Player and Manager

aTunes is a full-featured audio player and manager, developed in Java programming language, so it can be executed on different platforms: Windows, Linux and Unix-like systems, ...

Currently plays mp3, ogg, wma, wav, flac, mp4 and radio streaming, allowing users to easily edit tags, organize music and rip Audio CDs. [...]

I discovered it when I downloaded it from a Linux repository. One of my favorite features is, that it finds the lyrics to the song you are playing, and displays them in the sidebar.

I've since downloaded the Windows version too. Here is a review of aTunes from CNET:

CNET editors' review of aTunes 2.0.1

When we tested aTunes, the fast installation was followed by shockingly sluggish tree navigation, required to add our song library. Fortunately, the subsequent scan was flawless, handling 7,500 tracks in about 10 minutes. So in music terms, the show started off with some bad feedback, but then aTunes really got rockin'.

The tabbed interface keeps the various panes from getting too cluttered, managing both primary and secondary information elegantly. Icons just below the Menubar let users hide the AudioScrobbler, the Navigator, and the Song properties windows, which makes the UI far more customizable than it might seem. The impressively useful AudioScrobbler pane surfaces nearly all secondary song information, making it easier to discover an artist's biographical details, using tabs to prevent clutter and keep track lists and song lyrics organized. Built-in links encourage discovery of similar songs and related videos on YouTube. [...]

It does go on to say there is room for improvement, but the review is also from two years ago; it's worth noting that there have been updates since then, the most recent was in June 2010. It suits my needs well.
     

FireFox 3.6 update is now available

Firefox 3.6 is officially out; go get it

Firefox 3.6 has officially been released by Mozilla for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The latest version of the world's 2nd most popular browser is expected to hold over power users until the release of Firefox 4.0 (since 3.7 has officially been taken off the roadmap). The release is considered to be more of a major step forward, rather than an incremental change. A lot has been tweaked and added under the hood. Unfortunately, Electrolysis (process separation) will still have to wait until the next update.

Here are some of the new features:

* Personas - hover over themes to see what they'd look like and apply them to your browser

* Out-of-date plugin notifier - tells you when a plugin, such as Flash, is out of date and directs you to an update source

* Full-screen video - if you are using HTML 5 to view embedded Ogg videos, you can now view them in full screen

* Web open font format - allows for smaller-sized font formats, allowing sites to load fatster, with the intended fonts

* Desktop Orientation Sensors - allows your browser to know when your computer is being moved and can adjust the picture accordingly

* Speed - the browser, as a whole, is 20% faster than Firefox 3.5.x, making it the 2nd fastest browser, behind Chrome (source: Lifehacker)
[...]

The full article has a link at the end of the post to a video about FF 3.6.

The graphic I copied from somewhere else, I forget where, but I thought it was funny and have been waiting for an excuse to use it ;-). To be fair, I have not tried IE 8 yet. There is a 64 bit version of IE with Windows 7, I'm looking forward to trying it out when I have a chance.

UPDATE:

I'm posting the video here, it's just over two minutes, and it gives a quick summary of new features.



     

Ubuntu 9.10 is Here. It's Free. Take the Tour!

Ubuntu 9.10 Tour



See further details here:

Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released

     

New Ubuntu 9.10 available Thursday

Here are a few links that could come in handy for it:

Preparing for Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)

Is there anyone around who doesn't know that the next release of Ubuntu Linux, 9.10 (Karmic Koala) is due out tomorrow? I doubt it, and even if there were they wouldn't be reading this, so I'll just forge ahead.

I don't intend to add my voice to the chorus singing the praises of the new release. What I would like to do is take a quick look at a few simple things that can go a long way in making the upgrade easier. [...]

10 easy steps to secure your Linux machine

Whether you use a single desktop or manage a lab full of servers, with the various threats we all face from hackers these days you simply have to make sure you're running a secure ship.

Running Linux gives you some inherent protection from attack, but you still need to take adequate steps to thwart any attempts that people might make to compromise your system.

Here are 10 of the best courses of action that you can take. [...]

I'm hoping to download Ubuntu Friday when I'm in the office.
     

PC/OS: an easy Linux for older computers

This Linux distribution has caught my eye. It's based on Ubuntu, but it uses the lightweight Xfce desktop environment, which is simple and easier to run on older computers. PC/OS is also configured with starter applications and multimedia codecs, making it totally useable from the start, without any extra tweaking:



PC/OS: Insert CD, use desktop

PC/OS aims to be an easy-to-use Linux distribution right out of the box. Being Ubuntu-based, it has a head start on being user-friendly, but PC/OS goes above and beyond Ubuntu's measures to ensure ease of use by having common third-party non-GPL software included in the install.

[...]

PC/OS Open Desktop lives up to its claims of being user-friendly. While it isn't perfect, somebody who is unfamiliar with computer systems could install and use it without outside help. I don't believe that you can say the same thing about the latest Windows operating system. On top of that, it also fits on one CD, unlike many distributions which have switched to DVDs in their effort to include more software. PC/OS has stripped its distribution down to programs that cover users' essential needs; its simplicity is a sound principle when designing user-friendly software.

PC/OS just plain worked for me. There were no hitches, no problems, and no additional configuration or software installation required to perform what the daily tasks of Web browsing, instant messaging, word processing, and playing multimedia. While no trouble arose for me, there are forums available for you to ask any questions you might have about the distribution. [...]

This sounds like just the thing for my eight year old computer in the farm office. I'm currently running Linux Mint with a Gnome desktop. I works fine for the most part, but occasionally I strain the system resources by opening a lot of windows. A lighter desktop might be better. Mint also offers a Xfce version, so perhaps I should it out also. But I've wanted to try out PC/OS for a while now, so I'll probably download it next week and give it a whirl.



It's great to have choices.
     

New Picasa 3, beta version, looks fantastic

Introducing Picasa 3.0 (beta)



I posted a while back about Picasa 2.7, the stable version that I currently use. It's a wonderful, useful, Free to download and use program from Google, that runs on Windows and Linux.

As the video demonstrates, the Picasa Beta Version 3.0 looks amazing, with many new and wonderful features. But it's still Beta, potentially unstable, so I'm going to wait for the final release. Unfortunately I couldn't find a target date for that, but when it happens I'll be sure and blog about it again. In the meantime, these new features look like something we can look forward to.

Webmonkey has a short review on the latest Picasa beta for Linux:

Picasa for Linux 3.0: Photo Management Done Right


     

Quit smoking with the help of computer Solitaire

Apparently, it's been done by some. From David Williams at iTWire:

Quit smoking and other ways to keep healthy with Linux

[...] Solitaire is so well-known that it’s possibly one of the first apps anyone switching from an operating system to another will want to find, along with the web browser and e-mail program.

Linux doesn’t let you down on the Solitaire front. The package gnome-games contains a remarkable compendium of no less than 82 distinct single player card games called AisleRiot Solitaire.

Linux, using Gnome's AisleRiot Solitaire card game.

“Ok, what’s this got to do with health, let alone smoking?” I hear you ask. The connection is actually surprising simple. During this past week a colleague was exuberant about how she had discovered AIsleRiot. In particular, she found the game called “Chessboard” especially tough.

This game uses one pack of card and divides it into ten piles, all face up. Only the front card in each pile can be used. Four new piles must be built up, reassembling the suits in order – as is the goal for probably every other single solitaire game ever. Cards be dropped onto other piles so long as they meet certain criteria.

In a way it’s akin to Freecell but with one important distinction; there are no free cells! Once you drop a card into the suit re-assembly piles it’s no longer playable. It’s freakishly difficult to get far in this game unless you can really get into the right mindset.

The interesting thing is, she said, she played it so much that over the course of a fortnight she realised she was no longer smoking. Instead of going outside to light up she’d use her downtime to hone her AisleRiot skills.

What happened to her makes sense; a lot of websites aimed at helping people wean themselves off cancer-sticks advocate preparing distractions which will take your mind off cigarettes. It seems the desires and cravings are easier to deal with if you can distract yourself away.

Now, a single Solitaire game – two if you count FreeCell – is passé, and unless you’re under five years of age Purble Place isn’t likely to hold your attention for longer than an hour. But 82 different card games all in one free package is quite an astounding piece of software. If you haven't already installed AisleRiot go do it now.

If you’re a smoker, let Linux help get your mind onto other things with its rich collection of games and other items of software. [...]

The article goes on to describe another application available in Linux, that helps people prevent or lessen repetitive strain injury (RSI).

But Solitaire therapy for smokers could work with any computer Solitaire program(s) on any platform. I did a post not long ago about my favorite Solitaire software program, Pysol Fan Club Edition. It's free to download and use, with over 1,000 games, and it has versions that work in both Windows and Linux. It also has the game "Chessboard" mentioned above, you can find it under the "select" drop down menu: /French games/ Beleaguered Castle type/ Chessboard.

Even if you aren't trying to quit smoking, try Pysol out, it's fun.
     

The KDE 4.1 desktop GUI for Linux is here

A major upgrade for the KDE desktop, the new 4.XX series was supposed to be a major improvement. However, when the 4.0 release happened earlier this year, it was still a bit... raw? It was a major change from the old KDE 3.5 desktop, and it still needed some polishing. Many promises were made that the 4.1 release would fix many problems and add more features. So now that it's here, how does it compare?

Here's two early reviews, the first from Jeremy LaCroix at Linux.com:



KDE 4.1 rocks the desktop

KDE 4.1 was finally released to the public today. After all the controversy since the release of KDE 4.0, I'm happy to announce that KDE 4.1 simply rocks.

KDE 4.1 packages are available for Kubuntu and several other popular distributions. If there are no prebuilt binaries yet for your distro of choice, you can compile the software from the available source packages. A live CD image is also available should you wish to try the new desktop without altering your existing installation.

The introduction of KDE 4 marked the introduction of the new Plasma desktop, which provides not only the panel that you interact with, but also widgets (or "plasmoids") that extended the desktop further. In KDE 4.1, one of the most welcome changes to Plasma is the return of multiple and resizable panels from KDE 3. Now you can configure your panels by clicking on the Plasma icon (by default it's on the right edge of the panel), which brings up a series of sliders for adjusting the panel's height and position. Also within this configuration control is the return of a way to reposition panel contents by simply grabbing objects with your mouse and pulling them to where you'd like them.[...]

It's a short review that gives you a rundown of the major features, and a few minor shortcomings. It concludes very favorably.

I bit more detailed review is availible from Bruce Byfield at the Datamation website:



KDE 4.1 Review: The Rocky Road of the New KDE

With its 4.1 release, KDE is taking few chances. While the 4.0 release's announcement emphasized excitement and significance, the tone of the announcement for 4.1 is more subdued. This time, the announcement talks about maturing technologies and underlying improvements, and the only claim is that the 4.1 desktop "can replace the KDE 3 shell for most casual users."

The change of tone seems a direct result of the numerous complaints about KDE 4.0, which somehow reached end-users' hands despite warnings that it was a development release. However, whether the 4.1 release will silence the complaints depends very much on individual users' tolerance for change, their willingness to customize, and the degree to which the available programs fit their needs. Only after these considerations, I suspect, will users get around to exploring everything that is new in 4.1, much less to appreciating it. [...]

Read the whole thing for more details and screenshots too. It also concludes favorably. It would seem that the KDE 4.1 desktop is ready for the majority of users. Great! I'm looking forward to trying it out.


UPDATE 08-01-08:

For contrast, here is a not-so-favorable review, from DeviceGuru.com:

KDE 4.1.0 disappoints

Learning that KDE 4.1.0 had been released by the KDE Community, I hastened to download and install this latest, greatest Linux desktop on the Ubuntu-powered Black Tower. Put generously, the results were highly disappointing!

While much more finished than version 4.0, this initial version 4.1 release of KDE still has gaping holes in both its basic functionality and its user friendliness. On the other hand, the new desktop sports radical new features and enhancements compared to the current KDE 3.5.x, so it’s not surprising that finalizing it is taking longer than had been hoped. [...]

You can follow the link for the details. The specifics mentioned may not bother some people, you'll have to decide for yourself. Me, I'm still going to try in on my next Ubuntu install. Even if it turns out to be less than I hope for, it's still a work in progress, and will likely only get better as time goes on.


Related Links:

How to Install KDE 4.1 on Ubuntu 8.04
- Step-by-step tutorial with screenshots!

Something to Really Bake Your Noodle
The impact of what the Plasma (and the KDE team in general) are trying to accomplish with the new 4.XX series.
     

Two Interviews with Mark Shuttleworth

Mark Shuttleworth during his 2002 space flight.

Here are two recent interviews with South African entrepreneur, astronaut and Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth. From the Guardian Newspaper:

'Linux is a platform for people, not just specialists'

In 1999, the South African-born Mark Shuttleworth sold his internet company, Thawte, which provided digital certificates for websites, for more than $500m (£254m). After spending $20m on a trip into space, he started the Ubuntu project - named after an African word meaning "Humanity to others", or "I am what I am because of who we all are" - which has since become the most popular GNU/Linux distribution.

Technology Guardian: To what extent did your space trip feed into Ubuntu?

Mark Shuttleworth Going to space and seeing the Earth from a distance makes it very clear just how interdependent we are. So I wanted to do something that was really global; free software is a phenomenon that is truly global.

TG: What are the implications of choosing that name?

MS That this is a platform for people. Linux has come from a tradition of being a platform for specialists. We articulated the challenge for us very clearly in our name: "Let's make this something that we can proudly give out to people who are not passionate about technology."

TG: How does your company, Canonical, fit into this?

MS [Ubuntu] has its own release cycle. It has its own governance structures. Canonical plays a significant role in those, and we are the largest underwriter of all the work that gets done. We make sure that it releases on time; that it's available globally; that it meets criteria; that it works across a certain portfolio of hardware that third parties have asked us to certify. But we don't take credit for all of the smart thinking that happens in Ubuntu. In fact, in almost every release there's been an idea that came from volunteer participants that turned into a profoundly important feature in that release. [...]

In the course of the interview, he reveals that his Linux company, Canonical, is not breaking even, not even close, but that he sees their work as positioning the company for future profitability.

Then we have this longer interview from Linux Magazine, where he talks about the Shuttleworth Foundation, what he hopes to accomplish with it, and how his company Canonical and their product Ubuntu Linux tie into that, and open source software's application to the education sector.

The Man Behind Ubuntu: Talking with Mark Shuttleworth

[...] Linux Magazine recently got the chance to talk with Shuttleworth about his philanthropical endeavor: The Shuttleworth Foundation.

Linux Magazine: What is the concept, the mission, behind the Shuttleworth Foundation?

Mark Shuttleworth: The idea is to build an institution that focuses on accelerating social change, or accelerating change in the social areas. If you look at the business world, we have institutions that focus on channeling money to change — venture capital, for example. We as a whole industry set up to try to identify smart ideas, ideas that will make businesses more efficient, make businesses more effective, make them more profitable. And as the capital gets channeled to ideas, successful ideas sort of stand out and grow very quickly into successful companies. So a new concept can move from idea to industry in a relatively short period of time. If you look at just over the last ten or fifteen years how things like the web itself and other changes have moved from concept to industry very, very quickly, it’s well established.

But in the social fields, like education, we don’t have nearly the same ability to channel funding to ideas and evaluate them to see if they’re successful and then scale up the ones that really work. So ideas move very slowly from concept to industry or industry norm. So the idea with the Foundation was really to try and build an institution that is better at spotting interesting ideas, proving them, funding them, and then helping translate them into a standard practice or best practice form for the social system.

And so open source fit neatly into the Foundation for a while, because for a while, it was a change, it was new. It was different. It was unproven. And the Foundation did quite a lot of work in South Africa around showing how open source could cut the cost of putting computers into schools and teaching kids technology. It did that very successfully. But once something is sort of proven, then in my mind it sort of falls off the agenda because the Foundation should always be looking forward to the next sort of shift. So right now the Foundation doesn’t do a huge amount with open source, they’re doing a quite a lot with open content, and the focus is on trying to figure out how you harness the knowledge, talent, and passion of teachers around the country to produce textbooks effectively that are shared the same way we harness the knowledge and passion of software engineers to produce things like Linux, that are shared. That’s a very interesting and fruitful area for the Foundation right now.

Linux Magazine: Excellent! That’s really a matter sort of close to my heart, since I trained as a librarian.

Mark Shuttleworth: Really? So open access and things like that are familiar to you.

The area of content is fascinating because its so tied up in policy, you know. Education content and education policy are sort of inseparable. If teachers are nervous or teaching something that isn’t certified government — governments will certify things that set a particular ideological way of seeing the world more often than not. And so you can look at a situation unlike Wikipedia, if you’re trying to do Wikipedia for textbooks, it’s very, very difficult, because every country has its own view of the truth and what should be taught. It’s very interesting and very complicated area, and ultimately one that I think someone will solve and it will really will change the field.

Linux Magazine: Something you mentioned earlier reminded me of something you brought up in an interview last year with ComputerWorld. You mentioned that one of your favorite things were technological “tidal waves” — things that race through society and change everything they touch. I know that the Foundation is a big ripple in that tidal wave, with the promotion of open standards and open software. What do you think, in the last seven years since the Foundation’s creation, that the most significant change has been in South Africa and the world in general, in terms of open access and open source?

Mark Shuttleworth: You know, it may sound trite to say it, the Internet itself remains the single biggest shift and single biggest earthquake that’s driving the tidal waves. There are seismic shifts taking place. This article I was reading was talking about how simply placing Internet connected PCs in public venues in villages in India is hugely effecting the economic potency of the people in those regions. Because suddenly they have access to information, things that you and I take for granted. So the process of connecting the people of the world to each other — which finished in San Francisco sort of early in the ’90s, but it has continued to sort of move through society, through the rest of the world, even to pre-Internet connectivity.

Things like text messaging with mobile phones have an enormous societal impact because they change people’s ability to organize politically, they change people’s ability to get economic information, the prices of markets, the availability of services, opening and closing times for offices they may need to visit and so on. And just that sort of shift towards connecting the people of the world is an enormous energizing factor. And it has echoes, echoes in the form of things like open source software, which really was not feasible at scale before the Internet. You know, open source software was kind of limited to universities which were to a certain extent, sort of connected already, even if it was only by email. But they were connected. And today, the pool of talent into which we can tap is just so much bigger because there’s just a much, much larger pool of people who are connected. So at a human level, it’s that connectivity.

At a machine level, it’s also that connectivity. We see sort of ongoing evidence that ultimately every device wants to be connected to the Internet. Back in 2000, when people said, “Oh, that’s the Internet, that’s the dot com bubble bursting,” many people thought the Internet itself was a bit of a fad. But in fact, it continues to sweep through all sorts of areas of society and technology, and shift people’s expectations, shift what’s possible.

I just bought a new hi-fi. The amplifier will happily connect to the Internet and download firmware updates for itself. It’s just extraordinary. We’re getting to the point where literally every device in the home, every device in the car, or the office, is effectively on the net and uses the net in effective ways. I think that’s going to continue to ripple through our field for the next ten or fifteen years. [...]

There's much more, a look at new technologies on the horizon such as sub-notebooks, and a look at how open source is changing teaching and learning, particularly as it has been applied to South Africa. Very interesting.
     

Avast anti-virus software program for home PC

I was using AVG anti-virus software up until recently, when they did a major upgrade. Their new software slowed down my computer considerably, and it seemed to be causing browser crashes. This lead to a search for an alternative free-for-personal-use anti-virus program. The one I settled on is called "Avast". I believe I read it has 50 million users world-wide. I've been using it for the past month or so, and have found it to be problem-free. Here's a review from C-Net, where it got high marks from both reviewers and users:

Avast Home Edition 4.8.1201.80611

Avast Home Edition is a complete ICSA & Checkmark certified antivirus, Checkmark certified anti-spyware & anti-rootkit package. Avast includes the following components: On demand scanner with skinnable simple interface, just select what do you want to scan in which way and press the Play button; On access scanner, special providers to protect the most of available e-mail clients; Instant messaging--ICQ, Miranda; Network traffic--intrusion detection, lightweight firewall; P2P protection for Kazaa, BitTorrent; Web shield--monitors and filter all HTTP traffic; NNTP scanner--scans all Usenet Newsgroup traffic and all operations with files on PC; Boot time scanner--scans disks in the same way and in the same time as Windows CHKDSK does.

Version 4.8.1201.80611 contains improvements in spyware and rootkit detection.

Follow the link for user comments and download link. Here's another review from Softpedia:

avast! 4 Home Edition 4.8.1201

Here is the link for the download page on the Avast Website is here:

avast! 4 Home Edition - FREE antivirus software - Download.

The software is free to use for non-commercial use by home users. There is a 60 day trial period before you have to register it. Registration is free, and easy to do. You have to re-register it once a year. I have it set to scan once a day, and it does updates automatically. So far, I'm quite happy with it.
     

Card and Tile Games: Pysol Fan Club Edition

I've long been a fan of Pysol (Python Solitaire) games. The originator of the project stopped development, but let the program's fans take over. This has resulted in the PysolFC (Fan Club edition).



Free to download and use, it has 1048 games, card games and Mahjongg and various other Asian games. It has an easy to install Windows version (download the setup.exe file). It was originally developed for Linux. The Linux version can be more problematic to install, but I expect we will start seeing more easy to install versions in many Linux repositories soon.

PySolFC: a Python solitaire game collection

[...] PySolFC is a collection of more than 1000 solitaire card games. It is a fork of PySol Solitaire.

There are games that use the 52 card International Pattern deck, games for the 78 card Tarock deck, eight and ten suit Ganjifa games, Hanafuda games, Matrix games, Mahjongg games, and games for an original hexadecimal-based deck.

Its features include modern look and feel (uses Tile widget set), multiple cardsets and tableau backgrounds, sound, unlimited undo, player statistics, a hint system, demo games, a solitaire wizard, support for user written plug-ins, an integrated HTML help browser, and lots of documentation.

PySolFC is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. [...]

This is my favorite card game/Mahjongg program, it's only a 6.90 MB download (for windows), it has a variety of options in the pull down menus, for sound effects, unlimited redeals, auto complete, auto drop, hints, score keeping, assorted animation controls, mouse controls etc, and a music soundtrack too. If you like these kinds of games, this is a program for you.
     

Cross-platform word processor: AbiWord 2.6

Abiword runs on multiple operating systems, and has come out with it's newest 2.6 release for Windows. The Linux version has to be compiled, or the Linux user has to wait for the Repositories for their specific distribution to offer the update. That is the "age-old Linux problem" mentioned in the title of the following review. That's not a show stopper for me, as I can wait a bit for for that. Meanwhile, the Windows version is easy to install, and super to use:

New AbiWord looks solid but suffers from age-old Linux problem

[...] Lightweight and peppy yet loaded to the core, AbiWord 2.6 is as good as they come. With the latest release, you get a few templates to create documents from, and the program spell-checks text as you type. AbiWord is multilingual and lets you input text in various languages, including English, French, German, Finnish, and several Indian languages. You can configure the editor to autosave documents after specific time intervals and maintain document history. You can also compare two documents currently open in AbiWord and find similarities in content, format, and styles.


As in previous versions, AbiWord responds to Emacs or vi key bindings. For lazy Web editors like me, it's a way to generate simple HTML as well. The latest version can create a valid XML page and embed formatting in the document itself or as external CSS stylesheets.

The new version can track document revisions from multiple sources as well as show a document before and after applying the suggested revisions. There's also a find feature to move to the next or previous revision, which can either be accepted, rejected, or purged. AbiWord allows you to add a comment for a particular revision, but I couldn't figure out how to read that comment afterward. [...]

It loads faster than OpenOffice, and has a smaller footprint. I've been using OpenOffice in our business, but I may switch to AbiWord now, as OpenOffice is a bit of overkill for our needs. I'll keep'em both, because OpenOffice does have some advanced Desktop publishing features, but I don't need them for everyday use. Abiword would be fine for the daily routine stuff, and simple Desktop Publishing too.

Now I'm just waiting for the 2.6 version update to be offered in my favorite Linux Distros too. I'm glad to have Abiword as an easy to use option.
     

Open Source Software for Linux & Windows

From CNET:
Open-source software rated: Ten alternatives you need

Open source products comprise the work of many collaborators -- sometimes thousands of them, and often separated by oceans. Each person works on small portions of a project, and anyone is welcome to contribute. The finished product will be available freely for anyone to download and, in most cases, modify.

All very touchy-feely, carey-sharey, but why should you care about open source? You should care because the vast majority of common applications, even complex commercial stuff such as Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office, have free, open-source alternatives. And this point is worth reiterating: open-source software is free. No cost. Zero. Zilch. [...]

This Cnet site in the UK provides an overview of ten free open-source applications that are available for Linux and Windows. Follow the link to the intro, and you'll find they devote a page to each application. You can check them out and see what they do, and if any of them are right for you.
     

Picasa, Google's free photo manager & editor

I recently downloaded a copy of Picasa, and was very impressed. It scanned and found ALL of my photo and image files, on all of my hard drives, and made them all available on one long scrolling page. I've rediscovered pics that I forgot I had! If your photos have gotten so numerous that organizing them seems impossible, Picasa will be an excellent tool to help you get a handle on the situation.

It also offers some basic editing tools for improving photos. The program is available free of charge, and it's a cross-platform program; versions are available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

From Marziah Karch at About.com, a review of the software:

Take a Look at Picasa - Review of Google's Digital Photo Management Software

[...] Picasa will organize your photos by date and initially retains the same file structure as your hard drive. The main area shows thumbnails of the images, and along the right side is a scroll bar to navigate. Thumbnails in the library are grouped by folder, but they’re all displayed (with some scrolling.) This means that you don’t have to repeatedly click to navigate to a new folder, which is a nice touch.

You can move thumbnails from folder to folder directly from Picasa, and it will confirm and then move the corresponding file on your hard drive. This makes it much easier to organize albums. [...]

It's a short review, but it gives you a good summary of all the basic functions, I recommend reading the whole thing.



You can download Picasa from the main page of their website:

Picasa by Google
     

OpenOffice.org: the alternative to MS Office

For Windows, Mac and Linux: a free office suite program
OpenOffice.org is both the name of a program, and the website you can download it from. The software is an open-source, cross-platform Office Suite that is comparable to Microsoft Office. It has versions that work with Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/Unix, and it's available free of charge.

Here is a link to recent review by Anne Krishnanof at Linux Insider, of the latest version:

OpenOffice: More Pros Than Cons     An excerpt:

[...] Users tend to love it. Reviewers across the Internet give OpenOffice thumbs up for being just as good as office suites by Microsoft and Lotus. They always point out the price is right when you consider that the 2007 version of Microsoft Office for individuals ranges from US$150 to $450.

OpenOffice offers many of the same applications as Microsoft Office, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program and database, rivaling Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. It also includes a drawing program and an equations program.

The software looks and feels like Microsoft Office, and it can read and display most files created in other programs. According to one reviewer, it also does just fine saving documents that can be read by the proprietary programs.

You can download the program from OpenOffice.org or order it on a CD to run on Windows, Linux or Mac operating systems. You can even run it from a thumb drive, meaning you can carry the programs with you and use them on any computer you choose.

There are catches to OpenOffice, depending on how you want to use the programs, but not any related to this being an open source project. Like any software, OpenOffice has some things that it does better than others, and some features it lacks altogether. [...]

It's a good review that is also honest about possible shortcomings, like the lack of office-wide calendar sharing and other things that I don't even need.

It's ideal for my work situation, an office in an RV Park. I use it for business correspondence, Memos, creating stationary and park forms, and it also has desktop publishing capabilities which come in handy for creating signs and making advertising brochures.

I use both Linux and Windows XP, and I can use the same OpenOffice files on both operating systems, which is very convenient. There is no license fee to pay, and I can install it on as many computers as I want. If you haven't got an office suite yet or are looking for an option to MS Office, you may want to check it out.




Related Links:

OpenOffice.org 2 - Product Description
Get more details of it's many features here. Also links to more screenshots.

Why the Office Format Wars are Not Over
A good article by Glyn Moody at Linux Journal, explaining why it's NOT over (despite what Microsoft says) and what is at stake.

OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas
A blog devoted to OpenOffice training, tutorials, and discussions. Updated regularly, its an excellent resource for the power user.

For Linux AND Windows... FREE
A prior post of mine, about Openoffice and a book that helps people make the transition to it from MS Office.