This prank call his hilarious! I need to start doing this to all of the telemarketers that call us during dinner! I’d have to practice keeping a straight face though…

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Download

The small file is located at Phalacee.com.

Installation

1. Extract the contents of the Twitter CLI.zip file into your Windows folder, which is located at:
   C:\Windows
2. Open the Twitter.bat file in Notepad (right-click, then choose Edit) and enter your Twitter user name and password in the appropriate fields:
   set username=YourTwitterUserName
set password=YourTwitterPassword
3. Save the file and close Notepad.

Update Twitter Via Command Line

Now you are able to Tweet via your Windows Command Line:

1. Hit the Windows Key+R
2. Type in the following:
   twitter ""
   Enter your status between the quotes.
3. Hit OK or the Enter on your keyboard.

That’s all there is to it! If you want your update to read: I’m eating over my keyboard and making a mess! You would enter:
twitter "I'm eating over my keyboard and making a mess!"

Notes

• The message must be less than 140 characters, which is Twitter’s limit.
• It’s not necessary to use quotation marks in your update but will be needed if you’re inputting a URL in your message:
  twitter "I just added a great picture to Flickr http://tinyurl.com/6r95ur"

Integration With Facebook

You can have this Twitter Window Command Line Client update your Facebook status by using the TwitterSync Facebook application (technically, the CLI client is still updating Twitter. The TwitterSync app just polls your Twitter feed and updates your status). I use it on my Facebook profile.

I prefer this application over Twitter’s Facebook app because it doesn’t add the prefix of: “is twittering:”, though you can add any prefix, if you wish. Also, because you can update Twitter via SMS, you can update your Facebook status via text message! Or, if you don’t want to, TwitterSync wont update if the tweet has a specific prefix (that you set). So, if you sent something like “from cellphone: I hate traffic!!”, then it wouldn’t update your Facebook status!

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ALEKS does have an article that covers Firefox 1.0 and Linux, though we need to change a few variables, here’s a step-by-step (if you need more detailed help, just post your question below):

1. Make sure you have “Sun Java 6 Web Start” installed. Use apt-get or Synaptec to check.
2. Download the ALEKS plugin: aleksPack10.jar (6.4M)
3. Save the plugin into your Home directory:
   /home/{YOURUSERNAME}
4. We need to find your Java plugin directory, open Terminal and type:
   locate /lib/ext/
5. Note the plugin location. For me, the output was:
   /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.03/jre/lib/ext/
6. In Terminal, type the following (if you’re output from Step 5 was different, supplement it in Step 6):
   cp aleksPack10.jar /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.03/jre/lib/ext/
7. Restart Firefox

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About

The kid has filled up a ton of glass bottles with the correct about of liquid to create the appropriate notes when tapped. He’s spaced the bottles apart and drives an RC Car past them, which taps them as it passes. This creates, what has to be, the most original version of the Super Mario Theme that I’ve ever heard!

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What this means for you, dear reader, is that I will disable FeedBurner from handling my feed information, so you need to revert your feed reader’s address for this site to: http://samanathon.com/feed. I really don’t look at the metrics from FeedBurner and there’s no reason why they should be getting all my PageRank love! For more information, please read: Don’t Let Your CommentLuv Be Stolen Away!

What Does The Commentluv Plugin Do?

Commentluv ads a checkbox to the bottom of your post’s comment form that gives your commentator the option of adding a link to their latest post to the end of their comment. This means that, in addition to a link to their site in their name, they get a deep link to their latest article! The more you comment on blogs that use this plugin, the more deep links you get to different articles!

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• Your normal operating system
• A mode that lets you trace any startup problems
• Safe Mode

All you have to do is create entries with different switches!

Setting up Boot Options

If you wanted to start XP in a mode that will trace potential startup problems, you could create this entry: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Trace Problems XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect /bootlog /sos
This setup creates a startup log and displays information about the drivers and other operating system information as it loads them.

To boot in Safe Mode with networking, you’d setup this entry:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Start XP Home Edition" /
fastdetect /safeboot:network

Example

Lets say that you want the bootloader menu to display for 30 seconds, normal XP startup to be the default and the above examples listed above there too:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Trace Problems XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect /bootlog /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Start XP Home Edition" /
fastdetect /safeboot:network

GUI Options

If you’re not too comfortable editing the boot.ini file, you could always use the System Configuration Utility. It won’t provide you with as many options as setting your own switches, but it can be much safer if your leery.

1. Hit the Windows Key+R
2. type the following, then enter:
   msconfig
3. Click the Boot.ini tab
4. Select options under the Boot Options section.

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Display Protected Operating System Files

We will need to display system files to be able to edit the file. To do so:

1. Launch Windows Explorer (Windows Key+E)
2. Click Tools -> Folder Options
3. Click the View tab
4. Untick the checkbox labeled: “Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)”
   
5. Click “Yes” in the Warning dialog
   
6. Click “OK”

You should now see the boot.ini file in your C:/ drive.

If the file is marked as “Read Only”, right-click boot.ini and click properties, untick the “Read Only” checkbox.

The Default boot.ini File

If you have a single Windows OS installed, your original file should look similar to this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
If you have two Window’s Operating Systems, it could look like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 Professional" / fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Breaking Down The Parameters

There are two sections to this file: [boot loader] and [operating systems]. Let’s break each section down:

[boot loader]

This section controls how the boot loader will work. It specifies the default Operating System and how much time a user has to choose from one of the choices in the boot menu - if the boot menu has been enabled.

timeout

The timeout value specifies, in seconds, how long to display the bootloader menu and wait for the user to make a choice before loading the default Operating System. If you want to show the menu for 30 seconds, then set the value to 30. If you want the default operating system to boot right away, then set the value to 0. If you want the menu to be displayed forever and stay on screen until the user makes a choice, then set the value to -1.

default

The default value decides which of the operating systems listed is the default. This must be listed, even if there is only one OS installed on this machine! In my second example above, the current default OS is to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT. If I wanted XP Pro to be the default, with a selection timeout of 15 seconds, I would set my options as so:
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating system]

This section lists all of the Windows Operating Systems that are installed on this computer, and lists some options for each one. XP uses the Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) path to specify the location of the boot partition. In our example, the ARC path is:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT

The first parameter, which identifies the disk controller, should be 0. The second parameter, the disk parameter, should also be 0. The rdisk parameter identifies the disk number on the controller that has the boot partition. The numbers start at 0. So, if you have three hard disks installed and the second hard disk has the boot partition, the setting is rdisk(1). The partition parameter identifies the partition number of the boot partition. Partitions start with the number 1. The last section details the path to the folder where the operating system is installed.

To the right of the ARC path in the example is =” Windows 2000 Professional” /fastdetect. The text in quotes is what will show upon the boot menu. You could set this to whatever you want: “XP: Pirated Edition” The /fastdetect switch disables the detection of serial and parallel devices, which allows for faster booting. The detection of these devices isn’t normally required in XP, because the functions are performed by plug-and-play drivers, so as a general rule it’s a good idea to use the /fastdetect switch. The following table shows a few more switches you can use:

When you’re all done playing around, save the boot.ini file. The next time you start your machine, you’re newly created file will be used – but only if you’ve kept the boot.ini file name!

Example

If we want the menu to appear for 2 minutes, the default operating system to be XP, and the Windows 2000 splash screen to be turned off when we choose to load 2000, the boot.ini file should look like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=120
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect /noguiboot
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

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isn’t it ridiculous that every month or so theres some new major release of ubuntu. Now they are pushing out Kubuntu. this is why linux is has such a hard time really breaking into production environments….

I had to correct him, and I’ll drop some science on you all, just in case you don’t know: Ubuntu releases major desktop versions about six months and Kubuntu follows a short while after. Also, here’s some more info for you all to marinate on: The Ubuntu release version numbers are based on the release dates and not actual versions, i.e.: Ubuntu 7.10 was release on October 2007 - it’s not the seventh release… If you’re interested, you can read more on Ubuntu’s Release Schedule.

With this knowledge, I have to pose the question: Isn’t it a good thing that there is a major Operating System revision that is released so often? I think it pushes the coding envelope instead of having OS delayed four years and missing every major promised feature (I’m looking at you Vista). Just look at Apple: Every major release is a vast improvement on its predecessor. Ubuntu is following this dynamic: Each bi-annual release receives UI and feature improvements. I don’t want to pick in Microsoft here, but it feels like they took a hard look at XP and removed everything that was great about it, slapped on a GUI that is resource intensive (which forces hardware upgrades and degrades usability) and called it Vista.

Before Vista, I was one of Microsoft’s biggest fans (that fact that 90% of my articles are on Windows is a testament to that) and now, the more I use Linux, the less I like XP. I think Linux has a long way to go, but the fact that both Apple and Microsoft are targeting the high end PC market leaves a huge gap in the low- and mid-markets which are perfect for OS’s like Ubuntu and gOS (I realize that these are both Debian derived, but they’re the distro’s I’ve had the most experience with).

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More Information

Before we start, you will need to make sure that you know the name of each network computer and can access it. To find out the computer’s name, walk to each machine and hit the Windows Key+Pause/Break key and click on the Computer Name tab. Look for the value under “Full computer name:”. Once you know the name of each computer connected to the network (that you’d like to remotely shut down), the easiest way to see if you can access them is with the command prompt: Go to your machine (the one that will be running the command file, not the networked machines), hit the Windows Key+R, and type:
\\{computer name}
For example, if the networked computer’s name is “274D”, you would enter:
\\274D
If the computer’s shared directory is displayed, then you’re connected! If you get an error, then you need to check connectivity settings and those are beyond the scope of this article.

Creating The File

Open Notepad and save the file, on your Desktop, as “Network Shutdown.bat” (or “I love ham”, it’s your choice ). Make sure you set the “Save as type” drop down to “All files”.

Listing Each Computer

Right-click your newly created batch file and click Edit (double-clicking it will launch the file). We need to list all of our computers in blocks. Each block be composed of three lines of code: We will set a variable with the network computer’s name, call the loop and then create a new label with that computer’s name:
set varcomputer=274D
goto loop
:274D
Let me explain what each line means:

1. set varcomputer=274D
   By using the “set” command, we are creating a variable called “varcomputer”, we then set the variable. In this case, with the value “274D”
2. goto loop
   We are telling the program to go to the label named “loop”, which we will create in a few steps.
3. :274D
   This label has the value of the computer in this block. The loop below will tell the program to go to this label, then the program will continue on the next line (line by line, remember?!).

Create a block for each computer that you’d like to shutdown:
set varcomputer=274D
goto loop
:274D

set varcomputer=322A
goto loop
:322A

set varcomputer=bobs_pc
goto loop
:bobs_pc
Notice that we are reusing the varcomputer variable. After you’ve listed each computer, write the “exit” command. This will tell the computer that we are all done and it may close the progam:
exit

Creating The Loop

The loop will consist of four parts: a label, some information for the user, the actual shutdown command and the return for the loop:
:loop
echo Shutting down %varcomputer%.
shutdown -s -m \\%varcomputer% -t 600 -c "The computer is shutting down. Please save your work."
goto %varcomputer%

Again, let’s break down each section:
1. :loop
   This is the entrance for the loop. The second line of each computer block is sent to this label.
2. echo Shutting down %varcomputer%.
   This is the information that is returned to the user who runs the program; it reads the current value of the “varcomputer”. This information will not be displayed on the networked machine.
3. shutdown -s -m \\%varcomputer% -t 600 -c "The computer is shutting down. Please save all of your work."
   This is the shutdown command. It contains a few a few parts. For detailed information on each switch, please read Windows Tip: Shutdown Your Computer With The Command Prompt
4. goto %varcomputer%
   This is the return for the loop. The program reads the current value of the “varcomputer” variable, returns to the final line of the current block and continues to the next block. By using the goto command, we are telling the program to return to a label – one that we’ve set with the “varcomputer” variable.

The Finished Product

Now that we are armed with this knowledge, we can put it all together – but before we do, let’s add a few finishing touches. At the beginning of your file, add this:
@Echo off
This will hide all commands from the user’s view and will only display comments (that are preceded by “echo”). Also, you’ll notice there are a few lines that are started with “rem”. These are internal comments that are not processed by the program. I’ve peppered the file with a couple for you to marinate on.

Your batch file should look like this:
@Echo off
cd\
Echo Saman=Program
REM ****************************
REM * Program Variables *
REM ****************************

set varcomputer=274D
goto loop
:274D

set varcomputer=322A
goto loop
:322A

set varcomputer=bobs_pc
goto loop
:bobs_pc

Exit

REM ****************************
REM * Program *
REM ****************************

:loop
echo Shutting down %varcomputer%.
shutdown -s -m \\%varcomputer% -t 600 -c “The computer is shutting down. Please save your work.”
goto %varcomputer%

Cancel The Shut Down

You can cancel a shut down that is in progess with the following line. This line cannot be run through the network! You have to walk to each machine and run the command either from the command prompt or the Run dialog, or Windows Key+R:
Shutdown -a

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The Camera was one of the first things that impressed me with this new wonder toy.  With a two megapixel digital camera, the quality is actually good enough to use for some real pictures.  (Now don’t get me wrong, I’d still take a 7 or 8 megapixel camera any day of the week, but 2 is enough to actually get some decent 5×7 prints from)  The greatest feature of this little marvel camera, happens to be that it IS a phone camera, I find that I always have a good camera with me now and can take pictures of things that I would otherwise have missed out on.

On the bad side, the camera does have a few limitations and issues.  1) No Movies, still frames only…I personally don’t take many movies anyway so it wasn’t a big set back. 2) Self portraits are pretty much not happening.  The soft button that you use to take the picture is in a great location when you’re looking at your target, but when trying to take your own picture, it’s nearly impossible to actually press that button and hold the camera pointed at you at the same time. 3) No zoom, at all, period.  You have to frame the picture by where you stand, 9 times out of 10 you can deal with it, but every once in a while, it would be really nice to be able to zoom in or out a touch.

Other features that I love about the iPhone:

1) Google maps.  It’s so nice to have a mobile reference when walking around the streets of cities that I don’t really know.  Downside is that there is no GPS.  The locate me feature is nice, but leaves you wanting a bit more.

2) Contact management.  Something I think everyone forgets about the iPhone, the contact management system syncs great with Address Book on your mac, and is incredibly complete.  I can call, text, email all from my iPhone, I can also store address information, Instant messaging screen names, notes, and even a photo all in the same address book that I sync between my iPhone and computer.  The downside here is that you are missing a couple of key features, like being able to organize the groups directly on the iPhone, currently I have to organize groups on my computer.  And also being able to assign ringtones to groups…key feature, I can’t believe it’s not around yet.

3) iPod on your phone, got to love it.  Now I’m never without my tunes.  Too bad they don’t have the 160gb model yet….

4) Slide to Unlock..  I love bar phones, I’ve never particularly cared for flip phones, but the one problem I’ve always had, is accidental dialing even when I lock my phone.  The iPhone is the first phone that I’ve never had a problem with.  I’ve only had an accidental dial once, and that’s because I didn’t lock my phone before putting it back in my pocket.

Overall I love my iPhone, but there are a few things that really do need to be fixed/added/improved before the device will really live up to it’s potential, but in the mean time I haven’t found anything else that can even compare with the feature set and simple interface that the iPhone currently offers.  Personally I’m going to be really excited to see the 2nd generation of the iPhone..maybe iPhone Air?

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As if I don’t have enough to do in my life, I became a user and started adding content to help expand the site (view my contributions to the Futurama wiki). I just started watching the show from the beginning again and have made a lot of additions!

The site is named after The Infosphere which “is a massive biological memory bank created by the Brain Spawn to catalog all the information in the universe” and that is the aim of the site as well, to collect as much information about one of the smartest, funniest and greatest shows of all time. If you are a fan, I suggest you visit and help out!

See you on the ‘Sphere!

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On top of that, Stephen Fung added me to the guest list for his party and I just wasn’t well enough to go! Oh well, maybe next year…

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Sysinternals, previously an independent site, has got a lot of utilities to fine-tune your Windows box. Sysinternals is now a part of Microsoft.

File Monitor from Sysinternals is a free disk read write monitoring utility. It is an out of the box program that needs no installation. It can be downloaded from the File Monitor page at Sysinternals and is a zip archive of only 279Kb. File Monitor has got a simple and clutter free interface which shows the current disk activity. The columns in the main Window shows : Time, Process that is doing the operation, Request by the process, File being accessed and Other information.

You can set File Monitor to monitor selected drives or all the drives. The Details History can be adjusted from 1 to infinite number.You can also search in the history, apply Filters and Save the Logs. The Memory usage is 5.3Mb + 43Mb of virtual memory.

It is a must have for System administrators and power users. File Monitor was created by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. Download FileMonitor zip file - 279Kb.

I blog about almost the same things as Saman but am a student and has only recently moved to my new home at exnol.com. So please tell me your valuable feedback about my blog and how I can improve the content and the appearance.

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Unit Testing

“Unit testing” refers to testing an individual program - of course, this test only applies within a larger system, i.e. Operating System or the Human Resources program within your company’s Information System. Testing a program by itself would be the first step for a program as you would want to make sure it work the way it should before you integrate it into the larger system: You would want to make sure that the Inventory System can access and write to the database before you integrate it into the Purchasing System.

Volume Testing

Testing an application with large amounts of data can revile bugs that weren’t noticeable with a smaller amount of test data, this is the purpose of Volume Testing: Making sure the Payroll System can access all of the records a giant database and can run queries without choking.

Integration Testing

Integration Testing is done by testing all related sub-systems together: The Inventory System can access the Purchasing, Manufacturing and Sales systems. Each of these sub-systems is working as intended, they are sharing data together and each can run quires on tables from different databases.

System Testing

When all of the individual programs are functioning as intended (or close to it) you test all parts together, as a whole. This is a “System Test”: The Operating System can initiate the Networking Utility, the Indexing Service is crawling user folders, the Power Management applet can be accessed and the Power Scheme can be changed. All of the individual programs are working and playing nicely together. System Testing is similar to Integration Testing, though a System Test refers to the entire system, which would include all related and non-related sub-systems.

Acceptance Testing

Acceptance Testing is conducing any tests as required by the user. The test could be considered as a “test run” by the end user: Is the user happy with the system’s functionality, are they using features as intended, etc.

Alpha Testing

Testing an incomplete or early version of the system, or individual program is referred to as “Alpha Testing”. This test is geared toward ensuring that smaller features of a larger system are working: Is the new “Weapons Inventory Heads Up Display” reading the game’s available “Weapon Inventory” database and can the player change weapons? Also, this test is used to make sure that these new features haven’t messed up other features that are currently in place. Usually, many parts of the system are broken in this stage, as it is usually done very early in the development phase.

Programing CodeBeta Testing

Beta Tests are done on a close-to-complete and stable system. Obviously, Beta Tests are done after an Alpha Test. A beta system is close to completion and almost ready for the end user.

Mixing Tests

Now that you are marinating on all of that knowledge, consider that these tests can be combined: Alpha-Unit testing is the testing of an individual program before it’s completely finished. Beta-Unit testing, on the other hand, is performed after Alpha testing, when the individual program is complete and ready to use by end users.

Release Candidates

RC’s are an example of a test done by some companies and not others. After a round (or a few rounds) of beta testing, Release Candidates are compiled. These versions are very close to official release. Additional tests are done to ensure that all features are working as intended and there are no bugs. If any (”any” is subjective, it can refer to an “acceptable” amount of bugs for this release version or any at all), they are fixed and another Release Candidate, i.e. RC 2, can be complied for additional testing.

Gold Release

Software that “has gone gold” is the final version of a particular product. This release is ready for instillation or, for consumer software, has been sent to the production plant for mass-production and will be for sale soon. These releases are almost identical to the final Release Candidate, with only the very latest (and/or most essential) bugs fixed.

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Download XP SP3

The first step is to edit a Registry key in your system. Karthik Kastury has made it easy, he created a command file that does the work for you.

Warning: You should always be careful when downloading a command or batch file from the web. Upon clicking my link below, Firefox users will be able to see the code before downloading it. Internet Explorer users will be prompted to open or save the file. After you save it to your desktop, right-click and select “Edit” to view the contents. Never trust anyone!

1. Download the XP Service Pack 3 Registry Hack.
2. Save it to your desktop as a command file (.cmd extension) and double-click it to run the file.
3. Run Windows Update.

What’s Going On

What you are doing is adding a Registry Key that the Windows Update site reads. This key tells Windows Update that your machine is a beta tester and allows it to download SP3 before the official release, which is slated for release sometime in 2008. The version of SP3 (as of this writing) is Release Candidate 1.

Select the update and click “Install Updates”. The download should begin!

When the download is done, the Software Update Installation Wizard should launch.

Agree to the license agreement.

Installation should begin!

When installation completes, you will need to restart your machine.

When the machine boots, you can check your system properties by hitting the Windows Key+Pause/Break

SP3 Review

I must say that I am completely disappointed. First off, when Service Pack 2 was released there were a lot of improvements to the operating system: Wireless Zero was massively overhauled and the Windows Security Center was new and shiny - and that’s just two of them - and, in addition, it included all of the security patches. I was really hoping that Microsoft would include some new features into SP3 and I haven’t found a single new program. I’ve looked everywhere that I can think of and haven’t seen anything new. Microsoft has been very tight lipped about what will be included in SP3 and it is entirely possible (though not likely) that the there are different versions of SP3 on the Windows Update server and this is just the “security version” - hopefully there are new features on the official release….

Honestly though, I doubt it. With the poor adoption rate of Windows Vista, I really doubt that Microsoft would include any “wiz-bang” features into XP as that would just keep people from upgrade to Vista. Hopefully, Vista SP1 will as much as an improvement as XP SP2 was.

Bonus

You might have noticed that I have a “Black” theme. You can read about it and download the Microsoft Royale Noir Theme for yourself!

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Information

There really isn’t that much info on this distro other then a few details:

• It’s based on Ubuntu 7.10
• It uses the Enlightenment (DR17) window manager for it’s shell. This reportedly lowers memory usage and CPU speed requirements¹ (most Linux distro’s use GNOME or KDE desktop).

The tagline for gOS is “An alternative OS for the masses“. What does mean exactly? I imagine the “masses” refers to most users out there (think non-tech types like your Dad or Grandma).

The Desktop

Upon boot, the user is treated to a bare, but pretty desktop. There is a Google search applet, an analog clock, the computer’s drives and the OS’s primary feature: A Mac-like “Dock”. I actually like the desktop a lot, it’s clean and very easy to navigate! The lack of clutter lets the user do exactly what they want to do, check their email, IM, surf, etc!

gOS is still in the Alpha phase - it works great but I seem to have stumbled onto a little bug: When I single-left-click on the desktop, the context menu opens. It could be a feature, I don’t know!

The “Dock”

This is were most of the use will take place. On this “dock” are icons linking to various useful Web 2.0 services from Google and a few others. There are icons for Google Docs, Gmail, , YouTube, Meebo, Facebook, Wikipedia and more. In addition, there are some non-Web-based apps, likeFirefox, Skype and Gimp. The way this is all set up, the user won’t really know which of these apps are local or based in “the cloud” (Internet based).

The problem with all of these cloud-based apps is that they all require their own login & authentication (not the case with the Google apps as they all share a login). Although you could set up the same user name & password and tell each to remember you.

The $199 PC

PC manufacturer Everex has started selling the gPC (Green Personal Computer) at Wal-Mart. I think this is a great step forward for Linux - in terms of saturation. This move allows for the “masses” to access the web, write term papers, watch and burn DVD’s and stay in touch with friends cheep and easy - and, because it’s powered by Ubuntu, they’ll have access to thousands of free applications from the Ubuntu repositories!

The thing I don’t really like is that users don’t really know that they’re using Linux - but I guess that doesn’t really matter to them, they just get a working PC for cheep. Plus, they could always reformat later. Though I doubt if the 1.5 GHz, 512 RAM can push the prettiness of Compiz-Fusion…

Support

gOS does have a community and support forum setup. I perused it a bit and there are a ton of n00by user questions, but I guess that’s the point of a support forum, right?!

Download

You can download gOS via torrent, just burn the ISO to a DVD and boot the live CD. You can test drive the OS and/or install it if you wish. Remember, this is Ubuntu Gutsy, so installation should be a breeze! I ran it virtually in Ubuntu using VMWare Server.

Concerns

Being a geek, I’s rather have way more control over my documents and email, but that’s just me. I would rather have local copies of everything so I can back them up myself (and not rely on someone else) but the average Joe may not care. Also, because this OS runs most of it’s apps online, an Internet connection is required. I question whether someone buying a $199 PC from Wal-Mart can afford a monthly broadband connection (of course they could use dial-up, but how rich would their experience be?).

Opinion

I must say that I would rather someone run a full Linux distro. I am a huge believer that you should learn as much as you can about everything - expose yourself to as much as you possibly can so you can be as informed as possible. I think that this OS might be a little too “stupid simple”. Although, I think the PC is a great alternative for someone who wants a PC but can’t really afford one (the least expensive Dell is $349).

¹ Enlightenment DR17 on Wikipedia

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