MagiKomputer

Softaculous Hosting Software

2011-03-22T14:37:00.003+01:00

Softaculous is Auto Installer software for cPanel and DirectAdmin, the ideal solution for Web Hosting companies. The Auto Installer counts at the moment with 176 scripts and the team keeps adding more all the time.

Some of the wide array of categories these scripts cover are shown below:

Additionally, Softaculous has built good relationships with companies who provide various type of Web-hosting Software.

	Xtra is an addon module for cPanel servers, designed to add a little kick to WHM, adding many features you could normally only do via command line or not at all. This Plugin adds even more functionality to your end users cPanel, saving your techs time and saving you money. Installs with a single command!
	vePortal is a complete VPS Management application of the highest quality. Since early 2009, vePortal has been in rapid development, with a team of dedicated and fully qualified professionals, working to ensure vePortal is the best that it can be.
	WHMCS is an all-in-one client management, billing & support solution for online businesses. WHMCS handles everything from signup to termination, with automated billing, provisioning & management. With WHMCS, you're in control with a very powerful business automation tool.
	WHMSonic is a popular WHM/cPanel plugin, intended on making your life easier. WHMSonic's plugins install in seconds and allows you to offer Shoutcast streaming media, AutoDJ, radio reseller from your Dedicated or VPS server without SSH access.
	CPSkins produces the most unique and affordable cpanel skins and DirectAdmin skins in the market. With more then 10 different skins to pick between, we are sure you will find a cpanel or DirectAdmin skin that fits your needs. CPSkins specializes in creating custom cPanel Skins & DirectAdmin skins branded to your company needs. CPSkins is offering 15% off on their cPanel and DirectAdmin Skins to all Softaculous Customers.
	ISPsystem is a fast growing web hosting software development company. The company was established in 2004 with the goal of providing the innovated solutions for Web Hosting Needs. Today ISPsystem offers the customers the state of the art web hosting software: ISPmanager - web hosting control panel, VDSmanager - Virtual Private Server management system, DSmanager - Dedicated Server management system
	The ZamFoo software suite is a series of WHM plugin modules (also known as WHM addon modules) catored towards easing the burden of web hosting providers that sell shared hosting solutions using the Cpanel and WHM hosting platform.

Below you can view a comparison table with other similar products:

Features	Softaculous	Softaculous Free	Fantastico	Installatron	cPanel
Number of Scripts	176	60	50	58	19
Ratings
User Reviews
Demos
One Step Install			3 steps	12+ steps	2 steps
GZip Compression
Addition of Scripts
Common Features
Price/year	$24	Free	$90	$50	N/A
VPS Price/year	$12	Free	$24	$25	N/A

Kuler

2011-02-22T12:40:00.000+01:00

Kuler is a little known software gem from Adobe in the form of a web-hosted application, that can be either used alone or in conjunction with software from the Adobe® Creative Suite®, such as Adobe Illustrator® CS5, Photoshop® CS5, InDesign® CS5, Fireworks® CS5, and Flash® Professional CS5.

Kuler's online experience uses Adobe® Flash® and ActionScript 3.0, so the website where it operates isn't really recommended for slow connections.

Kuler allows you to create or find a color scheme by using hex colors, images, or from themes provided by the Adobe community. You can even pick a color hex from a logo of a site that you’re working with, drop it into Kuler’s create panel and it will generate a color scheme based on that color. Sweet.

Rules can be applied to the color schemes, including Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound or Shades. Each scheme consists of five colors, and each color can be adjusted manually using a color wheel and sliders for red, green and blue values. The tools returns the RGB, HSV, CMYK, LAB and HEX values for each color.

More Info:

Benefits of Outsourcing

2010-11-22T11:38:00.000+01:00

By definition, outsourcing involves the delegation of the execution of one or several business processes to an external service provider, usually located on a foreign country where labor costs are considerably cheaper.

The type of activities typically outsourced include information technology, customer support and call center functions like telemarketing, customer service, market research, manufacturing, designing, web development, content writing, ghostwriting and engineering.

The most obvious reason for outsourcing is the reduction of the overall cost of the service to the business, but there are other economic advantages, such as:

Focus on Core Business — Resources (for example investment, people, infrastructure) are focused on developing the core business. For example often organizations outsource their IT support to specialized IT services companies.
Cost restructuring — Operating leverage is a measure that compares fixed costs to variable costs. Outsourcing changes the balance of this ratio by offering a move from fixed to variable cost and also by making variable costs more predictable.
Improve quality — Achieve a steep change in quality through contracting out the service with a new service level agreement.
Knowledge — Access to intellectual property and wider experience and knowledge.
Contract — Services will be provided to a legally binding contract with financial penalties and legal redress. This is not the case with internal services.
Operational expertise — Access to operational best practice that would be too difficult or time consuming to develop in-house.
Access to talent — Access to a larger talent pool and a sustainable source of skills, in particular in science and engineering.
Capacity management — An improved method of capacity management of services and technology where the risk in providing the excess capacity is borne by the supplier.
Catalyst for change — An organization can use an outsourcing agreement as a catalyst for major step change that can not be achieved alone. The outsourcer becomes a Change agent in the process.
Enhance capacity for innovation — Companies increasingly use external knowledge service providers to supplement limited in-house capacity for product innovation.
Reduce time to market — The acceleration of the development or production of a product through the additional capability brought by the supplier.
Commodification — The trend of standardizing business processes, IT Services, and application services which enable to buy at the right price, allows businesses access to services which were only available to large corporations.
Risk management — An approach to risk management for some types of risks is to partner with an outsourcer who is better able to provide the mitigation.
Venture Capital — Some countries match government funds venture capital with private venture capital for start-ups that start businesses in their country.
Tax Benefit — Countries offer tax incentives to move manufacturing operations to counter high corporate taxes within another country.
Scalability — The outsourced company will usually be prepared to manage a temporary or permanent increase or decrease in production.
Creating leisure time — Individuals may wish to outsource their work in order to optimise their work-leisure balance.

W7

2010-03-22T11:55:00.000+01:00

It took over 5 years to develop Windows Vista and just a few weeks to bury deep down its reputation, dragging along that of Microsoft's. No other major product in the History of Software has aroused so much contempt derision and yes, hatred. Not every company lives to see the day when its customers beg, plead and sign petitions to bring back the previous version of its flagship product.

A search in Google for "I hate Vista" (note the quotation marks), returns nothing less than 878,300 results, among which you'll find titles like:

The common argument usually sounds something similar to this:

"I hate vista because this is the first operating system where I felt and continuously feel my computer does not belong to me."

But it won't take Microsoft five years to produce the next Windows. The company wants to put Vista behind it as soon as possible. In fact, the next version of Windows is almost here already. It’s called Windows 7, and it looks and feels a lot like Vista. In fact, what Microsoft seems to be aiming for in Windows 7 is a fixed version of Vista, with more than a few borrowings from Mac OS X.

For example, the Windows 7 taskbar looks and works like Mac OS X’s Dock: a row of big, square program icons representing your favorite programs, whether they’re running or not. It has taken over the launching functions of the old Quick Launch Toolbar.

Other Apple borrowings: desktop wallpaper that changes at regular intervals. A yellow sticky-notes program. A simple menu of available wireless networks. “Private browsing,” in which your adults-only Web exploits leave no tracks in the History list or anywhere else. Jump lists (useful shortcut menus that pop out of the taskbar icons). And, on specially equipped laptops, multitouch gestures borrowed from the iPhone’s, such as being able to rotate an image by twisting two fingers on the screen, pinch to zoom, etc.

For decades, Microsoft’s primary strategy has been to put out something mediocre, and then remake it until it succeeds. That’s what’s exciting about the prospect of Windows 7. It’s Windows Vista but without the crap.

Read more:

How to Optimize Firefox Portable for Performance

2009-04-18T04:11:00.006+02:00

Firefox Portable is a repackaged version of Mozilla Firefox created by John T. Haller. The application runs from an external USB flash drive, CDROM or other portable device on any Windows computer, Mac OS X computer or Linux/UNIX computer running Wine.
This portable version does not require Firefox to be installed on the host computer and does not leave any personal information on the host computer neither interferes with any installed versions of Firefox.

Firefox Portable runs quite efficiently from fast flash drives, portable hard drives or iPods if connected to a USB 2.0 port. But if your external USB stick is slow and/or you're stuck in a USB 1.1 connection you'll notice a slow-down in performance.

Firefox Portable has to read and write bits of data to and from your portable device while it's running. On most flash drives, every time something is written, all reads stop causing Firefox Portable to appear to "freeze" or "hesitate" momentarily.

However there are a few different things you can tweak to speed things up:

Disable Cache: Not meant for USB external drives, Cache will actually slow Firefox Portable down. If it's not disabled by default it can be disabled at the Options box.

Disable Session Restore / Undo Close Tab: Session Restore keeps track of all your open windows and tabs so you can restore your session if Firefox crashes. For that functionality to be active it has to write to disk on every page load, which slows down Firefox Portable.
To disable this feature you must:

In Firefox's address bar, type in about:config and then hit enter
Right-click on any entry and select New - Boolean
For the name, enter browser.sessionstore.enabled and click OK
Select false and then click OK

Disable Anti-Phishing: The anti-phishing filter that warns you about fake sites also produces additional writes to the drive.
You can disable this feature by clicking Tools - Options and then selecting the Security tab. Uncheck the box next to "Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery".

Disable History: Disabling history at the Options box will prevent Firefox Portable from writing a small bit of data to your drive for every page you visit.

Enable pipelining: If you're using a broadband connection you can load pages much faster by setting network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to true and network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 8 in the about:config window.

SearchWiki: make search your own

2008-11-22T04:28:00.007+01:00

Last 20th Google has launched SearchWiki, a way to customize search results by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site.

You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don't feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users and your changes are stored in your Google Account.

SearchWiki's main idea is to give users the opportunity to manually customize the search results and make them more predictable. Since many people repeat common searches and Google's results are constantly changing, it's nice to pick your favorite results and display them at the top. If you can't find a site you like, click on "Add a result" and manually add a page in the list of top results.

How about SEO, you might ask? Well, that's a completely different story.

Read More:
Official Google Blog: SearchWiki: make search your own

XAML Integrator

2008-10-17T18:38:00.001+02:00

XAML represents a bridge between the designer and developer teams.
A new role has emerged as the result of this fusion, that Paul Alexander, a technical program manager with IdentityMine, calls the integrator:

"The Integrator understands the needs of the developer while also supporting the needs of the designer to assure that the app's UI is as compelling as it was designed, while also validating that the concepts can be realized in code from the developer."

The integrator deals mostly with XAML code and provides an interface between the developer and designer, by structuring and modularizing the XAML.

Therefore, the ideal integrator must posess strong design skills and a thorough understanding of XAML and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) concepts such as inheritance, styles, and resource lookup.

The Designer -> Integrator -> Developer Model allows the design team to leave the XAML unattended and focus on having their assets effectively integrated into the project.
Designers can work with tools such as Expression Design, Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator and output the results as XAML.
The integrator then integrates the XAML into the project and passes it on to the developers, who need not to be concerned with design issues.
Obviously, this model also works perfectly well the other way around, and in some cases it is advisable to have the developer team establish the foundations of the project.

A recently released tool by Microsoft, Expression Blend, makes this transition even easier, by accepting and generating XAML code that can be directly imported/exported from/to Visual Studio.

SPAM on Usenet

2008-03-01T16:28:00.002+01:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam and junk fax transmissions.

Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions."

Spam affects about everybody that uses the Internet in one form or another. And in spite of what Bill Gates forecasted in 2004, when he said that "spam will soon be a thing of the past", it is getting worse by the day. While the European Union's Internal Market Commission estimated in 2001 that "junk e-mail" cost Internet users €10 billion per year worldwide, the California legislature found that spam cost United States organizations alone more than $13 billion in 2007, including lost productivity and the additional equipment, software, and manpower needed to combat the problem.

Where does all that Spam come from? Experts from SophosLabs (a developer and vendor of security software and hardware) have analyzed spam messages caught by companies involved in the Sophos global spam monitoring network and came out with a list of top 12 countries that spread spam around the globe:

USA - 28.4%;
South Korea - 5.2%;
China (including Hong Kong) - 4.9%;
Russia - 4.4%;
Brazil - 3.7%;
France - 3.6%;
Germany - 3.4%;
Turkey - 3.%;
Poland - 2.7%;
Great Britain - 2.4%;
Romania - 2.3%;
Mexico - 1.9%;
Other countries - 33.9%

There are many types of electronic spam, including E-mail spam (unsolicited e-mail), Mobile phone spam (unsolicited text messages, Messaging spam ("SPIM"), use of instant messenger services for advertisement or even extortion, Spam in blogs ("BLAM"), posting random comments or promoting commercial services to blogs, wikis, guestbooks, Forum spam (posting advertisements or useless posts on a forum, Spamdexing, manipulating a search engine to create the illusion of popularity for webpages, Newsgroup spam, advertisement and forgery on newsgroups, etc.

For the purpose of this post we shall focus on Newsgroups spam, the type of spam where the targets are Usenet newsgroups.
Usenet convention defines spamming as excessive multiple posting, that is, the repeated posting of a message (or substantially similar messages). During the early 1990s there was substantial controversy among Usenet system administrators (news admins) over the use of cancel messages to control spam. A cancel message is a directive to news servers to delete a posting, causing it to be inaccessible to those who might read it.
Some regarded this as a bad precedent, leaning towards censorship, while others considered it a proper use of the available tools to control the growing spam problem.
A culture of neutrality towards content precluded defining spam on the basis of advertisement or commercial solicitations. The word "spam" was usually taken to mean excessive multiple posting (EMP), and other neologisms were coined for other abuses — such as "velveeta" (from the processed cheese product) for excessive cross-posting.
A subset of spam was deemed cancellable spam, for which it is considered justified to issue third-party cancel messages.

The Breidbart Index (BI), developed by Seth Breidbart, provides a measure of severity of newsgroup spam by calculating the breadth of any multi-posting, cross-posting, or combination of the two. BI is defined as the sum of the square roots of how many newsgroups each article was posted to. If that number approaches 20, then the posts will probably be cancelled by somebody.

The use of the BI and spam-detection software has led to Usenet being policed by anti-spam volunteers, who purge newsgroups of spam by sending cancels and filtering it out on the way into servers.

A related form of Newsgroups spam is forum spam. It usually consists of links, with the dual goals of increasing search engine visibility in highly competitive areas such as sexual invigoration, weight loss, pharmaceuticals, gambling, pornography, real estate or loans, and generating more traffic for these commercial websites.
Spam posts may contain anything from a single link, to dozens of links. Text content is minimal, usually innocuous and unrelated to the forum's topic. Full banner advertisements have also been reported.
Alternatively, the spam links are posted in the user's signature,where is more likely to be approved by forum administrators and moderators.
Spam can also be described as posts that have no relevance to the threads topic, or have no purpose in general (e.i, a user typing "CABBAGES!" or other such useless posts in an important news thread).

When Google bought the Usenet archives in 2001, it provided a web interface to text groups (thus turning them into some kind of web forums) through Google Groups, from which more than 800 million messages dating back to 1981 can be accessed.
There are some especially memorable articles and threads in these archives, such as Tim Berners-Lee's announcement of what became the World Wide Web:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=6487%40cernvax.cern.ch
or Linus Torvalds' post about his "pet project":
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Oct5.054106.4647%40klaava.Helsinki.FI
You can view a pick of the most relevant posts here:
http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html

But Google Groups are responsible for the higher proportion of the spam that floods the Usenet nowadays. Google Groups isn't the only source, but is the one that makes it easier for spammers to carry out their irritating activities.
It's so easy to spam Usenet through Google Groups that there are some infamous spammers who have been doing so for years. Perhaps the best known of all is the MI-5 Persecution spammer who gets his way across just about any other newsgroup with rambling postings that often appear as clusters of 20 or more messages all related to Mike Corley's perceived persecution of himself by MI5, the British intelligence agency. This UK-based spammer readily admits that he suffers from mental illness in several of his postings. He annoys the rest of users in such an exasperating way, that some of them have even offered themselves to the MI-5 to personally finish off the job.

The solution, IMHO, is to implement the Breidbart Index in Google Groups. It would be an easy task for a company that excels at implementing all kinds of algorithms in their search engine, that I just can't understand what are they waiting for.

More Info:
Newsgroup Spam

Keyloggers protection

2008-02-05T20:57:00.000+01:00

Keylogging works by recording the keystrokes you type on the keyboard to a log file that can be transmitted to a third party. Keyloggers can capture user names, passwords, account numbers, social security numbers or any other confidential information that you type using your keyboard.

There are two types of Keystroke loggers:

Hardware key loggers are devices that are attached to the keyboard cable or installed inside the keyboard. There are commercially available products of this kind, even dedicated keyboards with key logging functionality.
Software key loggers are usually simple programs that can capture the keystrokes the user is typing, They can also record mouse clicks, files opened and closed, sites visited on the Internet, etc. A more advanced type of key loggers can also capture text from windows and make screenshots of what displayed on the screen.

While writing keylogging programs is simple, a different matter is installing it inside the victim's computer without getting caught and downloading the data that has been logged without being traced.

The best protection against keyloggers is to avoid them in the first place.
A few golden rules:

Use a Firewall
Use an Anti-virus program
Use an Anti-spyware program
Never click on links sent by unknown people and be very careful of the known ones since their address might be faked. If in doubt, check the e-mail headers.
Never execute attachments on e-mails that are executable files (EXE, COM, SCR, etc). No exceptions here.
Never execute programs from the Internet that lack a security certificate. Except from Microsoft update and very few others, there should be no reason for executing any programs from the web.
Run a virus and spyware check on ALL files that come from external sources (USB pen, DVDs, etc)

Additional measures that can be taken are:
Monitoring what programs are running on your computer
Monitor your network whenever an application attempts to make a network connection.
Use an automatic form filler programs that prevent keylogging since they're not using the keyboard.

There are commercially available anti-keyloggers, but if you're looking for a free alternative try Spybot Search & Destroy, a freeware tool that does a pretty decent job at detecting all kinds of spyware:

Windows Defender, a free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

The Sysinternals web site hosts several utilities to help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose Windows systems and applications.

	File and Disk Utilities Utilities for viewing and monitoring file and disk access and usage.
	Networking Utilities Networking tools that range from connection monitors to resource security analyzers.
	Process Utilities Utilities for looking under the hood to see what processes are doing and the resources they are consuming.

	Security Utilities Security configuration and management utilities, including rootkit and spyware hunting programs.
	System Information Utilities for looking at system resource usage and configuration.
	Miscellaneous Utilities A collection of diverse utilities that includes a screen saver, presentation aid, and debugging tool.

In this article:
http://www.lazybit.com/index.php/a/2007/03/01/free_keylogger_protection
Alex provides some free and valuable advice about keylogging protection such as using the on-screen keyboard available in W2000 and XP that can be launched by executing "osk" or the technique of mouse highlighting and overwriting.

Or you can also download Click-N-Type virtual keyboard free from:
http://www.lakefolks.org/cnt/

Also worth reading is Wikipedia's article on Keystroke logging:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging

Flash-based XSS Attacks

2008-02-04T17:32:00.000+01:00

Critical vulnerabilities exist in a large number of widely used web authoring tools that automatically generate Shockwave Flash (SWF) files, such as Adobe (r) Dreamweaver (r), Abobe Contribute (r), Adobe Acrobat (r) Connect (tm) (formerly Macromedia Breeze), InfoSoft FusionCharts, and Techsmith Camtasia.
These flaws render websites that host these generated SWF files vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).

Cross Site Scripting (XSS) is an attack on users of a web application. If a web application is vulnerable to XSS, and an attacker lures a user of the vulnerable web application to click on a link, then the attacker gains complete control of the user's session in the web application. The attacker can use JavaScript to perform any action on behalf of the user (for example, perform a transaction on an online banking system) or change the way the website appears to the user (for example, perform a phishing attack).

The best solution to prevent these attacks so far is using Firefox with NoScript, which:

Blocks Flash (and other plugins) by default when the content comes from an untrusted web site
Blocks Flash (and other plugins) by default when content from a trusted website is embedded in an untrusted page - this prevents embedded Flash XSS
Checks cross sites requests for script injection and sanitizes them as needed. This way it prevents reflected XSS, included the Flash variants

The advantage of this approach is that you can allow individual blocked content pieces with a click, having a chance to examine their types and full addresses before running them.
Most recent NoScript versions ship with Flash, Silverlight and all the other plugin content handlers (e.g. the Quicktime plugin) disabled by default on unknown sites in order to prevent Flash-based XSS and other plugin-based attacks.

You will still able to enjoy multimedia content either automatically, if it comes from trusted sites, or by selectively enabling clips and applets.

More Info:
http://noscript.net/
http://hackademix.net/2008/01/06/flash-xss-protection-for-users/
Cross-site scripting from Wikipedia

MagiKomputer's AdSense Player

2008-02-01T11:20:00.000+01:00

YouTube has launched a new service called AdSense Players.

With AdSense Players you create customized video players for publishing to Websites or Blogs, using keywords or pre-selected premium content, like you see below:

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

This Post is just a test to see what AdSense Player picks up from the content of the MagiKomputer's Blog.
Comments are welcome.

AmigaAnywhere at CES 2008

2008-01-10T00:20:00.000+01:00

Amiga, Inc. announces the availability of AmigaAnywhere(TM) version 2, the first phase of the Amiga OS.

The new platform offers more features and flexibility to safely move content from a physical to a digital environment and instantly run all types of content on a variety of devices, including mobile phones, cameras, audio and video players, STBs, laptops, PCs and servers.
The latest version of AmigaAnywhere facilitates rich-media content featuring extraordinary audio-visual quality, high-speed interactive gaming, education and entertainment anytime, anywhere. "The Amiga world has waited long enough," said Bill McEwen, President of Amiga Inc.

"AmigaAnywhere is the step forward we've been diligently pursuing, making it easy to instantly and safely run all types of content on their favorite devices. And we're thrilled to be able to unveil this during CES at Digital Experience and hope to identify an additional, new set of strong hardware partners as well."

New features of AmigaAnywhere 2 include a device-independent, single, ubiquitous Virtual Environment (VEN) that functions across different operating system and the Internet.
AmigaAnywhere 2 currently runs under Windows proper, Windows Mobile, Linux for PCs and Linux for embedded systems. A Mac OS X version is on its way, as well as a Symbian version.

AmigaAnywhere 2 (aka AmigaOS 5) made a covert appearance at an event outside the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), turning up in the guise of a version of Space Invaders running on a Windows Mobile 6-based smartphone.
It has been pointed out that since AmigaAnywhere 2 effectively starts up a virtual machine, boots AmigaOS and runs the code on top of that, it makes it perfectly possible for Amiga users to fire it up and run the Amiga GUI instead of a game.

Under the new platform, consumers are able to have the same user experience to engage in activities such as listening to music, surfing the net, buying video, editing photos, or working on work contracts.
AmigaAnywhere dynamically scales the applications/services to the accessory device.

More Info:

CES 2008 Going Green

2008-01-09T18:18:00.000+01:00

It seems like Green is the main trend at CES 2008.
Even part of their website has become Green, check it out:
http://www.cesweb.org/attendees/directory/default.asp

The CEA (producer of CES) announced that CES 2008 is taking unprecedented steps to "go green" by reducing its carbon footprint and with the use of sustainable and energy efficient practices.

“As the world’s largest tradeshow for consumer technology, we are also the first tradeshow of our size to reduce our carbon footprint,”

said Gary Shapiro, CEA’s president and CEO.

"CES has really been pushing the "green" theme at this year's show, as has been many exhibitors. HP, for example, says its entire booth is "green", including carpeting made from corn! Even the company's pens are made from 100% recycled material, including a cardboard body, and popsicle stick=like handle. Throughout the show, I've seen everything from solar-powered devices, to "green" power-saving devices, and even bags made from recycled materials."

Source:
Marketnews - Christine Persaud

Marketnews - Gadget Talk: CES 2008: Gadgets Galore and Going Green

WYSIWYG Free HTML Editors

2007-12-23T01:23:00.000+01:00

We've been looking for HTML Editors, with the following requirements:

Free
WYSIWYG
Multiplatform

Kompozer:
http://www.kompozer.net/
Looks fine, with site manager and FTP included.
The one thing we don't like about Kompozer is that reformats the source code when you open or save a file. It kind of soft-wraps the lines in a most weird manner.
You can use the HandCoder plug-in, together with the Tidy HTML plug-in.

Another worrying issue is that it hasn't been updated for over a year and the bug reports page is overcrowded:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=170132&atid=853122

SeaMonkey:
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
Looks good enough, frequently updated and with lots of extensions/plug-ins.
But it also reformats the code in pretty same the same way as Kompozer. No wonder, because as Kompozer and its predecessor, "Composer" it is based on code from the old Mozilla/Netscape suite.

Amaya:
http://www.w3.org/Amaya/
Probably the best option which is available for Linux, Windows and all flavours of MacOS X.
It supports HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, XHTML Basic, XHTML 1.1, HTTP 1.1, MathML 2.0, many CSS 2 features, and includes SVG support (transformation, transparency, and SMIL animation). You can display and partially edit XML documents.
However, it doesn't handle very well documents created with other editors, specially when you try to edit a table-based html file, it does some strange visualization quirks that forces you to restart the program over and over again, a bug that generally does not happen if you build the file from the ground up in Amaya,
The interface is quite different to any commonly used editor and it is geared towards W3C's protocols, since it is the "official" W3C's Editor and Browser.
Upcoming version 1.0 does look much better, with a contextual menu, a customized user interface, themes, and a new style panel to style documents.

A highly recommended option is Bluefish, which although is not WYSIWYG, it's got a truly WYSIWYN (What You See Is What You Need) interface.
http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/features.html
But it only runs on Linux/Mac.
To run it on Windows you'd need the Cygwin package for Bluefish:
ftp://sunsite.dk/projects/cygwinports/release/GNOME/bluefish/

We have opened a thread about this topic at Google Groups that you can read here:
alt.www.webmaster

Get a Second Life

2007-11-07T23:01:00.000+01:00

Second Life is a virtual online world with a growing population of subscribers (or "residents").
Currently, the community has well over 10,000,000 residents from all over the World.
By providing residents with robust building and scripting tools, they can create a vast array of in-world objects, installations and programs.
They include Animation tools, Audio & Music, Building & Architecture, Clothing & Fashion, Communications Tools, Map, Location Services, Scripting Tools, Search Tools, Textures & Prim Tools, etc.

Although Second Life's interface and display are similar to most popular massively multi-player online role playing games (or MMORPGs), there are two key differences.
First of all, Second Life provides near unlimited freedom to its Residents. This world really is whatever you make it, and your experience is what you want out of it. If you want to hang out with your friends in a garden or nightclub, you can. If you want to go shopping or fight dragons, you can. If you want to start a business, create a game or build a skyscraper you can. It’s up to you.
And you are the legal proprietor of anything you create. Since its early stages, Linden Lab (the producer of Second Life) has allowed its residents to retain full IP rights over their own creations, thereby insuring that their contributions to the community remain truly their own.As a resident you retain full IP rights over any of your in-world creations.

Second Life is the size of a small city, with thousands of servers (called simulators) and a Resident population of over 10,742,897 (and growing). Residents come to the world from over 100 countries with concentrations in North America and the UK.

Demographically, 60% are men, 40% are women and they span in age from 18 - 85. They are gamers, housewives, artists, musicians, programmers, lawyers, firemen, political activists, college students, business owners, active duty military overseas, architects, and medical doctors, to name just a few.

Even if you don't know how to do 3D modeling, Second Life makes building an easy task, using the built-in tools. And there are lots of daily Resident-run classes and tutorials to help you learn.

The Second Life client comes with an updated-daily list of public Events, including games, parties, and contests; the Search window is a veritable traveler’s guide to Second Life—the places to see, the people to meet, and much more.

There are dozens of first-person shooters, strategy games, puzzle and adventure games, even board, and puzzle games.
Several regions of the world have been devoted to role playing, and resemble medieval towns, or futuristic cities. The building and scripting system even enables Residents to create their own version of a MMORPG, including hit points, character stats, and all the other classic elements.
Since gamers are a big part of the Second Life community, friendly games of combat are a regular event.

You can get your own virtual land at Second Life.
Having land in Second Life lets you have an on-going presence in the world, for your home, your business, or whatever other special place you've created. Even when you're not online, your friends or customers can stop by to leave you a message or shop for your latest creation.
To get land you must sign up for the Premium membership. You'll be able to purchase a 512 square meter plot of land before any land maintenance fees kick-in.
However, you can have as much land as you choose. Change the amount of land you have and your monthly fee will adjust accordingly.
You can also consider purchasing more land through the Second Life auctions or from other Residents. Alternatively, you can join with others who are interested in the project to form a group and pool your land holdings. Groups can collectively acquire and use land.

Another option is to get an island in Second Life.
Special island regions are available as a separate purchase. You can choose from several different topologies, control access from the mainland, or even decide to start your own separate community.

When you join the community you are given a small weekly stipend of L$ (Second Life's official unit-of-trade) when you sign up for a Premium account. Plus you can earn L$ by making and selling goods and services, holding events, and playing games.

Residents can buy and sell in-world L$ from the Linden Dollar Exchange, or from other third party websites. Some of these operators offer convenient in-world "ATM" machines to facilitate transactions.

You can even start your own business in Second Life.
Shopping is a big part of the Second Life experience for many Residents. You can buy and sell anything that can be made in-world, from clothes, skins, wigs, jewelry, and custom animations for avatars, to furniture, buildings, weapons, vehicles, games, and more. Once you’re ready to bring your products to the market, it’s simply a matter of buying or sub-renting property, for opening up a shop. There are also Resident-owned malls which charge rental fees, or take a cut of your proceeds. As in the real world, the challenge is to build up a reputation that earns a steady stream of customers.
And as in the real world there's money to be made if you are a successful business person.
Real money, I mean.

My overall impression is that this is quite an awesome stuff. It looks like it is going to become the next big thing in our lives, superseding the Internet itself as we know it.
I love the concept, but I have to say that I have this uneasy feeling that somehow there's something evil in this invention, something that one day will get out of our hands.
Don't know why. It kind of reminds me of the first Terminator movie.
Because the next logical step would be to physically build many of those 3-D human models in the real world. Combine that with the latest advances in artificial intelligence and with the increasing isolation of human beings in today's societies and you'll soon get androids living our lives for us.

Facebook

2007-10-19T18:14:00.000+02:00

I've joined Facebook just out of curiosity.
Everyone mentions it, and I bump into it when using a Bookmarking Service, so I had the perfect excuse to explore it.
It is supposed to connect you with friends, share photos, and create your own profile.

At the Sign Up stage you are required to indicate whether you're signing up as a company member or a student and to enter a valid email address and additional details depending on your choice.

I tried to enter my company's (1001webs.net) e-mail address, at the form didn't recognize it as a valid email address???
Why? Because it's got numbers in it? Absurd?
So I used my company's Gmail account (also with numbers, BTW)
confirmation email arrived and on to:

step 1 of 3
I'm asked to find friends using my email address book

Please fill in all the fields to find your friends.
We currently only import webmail address books from Hotmail, AOL, Gmail, MSN, and Yahoo.
Your Email: @
Email Password:
We won't store your login info or contact anyone without your permission.

Don't worry, you can still use Facebook. Simply click here to skip this step.

So I skipped it.
No way I am giving away my e-mail pwd to no one.

step 2 of 3
I am asked to fill out my Profile Info

City:
Country:
Company: Again???
(if any)
College/University:
(if any)

I diligently filled the redundant fields and got to a page that said:

"window.location.href="http://www.facebook.com/gettingstarted.php?step=join_networks";"

I am starting to get a bit pissed off and I haven't even completed my registration ...
Back and Skip this Step
I then realized that JavaScript was turned off. Turned on and everything OK. My fault.

step 3 of 3
I am asked to join a Network

Once you join, you will be able to see the profiles of other people in the selected network, and they will be able to see yours. You can change your privacy settings on the Privacy page.

I've chosen Spain.
I hope I don't regret it later

Finished the Registration.
I am Welcomed and presented with several options to explore Facebook.

Search for friends
Finding your friends makes your Facebook experience better. You can search for classmates or coworkers or look for friends by name.

Several Options here:

Browse people in your networks.
Search for classmates from high school and college.
Search by workplace or organization to search for coworkers.
Advanced search the profiles of people you can see.

No one when I do a search of all Networks for 1001webs.

The Advanced Search is like one of those Dating Agencies:
Basic Info:
Name
Sex
Home Town
Home State Home Country
Interested In
Relationship Status
Looking For
Political Views
Religious Views
Contact Info:
Email
Screen Name
Mobile
Land Phone
City
State Country
Zip
Personal Info:
Activities
Interests
Music
TV Shows
Movies
Books
Education Info:
School Status
Class Year
Concentration
HS Year
Work Info:
Company
Position

I suppose I should better fill out my profile with detailed information, upload a profile picture to help friends recognize me, etc.:

Name: Rafael
Sex: Male
Home Town: Madrid
Home Country: Spain
Interested In: Women
Relationship Status: Single
Looking For: Whatever I can get
Political: Very Liberal
Religion: If God exists and has given us a Brain, then it would be a horrible Sin not to use it and believe without scientific backup what other people tell us
Email: rafaminu@gmail.com
Screen Name: RafaMinu
Mobile: 34620443347
Country: Spain
Activities: Swimming, Diving
Interests: Internet
Music: Andreas Volleiwander
TV Shows: Monty Python
Movies: Blade Runner
Books: H.P. Lovecraft
Favorite Quote: Love conquers everything, even Karma
Company: 1001webs.net
Job Title: Director

I then went on to do some research, get friends, poke people, and else.
And here the System excelled, really.
Very well put together, very easy to use, lots of options and very Web 2.0-like.

And then, there is the News Feeds
You are presented with a number of slides that you can adjust to get News Feeds from Friends you care about most, and filter away the ones you don't care about.
You can select up to 20 friends that you find interesting. You will get News Feed stories about these people more frequently.
And you can select up to 20 friends that you prefer not to see in your News Feed. You will only get stories about these people if nothing else is available.

I wish I could waste my time in there a bit more.

Mock-Ups for WWD

2007-10-16T20:00:00.000+02:00

I did these Mock-Ups a few weeks back for World Wide Destinations.
I was applying for a job there and wanted to make a good impression, so I offered to create a preliminary sketch of some inside pages about Brazil for their quarterly magazine.

They received the files alright, they seemed to like them and I was assured that they will give a reply in a few days, no matter what their decision was.
A month has passed by and no answer from them.
Waste of time (which is precisely what I don't have) and resources.

I thought I might as well post them here, so there you have them.

It took me about 10 minutes to get some royalty-free photos from the Internet and about 20 minutes to do the design with just a Demo copy of the latest Adobe® Photoshop® CS3 version, that died out 2 days later after I optimized my Mac.
All I can tell is that the main difference with earlier versions (CS2, CS1) was the speed. They must have fixed the code or something because it was blazingly fast.
A real pleasure not having to wait for memory-hungry large operations (God, how I hate those progress bars, specially the ones that go all the way to the end and then hang in there for more than double the time that it took them to get there.)

But as all good things in life it couldn't last.
Back to Graphic Converter ...

iWEBTOOL

2007-10-16T00:09:00.000+02:00

iWEBTOOL has put together a very inreresting collection of Webmaster Tools and SEO Tools.
And the best part of it is that they are FREE to use.

Among the many services at their website you can find a tool that will list all backlinks linking to a specific website, predict your future Google PageRank, view multiple Google PageRanks and Alexa Ranking in bulk, preview your website on Google, MSN and Yahoo! Search, discover whether a website is banned on Google and many other services that you may have not even know they existed.

Select a tool below and it will lead you directly to iWEBTOOL's website:

Search Engines

Backlink Checker
Find a list of backlinks linking to a specific website.

Cloaking Checker
Cloaking Checker

Google Banned Checker
Discover whether a website is banned on Google.

Google Datacenter Search
Search keywords/phrase through different Google data centres.

Google PageRank Prediction
Predict your future Google PageRank.

Index Checker
Check for the total number of pages of a specific website which are present on search engines.

Keyword Density Checker
Analyze a websites to view the optimum keyword distribution.

Keyword Suggestion
Find related keywords matching your search.

Link Popularity
Retrieve a number of backlinks of a specific website from search engines.

Multi-Rank Checker
View multiple Google PageRank and Alexa Ranking in bulk.

PageRank Checker
View Google PageRank on different Google servers.

Rank Checker
Get an overview of a website's ranking.

Search Engine Position
Check your search engine positions on Google Search Engine.

Search Listings Preview
Preview your website on Google, MSN and Yahoo! Search.

Spider View
This tool enables you to view a perpective from a search engine spider.

URL Redirect Checker
Check whether a redirect link is Search Engine Friendly.

Visual PageRank
View the PageRank of links visually rather than in text.

Miscellaneous

.htaccess URL Rewrite
Convert your dynamic URL into a short friendly link.

Anonymous Emailer
Send e-mails to users anonymously.

Google Adsense Calculator
Quickly calculate your Adsense earnings based on Page Impressions.

Google Adsense Preview
Preview what ads are targeted for your website.

Link Shortener
Make a long web address short and easy to remember.

List Cleaner
Clean and remove duplicates from a list.

md5 Encrypt
Use this simple online converter tool to encode any inputted text to md5.

Online Calculator
Use this free and easy online calculator to work out quick calculations.

Unix Time Converter
Convert UNIX internal time formats to a date or Vice versa.

Your Browser Details
Find out your IP address, hostname and your browser details

Domain Checkups

Alexa Traffic Rank
View and compare Alexa Ranking graphs.

Broken Link Checker
Use this tool to check for Broken Links on a website.

Domain Availability
Check for available domain names.

Domain Look-up
Retrieve a range of information about a domain.

Domain Whois
Retrieve a domain whois information.

Instant Domain Checker
Check the availability of domains instantly.

IP Location
Locate the country of an IP Address.

Link Price Calculator
Estimate how much to pay for a link.

Ping Test
Check the presence of an active connection.

Reciprocal Link Checker
Check your reciprocal links to see if link partners are still linking back to your site.

Reverse IP/Look-up
Searches for domain names hosted on your IP address.

Server Status
Check if a website is online or offline.

Website Speed Test
Find out how fast a specific webpage loads.

HTML

HTML Encrypt
Hide your HTML source code.

HTML Optimizer
Optimize and clean your HTML source code.

HTTP Headers
Extract the HTTP Headers of a web page.

Link Extractor
Extract links from a specific web page.

Meta-tags Extractor
Extract meta-tags information from a web page.

Meta-tags Generator
Generate and configure your meta-tags.

Source Code Viewer
View the source code of a page.

Installing the Firestarter Firewall in Xubuntu

2007-10-14T19:35:00.000+02:00

Believe it or not, neither Ubuntu nor Xubuntu come with a firewall pre-enabled.

Ubuntu has a built-in firewall system called IPtables (netfilter) that is enabled by default.
At installation all ports are open and there is effectively no filtering/protection.
To close the ports and leave only the ones you want open, you must either manually edit the iptables or use a GUI (that usually depends upon GNOME).

If you are using Xubuntu and don't want or don't have the time to learn about iptables, the only option left is to install Firestarter.

Firestarter needs to have enabled the "universe" repository in the /etc/apt/sources.list file or in Synaptic Package Manager under Applications ->System, otherwise the package won't appear in the list.

To enable the "universe" repository in the Synaptic Package Manager go to Settings -> Repositories and tick the Community-maintained Open Source software.

Having enabled the repository, the procedure is as follows:

Fastest way to find the package is to do a Search for "Firestarter":

Select it and click "Apply":

These are the settings I apply.
Some other time I'll tell you why.

Network Settings

ICMP Filtering

Type of Service Filtering

Advanced Firewall Settings

More Info about Ubuntu Firewalls here:
http://ubuntuguide.org/

Computer Gadget Inspector: MojoPac, Mobile Computing in your USB2 device

2007-10-08T13:53:00.000+02:00

The Gadget Computer Inspector has posted a review on the MojoPac:
Computer Gadget Inspector: MojoPac, Mobile Computing in your USB2 device

The MojoPac is software that transforms your iPod or USB Hard Drive or Flash drive into a portable Windows XP PC.

The MojoPac can be downloaded from the MojoPac website, although we don't find many good reviews in the Net.
See some samples below:

Some alternatives to MojoPac, mostly from people that have used it and don't like it at all:

The sad MojoPac saga continues…

MojoPac - Potentially Great Software with Serious Flaws

Ceedo is better with its speed and Mojopac is better with its price and different options.:

Text Wrangler

2007-09-13T00:25:00.000+02:00

Are you looking for a Macintosh:

General Purpose Text Editor
Programmer's Text Editor
Unix And Server Administrator's Tool
Powerful Text Transformer And Manipulator
Good Mac OS Citizen
Powerfully Useful Tool
product developed in the best traditions of Bare Bones Software, with high performance, ease of use, a rich feature set, and the ability to read its own release notes

Then, get Text Wtrangler.

TextWrangler is fully-featured and functional and it will not expire.
And the best part is that it's free, as in beer.

We want to thank Bare Bones Software, for this great product.

And if you can afford it, get BBEdit, the leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh.

BBEdit’s features grep pattern matching, search and replace across multiple files, function navigation and syntax coloring for numerous source code languages, code folding, FTP and SFTP open and save, AppleScript, Mac OS X Unix scripting support, "clippings" support, and a complete set of HTML tools.

With BBEdit you can:

Windows XP Freeware Essential Security ToolKit

2007-09-12T18:52:00.000+02:00

The following is a list of software that we find essential to preserve the Security integrity of a Windows XP System.

They are all free to use for non-commercial purposes

Ad-Aware 2007 Free remains the most popular anti-spyware product for computer users around the world, with nearly one million downloads every week. Our free anti-spyware version provides you with advanced protection against spyware that secretly attaches and takes control of your computer, resulting in aggressive advertising pop-ups, sluggish computer activity, even identity theft through stolen bank details, passwords, and credit card account numbers.

Features:

* Redesigned Engine - Benefit from superior program flexibility and more accurate scanning methods with all-new program architecture.
* Improved Code Sequence Identification (CSI) Technology - Boost your privacy protection with precise detection of embedded malware, including known and emerging threats.
* Incremental Definition File Updates - Save precious time and resources with smaller update files resulting in faster download times.
* TrackSweep - Control privacy by erasing tracks left behind while surfing the Web on Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera, with one easy click.
* Multiple Browser Support - Choose Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera with expanded browser support.
* New Straightforward User Interface - Effortlessly maneuver the complexities of malware detection and removal with our new user-friendly interface.
* User-Controlled Spyware Removal - Decide for yourself what to delete from your system and what to keep.
* Extensive Detection Database - Stay protected with regular updates from the extensive library of identified and analyzed spyware.
* System Restore Point - Easily revert to your clean system to recover from a spyware attack.

http://www.lavasoftusa.com

ClamWin is a Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and 2003.
ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge.

Features:

* High detection rates for viruses and spyware;
* Scanning Scheduler;
* Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database.
* Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer;
* Addin to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically.

http://www.clamwin.com/

ZoneAlarm is a Network and Program Firewall.
It delivers proactive firewall protection with multiple layers of security that stop inbound, outbound, and program attacks while remaining completely invisible to hackers.

Features:

* Guards the network perimeter from inbound and outbound threats with the world's #1 firewall
* Prevents spyware and other malicious programs from sending your personal information across the Internet
* Full stealth mode to keep you concealed from anyone on the Internet
* Protects your programs from malware
* Identify and filter over 100,000 applications for constant protection against threats
* Monitor program installation, registry changes and file access down to your PC's core
* Monitor additional program actions for more thorough protection
* Prevents malicious software from damaging files in your core Windows operating system

http://www.zonealarm.com/

Rotten with Apples

2007-09-06T12:06:00.000+02:00

Digg is not what it used to be.

According to its creators:

"Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online.

How do we do this? Everything on Digg — from news to videos to images to Podcasts — is submitted by our community (that would be you). Once something is submitted, other people see it and Digg what they like best. If your submission rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of our visitors to see."

http://digg.com/about

Very nice words, and I am sure that they really meant it.

But just having a look at the most popular page as of today (September 6, 2007) we find the following stories:

News & Videos

Apple's iPod Touch gets official

engadget.com — ipod touchMore… (Apple)

750 Comments

Bury

vangogh71 — made popular 16 hr 7 min ago

Apple Cuts iPhone Price to $399

engadget.com — With that new heat the iPhone will be getting from the iPod Touch, Apple decided to lower the barrier of entry to a much more palatable $399.More… (Apple)

758 Comments

Bury

maverick999 — made popular 15 hr 27 min ago

Apple announces the 6th gen iPod!

engadget.com — It's got coverflow and moreMore… (Apple)

218 Comments

Bury

mrfreeziexp — made popular 15 hr 47 min ago

Scientology Faces Criminal Charges - Label as a Criminal Organization

ap.google.com — Belgian prosecutor on Tuesday recommended that the U.S.-based Church of Scientology stand trial for fraud and extortion, following a 10-year investigation that concluded the group should be labeled a criminal organization.More… (Political News)

553 Comments Favorite? msaleem — made popular 23 hr 7 min ago

3807 diggs
dugg!

Apple Announces new iPod Nano "Fatty"!

engadget.com — Titles says it all.More… (Apple)

182 Comments

Bury

cyphin6 — made popular 15 hr 56 min ago

New iPod Touch Makes Us Drool, Itch with Desire

gizmodo.com — The new iPod Touch is out, complete with 8-mm form factor, touchscreen, Coverflow, Mac OS X and all the eye candy you can imagine. The hardware design looks amazing, we want to hold it, touch it and lick it.More… (Apple)

472 Comments

Bury

yokozuka — made popular 15 hr 37 min ago

M.C. Escher's "Relativity" in Legos [amazing pic]

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com — This pic is amazingly cool...it almost makes you dizzy if you look long enough..More… (Design)

73 Comments

Bury

pizzler — made popular 14 hr 26 min ago

Engadget live-blog from Apple "you're-getting-widescreen-ipods" conference

engadget.com — Digg away, friends. Digg away.More… (Apple)

186 Comments

Bury

louse101 — made popular 17 hr 17 min ago

6 out the 8 top stories are related to Apple.

I just wanted to let Digg creators know that I am sick and tired of News about the iPod and Apple (and bear in mind that I am myself an Apple user)

According to their "How it works" page:

"Once a submission has earned a critical mass of Diggs, it becomes “popular” and jumps to the homepage in its category. If it becomes one of the most popular, it qualifies as a “Top 10”. If a submission doesn't receive enough Diggs within a certain time period, it eventually falls out of the “Upcoming” section."

There are LOTS of far more interesting things in the Universe of Computing than Apple, leave aside other fields of Technology, Science, Entertainment, etc.

Something is wrong with the System and in my humble opinion you should revise your guidelines.

Dump Ubuntu and get Xubuntu

2007-08-31T13:28:00.000+02:00

Ubuntu sucks.
Yes, it does. It is slow, buggy and not functional.
At least version 7.04, running on a 2-years-old Acer laptop
Get Xubuntu instead.

Although Xubuntu is based on Ubuntu, it is much lighter on system requirements and far more efficient than Ubuntu with GNOME or KDE.

The reason for that is that Xubuntu uses the Xfce Desktop environment, which, according to Olivier Fourdan, creator of Xfce, "Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for various *NIX systems. Designed for productivity, it loads and executes applications fast, while conserving system resources."
I can testify to that being absolutely true.
They also say that it "makes it ideal for old or low-end machines, thin-client networks, or for those who would like to get more performance out of their hardware."
To which I would add that it is also ideal for those that don't like to sit in front of a computer waiting for it to perform a simple operation.

Girls prefer CSS

2007-07-31T23:18:00.000+02:00

I have been lately dwelling into the intricacies of CSS.
I had to. For a long while I tried to resist to the new (about 5 years old) standard of Internet, but at the end I had to claudicate. It is definitely the way to go, especially when working with CMSs and PHP.

I use to hate CSS and more specifically the DIV tag. It gave me all sorts of headaches.

I even started a draft never to be published, appropriately titled: "I hate DIVs".

But now, there's no turning back, Tables are dead. Long Live to CSS.
This is the era of table-less code.

One thing that stroke me as weird when looking for help on the subject was that many of the answers to my doubts came from women.
The ones I met were both very young and very capable at understanding how CSS works. And also pretty, don't ask me why.
I suppose it has to do with their use of the right hemisphere, more developed in women than in men.
It makes sense, because CSS deals with more abstract concepts like layers and relative positions, whereas Tables are more analytical and to me, more trustworthy, but also less creative and more cumbersome.

Time will say, if as a side-effect, this process of migration will make me become a more creative person ...