Ubuntu Tutorials

I recently posted about using the new Flock browser and recieved some great supporting comments from readers. It seems everyone that uses it really likes it. It is feature rich, clean, stylish and fast. So far there is nothing that I don’t like about Flock.

I do have a question though. It seems that all things Flock default to Yahoo. Why? Everyone knows Google is the soon-to-be ruling power of the known universe. Shouldn’t we appease the search Gods and use the Google engine? I know I can change the settings to default to Google, I’m just wondering if anyone knows why they decided to support Yahoo.

Microsoft: We won’t be evil, either by ZDNet‘s Ed Burnette — Microsoft has outlined a new corporate philosophy of competition that could be summed up in these familiar words: “Don’t be evil”. While speaking at the New America Foundation luncheon, Brad Smith, the general counsel of Microsoft outlined the “Windows Principles”: Twelve tenets that will govern Microsoft’s approach to competition in the future, even after the US anti-trust ruling expires next year.

This brings two things to mind.  First, I don’t believe a word that comes from anyone at Microsoft.  The trail of bodies they’ve left behind tells far more than some guy saying they want to be good people.

Secondly, if this is true… wait, in no world I can comprehend can Microsoft be 1) innovative, 2) transparent & honest, 3) provide opportunities for competition.

An online banner advertisement that ran on MySpace.com and other sitesover the past week used a Windows security flaw to infect more than a million users with spyware when people merely browsed the sites with unpatched versions of Windows, according to data collected by iDefense

The threat was found by a ‘malware’ specialist while using his Linux based machine. Isn’t it nice to be able to browse the internet for dangers while in a bullet-proof suite? You gotta love that.

Yet again a reminder to drop Internet Exploder and use Firefox (or Flock).

According to a recent article on ZDNet.com it appears that roughly 60 million users are using stolen or pirated volume license keys.

ZDNET.com reporter Ed Bott has been researching the new Windows Genuine Disadvantage as it progresses from quietly inserted update to known menace. According to his recent article a member of the Windows Genuine Disadvantage management team reports that “about 1 in 5 of the 300 million PCs that have run WGA validation fail.” That is a lot of users!

Below are some scenarios where a user could fail a validation check. Some of these are blatant, but how “guilty” are some of the others?

1. High-quality counterfeit copies of Windows. Apparently this number isn’t very large at all. As Kochis notes, “So far we’ve provided hundreds of free copies of Windows to users who’ve been ripped byhigh-quality counterfeit”
2. The user installs the same copy and key to more than one PC at a time.I don’t understand why this scenario occurs at all. Is the Validationutility really looking at individual keys and identifying people whoare reusing a retail or upgrade copy? In this case, shouldn’t activation fail when the user tries to install the second copy?
3. A friend or acquaintance offers to “fix” your computer and installs apirated or cracked copy of Windows. I can definitely see this onehappening, especially when a system is compromised by a spyware orvirus infestation.
4. You take your PC in to be repaired and the repair shop takes a shortcutby reinstalling a volume-licensed copy of Windows. Again, I can seeexactly why this happens. How many customers bring in their officialrestore media? Not many, I’d wager. How many repair shops want to takethe extra time (and charge the customer) to restore from the officialmedia? What happens when the media that came with the PC is out of dateand the shop has to install a service pack and several dozen patches?In that scenario, should the customer have to purchase a brand-newlicense when they already paid for one?

Since this whole WGA fiasco started I have been reluctant to install the update. It has since become a required update if you want access to anything further (outside of critical security updates). From everything that I’ve read on the topic I don’t like it at all and won’t be using it. This is another reason I no longer use XP on my home machines. I have 3 valid keys but due to having lost my original restore CD have used another copy which fails validation. This apparently makes me a pirate. Microsoft, turning honest people into pirates.

Here is a quick reminder post about how to syncrhonize gaim-encryption keys between multiple machines. Why would you need to do this? If you use gaim at home & at work and want to use encryption you’ll need to synchronize your keys.

Linux to Linux synchronization:

Synchronizing between two Linux machines is as simple as rsync. This is what I use:

rsync -avz –progress .gaim/* [DESTINATION.IP]:/home/$user/.gaim/

(this’ll synchronize all settings, accounts, preferences & keys between source & destination machine)

If you simply need the encryption keys you’ll want to copy the id, id.priv & known_keys files all found in .gaim/.

Windows synchronization:

Synchronizing with windows just takes a few more steps.

Set your folder/file browser to “view hidden folders” (Tools > Folder Options > View > “view hidden”)

Navigate to “Documents & Settings > $user > Application Data (normally hidden) > .gaim.

Copy the id, id.priv & known_keys to/from this folder to/from the second machine and you’re set.

Here is another update video I was forwarded concerning the Net Neutrality Act. It’s a light-hearted look at it, but still informative. If you haven’t read about Net Neutrality or how it’ll affect us as consumers give it a look.

YouTube

I’ve been doing a lot of research this last week on keywords and search engine optimization. I’m getting decent traffic on my site but, as always, I’d like better. After implementing a few things I’ve bumped my traffic almost 100%, but there is still more to be done.

The next thing I’d like to implement is popularity rankings. Using the Google Sitemaps tool I notice that only a few sites link to me. For those of you not familiar with some of the Google tools you can find sites linking to you by using the “link:” tool. For example, “link:ubuntu-tutorials.com” will show you the sites known to link to my site.
Link Sharing benefits your traffic due to a few reasons. “Popularity by Association” is the idea of ranking your site based on its popularity. If more sites link to you you inherit some of their rank standing. Link Sharing also helps by directly driving traffic from one site to another. I like Site A, which links to Site B, therefore I read Site B as well. Both sites get traffic.

If anyone would like to talk about sharing links just drop a comment. Hopefully we can mutually benefit.

I’ve noticed more and more blogs using the Sociable plugin lately and so I installed it myself. As the internet and browsing seems to be moving more and more towards “social browsing” I think it’s a great extension to have.

Basically the sociable plugin allows you to append your posts (as well as pages, archives, searches and single-pages) with selected links to social browsing sites. You can easily submit a post to sites like Digg, Fark, del.icio.us and many more. If you’d like to add this to your blog simply grab the sociable plugin. It’s really easy to install.

Well I got a lot of feedback concerning my post about Winamp and it’s being pwned by AOL. I wanted to share some of the suggestions I recieved for those of you not following the comments section (read: everyone).

The player I ended up trying and seemed happy with was Zinf (Zinf Is Not FreeA*p).

The Zinf audio player is a simple, but powerful audio player for Linux and Win32. It supports MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV and Audio CD playback, SHOUTcast/Icecast HTTP streaming, RTP streaming, a powerful music browser, theme support and a download manager.

What I liked about it was that it was lightweight and only worried about playing audio. I can’t stand those “kitchen sink” players that do video + every imaginable codecs, audio + every imagineable codec, ripping, burning, etc etc ad naseum. I am still testing this app, but as of now it is in use vs research.

Another suggestion I got was for Sonique which is apparently really nice, but no longer in development. Thanks to Lamont for that suggestion. I may check that out when I get back into work on Monday. If I can find a copy he had very good reviews about it.

So I’m back using XP at the office after a long home-based hiatus from all things windows. I am trying to setup this machine with comparable FOSS apps and I’m having a hard time. I’ve grown accustomed to my Linux based apps so these windows apps aren’t cutting it.

I installed Winamp today, as I remember using that long ago in my Windows days. What do I see when I’m installing it? “Nullsoft is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL/Time Warner.” Whoa, back the truck up!

So I quickly cancel the installation of that. If there could possibly be a company worse than Microsoft, it’d be AOL. Microsoft buy & whores out companies that created good apps but AOL simply doesn’t have any useful or competitive product. Overpriced, bloated ISP.. no thanks.

So, for those of you who didn’t know, Winamp is pnwd by AOL. Don’t use it. If I find a useful non-bloated, non-whore of an XP based app I’ll let you know. In the meantime I’m going to start bringing in my Linux laptop from home.