Articles by Ed Hurst

Ed Hurst is Associate Editor Emeritus of Open for Business. Born in 1956, Ed has spent his entire adult life in the Gospel Ministry. However, that seldom paid the bills, so he took a large variety of secular jobs. Aside from a stint in the US Army Military Police and another in Field Artillery, Ed has worked in the trucking industry, public education, agriculture, and numerous semi-skilled jobs. As a disabled veteran, he is now semi-retired and pursues a ministry offering computer assistance to elderly folks in his area, and leads a house church. Currently residing in Choctaw, OK, he’s been married to Veloyce since 1978 and has two adult children.

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RHEL 6 for the Clueless: Multimedia Capability

By Ed Hurst | May 16, 2011 at 5:13 AM

RHEL (and clones) does not come with very much multimedia capability. It has to do with politics, copyrights, and philosophical debates. Even if we tried to outline all the issues here, chances are quite good you don't care a whit. You want to play your music and videos, and there is no good reason you shouldn't. There are plenty of Linux developers willing to join you in seeking to play what Windows can play, and a lot more besides, but Red Hat is being careful and sticking to their commitment to the corporate client base.

RHEL 6 for the Clueless: Securing Firefox

By Ed Hurst | Apr 28, 2011 at 10:35 PM

How secure is “secure”? Nobody can decide for you. What I offer here is the measures I take before browsing the Net. From what I can tell, these measures are effective in that the data-mining and marketing industry has a very poor idea of who and where I am. Try looking yourself up on sites like Spokeo or Zabasearch to get an estimate of your online data trail. While your webbrowser is not the only source, nor even a major source, of such information, it is a part of the bigger effort. The whole idea is to make those data mining sites as inaccurate as possible. And maybe you don't care, but for those who do, I'd like to suggest a few configuration changes to improve things.

RHEL 6 for the Clueless: Initial Configuration of the Desktop

By Ed Hurst | Apr 08, 2011 at 12:46 AM

Last time, we got the basic Linux system set up. Now, you need to orient yourself. Things may look a little different here than you are use to on other systems, but nothing is nearly as mysterious as it might seem. The main menu system is in the upper left-hand corner. In the upper right is the notification area (“Systray”). On the lower toolbar, the left is where the open windows are listed, and the lower right is an iconic representation of multiple desktops with your desktop “trashcan.”

RHEL 6 for the Clueless: Installation

By Ed Hurst | Mar 11, 2011 at 5:48 AM

In the last part of this series, we prepared to install Linux. Now's the time to take the leap and actually perform the installation, a process that is typically easy enough, but may include some complications I will outline below.

RHEL 6 for the Clueless: Preparing to Install

By Ed Hurst | Feb 22, 2011 at 4:54 AM

So, we have already discussed why you may want to try RHEL as your computer operating system. Now come the preparations. Take your time. RHEL 6 will install on most computers, but you should perform due diligence and research your hardware against Linux before attempting to install it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the Clueless

By Ed Hurst | Jan 15, 2011 at 7:08 AM

Your motives matter. The reason why you choose one distribution — “brand” — of Linux over another is to match your needs, your reason for switching from Windows to Linux. I want control, security, and long term support. I don’t want bloat, but I’m as lazy as anyone else about wanting the system to do all the work for me; automation usually means bloat. I want something which works the way I do, which solves the problems I don’t want to face. I’ll be willing to work a little for the rest of it.

Advent 2010: The Trans-Dimensional Life

By Ed Hurst | Nov 28, 2010 at 7:33 PM

As we enter the season where we anticipate Christ's birth, it is natural for us to contemplate the spiritual dimension of life. As you think about what it means to stand between the physical and spiritual, you won't understand it. That's okay; I don't either.

The Tea Party is Compromised (And So is Everyone Else)

By Ed Hurst | Oct 15, 2010 at 3:57 AM

The Tea Party movement threatens to be a very big presence in the coming mid-term elections. The people at the rallies are true believers. They come at their own expense and wave homemade signs. Some slogans are really very clever. What you may not know is the gatherings are heavily sponsored by major corporate donors.

Carry Christ, Not Your Culture

By Ed Hurst | Oct 04, 2010 at 1:53 AM

Jesus is how we say it in English, filtered through Greek and Latin. In Hebrew it's closer to Joshua. Same with the title Christ; it was Messiah. In any other language, whatever He is commonly called, none of it matters if He isn't living in the one who carries His name.

Facebook: Virtualizing the Soul

By Ed Hurst | Sep 17, 2010 at 11:10 PM

As we watch the death throes of Western Civilization, certain symptoms manifest prominently. As the electronic mesh expands and thickens, with fatter pipes and richer content, so does the shallowness of each connection within the mesh. We can surely speed up our ability to process incoming data, but it comes at the necessary expense of meaning. We know more, yet understand less.

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