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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Desktop FreeBSD Part 4: Printing

By Ed Hurst | Aug 06, 2004 at 12:05 PM

As a writer, the only reason I ever got that first computer was because it was far more efficient than a typewriter, and certainly more readable than my own handwriting. The sheer volume of what I've turned out over the years would be impossible for me to manage on paper. Add to that all the stuff written by others that I wanted to save, and it boggles the mind. Still, most of what I've written is read by others on paper. That means I have to translate my electronic files into readable paper copies. That first computer would have been nearly useless to me without the attached printer.

Stirring the GNOME Fires

By Ed Hurst | Jul 30, 2004 at 9:42 PM

Over the past two years or so, Tim Butler and I have discussed GNOME quite a bit. He likes the current trend, and I don't. Tim's article, "Why GNOME's Got It Right" was partly stirred by the Slashdot article but also by our discussion.

Desktop FreeBSD Part 3: Adding Software

By Ed Hurst | Jun 07, 2004 at 9:46 PM

FreeBSD is very much a source-based system. The operating assumption of the architects of FreeBSD is that you will compile most things from the source code. The system is designed to work that way, and does it exceptionally well. The famous "Ports Collection" is rather unique in making a large number of packages available ready to build and seldom requires anything but a few commands in a terminal window. Having tried to build specialized applications on several different versions of Open Source operating systems, I can assure you that compiling on FreeBSD is about as easy as it gets.

The Open CD

By Ed Hurst | May 11, 2004 at 4:26 PM

How does one write a review of a project like this, without reviewing the software that's included? Since all the software on the CD has been reviewed repeatedly in other places, there's not much to gain by doing it one more time. In this case, it is the concept itself that needs a little more attention from the world.

Basic Lesson #4: Can You See It?

By Ed Hurst | Feb 04, 2004 at 11:23 PM

In this lesson, we discuss more about stability issues. A popular buzzword these days is "interface". That's just a fancy word implying that two or more people are face to face. In actual practice, it usually means anything but face to face. It's a means of interacting with another. You are said to "interface" by some means. So it is with computers.

Basic Lesson #3: Talk to Me

By Ed Hurst | Jan 22, 2004 at 12:25 AM

So far, we have discussed how Open Source technology is more secure because of how files are handled. Now we will examine stability issues.

IceWM with Sound

By Ed Hurst | Jan 14, 2004 at 11:30 PM

In previous articles, I've focused on helping users of older hardware get the most from it. While most of the FOSS world uses one of the two major desktop interfaces -- KDE or Gnome -- there are plenty of folks using interfaces that are less resource hungry. While it's important to note here that hogging resources is what one pays for all the nifty automatic features found in KDE or Gnome, in reality there are few other compelling reasons to use either. While XFce is a much lighter competitor for them, the latest version (4.x) disappoints me with its lack of a sound module.

Desktop FreeBSD Part 2: Initial Setup

By Ed Hurst | Jan 03, 2004 at 12:40 AM

There are several tasks to which we must attend before actually making use of our freshly installed FreeBSD system. Immediately upon reboot, you will find yourself in the console. While it is possible to setup and use the graphical login managers -- kdm, gdm or others -- it is important to note that this uses extra resources. One of our assumptions is that you might not have all that excess horsepower, so we'll stick with the console login for now.

Basic Lesson 2: A Home of Your Own

By Ed Hurst | Dec 20, 2003 at 1:20 AM

As Ed Hurst continues his Clueless Computer User's Guide to Open Source, Ed explains something very important everyone should know about GNU/Linux and UNIX: where your files go in those systems. While all of the differences may seem confusing at first, Ed lays them out in an easy to understand fashion so that you can start using Free Software operating systems productively quickly.

Basic Lesson 1: Identities and Permissions

By Ed Hurst | Dec 08, 2003 at 4:25 PM

In this first article of Ed Hurst's Clueless Computer User's Guide to Open Source, Ed explores permissions and other basics of a multiuser system. If you are unfamiliar with these concepts or do not know why even a single user system should have multi-user principles applied to it, read on to find out.

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