My cousin Alan in Missouri sends news that Harold Biellier has died. The report made me sad. Not because it was a tremendous surprise: Mr. Biellier was 90. Nor was he someone critical to my day-to-day existence: I doubt I’ve seen him even once in the last 40 years. I know I haven’t in the last 35.
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.”
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.
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.
The last week included major strategy announcements from two troubled cellular phone makers: Silicon Valley’s Hewlett-Packard and Finland’s Nokia. If the machinations of phone producers were a tragedy, the present act would surely be near the climax, complete with the start of a reversal of fortunes for an unlikely player and the flawed hero making a move cementing his death.
Fifty years ago this May, Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Later this year, the space shuttle will fly for the last time, marking the effective end of the country’s manned spaceflight program. And right in the middle, 25 years ago last Friday, was the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, which broke apart 73 seconds after its launch, killing seven people and, unbeknownst to me at the time, consuming much of the next three years of my life.
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.
When the word came, it was like news that an old friend had died, albeit an old friend I hadn’t seen for years. A small camera shop in Kansas the last Thursday in 2010 turned off the last machine in the world capable of processing Kodachrome film. The best color film ever made is now gone, probably forever, a victim of the digital revolution.
So, you received a new Mac for Christmas – you are probably going to want some sort of office suite for writing letters or papers, creating presentations and so on. There are a number of respectable choices out there, including Apple’s very good iWork suite. Nevertheless, Microsoft’s Office has long held the status of the gold standard of suites and its components have a long history on the Mac. In this review we investigate whether it deserves a place on your computer.
It was a good year for mice. The headline in Medical Daily last week is typical: “Reproductive scientists create mice from 2 fathers.” It seems that through impressive scientific jiggery-pokery in the lab, researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center were able to extract a cell from each of two male mice, combine their DNA, put the results into a surrogate mouse mother, and produce a mouseling that was not genetically related to the mother at all. (What has this to do with cancer research? Good question.)