More evidence of full productivity with Linux

In a follow up to the previous post, this article shows again how useful open source software like Ubuntu Linux can be used for almost any task....

Linux Productivity for the Office?

A few years ago, the commonly held notion that Linux didn't have any useful applications was probably true. Not anymore. Today you can practically replace Windows XP (or Vista) and all the major office applications with Linux equivalents. This article shows how.

Social Networks / Social Media

These social networking sites aka web 2.0 seem to be getting more and more interesting everyday. Today I discovered yet another Twitter companion site: twitter100.com.

It's easy to see the concept with my twitter100: twitter100.com/disczones

Perhaps Twitter in 2-D rather than a single stream of tweets. Now you can see all the tweets in a huge array. I'm not sure if I quite like it enough yet or now. We'll see.

Been gone a while? What was I doing?

Well, I've been away from blogging cuz I just got a new PC. I've been running on a dual-core AMD Athlon 64x2 system for a while, but couldn't pass up on this amazing deal on a Dell Inspiron 530 Quad Core Q6600. After the discounts and the $50 Dell Bucks promo, I'm getting this system for about $440 with a 4 year warranty. OMG.

I was so stoked when it finally arrived and I immediately dumped the 250gb HD and put into two 500gb drives to setup RAID-0. Ugh, NOPE. Dell, you guys suck. I immediately discovered RAID-0 was *disabled* in their custom BIOS. I knew this was a common complaint amongst those in the modding community, but never thought I would become a victim. Apparently, Dell cripples a lot of their systems. Kudos Dell! Not...

Anyways, I discovered this guys site with a solution to the problem. He found a non-crippled BIOS (since this is a pretty standard Intel board) with full RAID functionality. Click pic below to see...

So now that I've got my main system back up and running... time to blog some more.

Oh yeah, I've added a few more products to my store including a new category for Virtual Appliances. More info on virtual appliances in the next post.

The Ubuntu Juggernaut?

I've heard of the "Microsoft Juggernaut" but what is this about the "Ubuntu Juggernaut"? Well, as this article/review is titled, the Ubuntu distro is gaining the attention of more than just the Linux crowd. It's evolution into a mature and stable desktop operating system shows how one can easily replace their XP desktop with a faster, more stable experience while still maintaining critical functions as using the Internet, e-mail, and office applications... Should Microsoft be worried? Or for that matter, Apple?

"Hi, I'm a Mac. Hi, I'm a PC.... Hi, I'm Ubunutu!" I can already see the commercial. LOL.

Wanna try Ubuntu for yourself? Get a copy shipped from my store here.

The current release, version 7.10 is also known as the "Gutsy Gibbon" edition.

Fedora 8: The Gold Standard?

Fedora 8 "just works" on just about any hardware I throw at it. Boot it up and video, sound, networking all work great with no fancy configuration needed. The GNOME interface is clean, and somewhat reminds me of the Mac OS X interface. Definitely worth giving a try...

Checkout these screenshots:

Also, this is a nice video demo:

Check out PCLinuxOS 2007

If you're looking for a Linux distro that is as close to a Windows XP clone as can be AND seems to work with almost ANY kind of hardware (laptop or desktop), you should really take a look at PCLinuxOS 2007. It is currently ranked #1 on DistroWatch which tracks all Linux releases.

I won't go into a full on review here as there are many other sites that do great reviews on this distro. Take a look at a few here, here, and here.

The CD boots as a Live OS and runs right off the CD if you want to preview it on your specific hardware before installing it to your hard drive. It can co-exist peacefully with XP in a dual-boot configuration if you still need those old Windows applications.

You can download the disc at many mirror sites, however, if you don't want to spend hours downloading, you can get a disc shipped to you from my site.