Happy New Year

I hope this was a good year for you, I know it was for me. As I think back over the past year, as good as it was, I look forward to this next year with great expectations. This will be the last post I make to this blog, as you might know I have recently purchased my own Domain Name and Web Hosting with pMachine. This gives me more flexibility, hundreds of megabytes of webspace to store pictures, php support, my own domain name, and POP3 e-mail addresses. I'm very happy with the change and hope you'll stop by and read me at my new site www.markshortridge.net. I basically have the content the way I want it and will be tweaking the page design the way I like over the next few months.

Happy New Year and God Bless

Until next time...

$500 Dollar Mac

I was just reading through some blogs and found were Think Secret has been informed that Apple will soon unveil a sub-$500 Mac. It’s thought that it will be shown at the Macworld Expo on January 11. It does not come with a monitor and will be very small, similar form as the Apple Xserve. I can't wait to see one, I want to get a Mac but I need to see if this is very configurable, upgradeable. I'm guessing not since the form that it’s going to take. But still it’s a cool idea, aimed at all those iPod Windows users, a very smart move on Apples part. You can better bet I'll be checking this out as soon as it's public. Might even find I need to buy a Mac, who knows.

Until next time...

Mindawn offers Music Download Service to Linux

Mindawn claims to provide CD-quality songs and almost no digital rights management restrictions. A choice of vorbis or flac file format downloads means you have high quality songs that you can easily convert into mp3 or any other format you want. This makes the first music download store to target the Linux desktop, but also caters to Windows and Mac OX. I downloaded and installed the Mindawn player on Windows and found it to not be very impressive at all. I downloaded the player for Linux and found that I needed all kinds of dependency libraries, after seeing the Windows version I found myself not compelled to work at installing the Linux version. Although, the Mars application installed on Windows and Linux without a hitch.

I also searched the music service for songs I might want to buy and found I didn't recognize any of the artists. I'm not that old, in the rock and alternative rock section which I search through I couldn't tell you who any of the artist where. I'm glad that there is a Music Download Store for Linux now but if they want any of my business they need to get a better selection of songs, maybe so artist that I've at least heard of, and make the Linux player easier to install.

Until next time...

Who says there's no MONEY in Linux?

For any one who thinks there is no money in Linux, maybe this article in Information Week will change your mind. I found this reading through slash dot, and found the figures to be quite impressive. Maybe now some major software makers will take a serious look at Linux. A friend of mine says that he likes tinkering around with Linux but wouldn't consider using it seriously unless you could get some major commercial products for it like Photoshop. He's a web developer and so needs these programs for work. I on the other hand, don't need these super powerful programs and can find open source alternatives that work just fine for me. But still, it would be nice if the pc gaming industry would start making games for Linux. I just recently got World of Warcraft, (Computer Geek Cocaine), and have to boot into my Windows XP partition in order to play it. I do have a few cool games that have ports to Linux, like Return to Castle Wolfenstien, and Soldier of Fortune. If any body knows of others let me know.

Until next time...

Open Office 2.0 Preview

Open Office has released the 2.0 preview version today. Version 2.0 will be ready for official release probably early this spring. It offers better MS Office compatibility and a new separate Access clone called base. StarOffice began offering an Access clone back in StarOffice 7, StarOffice 8 should be released soon after the official Openoffice 2.0 release.

I downloaded the preview version and installed it, excited about the possibility of have a true Access alternative, I tried to open a Access database file. I quickly found that it didn't work. It looks good though, and it looks a lot like MS Office, only you can only save a database in an Openoffice file format. I don't now if they are planning to add Access compatibility by the final release or not. Without Access compatibility I can't use base for my Access database files, I guess I can hope.

I can add to my wish list an MS Outlook clone with full compatibility with exchange, just in case any Openoffice or StarOffice developers are reading.

Here's a good review with screenshots from the Inquirer.

Until next time...

Microsoft acquired Giant Antispyware

I just read on /. that on December 16th, Microsoft acquired Giant AntiSpyware. It's about time Microsoft made a move in the fight against spyware. After the much hyped Service Pack 2, which did little if anything to my computer to stop this security nightmare. I have to routinely run Ad-aware and Spybot to keep my machine clean, and I don't usually go to untrusted sites or install software I'm not sure of. And I'm Still Plagued!

I never had any spyware or adware on my Suse 9.2 box until I installed IE 6.0 with CrossOver Office. It took some time to get rid of it all. So I'm reminded that your computer is only as secure as the least secure peace of software you install on it. I thought I was safe and secure from all that Windows stuff until a browser hijack launched and an ad window popped up, I was quite shocked to see this kind of behavior on Linux box. Moral, don't install Microsoft software on anything.

Until next time...

New Hosting and Domain Name

Well, it had to happen. I wanted bigger and better. I just signed up for web hosting with pMachine and my very own Domain Name. www.markshortridge.net I have it up already, but all that's there is a template so I could have it up quickly. I'll be setting it up the way I want it, hopefully by the first of the year. I won't be using two different blogs, so you might want to bookmark the new one for future use. I'll be using blogger untill the end of the year, it'll take me a while to get moved over, with work and all, not much time these days. I'm using Expression Engine to run my new site, so I'll have Atom and RSS feeds. Let me know what you think of the change.

Oh, by the way, I still have three gmail invites if anyone wants one.

Until next time...

Cross Over Office 4.0 - Now with iTunes Support!!!

Cross Over Office 4.0 is out, and with iTunes Support!!! I just upgraded my Cross Over Office and installed iTunes, it's a little buggy and the FAQ on Code Weavers website says that there is no support for CD Ripping and Burning with iTunes, but its cool to see it on Linux. I've already been to the iTunes store and played some mp3's, it seems to use a lot system resources when it's playing music. I wish Apple would port over Quick Time and iTunes to Linux, but I guess this is close enough for now. So if Steve Jobs is reading this, hurry it up already!!! Anyway, I purchased Cross Over Office a couple of months ago for $39.95, not a bad deal if you ask me.

Until next time...