Sokudo Web Design

Apple Mac has announced that a large percentage of their recent sales have been from frustrated Windows Vista users who are looking for a stable platform.

Since its release, Vista has suffered from security and stability issues making it a backwards step from Windows XP. The recently released service pack 2 has solved some of these issues though.

It makes me wonder why these people have gone straight to Mac from Windows. In half an hour they could have a very stable and productive Linux Ubuntu running on their systems and they don’t have to go out and buy a pricey Mac machine.

Kompozer is a free open source html editor which can be used on PC, MAC and Linux. It is based on Nvu, a buggy editor with similar features. Kompozer is supposed to be a bug fix release, but as I found the bugs are clear and present.

Coding your page using the source tab and then previewing it is the biggest headache. When you return to the source tab either your latest changes have not been saved or your code has been formatted in a totally different way.

I was given the task of making a simple text only holding page (two minute job) so I thought it would be a good opportunity to give Kompozer a whirl. The changes just were not being regconised, and the code reformatting was just a needless headache.

It really is a massive shame as Kompozer could be an awesome piece of software. There are a dozen or so extensions floating around the net which add all forms of functionability. I will be keeping my eye on the progress of this software tp snap it up when it becomes usable. Do you use Kompozer? Let me know what you think.

On Septembers edition of Linux Format Magazine the new Opensuse 11 features on the cover disk. Among the new features are KDE 4 - The latest in Linux Desktop Management, and a new faster package management system.
I tried the live mode off the CD which worked quite nicely. Part of the new KDE 4 is the ability to add “Plasmoids” which are basically desktop plugins similar to Google Desktop. Adding more than two of these to my desktop caused multiple errors closing all programs, but this could possibly have been solved by installing directly on to my hard drive.
The installation is supposedly “one click” but I could not get the gist of it (still a newbe). This really stopped me from going any further with Opensuse, but the general feel was that KDE4 needs a bit of work but im sure installing on to a drive would solve most of the problems. Using Opensuse 11? Let me know.

I’ve been a Windows user since the dawn of time but have recently had the urge for a new direction in computing. Switching to a Mac is a bit on the expensive side and I still have plenty of software I need to use on my Windows computers. After a bit of research I found Linux to be an option. On the plus side you can use a “Live CD” to try out Linux without harming your computer. It loads everything off the CD and doesn’t touch your drives. This is excellent to see if Linux is for you. You can also partition your drive so you can keep Windows and switch between the two whenever you want. The biggest pro for Linux is the price. Its free and so are the thousands of pieces of top software that’s included in the operating system (imagine if Windows included 5500 pieces of top quality software!). You simply go to an add/remove programs type facility and pick and choose what you want.
The cons are slightly frightening. When things go wrong as a Linux nooby, they go really really wrong. Partitioning drives can lead to total data loss at a click of a mouse, drivers for things like Wifi, simply don’t work, and using the terminal to run commands can be extremely daunting. I’ve been trying to get a usable version of Linux over the past six months and this is what I did.
After looking in to Linux I decided to go for the most popular distribution package with a great community and good support. Arguably, this is Ubuntu. There forums have thousands of active members posting helpful posts to get everything up and running. Installation was a breeze and everything was looking great. Logging in for the first time though I found that my usb Wifi dongle was not recognised by Ubuntu. After looking in the forums (and switching back and forth between Windows and Linux!) I found I had to compile a driver and install it using the terminal. Despite following numerous tutorials I never did get connected using Ubuntu, so I left Linux finding it just too much hard work for nothing.
It was then a couple of months later I got hold of a distribution of PCLinixOS. I used it as a live CD and felt it was a good package so I went ahead and installed it on to my drive. PCLinixOS use the phrase “Radically Simple” as their slogan and installation really was that. Nice and easy. When I booted up for the first time and tried to connect to my wifi network, imagine my surprise when it all fired up first time. No drivers to configure, even my usb was working great.
PCLinuxOS is similar to Windows in its desktop environment so Windows users will feel right at home. There really isn’t much of a learning curve and there is a great community of users on the web.
Its definitely fair to say that I am no master of Linux. I’m still very, very new to Linux but this is the best package out there for Linux noobys. Try it out and tell us what you think.