Category Archives: Technology

Don’t pay money for bug-ridden Microsoft Office! Use OpenOffice.Org 2.0! It fully supports Microsoft formats. It can automagically export to PDF format! (Microsoft have announced they are copying this feature in the next version of Office). OpenOffice.org has a word … Continue reading →

I have been using Ubuntu Linux 5.10 (Breezy Badger) on my PC for a few weeks now. Ubuntu is nice. I switched from Fedora Linux to Ubuntu Linux in the search to stop my pc crashing, which turned out to … Continue reading →

Because the whole GNU/Linux operating system is not tied to any vendor – there is an often claimed fallacy that the multiplicity of linux vendors is confusing, divisive and a hindrance to progress. Clearly in over a decade of linux … Continue reading →

Oh the confusion. I had my video camera talking to linux years ago. But it seems new “udev” kernel feature doesn’t automagically support firewire, well not under fedora core 3 anyway. (it looks like mandrake does) The trick is you … Continue reading →

After over 6 years, I have retired my classic celeron 300a (overclocked to 450Mhz) and bought a new pc. It was alot of fun to research the latest Intel CPUs and chipsets. But a few things went wrong…

style=”width: 498px; height: 89px;”> The Zensonic Z330 is a very cheap and popular DVD player. These next generation DVD players are getting alot of attention because they can play MP4/DIVX/Xvid files. These new formats are being used to play decent … Continue reading →

Bittorrent is an amazing way of distributing files. It is the next generation of p2p (peer to peer networks). p2p networks are infamous for spreading illegal content, but they are actually essential for distributing large data files. eg: downloading new … Continue reading →

When I upgraded to Fedora Core 3 my cd burner stopped working. I get a strange kind of error as follows: Dec 29 12:42:39 localhost kernel: hdd: status error: status=0×58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest } Dec 29 12:42:39 localhost kernel: … Continue reading →

Everyone has an opinion on this issue! I am no lawyer and find some parts of this debate quite confusing.

I have been experimenting with BitTorrent clients. I am writing up an article explaining this excellent technology.. But just a quick note for those Linux users pulling their hair out wondering how to open up incoming ports to allow the … Continue reading →

I have been exploring RSS feeds. It seems they began as a useful to provided a shared summary of updates on a web page, but they have evolved into a way of sharing content. This article contains my initial reflections … Continue reading →

This is a review of the free linux distribution “Fedora Core 3″. It is an alternative operating system for pc computers. A creature of habit, although my first linux distribution was Debian, I quickly found Red Hat 5.1. I have … Continue reading →

After many years of waiting we finally went out and bought a digital camera. It is a Sony DSC-W1. I nearly bought the DSC-P100, but the W1 has a larger screen and uses non-proprietary batteries. It worked in linux out … Continue reading →

Now that I am enjoying having a permanent web domain, I thought it would be good to have a web page to post occasional book reviews and thoughts on various topics. I don’t intend to put many hours into updating … Continue reading →