Life Without E-Mail

Yesterday I woke up early and got ready to head to my morning workout. Before doing so I like to check both work and personal e-mail to make sure I am not missing an important meeting that got scheduled overnight. My work e-mail and calendar showed a clear morning. When I went to get my personal e-mail, I couldn't connect to the server. I didn't worry about it and headed out for some exercise.

I got home and still didn't have access to my personal e-mail. I tried to log into my e-mail service provider's website and couldn't get there either. At this point I knew they must have done something big. I wondered if it had anything to do with the wildfires in Southern California (It did not). On a whim, I logged into my company's VPN which make it looks like I am located in Southern California and managed to get to my e-mail service provider's website. There I could log a ticket with technical support and try to get help.

As a side note, it is tough to get e-mail-based technical support when you can't get your own e-mail. I had to periodically check the website to see if they had any updates. Doing so allowed me to see that they had moved my e-mail server from an old machine to a new one and propagating those changes takes time. Fortunately those changes came through much more quickly on the VPN and I could use a web client to see all of my e-mail. I really only had one important message letting me know I am involved in testing a new outdoor product. That is always exciting.

I went to sleep knowing I could access my personal e-mail from my work laptop. I hoped that everything would be working when I got up in the morning. This morning I headed down to my computer after breakfast and still didn't have access. 

I logged into my e-mail provider's website and looked at the ticket to see if they had any information. They asked for a traceroute. A traceroute is a command you can run in a command-line terminal window to see the path data travels to get from your computer to a specific server on the Internet. On Mac and Linux you just type "traceroute www.google.com" and on Windows you type "tracert www.google.com". Unfortunately my personal network at home traps that information and doesn't allow the path to be seen. This is a security protection and I needed to open the firewall to allow the data through. In desperation I pinged my e-mail server just to see if I could get to it from my home network using "ping mail.myserver.com" and something happened. I started receiving packets back. I tried checking e-mail on my computer and everything seemed to work.

Naturally I updated the ticket with my e-mail service provider and let them know I could get my e-mail now. I read through the useless messages I received overnight and felt a huge wave of relief with that problem solved. I then sent out a very important e-mail that I put off sending last night.

One would think that life without e-mail would be calming. I found it to be quite the opposite as I have become conditioned to getting useless messages throughout my day to prove I am connected. Without e-mail, small-unrelated problems became magnified into larger issues than reality. Now things are working and I feel much better even though I don't have any important messages that need my urgent attention. I wonder if I am addicted to e-mail? Probably.

Using the vi Editor

It is not every day that I have to edit large blocks of code. Usually I will put together a few lines of SQL or Python and pretty much any text editor will do. Today I put together a 450-line SQL statement and so I pulled out my favorite code editor: vi.

A common mistake with vi is how it is pronounced. Technically it should be pronounced as the two letters "V" and "I" but some try to pronounce it as a single-syllable word that rhymes with hi. Another common mistake is that it is difficult to use. It does have a pretty ugly learning curve for beginners but once you learn how to use it, it is significantly faster than most other text editors. Why? Because you never have to take your fingers off the keyboard. If you know how to touch type, you know not having to pull you hands off the keyboard to use the mouse or cursor keys can be lightning fast.

The vi editor evolved with the Unix operating system and became the de facto editor back in the 1980's. That is when I started doing technical support for Oracle running on Unix systems. My boss sat me down and made me learn both Unix and vi. The main point of confusion is getting used to being in command mode or edit mode. In command mode, all the letters of the keyboard have a specific function. The letter "h" moves the cursor to the left, "j" moves the cursor down, "h" moves it up, and "l" moves it to the right. Once you get used to that, you never have to take your hands off the letters to use the cursor arrows to move the cursor. It does take a lot of practice though.

To get into edit mode, you just hit the "a" or "i" keys. The "a" stands for append which allows you to add more characters after the cursor where "i" is for insert and adds characters before the cursor. Then to get back to command mode, you just hit the "ESC" or escape key. Once you play around with vi for a bit, your left pinky finger can find the escape key fairly quickly.

There are some other quick shortcuts that make editing code very efficient. If you want to delete the current line, just double tap the "d" key. If you want to copy the line, double tap the "y" key, which is short for yank. Then to paste either what you have deleted or yanked, use the "p" key and vi pastes the line below your cursor. If you made a mistake with what you deleted or pasted, just hit the "u" key and it will undo your last command. Hit it a couple of times and it will undo the previous couple commands.

Up until now, nothing seems that groundbreaking. The real power comes from prefacing any command with a number. If you want to move the cursor down 5 lines, just type the "5" key followed by the "j". Want to copy or yank 10 lines, just type "1" followed by "0" followed by "y" and followed by "y" again. Then when you want to paste them, just go to the line above where you want the copied lines to be inserted and type "p".

Then there is my favorite vi command: the do-it-again key which is the period or "." If you copied something and want to paste it several places in your document, just copy the line and move the cursor to the line above where you want it to go and press "p". Then move to the line above the next place you want it to go and hit the period key. If you want 5 copies of the line, hit "5" followed by "." and you will see 5 identical lines below your cursor.

Now I recognize that vi would be horrible for creating a term paper for school or any document for that matter. So I don't recommend it for a general-purpose editor. It has evolved over time though to be a very efficient code editor and that is where it excels. It is available for Windows for free and comes installed on all Mac and Linux machines. Most people know it as Vim, which is just an enhanced version of vi with color coding and a few other goodies. If you need to create code, get familiar with it and you might learn to appreciate it. Just don't be turned off by the difficult learning curve.

MacBook Air or iPad Air

My wife recently went on a trip and brought her MacBook Air so she could do some work during her downtime. She used it for about 10 minutes and then shut it off to go play with grandkids. When she tried to turn it back on, nothing. We played with it a bit but decided to wait until we got home to really troubleshoot the problem. We got home and discovered she needs a new laptop. For the moment, she is making due with my old Chromebook I got for free but I have been wanting to replace it for the past 6 months. I figure I have a week before my wife will demand a replacement laptop.

Having used my Chromebook for around 6 years, it is a great device and will do everything my wife needs a computer to do. I thought about replacing her laptop with one and threw the idea out to my son, who works in technology. He suggested getting an iPad with a keyboard instead. This has brought on a research project over the past several days trying to figure out which device would be the best replacement.

Several months ago kids headed back to school or off to college and a number of articles appeared on the Internet as to which device parents should get for students. While my wife is not a student, she will use it like one and I found the articles very useful. I listed out what my wife uses a computer for and realized that a MacBook Air, an iPad Air, and a Chromebook would all work well. I could also throw a Windows laptop into the mix as my wife often uses Windows at work. Then I priced everything and discovered that if I get a keyboard for the iPad Air, the total price comes within $40 of the MacBook Air. Now I am shortcutting a lot of the technical details as you can find an older generation iPad for around $200, but I question the longevity of the device. When comparing computers, it is best to try and make the comparison as equal as possible with regards to CPU, RAM, and storage space. That is pretty easy with the Apple products, less clear-cut between them and Windows or Chromebook machines.

Right now I am leaning towards the Apple MacBook Air as it represents the least amount of a learning curve for my wife. It comes close to the same price as the iPad with keyboard but weighs significantly less. No it is not as versatile as you can separate the iPad from the keyboard, but knowing how my wife will use the computer, I think it to be the best choice. The only thing that can throw a wrench into those plans is that Costco has a Dell laptop that competes with the Apple one for about half the price. Ultimately I will leave it up to my wife to decide.

An 8-Year Old with 8 Computers

Yesterday I talked with one of the kids in my neighborhood who is about 8 years old. He talked about how he had 8 different computers. Naturally I asked how he came to be the proud owner of so many computers. His dad answered that the local thrift store, Savers, sells used computers for around $5 and an amazing number of them actually work. That made sense and for a kid totally interested in computers, he probably loves playing with them as a hobby.

My next question amounted to what he does with all of them. He responded that he installs different operating systems. This got my mind wondering. While I imagined he played with Microsoft Windows, I wondered if he knew about the many other operating systems available for standard computers. I followed up with which is is favorite. He surprised me by answering MacOS.

While you can install MacOS on some Intel-based computers, it requires very specific hardware and I asked about that. His father responded that he has played with Hackintosh but it didn't sound very successful. That implies that you can find Mac hardware at Savers which is what is required when installing MacOS. I may have to go see if I can find a decent computer for $5.

Next I asked about Linux as that is an obvious choice for older Intel-based computers. The young man mentioned that his favorite flavor is Ubuntu and it impressed me. There are quite a few variants but Ubuntu is my current favorite flavor of Linux.

I remember being young like that and having a huge interest in computers. My dad did too and we actually had a large computer in our house. Back then it looked like 3 refrigerators and 2 dishwashers next to each other. It had a total of 256 kilobytes of memory and 20 megabytes of hard disk space. Calculators have more memory and storage than that now.

It is always interesting to see young people interested in computers and my neighbor surprised me. I enjoyed talking with the little guy and wish him the best of luck as he learns about this magnificent technology. My hope is that he continues with the hobby as it will serve him well later in life.

More BSOD Issues But My Laptop is Fixed

Yesterday my IT department reached out to me via chat and provided instructions on how to get my laptop back from the dead because of the CrowdStrike BSOD. I immediately responded that I knew what to do but did not have administrator access for my laptop. A minute or two later, the contact provided me with a new login with admin privileges and the corresponding password. I am keeping that information should I need it in the future.

I rebooted my laptop into safe mode and logged in using the new credentials. As it is the first time anyone has ever logged into the machine with that user name and password, Windows had to set up a number of things with a lot of restrictions because of running in safe mode. It took about 5 minutes to complete. Unfortunately I experienced a new set of issues to overcome.

I had hoped I could just go into the command-line tool to navigate to the directory with the offending file. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to load. I had to right-click on the Windows menu and bring up the File Explorer. I put in the explicit path in the navigation field and successfully entered the directory. Then I scrolled down to the "C-00000291 . . ." file and right clicked on the file name. One of the options in the menu is "Delete" and I clicked it. Then just to be sure, I emptied the Recycle Bin as I didn't want anything to try and recover that file. The final step was a reboot. Then my computer came up without issue.

I made sure to thank the IT person and let him know my computer revived from the dead and I could start working. He thanked me for the confirmation and moved off to another system to restore.

The fix for getting the CrowdStrike problem is actually fairly simple on paper. The problem comes from Microsoft Windows and how it is impossible to fix without having someone log into each individual machine to remove a single file. That further gets complicated by various configurations like safe mode not being able to send output to the monitor on a DisplayPort or a new user with administrator privileges logging into a machine for the first time. So when you wonder why Delta Airlines can't get their machines back up and running quickly so you can fly home from a vacation, hopefully my journey has provided you with some understanding.

BSOD Update with a Twist

Today I came across a friend with a computer experiencing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) caused by the CrowdStrike update on Friday. He and I are both computer experts in that we work solving computer problems on a daily basis. We both knew the steps to deal with the problem once we got the computer to boot in safe mode. The trick was figuring out how to get it up in safe mode.

The computer in question had two ports to connect to monitors but only had a single monitor. One port had an HDMI interface while the other had a DisplayPort interface. They are slightly different but have somewhat similar cables. As luck would have it, the monitor for the computer only had a DisplayPort cable and so that is what the computer used. Unbeknownst to us, when Windows tries to boot in safe mode, it cannot talk to the DisplayPort and has to use the HDMI one.

The way to recognize this is that the computer will reboot twice and on the third time nothing will be displayed. Hitting the return key will cause the computer to reboot and try to do 3 more reboots before going dark again. My friend and I tried a number of ways to force the machine booting into safe mode but that only brought the blank screen.

On a whim, I suggested we remove the DisplayPort cable and try to boot using an HDMI monitor. This means we had to grab a TV from another room and bring it into the same room as the computer. We also had to completely unplug the DisplayPort cable from the computer and connect the HDMI cable. Once we did that, we went through the required three reboots and on the third time got the computer running in safe mode. We deleted the offending file and rebooted the computer. It worked well. Furthermore we just unplugged the HDMI cable and re-inserted the Display-Port cable. We didn't have to shut down the machine or change any hardware settings. The original display worked fine and we could use the computer.

If you find yourself getting to the third reboot and a blank screen, you may just need to try an HDMI cable instead of a DisplayPort one. My hope is that this advice helps someone out there still experiencing trouble.

Windows vs. Mac for Reliability

Today I headed to work in my home office and tried to bring my Windows laptop out of sleep. I got a pretty little screen with a frozen cursor. I only had a few minutes until my next meeting and so I joined the meeting from my phone while I tried to figure out how to wake the laptop up. Ultimately I had to hold the power button for 10 seconds. The machine seemed to power cycle and then asked me if I wanted to troubleshoot the issue or just turn the laptop off. I chose the latter and then turned it back on. This is a weekly process and it has me somewhat frustrated.

I have 2 computers on my desk at home. The first is my personal Mac that I use to read personal e-mail, create YouTube videos, and manage my personal calendar. The second is my work laptop running Microsoft Windows 10. I use it for a lot of browser-based applications like Jira and Confluence. I also have Outlook installed for my work e-mail.

I have to reboot my Windows laptop about once a week, as I stated above. I checked how long my Mac has been running without being shut down and it has only been up for 4 days. That is because I had an operating system update over the weekend and that required a system reboot. The previous reboot for my Mac was the last software update about a month before.

When my laptop wouldn't wake up this morning and I had to join my meeting from my smartphone, I got really frustrated. My Mac never seems to need rebooting compared to my Windows laptop. Now I will admit that I am a bigger fan of the MacOS but I had hoped that Windows had become more reliable in the past half-decade. I would say that it has but is still nowhere near the MacOS is for reliability.

If you are someone that turns off your machine nightly, then Windows may work fine for you. If you are like me and just put your machine to sleep and keep it running non-stop, I would suggest running either Linux or MacOS.

No Exciting Computers

I had a bit of time to think as I walked the 3 miles to my office this morning. Mostly I thought about how I had already crossed the threshold of distance to where summoning Uber seemed a waste even though it was raining. What driver would pick me up for such a short drive. I did think about other things and one of them surfaced again when I go to the gym at work and prepared to get another 30 minutes of exercise. I briefly glanced at the locker-room TV and noticed that one of the ESPN commentators has the same laptop I do. It seems like the vast majority of people have settled on the same few laptops. There just doesn't seem to be any exciting new computers these days.

Naturally I have spent part of my day thinking about the state of computing hardware and what would make me excited. The size of a laptop is something that used to differentiate various models. Now it seems we have settled on small, medium, or large and each has its merits. We also used to have peripherals such as floppy, CDROM, or DVD disk drives. Now it seems that everyone relies on network connections and doesn't need removable media any more. What about case material? Well you have the brushed aluminum look, solid black carbon fiber, or some colored plastic cover. All of that is boring. About the most exciting difference between laptops is the lit brand logo that appears on the back of the screen. Some love the simple Apple logo while others prefer the 3 intertwined-snakes for the gamer specific Razer laptops.

As I thought about the lack of excitement in the computer market right now, I realized that we can't really blame the hardware manufacturers. It is tough to get excited about new hardware when it all runs the same old software. You have your choice between Windows, MacOS, or Linux. Even then Linux really isn't an option for most people as it is still more of a hobbyist's operating system unless you are working with servers.

So what will it take to get me excited about a new computer or laptop? I don't know. Perhaps this just means there is a new opportunity out there for something extraordinary to come along. I would hate to think that computers have evolved as far as they will go.

Final Answer

My son finally made it home safely after two years in Armenia. I have been struggling with the decision on what computer to get him for his first year in college. I presented several choices to him and let him do some research for several days. He came back with a computer choice. Then I felt I needed to make one last look to make sure we reviewed all possible options.

There are several online computer vendors that allow you to specify the features you are looking for and so I visited Best Buy's. They have a store really close to my house and so I knew I could order it, have it shipped there for free, and pick it up rather quickly. I used the configuration tool and put in the options I thought would work best for a college freshman looking to start in the Mechanical Engineering department. Surprisingly I found a computer I had overlooked. I presented it to my son as a viable alternative to his choice and let him decide. I always believe that any large purchase should be thought about for at least a day. When I go to buy cars, I often tell the salesperson I want to sleep on it before I make a purchase. They hate that but then I don't have buyer's remorse. So I let my son sleep on the decision.

He came back and settled on a MacBook Air with an Intel i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128 GB solid-state drive. Sure I could have gotten more disk space, but with terabyte drives costing $70, why would you need to? I agreed with his decision and so I ordered the computer. The only problem with his choice is that the i7 is an upgrade and so it is not kept in stock at the Apple stores. I had to have it custom built. It will be here next week but is coming all the way from China. School starts on Monday so I hope my son doesn't need his computer until Wednesday when it is due to arrive.

Time for a New College Laptop Again

Back in February I wrote about how my youngest son will soon need a new laptop. I didn't see the urgency in making a decision at the time because heading to college seemed so far off. In two weeks he will be home after spending two years in Armenia and getting ready to attend college.

As I wrote before he will need to talk with his academic advisor to see the best recommendation for his engineering program in school. Some engineering software is only available for Windows and so a Mac might not be a good choice. Or the opposite could be true. I doubt it, but it could be.

A quick stop at Best Buy shows that there are even more choices than before. In addition to Windows or Mac, you can also choose a Chrome OS laptop. If you can get by with using online applications for everything you do, then it is a viable option. I don't think it is a good choice for an engineering student though and so I won't bother looking at one of those.

The next question boils down to budget: How much do I want to spend for my son's laptop. I always joke with my other children about how I like my youngest son the most. They all think that is true but reality is that whatever I do for one child, I have to make it fair for all of the rest. When my older son went to pick his laptop, I looked at the lowest price MacBook Pro and used that as the maximum budget. Why? That is what I got his two sisters. While time passes and laptop specifications change, Apple has done a pretty good job identifying realistic price points for student computers. Yes you can get a lower-priced computer but they don't last nearly as long as if you spend a bit more. Just look at my oldest daughter's experience as most of her college roommates needed new computers before the end of the first year.

I am often asked if brand makes a difference. The short answer is, "Yes." You want to be careful about what you purchase online. However if you are visiting a reputable store like Best Buy, they won't carry a junk brand and so your choice will boil down to features for a given price. I recommend more RAM over a faster processor. I also favor a solid-state drive over rotating disk even though you can get enormous disks for next to nothing. If you think your child will have a lot of large files, spend $60 and get an external USB drive and factor that into the cost of the computer.

Writing all of this down has helped me organize my thoughts as I get ready to help my son with his computer. Hopefully it helps you as well. Naturally I will be sure to let you know what I decide.

Windows Technical Support

Lately I have been getting phone calls from a company claiming that my computer is sending messages to their server and indicating there is a problem. When the phone calls first started, they claimed to be from "Windows Technical Support." I promptly informed them that I don't have any computers running Windows and that they should stop calling me. Did that stop the calls? Nope.

Two weeks ago I files a complaint with the Do Not Call registry as this company was not smart enough to mask their number from caller ID. Did the calls stop? Nope. The company continued calling with a "Blocked" caller ID number. Normally I wouldn't answer such calls but the marina in California where I keep my sailboat also has a "Blocked" caller ID number and so last week I answered the phone thinking it was them. My wife was lucky enough to be in my home office when the call came and it went something like this:

I answered, "Hello, this is Matt."

The female voice replied, "May I please speak with Matthew Bennett?"

"This is him."

"Hello, this is Susan with Computer Technical Support."

I noticed they had changed the name of the company somewhat but thought I would try to be polite. "Yes, and why are you calling."

"We noticed that your computer is sending us data that indicates it is having some problems."

I was intrigued but knew it was the same people that have been bugging me and so I asked a very important question, "Oh really, what kind of computer do I have?"

"It is a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating system."

While that would account for most of the computers in the world, I don't have a single computer that has booted into Windows over the past 2 months and so I replied, "You are a liar. My laptop is a Mac and my desktop runs Linux." I may or may not have said a few more things before I rudely hung up on her.

I was relaying this story to one of my work colleagues and he responded that it is a scam and they got his mother recently. While they only billed her credit card for $90, there is a chance they will use the credit card number for other purposes and so my colleague had his mother cancel her card. After all, you can't really trust a crook to only steal $90.

If you take a step back and think about it, Microsoft technical support wouldn't bother calling you if it noticed a problem. They have much quicker ways of taking your money and don't need to rely on telemarketers posing as technical support. Besides, you might just ask them about a real problem you are having because there are so many.

Helping with Homework

I was trying to get to bed early on Monday night because I had to catch a flight to the Bay Area the next morning. I was just climbing into bed when my son came in asking for some help with his girlfriend's school project. She needed to take a music file and cut it down from 4 minutes to 2. I have Audacity on my Linux machine in my office and knew it could perform the task without any issues. I reluctantly got out of bed and stumbled to my home office with son and his friend in tow.

I should have known it was not as easy a task as it sounded simply because teenagers never give you the entire truth. The first hurdle came when I plugged the thumb-drive into my computer and saw that the audio file was only 860 bytes long. Most MP3 files are in the order of 5,000,000 bytes in size, which is not a lot when you think about it. The 860 bytes told me that someone copied a link to the file instead of the actual file. Curse you Windows! At least the Mac is smart enough to know that when you drag and drop a link from the desktop to your thumb-drive, it copies the actual file, not just the link.

My next task was to locate an alternate source of the original music file. I could pay $0.99, but was really just trying to get this done as quickly as possible without spending any money. Besides, my son's girlfriend had already paid to use the song and it was the principle of the matter. So I downloaded the movie file from YouTube, striped out the audio portion, and then expanded the audio track to a .WAV file. Don't ask me about the steps I used as I didn't bother to write them all down. It wasn't a trivial task, but it wasn't too complex either.

Now I like my son's girlfriend even though she may think differently. However she really had no idea how to cut the music file down so that it was under 2 minutes long. She couldn't decide if she wanted the first 2 minutes, the last 2 minutes, or something in between. Naturally I ended up trying all 3, which takes up a lot of time as you have to listen to each segment all the way through to make sure you got the right stuff. The last 2 minutes was "yuckie" and the middle 2 minutes just didn't sound right. I just took the first 2 minutes and cut it at an appropriate spot. She ended up with 1 minute and 43 seconds of music that sounded good.

The final task was to burn the newly edited music onto a  CD. Who uses CD's any more? I tried a few different ways to create a music CD but none of them worked. After 30 minutes of frustration, my son's girlfriend asked if it was in a format she could just stick on her iPod. It was and so I gave her the file. I wish I had known that before wasting precious sleep time. Finally we were done and I could head off to bed.

I love my son but was a little irritated with this last-minute homework request. I was up an hour and a half later than intended simply to help one of his friends. Never mind that we had just come off Thanksgiving break where I had plenty of time to help with such projects. As I drifted off to sleep, I realized that even though the project was not for my son, it was important to him. Therefore it was important to me and worth giving up 90 minutes of my evening.

The High Cost of Windows

Now that my son has a much larger hard disk on his MacBook, he can put more stuff on his computer. One of his classes at school requires a program that only runs on Windows. I suggested he pick up a copy of Parallels which will allow him to run Windows at the same time as MacOS X. The only problem is that he would also have to purchase a copy of Microsoft Windows.

In full disclosure, I gave up on Windows many years ago. When I buy a new computer that isn't a Mac, the first thing I do is repartition the disk so that a small portion is devoted to Windows and then install Linux on the rest of it. I find Windows to be slow, boated, buggy, and susceptible to malware. On my latest computer, I haven't even tried to boot into Windows and I have had the computer for over a year. When my son informed me that he needed a Windows program, I wanted to help him find the best way to get it running without screwing up the rest of his computer and that is why Parallels makes sense.

In the process of upgrading his hard disk, my son decided to buy a new copy of Mac OS X. It cost him $30 and was well worth the price. The latest version doesn't take up as much space as the previous version and also seems to run faster. As a full-time student, my son can get a copy of Parallels for $30, which isn't too expensive. Then came the shocker: the high price of Windows 7. Since my son doesn't have an existing license for a copy of Windows, it will cost him $199. If he wants to upgrade a copy from one of my machines where I don't use Windows, it will still cost him $119. I guess Microsoft has to pay a lot of money to all those people who think Windows 7 was their idea.

My son is a pretty smart kid and decided that $119 is just too much money and will opt to use the computer lab at school. Sure it isn't as convenient as working on his homework in his apartment, but $119 buys a lot of pizzas.

Remote Desktop Connection

On Monday I installed a really neat piece of software on my Mac laptop. It is called "Remote Desktop Connection" and allows me to use my Mac to log into a Windows Server machine. The latest software project I am working on is with Microsoft SQL Server and that means I need to have access to a Windows machine.

The latest version of the Mac operating system has a feature called "Open Spaces." This basically allows me to have four virtual displays on one screen. It is very useful to keep from having a lot of programs cluttering up your screen at the same time. You can start your e-mail in one display and then go to another virtual display to run your web browser. Once you have all your programs running, you can easily switch between them using the "command" and the "tab" keys. Linux has had this feature for a while and I am glad to see it moving into other operating systems.

So I started my browser in screen one and Remote Desktop Connection in screen two. Then my younger son came down to my office to visit. I showed him that I was running Windows in one screen and Mac OS X in another. He thought that was pretty cool.

My older son came down later and saw me working in Windows and thought I had erased my Mac OS and replaced it with Windows (something I wouldn't recommend). When I showed him I was actually running both at the same time, he was relieved. He will probably be taking my Mac laptop to college and favors the Max OS over Windows.

Remote Desktop Connection really is an elegant little program. Without it I would have been forced to load a bunch of software on one of my Windows computers and that would have taken a lot of time. Instead I was able to take a few minutes and instantly become productive with the help of an already configured server. Now I need to get back to work.

GIMP: A Free Photoshop Clone

Recently I was asked to provide an up-to-date family picture. Those that know me know that I hate taking family portraits. I prefer to get the family together on vacation or while we are skiing and have someone take a quick snapshot. Well it has been a while since we have all been together and I don't really have a recent picture of us. I am reminded of the scene in "Cheaper by the Dozen" where the father, played by Steve Martin, tells everyone that he will just Photoshop the absent oldest child into the family portrait they are about to take. The most recent portrait we have is missing our oldest daughter who is away at school and so I was hoping I could just Photoshop her into the picture.

The only problem is that Photoshop is a $700 piece of software. Luckily there is a free alternative called GIMP. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. That covers about all home computing environments.

GIMP is an acronym that stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Seeing as "gimp" is a word that is generally a friendly yet derogatory term we use with one of our friends who has recently injured an arm or let, I would probably have used a different acronym. However that is is the name the program was given and it is anything but a handicapped tool.

One of the first uses you may have for GIMP is to remove that annoying "red eye" effect you get when taking a picture of someone using a flash. Simply go into the "filter" menu and under "enhance" is an option for red eye removal. Doing a quick scan of the other filters reveals a number of really cool effects that you can add to your photographs. Just be sure to always work on a copy instead of the original. We have one screwed-up family picture where we tried to remove our dog's "green eye" effect (people have red eyes but dogs have green eyes when their pictures are taken with a flash) and didn't save a copy of the original.

There are a lot of classes, books, and Internet tutorials devoted to Photoshop. A lot of this teaching material translates to GIMP because the two programs are so similar. However there are some differences and so you will want to see if there is a tutorial specifically built around GIMP first. One of my favorite GIMP-specific tutorials shows how to make really spectacular buttons to use on a website (one is shown below).



My oldest college-aged daughter was doing some work for me this summer and I taught her some basic GIMP tricks. At the end of her day, she would hang around on the computer after work to do some image editing for herself. She built complex animated graphics of ballerinas dancing around the screen as well as collages of all her friends. When I asked her what she thought of GIMP she told me that she had been searching for an image editing program and was glad I had showed it to her.

While it is fairly easy to steal yourself a copy of Photoshop and avoid paying that $700 price, it is still stealing. Since a free version of a comparable product exists there is no need to become a software pirate.

What is Linux?

I was at a friend's house last week who was giving me a bunch of photo's and movies from one of my many summer activities. He had some questions about Windows XP that I couldn't answer without a bit of research because I don't really use Windows on a day-to-day basis. Naturally he asked what I did use. While I have both Windows and Mac computers in my office, my primary computer runs Linux.

So what is Linux and why would anyone remove Windows from a new computer and install Linux instead? Actually I don't completely remove Windows from the computer when I install Linux. I set it up so that when I turn on the computer, it asks if I want to run Linux or Windows. This gives me a bit of flexibility with each of the machines in my office.

So back to the first question: What is Linux? Linux was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 who wanted to create an operating system or computer user environment similar to Unix. Unix is an operating system created by Ken Thompson at Bell Laboratories in 1969. Linus was able to leverage other work done by Richard Stallman who created the GNU project in 1983 to create another Unix-like operating system. So what is Linux? Simply an open source or free version of Unix.

OK, so what is Unix and what makes it better than Windows or Macs for day-to-day use? Better is a relative term and so it is with extreme caution that I continue. When I worked at Oracle Corporation for the summer after my freshman year of college, they put me in the Unix technical support group and had me learn Unix. This was back before graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that most people are familiar with. Instead of being able to use a mouse to navigate thru directories and file folders, one had to know commands like "cd" and "ls". If you knew the name of file but didn't know where it was located, you could use the "find" command. Unix also has a bunch of tools and utilities that I learned such as the text editor called "vi" (pronounced like the letter V and the letter I). You could say that I got really used to using these two, three, and four-letter commands to help navigate the computer. Since my hands never have to leave the keyboard to touch the mouse, I feel I can do things faster and so I have continued to use Linux. Does that make Linux better than Windows? Probably not for most users, but it does for me and so I continue to use it.

Interestingly enough the operating system used by Macs is also Unix. Apple just did a spectacular job of hiding all those cryptic commands so that even the most novice user can enjoy the Mac experience. However if you know how to open a terminal window, you can revert back to those short-but-confusing Unix commands.

One of the benefits of Unix is how it protects itself from rogue programs like viruses and malware. When the PC first came out, it cam with the Microsoft DOS operating system and could only run one program at a time. Unix on the other hand was created to run multiple programs for different users at the same time. The creators of Unix knew that Jimmy might be running a program that could crash the computer and cause harm to Susan's program. Therefore they built in protection so that Jimmy's program cannot harm Susan's nor can it harm Unix itself. Therefore it is much more difficult to write a virus for Unix than it is for DOS which has now evolved into Windows.

This brings us back to my friend asking about Linux. It seems that my friend's son had contracted a nasty virus on his computer. In an attempt to cover his tracks, the son had reformatted the hard drive. He figured he could just reinstall Windows and nobody would know there had been a virus. Unfortunately the son didn't have a license key for Windows and couldn't reinstall it. Eventually the son had to confess about the virus. While my friend could easily get a license key from Microsoft to reinstall Windows, he has opted to put Linux on his son's computer. Maybe now his son won't get a computer virus.