However, luckily this is easily fixed by installing one package called Ubuntu-Restricted-Extras. Installing this package will install Microsoft Fonts, Java Runtime Environment, Flash, LAME, MP3 and audio encoding and decoding as well as DVD playback.

To install them first you have to allow the extra repositories in Ubuntu, these are where the software are downloaded from and also will help keep your software updated in the future. To do this on the top panel in Ubuntu click on System > Administration > Software Sources. As shown below make sure the boxes are ticked, and choose your country from the "Download from:" box.

(a screenshot of the sources window)

Next click on the Third Party Sources tab and make sure all the boxes are selected, then click close and from the dialog box click refresh, which will refresh the list all the available packages and programs now available to download and install.

Finally, click on System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. As shown below you need to search for ubuntu-restricted-extras and selected it, then click apply and it should download and install. Now you can listen to you MP3 files, watch DVD's and video files, and view flash flash files.

(A screenshot of the package manager)

As a final note, Kubuntu users should search for kubuntu-restricted-extras and Xubuntu users should search for xubuntu-restricted-extras

There are many websites with collections of themes created by other users. If you are using gnome as the window manager (which you will be using unless you have changed it) one of the best websites is gnome-look.org, which offers hundreds of themes, icons and other items such as login screens, but the section for gnome themes is the GTK 2.X section.

Once you have the found a theme you like and downloaded it, from the top panel click on System > Preference > Appearance. A window similar to the following should open.

From this window you can either click on the Install button and then browse and select the downloaded file (probably with the extension tar.gz) or you can drag the downloaded file onto the appearance window.

A message box saying the new theme has been installed should appear, so from this box click Apply New Theme and then enjoy!

Windows Vista

Proof that some will choose form over function

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Ah... Windows Vista, a visually stimulating GUI indeed, with semitransparent window borders, Light reflecting Icons, a slew of color choices (with the ability to choose any color if you weren't pleased with the preselected choices) for the overall theme, smoother transitions between actions, and all wrapped up nicely in it's 64-bit brilliance...

Once we get past the "pretty factor" though thats when things kind of go to hell from there sadly. The actual functioning quality of this relatively new operating system is filled with more bugs than I'd like to count, or Microsoft would like to count for that matter apparently as they have spent so much on advertising the failing OS that could have been used to actually fix it. These factors in mind, it would be unfair of me to say that Microsoft hasn't gotten rid of quite a few bugs since Vistas launch because they have but there is still a long way to go before it's worth the $199.95 price tag it comes with.

Speaking from experience, Windows Vista is bearable at the very least and for the most part (if you know your way around computers) you can make it work for you, but you will run into errors caused my the bugs that you paid for. Another flaw is that in some cases even though you are the sole user you may not be recognized as having administrative rights which can be in some cases be almost impossible to work around.

As far as choosing Vista for it's Appearance alone, Windows XP has Vista lookalike themes and skins not to mention skins that in my opinion look even better than Vistas GUI. In fact let's look at some examples.

Vista's GUI

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Vista Lookalike XP Skin

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XP Concave skin

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All in all if you have no interest in doing a lot with a computer, have money to blow, and want a sleek look (that you can get in XP also) to cover up the mediocre OS you just bought, Vista is right up your ally.

Windows XP: Microsoft's Love-child

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People know it, people love it, and some finally got the hang of it. Windows XP, the operating system that has been used by the better part of the computer world for the last few years. The older, wiser brother of Vista, less potential, but old enough to be able to stand against the errors computers come against. Well, good enough anyway. But where it shines is it's gaming capabilities. Oh the visuals this OS can render, without the headache inducing bugs in Vista. Truly this is the operating system of the gamer with graphics on the mind.

Not to mention that if you're familiar with the Windows setup then you will likely not want to rock the boat with a foreign operating system like Linux or Mac, considering you feel like a pro and why would you want to go back to trying to figure out how to change your background again. No, XP is quite the rock upon which those who use computers have built upon. I know when I attempted to use Mac or Linux for the first time I felt frustrated, shaken, and ultimately beaten, but in the end, now that I feel relatively at ease when faced with a monitor with any of these three operating systems, I know that pushing past what is comfortable will only help you in the end.

But again, the logical perk windows has to other operating systems is for Gamers. To give those who have not had the pleasure to play some games on windows with all the graphics set to their highest, here is some eye candy for you.

Fallout 3

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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

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So as far as XP goes, it's great for games, more stable than Vista and is comfortable. But a fear of change can hold you back, especially in the computer world.

Ubuntu Linux

A dream of the free information exchange

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Linux redefines the word free to it's original meaning, with none of those pesky asterisks that so often plague the term. You can download the .iso file for the Live CD directly from the Ubuntu site, and if you don't happen to have the Internet available on your computer, you can go to your public library, go on the Ubuntu site, and request a free CD be shipped to your home. This is absolutely amazing, no S&H, no payment at all. And what's more is that almost every program for Linux, is open source and free of charge.
Ubuntu (like all Linux systems) is also built like a rock. It's one of the most stable systems that I have ever used, and while you can freely download virus sweepers, I don't really see why you would need to considering you would really have to try to acquire a virus for Linux. It is just as the picture states, safe, easy, and beautiful.

Sadly Linux loses it's luster when the idea of gaming comes up. This system for all its strengths has this very disappointing weakness, and is a big reason why it is not used as much. But, don't think it can't handle anything, Linux just can't run high end graphics, it can however run simpler things such as World of Warcraft™ as shown below.



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So don't count Linux out because on account of game play completely. Linux also is very customizable internally and externally. A few beautiful examples of it's visual potential will now be shown.



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It's stable, safe, and free. It's hard to ask for more.

So there it is, my rundown on the systems. Personally I tend to prefer Linux over Windows, but that's just my preference.

Getting Ready

First off, you will need a computer that you do not use for anything else, including surfing the Internet. If you do not have one, you can purchase any brand name computer, or, if you prefer, build one your self. You will also need a broadband internet connection, preferably with a high upload speed.

If you do not have a static IP, or if you do not know if you have a static IP, call your Internet provider. Make sure you write down the static IP, as you will need it later.

You will need to download Ubuntu from the Ubuntu website, and burn it to a CD. This is not the same as burning a music or general data CD. You will want to use your burning program's "Burn from image" feature (the image is a .iso image). If your burning program does not have this feature, you can usually find freeware that does. Make DOUBLE sure that  you download the SERVER EDITION of Ubuntu.

Installing Ubuntu

Insert the CD you burned into your CD-ROM or DVD drive, and boot your computer. Some computers will automatically boot from the CD so you can install. For the computers that do not automatically boot from the CD, there will usually be a screen that comes up saying something along the lines of "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD...". This usually gives you a limited amount of time to press any key. Press any key and it will boot from the CD.

After you have booted from the CD, choose the install option. This is a fairly easy step-by-step process. One of the screens will ask you what type of server you wish to install. Choose HTTP or LAMP server (LAMP stands for "Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP server"). After the installation is finished, it will ask you to remove the CD or DVD and restart the computer.

Setting Everything Up

After you have rebooted your computer, you will notice that the operating system successfully installed, but there is no user interface, just a command prombt-like interface. This is called the "Linux Terminal". Ubuntu Server Edition does not come with a desktop interface installed by default. First, type in your user name and password that you created during installation.

If you are not experienced with the Linux Terminal, you may want to install a desktop evironment. To install the Gnome Desktop environment, type the following into the Terminal:

$ sudo su

[The password you created durring installation]

$ apt-get install gnome-desktop

Or, if you perfer the KDE Desktop evironment, type the following:

$ sudo su

[The password you created during the installation]

$ apt-get install kde-desktop

Please keep in mind that you do NOT type the $ symbols when typing commands. Those are there to let readers of this article know that it is a new command.

After the desktop environment has finished installing, you server is ready to use. The directory you will put your website in is the '/var/www' directory. This can be changed, but changing it involves editing the Apache configuration files. I do not recommend doing this if you are not familiar with those files. I will do another tutorial next week on how to use WordPress with this type of Ubuntu installation.

Ubuntu Linux: billed as "Linux for humans", Ubuntu Linux is a very user-friendly operating system. Ubuntu Linux comes with a full suite of open-source software installed, including office, graphics and multimedia programs. Thousands more programs are available free of charge to replace anything you may have used on your Microsoft Windows PC. I installed Ubuntu on my laptop several weeks ago. The entire installation was very easy and took less than 30 minutes. My 12 year old daughter, who has never used anything but Microsoft Windows, was able to easily find her way around and acclimate herself to Ubuntu. She has now proclaimed that she likes using the laptop more than our Microsoft Windows desktop because of her preference for the operating system. Since Linux is much more secure than a Microsoft Windows PC, I feel very good about her using it. She is much less likely to accidentally download viruses, spyware or adware on the laptop running Ubuntu. Ubuntu, or any other Linux distribution, is a perfectly acceptable operating system for most PC users. The only exception to this rule is the serious gaming community-very few popular games include Linux distributions, although for the casual gamer, open-source Linux games abound.

Firefox: If you want to view web pages they way they were meant to be seen in a secure environment, then Firefox web browser is for you. Firefox is fully web compliant, which means you'll see things on websites that just dont show up in Microsoft's internet explorer. There are also thousands of add-ons available for Firefox to make your browsing, shopping, researching, or whatever you choose to do more fun, efficient and effective.

GIMP is a free-source image editor similar to Adobe Photoshop, although experienced GIMP users will tell you that it offers many more options and flexibility. Although there is a bit of a learning curve, mainly because the layout is quite a bit different than standard Windows graphics software, GIMP is intuitive and enjoyable to use. GIMP is available for several Linux distributions as well as Microsoft Windows.

VLC Media Player: Simply the best, easiest to use media player around, VLC will play nearly any audio and video format without having to worry about finding and installing the proper codec for whatever format you are trying to watch. Videos that won't play in Windows Media Player or other commercial software will nearly always play in VLC as long as the files aren't corrupted. VLC Media Player can also be used to stream audio and video content to the internet. Although the user interface isn't as sleek and pretty as its commercial cousins, you simply can't go wrong with VLC.

These are only four samples of the thousands of open-source programs available. Sites like osalt.com and sourceforge.org can help you find open-source alternatives to whatever proprietary sofware you may need.

I think I installed most of the popular "flavours" of Linux at the times, such as SUSE, Mandrake (now mandriva), Red Hat, Knoppix, debian, freeBSD and others

However, recently after a year or two of not trying any Linux distributions and having only the super insecure Windows XP on my laptop, I decided that with the many constant frustrations, including the bloated feel of Windows, to test out a version of Linux.

Deciding which one to try came down to SUSE, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Puppy Linux, Knoppix, Mint, PCcentos.

OpenSUSE 11.0 desktop.

I was considering Puppy Linux as I have read it to have good hardware support, but I decided against it because I want a fully fledged operating system, not one that is designed for portability.

I decided against Mint or PCcentos because I didn't like the default MS Windows desktops styles, which I know they can be fully customised, but I was feeling shallow like that. However, I am considering trying out one of these, if they have Live-CD's.

Linux Mint 5.0

My final decision came down to either Ubuntu with the gnome desktop environment or it's KDE brother Kubuntu. In the past I had always been a fan of KDE due to it's customisability and general feel, and on the one occasion I tried gnome out, I didn't like it. But for some reason, at the last minute I decided to download the Live-CD and try out Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 8.10

On loading Ubuntu from the live-CD, I was impressed with the slickness and feel of the desktop, and programs such as the nautilus file manager amongst other things. Also, researching things, I was impressed by the support and community for Ubuntu on the Internet.

After, playing around I decided to install Ubuntu. Initially, I had some problems trying to resize my Windows dominance of the hard-drive, and had to download and use a freeware partition tool in Windows. But this worked, and I partitioned my hard-drive giving the majority of space to Ubuntu. I decided to keep Windows XP, just in case of problems.

Installation was great and easy. The only problems being with my ATI Radeon graphics card and the lack of support from ATI, which means the proprietary driver doesn't work as good as it can, but I can still play 3D games in Linux, maybe it's a mixture of my laptop being a few years old and also the ATI driver.

Advantages:
1. Security, the lack of Linux viruses means I don't need a virus scanner, and also even though I have installed a firewall (Firestarter) it's not really needed, especially with a hardware firewall.
2. Speed, I find that booting up, and especially loading the desktop is sooo much faster, the Windows XP was taking extremely long to load the desktop and all the items in the taskbar, even after I had changed many settings and tried to improve performance. I have improved the performance of Ubuntu even further by changing the booting options, such as removing bluetooth support (my laptop doesn't have it) and changing the start-up programs. The open-office software did initialy take a few more seconds too load than I wanted, but after changing the softwares memory and java options, it loads in a matter of a few seconds.

Also, loading programs like Firefox is extremely quicker.
3. Support, the ubuntuforums are very helpful and friendly and there are also many other websites I have visited for news, tips, help and ideas.
4. Choice of software. Ubuntu comes with many default programs installed for every type of activity, but thousands of more programs are available from the Ubuntu repositories.
5. Cost, Ubuntu and the software is free and open source.
6. Customisability, unlike Windows, which gives you one desktop environment, where the only customisation that can be realistically done, is change a few colours. Ubuntu and Linux operation systems allow you to change ANYTHING about it. There are many website that offer various items to change gnome, from the login screen to the panels (like the star bar in Windows) to how gnome works. Don't like the gnome desktop? why not remove it and install another one like KDE or one of the other ones designed for speed.
7. Ease of use, Ubuntu has been designed to be user friendly, for example searching and installing new programs is as easy as running a program (Synaptic Package Manager) which lists thousands of programs available, and choosing which one, the the software will automatically install it for you as well as any other needed files to run it. Very easy.

For me, a semi-power-user, the only disadvantages for me personally, are the lack of video/audio chat for MSN messenger, as I use MSN messenger in Windows to talk family back home in the UK, but this is really the fault of Microsoft and not Ubuntu or Linux, so maybe I will try out Skype. Also, the lack of dvd, mp3 and video playback could be considered a disadvantage, but this was fixed in a matter of a few short minutes, by quickly opening up the package manager and selecting install restricted drivers.

It is possible to use an SSH to create a tunnel and use it as a SOCKS proxy. It's actually easy to do so as well. I'll show you how to do this using Ubuntu Server and PuTTY. You can of course use any SSH server to do this. This is also effective for bypassing filtering, and as well encrypting everything you view on the Internet.

Overview of what you need:

• Spare computer to install Linux on OR rent a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or Dedicated Server
• Basic Knowledge
  
• A CD-R/W (if installing Linux)
  
• PuTTY

Setting Up an SSH Server

Before you can even use SSH as a proxy, you'll need a server. You can either order a virtual private server (VPS) or a dedicated server, having Linux (CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, etc.). If you have one of these, skip to the "Change Port on SSH Server" or "Setting Up PuTTY" section.

To begin, you first need to install Linux, in this scenario, we will use Ubuntu Server. First begin with downloading Ubuntu Server from the Ubuntu Download Page. After this has completed, burn the image to a CD-R/W.

Now we start the installation process of Ubuntu Server on the spare computer.

First pop in the disc, then reboot or power on the machine, you should something like this:

Select your Language and press Enter.

Press Enter.

Pick your Language, then press Enter.

Pick the area you live closest to, then press Enter.

Press the Tab key to select No, then press Enter.

Select the Origin of your Keyboard, then press Enter.

Select your Keyboard layout, then press Enter.

Choose a hostname for your server, this can be anything, in this case I'll use ubuntu. Then press Enter.

Select the time zone you are in, then press Enter.

Select Guided - use entire disk, then press Enter.

Select the disk you would like to install to, then press Enter.

Confirm changes to disk by selecting Yes (press Tab) and pressing Enter.

The base system is now installing, this may take up to 5 to 15 minutes.

Enter your full name for the user you would like to use on the server.

Enter the Username for the account for the server. Note that this will be your SSH account as well.

Enter the password you want to use for your account. Note that this will be used for the SSH account as well.

Re-type the password you entered in the previous screen.

Enter the proxy you use if you need one to access the Internet, otherwise just press Enter.

Select OpenSSH server from the list by pressing Space bar, then press Enter to continue.

The SSH server is now installing.

Installation is now complete, eject the disc and press Enter to reboot.

Now once Ubuntu Server is booted, you may login now. Also your SSH server is now ready, but now your going to need the IP to the server so you can connect to it.

What it looks like once logged in. Type ifconfig to determine the server's IP.

The result of ifconfig. The server's IP is 192.168.13.129. Note this!

Note that to be able to successfully connect to the SSH server from the outside world, you will need to port forward on your router using the port 22. If you are behind a filter, you will need to change the port of the SSH server to 443 and port forward on your router to 443 instead. To figure out how to port forward, go to PortForward.com, select your Router, then select SSH. Remember to change the port on the port forward from 22 to the port you decide to change it to.

You are also are going to need to remember your Remote IP, the IP the outside world sees. If you are behind a router, most likely this IP will change from time to time. You can figure out what this IP is by going to WhatIsMyIP.com

Change Port on SSH Server (optional)

You can change the port on the SSH Server from 22 to anything, like 443. It is useful to change the port to 443, especially if your behind a filter when trying to connect to the SSH server, as usually 443 traffic isn't filtered.

To do this, login to the Ubuntu server you installed.

Type sudo -s and retype the password you used to login.

Type vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config and press Enter.

This is what you should see.

Press Insert, and replace Port 22 with Port 443.

Press Escape, type :exit and press Enter.

Now type /etc/init.d/ssh restart and press Enter. The SSH server is now restarted.

The SSH server is now running on port 443.

Setting Up PuTTY

Now for the easy part, you'll need PuTTY, you can download it from the PuTTY website.

Download putty.exe

In PuTTY enter the IP of your SSH server and the Port. In this scenario, the IP is 192.168.13.129 and the Port is 443.

Ensure that the preferred SSH protocol version is 2.

Enter Port 9999 as the source port (this can be anything you like), select Dynamic and click Add, then click Open.

You will get an alert similar to this, click Yes to store the key, or click No to continue connecting. Note that storing the key, you will ensure the server is the same until this message pops up again, meaning that someone is trying to hijack your connection.

Login using the username and password you have setup or been provided with.

The tunnel is now ready, now all you need to do is to setup your Internet Settings to point to the proxy, which is currently localhost:9999.

Click on LAN settings.

Check "Use a proxy server for your LAN...", and click Advanced.

Uncheck "Use the same proxy server for all portocols", clear everything in HTTP, Secure, and FTP, and in Socks type in localhost for the address and 9999 for the Port. Click OK, and then OK on all remaining windows.

You are now tunneling through the Internet through a SSH tunnel. You must leave the SSH terminal window open, or the tunnel will close and the proxy will no longer work. Everything that supports a SOCK proxy will go through this proxy.

I tried the same release few months earlier, it was buggy and it crashed sometimes. Themes and Compiz didn't work. Now I see a new Human theme cointaining dark grey and brow mixed together to make a good-looking environment. It's dark and looks weird at the first sight but after few minutes, you understand. It's just different.

Many days has been spent for this theme but there still some compatiblity problems with few applications' own colouring making it worrier than the old one. I hope, they can fix these problems.

Every release cointains something new, in this release, it is something I haven't seen yet. It can be, it's just more fixed and patched version of last LTS. There is something new, but I have found nothing else than the theme. I think, there is enough fixing with KDE 4, so there can be more changes in this release.

Restricted drivers has been updated and my Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT is now compatible with restricted drivers provided by Ubuntu.

I'm finally found the end of this article. It was short. Idea was good but I had less information to write about. Anyway, it will be released in the end of next month.

Above all, we will use sketch command to define a planes. Simply pressing sketch button in Solidwork menu, you can define a plane on which you want to start drawing. Basically, one has three alternatives, front, top, and right respectively. For 2D drawings, one can select any of them. In our tutorial set, I will select top plane as a reference plane. This means, I'll draw on the top surface of imaginary rectangular prism. Think like this for simplicity.

 

How to draw a line

To draw line, simply click the line figure on the toolbar. Solidworks will present you four alternatives to draw line. They are "as sketched", "horizontal", "vertical" and "angle". Lets we draw a vertical line with a height of 60. Click the "vertical" radio button and  and somewhere on the screen and drag the tip of cursor vertically. This will draw a vertical line. To dimension it, click "smart dimension" button and starting point of line. Then drag the tip of cursor to the end point of vertical line. Solidworks will ask you the numerical length of the line. Write 60 into the space. Now, you have a vertical line with a length of 60 mm.

How to draw a rectangle

To draw rectangle, click the rectangle figure on the toolbar. Then draw a rectangle with any lengths. Then dimension it by using "smart dimension" button. Dimension each side of rectangle. Let's draw a rectangle with a side length of 120 mm and a height of 80 mm.

Virtually every program code has inputs and outputs. Before compiling a source code, programs generally request an input from the user and then output it to the screen after compiling if the program is well designed and there is no error inside it. Usually, as the program becomes more complicated, error possibility increases. A good software expert easily realizes where the code has faults and corrects it. Since our first code will be very small and very simple, we will not face with any error.

Before starting to write code, we initially have a compiler which is going to evaluate our code. I use Dev C for this. There are many other compilers which run on different platforms like Unix, Linux and Windows.

In this project, we will output the names of the subprograms of Triond on to C terminal screen. This is the simplest algorithm since there is no input in this example. Let's start writing our code step by step.

Step 1: Open the File from the menu bar of C software and save as the blank page Project1. This yields a file with an extension of cpp.

Step 2: Describe the name and aim of the programs. To do so, we use comments. Comments are ignored by the compiler. For commenting, we use some special scripts like double slash or slash-asterisk character .

If we use a single line comment, double slash is enough. However, if our comment is placed more than one line, we use double slash for each line or take the commented part between slash-asterisk and asterisk-slash characters .

Step 3: C needs library files which define what the input and output functions are and what they do when they are used in a code. Iostream is the library file of input and output function.

Before the name of library files, we use a special character, preprocessor directive character. Include is used before the name of every library file and such file names are placed mathematical comparison characters.

Step 4: Every C code uses functions. The default function is main. Main function is the first function compiled by the programs. This function usually calls other functions. Before the name of function, we specify which type of output our code returns. In our program, we think that it returns to integer and use int. After the function name, we use parantheses. In this example, there will be nothing between parantheses but in more complicated programs, there may be parameter names and it's types or definitions. We place our statements between left brace and right brace.

Step 5: To print on to the screen,we use cout function. We simply place our string inside double quote characters. Every statement inside the functions ends with a special semicolon character.

Step 6: To check the validity, we use return function.In this simple example, it returns to 0.

Click here for the code