But there is possibly a funny and interesting alternative to buying a new computer, if you want a better performing machine. In fact, mainly for marketing reasons, computer and software producer are often pushing the assumption that personal computers are inseparable combinations of hardware and operating system (that is: the actual machine and the software that allows that machine to function). This is not entirely true. It is true that, unless you are a computer geek, most of the time, you may want to buy a machine that works, possibly very well, as soon as you take it our from the box. But it is also true that the machine that you bought and that came with a given (rather expensive) operating system, can sometimes work well, or even better, with a different operating system.

Switching to a free Linux operating system was, till recently, a synonym of headache, even for someone with relatively good computer skills. Today things have changed. In fact, the “open source” software communities continue to show outstanding skills and have done an excellent job: several freely available Linux distributions have evolved into great user-friendly operating systems that allow you to do everything (or nearly everything) you may need to do with your computer, often in a better and faster way (see References below). Consider that some of these distributions were developed with the challenge to keep both the operating systems and common use applications in the smallest space possible and/or to have all needed bits, stored in RAM for faster access. Isn't that an excellent way to get rid of the “fat” slowing down other non-free operating systems?

Here are the basic needed skills to start; you will need to know:

1. how to back-up your data; it is NOT advisable to do any experimentation with a computer where you stored data, obviously. Just -in case you decide to do so- make sure you have a good back-up and a reliable way to recover your data, should things go wrong.
2. how to access your BIOS settings; usually this is done by pressing one or a combination of keys during the startup. You can find this information on the manufacturer manual for your computer model or on the Internet. This is to change your boot options (in a frequent scenario you may want to start from a “bootable cd”, made burning a iso image file on it).
3. how to burn a iso image file on a cd-rom. This translates mainly in finding a good software for doing it.

And that's it.

You can find even simpler ways to use a Linux shell (command line) or to run more or less complete versions of Linux, totally under your current operating system; this would help, if you just want to give it a try, before installing it.

Scan through the sources below, learn some more about it and, more important, have fun!

References

• http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/
• http://www.freeveda.org/linux/puppy/PupWin98.htm
• http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/qemupuppy/
• http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_Started_with_coLinux
• http://www.cygwin.com/
• http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
• http://sourceforge.net/index.php

Most of Finns know Linux. It has something to do with computers, most think. Yes, but only some can understand that it's operating system and can be used to replace Windows. If some understand that it can replace Windows, some of these know the dual boot, two operating systems (like Linux and Windows) can be on the same HDD and you can choose on boot, which one you would like to start. When slicing our people a little more, there's still people with all required information but they haven't tried it. Only a minimal amount of people have tried it and found Linux useless or not the right OS for theirself.

After we know the people's knowledge and their opinions, I would say that they should support Linux. It's free, it's open and the project is started from Finland, so Finns should be proud, that they have something. I think the problem is that people don't have enough knowledge, faith and local helpdesk resources to get Linux live in your PC case.

I have an idea to move our country in Linux. First thing is that we shouldn't pay for commercial operating system and shouldn't get it installed in schools and teach everyone how to use it. We should change it. We should bring Linux in schools and teach to use it. Everyone thinks that people do nothing with Linux skills and experience because there's Windows everywhere. Yes, it's everywhere but if we teach Linux, people can use Linux, they know it and they'll use it and everywhere, there will be Linux instead of any commercial OS.

1. Open Source is Free. -You can get any open source program without paying ridiculous prices to already rich companies.
2. Open Source software usually has better security -The majority of computer users don't use open source, so people making viruses will be much less likely to make them for open source operating systems.
3. Open Source Programs are made by normal people not working for a big company -If you could have a chocolate bar made by either a worker in a big factory that is stressed and hates his job or by someone whose hobby was to make chocolate bars and is making them for fun, which would you want? Which would be better quality?
4. Open Source can be edited to your content -If you are a programmer, and just want to change this one tiny thing in a program, if it's open source you can do that.
5. Open Source doesn't have to follow strict company rules -Let's say large software company “A” tries to release a text editing program. They have to go through a lot of company bureaucracy, and the program itself will have to fit into their other software, which might make it a larger file or less user friendly.

Why not to use Open Source

Alright, I'll be honest, open source isn't perfect. It is my preference most of the time, but there are negative sides to everything.

1. Open Source may be found as too confusing to some users -The people that make open source programs know a lot more about computers than the average user. Sometimes they forget to make it easy enough to comprehend, but that isn't always the case.
2. Open Source may contain hazardous viruses -As with anything you download online, Open Source may contain viruses harmful to your computer. If you have good, updated virus protection, this shouldn't be an issue.

More resources on open source

• Wikipedia
• Geo-server blog- Why use open source?
• Google definitions

So without further ado (thanks Jesse), I present to you:

Yeah, I know this is a no-brainer and is listed on just about every single freeware list on earth. But think about it... I used to use Internet Explorer until this came around and after switching I refuse to go back. I've also tried out Safari, Opera, K-Melon, and yes even Google Chrome.

The thing I like most about Firefox is that it comes across as versatile while allowing me to customize to my hearts content through the use of add-ons. So take a moment and install the latest version of Firefox, because the next part of this list will be the Add-Ons that I have installed which make my browser an elite and powerful program.

Download Latest Version of Firefox

Now, let's work on the essential Firefox Extensions. These are the same ones that I have installed by default and are the very same ones I simply cannot live without. Your tastes may vary, of course, but again we're focusing on the things that I have personally installed and refuse to live without.

Firefox Extensions:

404: File Is Not Found? Now It Will Be!

Download

I wish this extension was around about ten years ago... so what does this do? Well, when you hit a page that throws you a 404 error (file not found) it pops up a dialog in Firefox asking if you want it to check Archive.org to see if they have a cached version of it on their servers. So essentially, if the site or page is missing today, there may be a good chance that it wasn't missing awhile ago and there is an archived copy of it.

Very useful indeed.

Adblock Plus!

Download

This is a staple for me, and pretty much a god-send. Does essentially what it says: Blocks popups, pop unders, and even advertising banners (if you tell it to be totalitarian about things).

AutoAuth

Download

AutoAuth automatically submits HTTP authentication dialogs when you've chosen to have the browser save your login information. (If you've already told the browser what your username and password are, and you've told it to remember that username and password, why not just have it automatically submit it instead of asking you each time?)

If you don't have a username and password saved for a subdomain (e.g., foo.bar.com), AutoAuth will give you a list of suggestions for that domain, based on other saved usernames and passwords for similar subdomains (e.g., bar.com or *.bar.com). Just choose which username to use from the list, and hit the Autofill button. [This feature is only available in Firefox 2.]

Better Gmail 2

Download
Add useful extra features and skins to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, macros, file attachment icons, and more.

Better Gmail 2 compiles the best Greasemonkey user scripts for Gmail into a single package. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the About tab for help and more information. Only compatible with the new Gmail interface.

If you are a Gmail user like I am, you'll find this add-on invaluable. It has a settings interface which lets you further pick and choose which options you would like for it to apply to your gmail account when you log in. Some things I have enabled, others I've left out. Give this a shot and see if it suits your tastes.

GMail Notifier

Download

The original notifier for Gmail.  Supports checking multiple accounts as well as Gmail Hosted accounts. It adds a GMail icon to the bottom right corner of the browser with a little number on it. Every 15 minutes or so it checks to see if you have new mail, and if you do, displays the number of new messages.

Clicking the little icon loads GMail in a new tab (if you set it to do so). Since you need to give it your login information to check for new messages, clicking it will automatically log you into your GMail account.

Again, this is a must-have for GMail users.

BlockSite

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BlockSite is an extension, which automagically blocks websites of your choice. Additionally, this extension will disable all hyperlinks to these websites, by just displaying the link text without the clicking functionality.

Ever run into a website that you simply do not want to see again? We'll say for example YTMND.com or maybe some stupid site you stumble across... This plugin allows you to literally stop it from ever loading in your browser again. It's that simple.

Colorzilla

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Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.

With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. You can Zoom the page you are viewing and measure distances between any two points on the page. The built-in palette browser allows choosing colors from pre-defined color sets and saving the most used colors in custom palettes. DOM spying features allow getting various information about DOM elements quickly and easily. And there's more...

If you are a designer like I am, or simply have a need to pick out colors for things, then this is uber-useful.

CustomizeGoogle

Download

CustomizeGoogle is a Firefox extension that enhance Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam). All features are optional and easily configured.

GoogleGears

Download

One of the few Firefox addons that aren't locted on the actual Mozilla site. GoogleGears allows web applications interact naturally with your desktop, store data locally in a fully-searchable database, and run JavaScript in the background to improve performance.

Something I can imagine uses this right off the bat is GoogleDocs, which comes in super useful when you get an email attachment in Gmail which is a document&183; Instead of downloading it, then opening it, you can simply open it right up in GoogleDocs and edit it - then send it back with revisions.

Google Preview

Download

Simply put, it adds thumbnail images to search results in Google showing you what the page looks like ahead of time. While I have this installed and have had it for quite some time, this function is a 50/50 mix for me.

Check it out and see if you like it. If not, no big deal :)

Download Embedded

Download

Downloads all or selected embedded objects on a webpage. Can be used for downloading movies, mp3s, flash, quicktime, or other embedded files (although this does NOT work on video embedded in flash [ youtube, video.google.com, etc.. ]

Of course, what kind of person would I be if I didn't hook you up with something that did actually work for places like youtube?

Video Download Helper

Download

DownloadHelper is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites.

Just surf the Web as you are used to, when DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item

For instance, if you go to a YouTube page, you'll be able to download the video directly on your file system. It also works with MySpace, Google videos, DailyMotion, Porkolt, iFilm, DreamHost and others.

Thank me later

DownThemAll!

Download

You simply cannot live without this one, and neither can I.

DownThemAll is all you can desire from a download manager: it features an advanced accelerator that increases speed up to 400% and it allows you to pause and resume downloads at any time.

DownThemAll is fast, reliable and easy-to-use! It lets you download all the links or images contained in a webpage and much more: you can refine your downloads by fully customizable criteria to get only what you really want!

DownThemAll is absolutely freeware and open-source. No Adware, no Spyware.

Fission

Download

Fission combines address bar and progress bar (Safari style). This makes the progress bar more visible and allows for a nice visual effect.

FullerScreen

Download

This extension enhances the Full Screen mode into a really full screen mode, hiding the remaining toolbars and statusbar and making them visible again when the mouse pointer hits an edge of the screen.
It also offers a slideshow mode, enabling @projection CSS rules in a document when full screen mode is turned on. Navigation between slides in implemented in the extension and a slide manager showing thumbnails for the slides is available through shift-F11.

Grab And Drag

Download

Enables Adobe Acrobat-style grab and drag scrolling, Flick gestures, and Momentum scrolling in Firefox, Thunderbird, and Flock. Why worry about grabbing the scrollbar on the side when you can just grab the page itself and flick it up or down? This addon is my personal favorite.

  Greasemonkey

Download

Well duh. Of course I have Greasemonkey installed! Cmon! This single addon for Firefox lets you literally go hog wild with the web and change sites around to your hearts content!

Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. Hundreds of scripts, for a wide variety of popular sites, are already available at Download.

IE Tab

Download

Ok, let's face it. Sometimes you absolutely positively are faced with a site that requires you to use Internet Explorer. I know it's not as often as it used to be in the days of old (thank god), but there are still times when you need to.

If you are using Windows (Apple and Linux folks can sit this one out), this usually means cranking up the Internet Explorer and staring in horror as it eats your sou- I mean resources.... But this is the answer to that horror.

Using IE Tab, you can integrate only the bare requirements of the IE Engine into Firefox in an "on-demand" manner. All the IE ability (like Microsoft Windows Website Downloads) and none of the hassle that actually running Internet Explorer brings.

Cooliris (formerly Piclens)

Words really cannot explain what Cooliris does. So what I will do is ive you a basic description, followed by a video of it in action. Hands down, this is the greatest plugin I have ever seen.

Full-Screen, 3D -- Cooliris (formerly known as PicLens) transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for searching, viewing, and sharing online photos and videos. Our "3D Wall" lets you effortlessly search and zoom your way around thousands of images, videos, news feeds, sports feeds, and more. To share stuff with friends, just drag and drop.

Extended Statusbar

Download

Adds an Opera-like statusbar that shows:

• percentage of the page loaded,
  
• number of loaded images,
  
• bytes downloaded,
  
• average download speed,
  
• load time.
  

Stumbleupon

Download

Think of Stumbleupon as an infinite improbability drive for your browser. You can click the button and it will randomly bring you to a website page that is in your defined interests. You can rate what it gives you with a thumbs up and thumbs down, which allows it to get to know what you like over time, thus bringing you more of what you like and less of what you don't.

This is definitely a great time waster, as well as an excellent way to be exposed to content that you normally would not have simply found through normal searching. One of my personal favorites.

Translator

Download

Don't let the simple name fool you, translator is web translation extension that allows you to translate any web page into nearly any language at the click of a button.

Currently supports the following online translation services:

• Google Translation
  
• Babelfish
  
• PROMT
  
• freetranslation.com
  
• Altavista
  
• Im translator

I have this installed and use it often, because let's face it, the Internet is not always written in your native language.

That's it just for Firefox... but of course this excludes the common things like the latest version of Flash, PDF Reader, etc that is an automatic installation.

Now it's time to move along and get to the rest of the programs that I recommend, and also have installed.

FileZilla!

Download

It's a free and open source FTP client. Over the years, this has proven to be not only the best in my opinion but also my favorite one to use. I also keep a copy on my USB Memory stick when doing random work on a computer that isn't my own laptop, because you never know when you'll need a digital swiis army knife.

Spybot Search & Destroy

Download

It's either this or Adaware, but in either case, spyware and other things that simply crap up your computer and make life a pain in the butt for you is a reality. Clear that stuff out of your system and keep it clean using this program.

AVG Antivirus

Download

Depending entirely on your personal preferences, a virus scanner is still a must. Personally I run AVG Antivirus, and haven't had an issue yet. Since anti-virus software for Windows is a must, I will not limit the recommendation to just AVG, an instead will offer a couple of leading free options to take care of this.

Alternatives to AVG:

1. Avira Antivirus: Download
   
2. Avast! Home Edition: Download
   
3. Clamwin: Download

Pidgin Instant Messenger

Download

What to do when you have friends who use YIM!, GoogleTalk, MSN, ICQ, AIM, IRC, and others? The first answer is usually to download and install all of the above seperately just to keep in touch, but I'm here to offer you an open source alternative.

Pidgin is a multi-messenger client that is lightweight and lightening fast. It allows you to connect to all of those networks in a single client, but also is stripped down so essentially all you get is a text mesenger. This means no Video or Voice functionality, of course, but in the end most people don't really need all of that bloatware to begin with. If you are looking for a multi-messenger, you may want to give this one a try - or one of the following:

Trillian: Download

Digsby: Download

OpenOffice.org

Download

The name says it all. It's an open source office suite made by Sun and features pretty much every office type program you will ever need. No need to run out and buy Microsoft Office, because this can do everything and more for free.

Irfanview

Download

This is my swiss army knife for converting image formats. It can open nearly any image format and convert it to nearly any other format. Also supports batch processing which makes converting whole folders a breeze.

Auslogics Defrag

Not like you needed a full explanation of why you should defragment your hard drives regularly, but there is a specific reason why I use Auslogics Defrag instead of the built in Windows Defragmenter.

Personally I think Auslogics is simply a better program for the job, and also it actually shows you what it's doing while it's doing it (which for some reason is no longer the case in Vista from XP).  I'm an old school geek and still like to see those little squares lighting up and moving around like the old days of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 Defrag.

Give it a shot and see if you agree with me on this one.

Auslogics Registry Defrag

Download

If you thought just your hard drive could get mucked up with adding and deleting things, think again. If your computer is running slowly, another culprit may in fact be a messy registry in your operating system. So grab a copy of Auslogics Registry Defrag and so some maintenance on your computer today.

Format Factory

Download

Ok, so we've covered the swiss army knife of graphics (Irfanview) but what about video and audio conversion? I cannot tell you how many times I've been around the Internet only to see innumerable posts all over the place begging for a good and free video converter.

Since nearly all available converters cost money or simply don't work, this can spell out a ton of downloading and uninstalling for the computer user who doesn't know any better. If this is the case, then see also the prior listing about Auslogics Defragger ;)

Format Factory is my personal choice for a Video and Audio Swiss Army Knife. It converts nearly anything to anything easily (at least within useful formats) and can even rip a DVD straight to AVI format if you want.

While it is true that I also have Goldwave Pro installed, Goldwave is an audio editing program and costs money so it is excluded in this list.

Inkscape

Download

Looking to create Scalable Vector Graphics? Inkscape is what I have installed just for this purpose. What can I say other than it just gets the job done and is free :)

Gimpshop

Download

Ok, so I lied. I do not have Gimpshop installed on this computer, but not because I wouldn't recommend it. What I use for general graphics happens to be Photoshop CS3 and Paintshop Pro 8. Both programs are not free and so would not work for this list So what I *can* offer is the rough equivalent for free which happens to be Gimpshop.

There is also Paint.NET which I actually have installed too, but do not use as much as Photoshop or Paintshop.

Skype

Download

The obvious choice if you want to do Voice chat online (and if you are a Pidgin user like I am).

ZScreen

Download

ZScreen is an open-source screen capture program that allows for region/window/full-screen screenshots. It can FTP screenshots and put the URL in your clipboard in a single keystroke. It supports automatic custom naming conventions with variables. It can also interface with image editing software. It is a C.NET 2.0 program hosted on Sourceforge.net and built by BrandonZ.

Reader Submitted: FastStone (Portable Freeware Version)

uTorrent

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If you are going to download torrents from the internet, I suggest uTorrent. It's lightweight and feature packed. Of course, I don't condone illegal file downloading... *coughs*.

What I would recommend if you didn't mind spending money

Hands down I would recommend getting your hands on Tuneup Utilities. I have a copy of it and it works wonders for keeping the hard drive cleaned up and purring like a kitten.

Also for website creation, I would recommend Dreamweaver CS3 and Flash CS3. While there are a handful of WYSIWYG website editors out there that are free, I haven't yet found one as good as Dreamweaver. If you have the cash to spend, I would also recommend Photoshop CS3 as well.

Of course there is the alternate method of just grabbing them from a torrent online using uTorrent, but you assume all risks involved with going this route and I wouldn't recommend it.

Well, that's it (finally) for my comprehensive list of things that I have installed on my computer that I recommend to you. This list of programs comprise what I actually have installed and use on a near daily basis, so you know they have to be pretty good. I know I've excluded things like the obvious media players (Winamp and VLC) or video editing software like Audacity, but Audacity isn't installed on this computer, while Winamp and VLC are both no-brainers.

I hope you've enjoyed this list, and the programs listed here come in handy for you in your daily routine.

Till next time...

What is 'Open Source'?

'Open source' are applications or even scripts written by highly qualified and ardent programmers. This group of people largely are inclined towards the believe that programming should not be sold at high cost or even any cost. Although, major corporations are still using applications provided by companies because of reliability and standardization, this does not deter this 'open source' community from creating 'open source' software that contribute to the advancement of information technology. A key advantage of 'open source' apart from costing near to nothing in most cases, they are mostly secured and stable. The 'open source' community would offer their responsive guide if any users were to encounter any problem with a particular code or application. It is actually considered as a collective effort in making a certain application or program work in the most effective and optimized way. Millions of such ardent programmers spent their time to go through these programs to ensure that it to be highly stable and suitable for use. 'Open source' generally also offers system flexibility as other of these programmers will start to chip in to write add-ons or applications in order to support the 'open source' software. One very classic example is 'Firefox' by Mozilla.

Customization

In the hope to achieve optimization in system application, customization is required. The reason for customization is clear as no single system is able to fit into everyone. That explains why customization is getting really popular in recent years. A very good example is 'Customized Management System' (CMS).

What Would You Get When You Combined Customization and 'Open Source'?

When you combined customization with 'open source', you will get Customized 'open source' software. The benefit of this process not only addresses specific and precise business or personal requirements, it also comes with a cheaper price tags. And if one is lucky enough, sometimes it could cost near to nothing. There is no questioning why more and more companies and entities are taking a step towards the world of 'open source' with a touch of customization for business solutions. Greater success will be attained when such a system is able to be integrated for further future add-ons. People are already starting to describe 'Customized Open source' as "The best of both worlds".

Open source software is coming more and more popular. People do not need to pay for software licenses because they can find free alternatives to use. Because the source is open for everyone, software keeps developing and noone can sell their own fixes because every piece of code should be available for everyone.

A big problem is distributing the software. Normally, software will be developed and code will be transferred between users and SVN server, that stores the newest version of code. When a software release will be released, software will be archieved and compiled in several different formats, same with the documentation. When many releases will be released, the amount of data keeps growing. If data was shared through p2p network, users would be the storage. Every user, that downloads a release, will upload it to others and others will get the same release.

This protocol have few cons. If user downloads a release, p2p client should be open and keep sharing the data. If user does not keep the client opened, no data will be shared. When releases are getting older, they will disappear, because noone shares those releases, because releases are old and many people formats their hard disk and reinstall their operating system. SVN server can not be replaced this way, so we still have a server with a big traffic.

Step 1: Partitioning Purposes

Most of the desktops or laptops are available in preinstalled partitions as in Windows, Linux, and other operating systems. However, the partition is almost always fixed as one huge Drive C, or two partitions of Drive C and D which will take up most of the hard disk spaces.

Before beginning to partition your PC into several portions that you desire, make sure that you know how many partitions you need, how much space to allocate for each of them and what you want to use for the partitions.

You may want to separate the operating system files from other files such as MP3 folders, data files, Internet Downloads, image folders, audio files, or game folders. Or you may want to have multiple copies of the same operating system, or you just want to create a multi-boot system with different operating systems.

For your information, you can create up to four primary partitions in each hard disk. If you use an extended partition combined with logical partitions, you can create as many as 16 partitions. Nevertheless, in most cases, two or three partitions are just more than enough for most computer Geeks.

Step 2: Preparing for the Partition

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Prior to partitioning, let's do a bit “stock clearing” to make things easier. Firstly, you should use the Scandisk tool to scan the partition (say Drive C or Drive D or both drives) in your PC for errors. To do this, click Start, Run and then press the Enter button. In the Open box, type sfc/scannow and click OK.

Secondly, you should ensure that there is enough free space in your PC. To achieve this goal, you can start by eliminating or archiving all unnecessary or unwanted files by uninstalling them.

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Next, run the Disk Cleanup tool to free up more spaces. To do this, click Start, Run and press the Enter button. Now, type cleanmgr in the Open box and click OK. To clear up all junk files, you should delete items in Download Program Files, Recycle Bin, and any other items which are labeled as “temporary.”

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After the third step, now proceed to run Disk Defragmenter so that you can consolidate the partition's free space. Click Start, Run and press Enter. In the Open box, type dfrg.msc and click OK.

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Take note that if you're in Windows, you should alert with the size and volume label of the partition that you will plan to shrink. Click Start and My Computer to obtain this info.

Step 3: Backup your Existing Partition

At this step, you should know that the idea of using partition software such as Parted Magic is to avoid you from the hassle of deleting your existing partitions or formatting the hard disk. However, you should take notice that either shrinking partitions or partitioning a disk will involve a degree of a risk. Therefore, you are recommended to backup your important data or files prior to the partition. To know more about how to do step-by-step backup procedures for both Window XP and Vista, you can surf to this website here.

Step 4: Downloading and Creating Disc

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For you partition purpose, download Parted Magic software, which is the live CD ISO File, which is a bootable Linux-based image. You can download this software here. Look for its filename which is pmagic-2.2 iso and its file size is roughly 45MB. After you have downloaded the file, remember to locate this file in a separate folder, say, “c:\pmagic”.

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After downloading the iso file for Parted Magic, you must convert your newly acquired iso file to a bootable CD. You can create the bootable CD either using your existing CD burning software, or a freeware such as ImgBurn. Next, click Write image file to disk as shown above. Once this is completed, the CD should be removed to the bootable optical drive on your PC. You can download ImgBurn here.

Step 5: Disconnecting your Unnecessary Drives

Before carrying out this step, make sure you shut down your computer and disconnect all unnecessary devices and storage drives. These may include USB flash drives, external hard disks, card readers and extra hard disks. This step is essential to be taken in order to accelerate Parted Magic's boot time and its device detection process. Removing unnecessary drives are vital to prevent you from accidentally changing partitions on the wrong hard disks or drives.

Step 6: Booting Parted Magic CD

Photo credit: Kenny

Now, you should insert the Parted Magic bootable CD that you created in step 4 into your optical drive, and configure your system to boot from this drive. Just before the Windows starts, remember to hit the key sequence or the special key to access BIOS settings (you'll always be prompted on screen). Under Boot option, you should select optical drive or CD drive, and then exit BIOS.

Next, you'll see the Parted Magic Boot Options Menu at the beginning of the boot procedure. You should now select the Default setting (Runs from RAM/ Ejects CD) unless you've a system with less than 256MB of RAM. After you made your selection, the OS will copy itself into your system memory and boot into the front end interface. After some point, the CD tray will eject (that means you can put it away because it is no longer needed for the rest of the process) and is now fully operating from RAM.

Step 7: Launching GParted (Parted Magic)

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After completing the boot process, you should see the Parted Magic as shown above. Next, you should launch GParted by clicking on its icon, the one which looks like a hard disk (the first icon from its list of detected device). Then, you've to wait for a while as there'll be a little delay. This is because GParted scans for available devices before it is ready to use.

Step 8: Selecting your Task

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From the main window of GParted, select the targeted drive. Automatically, GParted will select the first storage device it detects. From the toolbar, use the drop-down list to choose the correct drive, if the drive is other than the default selection. After selecting the drive, a graphical view of its partition scheme will be displayed in the main window. Now, you can choose the partition that you want to shrink. This is the largest NTFS partition which is usually called /dev/hda1. Make sure its label and size matches the partition info from step 2.

Step 9: Resizing the Partition

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From GParted's toolbar, click the Resize/Move button, and the “Resize/Move/dev/” dialog box will open. The color-coded indicator guides you to shrink the partition. The yellow block marks the amount of data used on the partition. You're advisable to leave enough space to the right of this mark while choosing to resize the partition. In this example, we'll resize the NTFS partition from 38.1GMB to 20.5GB.

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Click the Resize/Move button at the bottom right, and you'll return to GParted main window. Notice that the graphical view of the disk has changed, and previously-grayed-out options on the toolbar are now enabled.

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The status bar in the window's lower-left corner will also report a “Operation Pending” message. To complete the operation, that is to resize the NTFS partition, choose the Apply button in GParted's toolbar. Before any actual operations take place, a window will pop up asking you to back up your data. You can click Cancel, or click Apply to continue.

Step 10: Creating New Partition

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The unallocated drive space is now available for partitioning after shrinking the main partition. Click on the unallocated remaining on the drive, and click on the New button to bring up the “Create New Partition” dialog box.

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In the new dialog box, choose Primary partition instead of extended partition in the Create as: section. You can also key in a volume label in the Label: section. The new partition will take up all remaining space on the hard disk by default, so you should resize it if you plan to add another partition. Click Add to complete this step and to return to GParted's main window.

Step 11: Exit Parted Magic

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Your new window is now updated with the new partition. At this point, you can exit Parted Magic and reboot into windows by clicking on the exit button at the bottom right corner.

Step 12: Rebooting into Windows

When you're in the boot process, Windows will warn about disk problems and run Chkdsk. Do not be panicked; instead, you just allow it to complete the tests and verify the partition. When completing the loading, Windows will detect the new partition and report “new hardware found.” Next, it will prompt you to reboot the system. After the reboot process, the new partition will appear in the list of storage devices in My Computer, in which it'll be assigned a new drive letter, typically E: or D:. Now, you've successfully partitioned your hard disk. And you can now use it just like any other hard disk.

The following software (and more to come in part two) represents the cream of the crop for free software for your Macintosh. However, remember that just because it is free to download, it doesn't mean you can't contribute to its development. If you find a piece of open source software that does everything you need it to do and more, I encourage you to support the development by donating money, submitting bug reports, and getting in there and doing some coding yourself. The open source software community is a community that works best when everyone contributes and everyone benefits.

Adium

Adium is quite simply the best instant messenger/chat software available for OS X. It can support all your accounts (AIM, iChat, Google Chat, Jabber, MySpace, Facebook, ICQ.....) and allows you to manage them each individually. For those of you that like customizing all your apps, you can go to the AdiumXtras website and download different themes, sounds, etc.

Adium does not yet have video chat support, so if you do a lot of video chatting or live screen sharing, you may want to stick with iChat.

NeoOffice

NeoOffice is an MS Office alternative that is based around the venerable OpenOffice platform. You could install OpenOffice just fine using X11, but many people (including myself) think that NeoOffice looks better and integrates into the Leopard environment better.

Past versions of NeoOffice have been plagued by reports of slowness, but while it isn't quite zippy yet, recent releases have been noticeably faster. However, it is solid and stable. It has word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and vector drawing functionality. It is free (as in speech) and free (as in beer). It keeps Microsoft off of your Mac.

It can read and save into most office programs' file formats (including Microsoft Office). It generally handles even complex Office files with embedded objects just fine. It has an excellent support wiki. I'm using it to type this article right now, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Transmission

Torrents are no longer just the domain of illegal file sharers. Many companies use torrents to distribute their software, bands to distribute albums straight to fans, etc. In fact, a solid torrent software is pretty essential to most computer users. Thankfully, there is a great open-source torrent software available for OS X in Transmission.

Transmission does all the things you would expect of a full-featured BitTorrent client (selective file downloading, file priority, bandwidth management, peer exchange, encrypted connections), while still remaining small enough to not be a drain on system resources.

VLC

Confused by codecs? Frustrated when you try to open a video file only to find that your video program of choice doesn't support it? VLC supports all popular (and quite a few obscure) file formats. You can play DVDs, lossless audio files, streaming videos, and more. If you don't want to have to check whether a file is a mov or an avi or a wma or an flv - just get VLC!

Cyberduck

Full disclosure: FTP is one of the few things I don't use open source software for. I manage multiple web sites and frequently have to do obscure shell commands and remote editing. However, for the vast majority of people that just need to manage one web site or occasionally download files from FTP servers, Cyberduck fits the bill.

It includes remote synchronization of local files. It also has the ability to resume transfers, full Applescript support, bookmarks, integration with your Apple keychain and Bonjour services, and has a cute icon to boot.

I really suggest organizing your files before making the switch to Ubuntu. It will make the process much faster. Move all of your files into one location (ie: a backup folder), once you have done that; you will need to convert unsupported file types.

Many types of music files cannot be used on Ubuntu without additional software for legal reasons. The following file types are not supported by Ubuntu by default: mp3, wma, aac, and RealAudio. Although, these files my be used if you install additional software. If you do not want to install additional software, you will need to convert them to a supported file type. I would suggest converting them to “oog vorbis.” OOG Vorbis is a lossless format which provides outstanding audio quality.

Also, many types of video files cannot be used on Ubuntu without additional software, due to legal restrictions. The following video formats are not supported without additional software: wmv, RealAudio, DivX, and QuickTime. You would need to convert these files.

Many office files are not supported by Ubuntu. There is an Office program built into Ubuntu, this supports Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

Ubuntu supports all major image types, and you can even use PSD files with Gimp.

You will need to call your ISP (Internet service provider), and see if you need any additional information to set up your internet connection on Ubuntu.

You will want to save your bookmarks from Internet Explorer, Opera, and FireFox. You can import both of these into FireFox once you install Ubuntu. You will also want to write down your email settings if you use POP3, SMTP, or IMAP.

Once you have collected everything you need. You can burn the information to a CD, or DVD. And, if you have a supported removable device, you can store it on there.

And, that's all you need in order to start using Ubuntu! If you would need any additional help, you can ask questions on the Ubuntu Forums.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to the open world.

Alright, maybe they didn't exactly trick me, but I sure hated it after I got it. I suppose some may like it, but I certainly didn't. According to their website, getting rid of it should have been a simple matter of uninstalling the update. It wasn't. I needed support, but after contacting Microsoft I was told that my options were to pay them an exorbitant amount of money for the assistance, or figure it out myself.

This is when a friend of mine entered, and asked me what I was still doing using Windows. "What else am I going to be using? It came with the computer."

He explained as best he could that there are options to using Microsoft products. He told me about an open-source operating system called Ubuntu Linux. I'd never heard of such a thing. Within the day, I had downloaded and installed Ubuntu and I was in love.

First, Ubuntu doesn't have problems with viruses. It may happen from time to time, but I've never gotten one and I've never even heard of a Linux user getting one. For one thing, viruses are usually written for Windows but more importantly, it takes a password to get into the Ubuntu program files. So even if you downloaded a file with a virus, it wouldn't have anywhere to go.

Ubuntu is free. Did you catch that? It's free. You can just go to www.ubuntu.com and download the latest version. Burn it to a DVD and run it. It's a live and install version, so you can load it and try it out without having to install it or you can just install. There are also install options. You can partition your hard-drive for a dual Ubuntu/Windows boot, or do what I did and say goodbye to Windows forever.

Upgrades are free too. If you're running Windows XP and decide you want Vista, you're going to pay a few hundred dollars. Microsoft Office is going to put you back at least a hundred as well. In Ubuntu, none of it costs you a cent. Upgrades come out every six months, and the download is not only free, but simple as well. And, it comes stocked with all the office software you could need, which is compatible with Microsoft Office, for all your co-workers who haven't yet seen the light.

Linux runs faster, too. The operating system only occupies about two gigs on your hard-drive, and only runs what you're using. In fact, the entire OS can be loaded onto a USB flash drive and loaded from that, if your computer is configured to boot from the USB port.

It's compatible with your Palm or iPAQ PDA, and there are several projects that claim to have a solution for syncing with a Blackberry device, although I haven't tried it yet. It also has Bluetooth capability for connectivity with compatible hardware, such as printers.
New software is always available without cost through the Synaptic Package Manager. Everything from games to utilities to word processors and spreadsheets. Whatever you need can be downloaded and installed without having to leave your desk.

As for support, there are endless forums online waiting to help you with whatever issue you may have. An entire community of happy Linux users who have thrown off the shackles of Windows bondage and are more than pleased to assist a fellow open-source user.
If you've been having problems with Windows, I hope you try Ubuntu or any of the various distributions of Linux. Perhaps you'd prefer Linux Mandriva or SUSE. You'll find more than 25 distributions at www.linux.com, and it's certain that one will work for you.