Web hosting used to be very different from what it is now. It used to be easy to find a good company to host with, and just as easy to find a free web host that offered reduced, but still quality services. In today’s economy however, the free business model just doesn’t seem to be paying off for web hosting providers like it used to be, and the number of companies offering free services has greatly diminished. Another side effect is that the paid services, under the pressure of increased costs, have reduced the level of customer support that they offer. This can lead to a very frustrating situation for people using these services, and can lead to a higher level of turnover.

What does this mean for those wanting to get their foot in the door offering web hosting services? It means that there are a lot of potential customers out there looking for someone… anyone… to offer decent hosting and service at a reasonable cost. The vines are ripe for harvesting right now. Technology has evolved, and it is easier than ever to set up a server and get everything installed and ready to go. Add in a paypal account, and you have everything you need to go with.

For an example of this, I encourage you to visit my new web hosting site: http://natrobius.info .

I recently read about a group of people that are working on getting their vanilla branded PCs to run Apple’s flagship OS, OSX. This movement started when Apple chose to partner up with Intel and move their computers over to an x86 platform. This meant that hackers needed only to overcome the security features and a few hardware differences, and the OSX operating system would run on a large number of Intel based PCs. The movement was slow to start out with, and things were really buggy. As time went on however, and the Darwin kernel was improved more computers were supported and stability improved. Right now I’m typing this post on a HP Pavilion dv5 laptop, running OSX 10.5.6 and everything except sound and wireless works. I overcame wireless issues by obtaining a Linksys usb wireless dongle and installing the Ralink driver. Personally I am running the iDeneb distrobution of OSX which is modified to run on Intel or AMD computers with minimal configuration. Installation took about 20 minutes, and I was booted into a fully working OSX system.

To be continued……

Introducing CrossOver Office

CrossOver office is a software suite based on wine that allows you to easily install and use Windows 3.1/95/98/XP and Vista applications. You can think of it as almost a GUI front end for wine. CrossOver has been around for a while, but this was my first encounter with it.

Installation

Installation was very simple, although it could be improved for the new user. All that was required was to chmod a shell script so that it was executable, then run it. Installation was completely automatic from there. The installation includes a submenu in Gnome for your Windows applications, and a menu to access CrossOver settings and options.

Usage

The first thing I installed on CrossOver was WinRAR so I could un-rar something. (Turns out RAR support is not included in Fedora) I simply went to the CrossOver menu, selected “Install Windows Application” and told it where the installer was. From there it was exactly like installing on Windows. On running WinRAR for the first time, I found that CrossOver had hidden a empty Windows style directory tree in my home folder to store all the program settings, and allow applications to find things where they expect to. (Like your My Documents folder) By browsing “up” a couple of levels, I was able to access my Linux home folder and un-rar my file with no problems whatsoever.

CrossOver also supports automatically downloading and installing several useful applications. CrossOver automatically installed Internet Explorer 6, and Windows Media Player 9 on my Linux rig with only a few clicks. This is great because it opens up some proprietary websites to Linux users. It also supports applications such as Photoshop, and several other applications that do not offer Linux versions.

Summary

Although CrossOver is not a free program, it is very inexpensive and well worth the investment. Being able to do anything and everything is the heart and soul of Linux and CrossOver brings us yet another step closer. This isn’t quite “run anything anywhere” but it’s pretty darn close.

CrossOver can be purchased at: http://www.codeweavers.com

I’ve been testing Fedora Core 11 on my laptop and I have a few things worth noting that you might want to consider before, and after upgrading to Fedora 11. First of all, if you are already settled into your Fedora 10 installation, you might not want to upgrade because a lot of your configuration settings will have to be updated for core 11 and this might not be an investment of time you are willing to make. Overall however, Fedora 11 is a step in the right direction for Fedora. The hardware support is much improved straight out of the box. My laptop required no configuration after installation. Wireless, power saving, and video worked flawlessly. A must have for Fedora 11 is the RPMFusion repositories. RPMFusion makes a lot of non-free binaries available to YUM. You can download RPMFusion at http://rpmfusion.org.

Pointers on FC11

• Regardless of your CPU I recommend installing the 32 bit version of Fedora. This version supports more of the advanced plugins and add-ons that you will find useful when using your computer.
• Install RPMFusion
• Visit http://fedoraguide.org and follow the instructions there for installing the audio/video codecs that are not included due to licensing. This will make your experience richer, and add compatibility with Windows Media, Quicktime, etc….
• Open a console, and as su run the command “yum update”. Even though this is a brand new release of Fedora, there are already bug fixes available.

Fedora 11 Pros

• FC11′s 20 second boot time is phenomenal and very much real. Your desktop will be available much faster with FC11.
• Hardware support has been improved.
• Compiz will not accidentally enable on unsupported hardware, making it safer for inexperienced users.
• Software included is more complete.
• The notification area in Gnome has been improved and presents important information without interfering with applications. This was a problem under FC10.

Fedora 11 Cons

• No version of Linux (or Windows for that matter) runs smoothly after an upgrade, which means setting your system back up from scratch.
• FC11 includes the Beta 4 version of Firefox 3.5. While I have not had any problems, I’d be weary of using a beta in a production environment. This could be downgraded manually.

Summary

Fedora Core 11 is a definite move in the right direction and you will most likely like it. If you don’t have too much time tied up in customizing your current installation of Fedora, or if you’re running 9 or earlier you should certainly upgrade. FC11 is more reliable, usable, and responsive. I’m glad to see the Fedora community moving in this direction, because if they continue Fedora will begin to dominate the Linux community.

Changes

By trimming out a lot of the overhead, and optimising their code Microsoft has made Windows 7 run much faster, even on older computers. The new UAC (User Access Control) panel allows the user to select how often they want to be prompted for security questions, but even on it’s default setting there are much fewer prompts than Vista. Another big change in the security of the system is in the fact that no user actually runs with “root” or “God Mode” privileges. Computer admins are a part of the administrator’s group and not the root group, thus making it harder for malicious software to change settings.

The user interface in Windows 7 has been extensively redesigned to give it more of a minimalistic look, while becoming packed with hidden features. The new ribbon interface task bar is much easier to use than every version of Windows released before it. The new bar features larger icons instead of text and uses a HUD thumbnail view of open windows when you hover over a program’s icon.

Summary

While I have merely scratched the surface of only a few of the new features, only the things I mentioned are more than enough for most people to run out and buy the upgrade. Personally I feel like people buy new cars with less motivation and they cost a lot more. The experience you receive from your computer will be much richer and more responsive. Windows 7 really gives you the bang for your buck you deserved out of your computer hardware.

Google is a master of information. That’s what they do. The more information they have about you, the more customized the service is you receive. In almost every other sector of business this was always considered a good thing. I know in the area that I come from you hear the term “Old fashioned country service.” a lot. In small towns you receive better service because the owners and clerks at stores get to know you, and they are able to customize their service to meet your needs. In effect this is what Google is doing. There is no real benefit to be gained from knowing how you use the Internet other than to offer customized service. If you are one of those people out there that think that there is some giant conspiracy to know everything about you and somehow invade your privacy, think again.

The fact of the matter is that Google, and for that matter any other business, is only interested in the information that make them more effective at meeting your needs and thereby increase their chances of retaining you as a customer. If Google can not display relevant advertising, and provide you with the information that you are interested in, they can not compete against the many other companies trying to do the same thing.

There is a very strong reaction right now to the Google Books project right now. People are worried that Google might somehow know “too much” because Google can combine information about what books you buy with what you search about, and watch on YouTube. The fact of the matter is that every company does this. Just go to Amazon and buy a book and you’ll see that all of a sudden you have a “Recommended for You” section because they are keeping track of what you have looked at and bought. Besides, if I Google Fedora Linux what’s so bad about Google suggesting a video or a book about it?