Kickstartnews Revue - Podcast #48 - Show Notes for April 26, 2006

Here's the lineup for show #48:

• In Hot News: Three items this week. EU Warns That Microsoft Will Stifle Innovation, the latest free beta version of Internet Explorer 7 is available for download, and Corel is going public — again! Managing Editor Howard Carson explains.
• Letters to the Editor: Four new reader and listener e-mails this week. Using the Zigview Digital Angle Viewfinder for high angle sunset shots; how easy is it to deeply configure Xandros Linux; somebody is having difficulties with HanDBase font sizes and certain databases; and problems booting and restoring and image with the Ghost 9 CD.
• Kickstartnews Confab: Panic in the office or on the shop floor or in the studio. How do you react to bad news or hiccups in the plan — any plan — and how long does it take you to calm down, work out the issue and peel the frantic ones off the ceiling?
• Big City Byte: Windows Vista is about seven months away from appearing on new computers sold by Dell, HP, Compaq and Gateway. Microsoft Office 12 is going to appear in the same time frame. Upgrading your small business or your even smaller home office is going to cost some money therefore. Should you start setting aside funds or otherwise budgeting now for the upgrade? Howard's opinion on this one may surprise you.

Here are the rest of the Show Notes . . .

The Real Linux Basics

A reader perused our review of Xandros Surfside Linux and wondered if it was: a) 64-bit processor compatible, and b) easier to understand than Red Hat and some other distributions. It seemed like a good opportunity to offer some basic key points. Here goes:

1. As far as we know, Xandros will run on any recent AMD or Intel x86 processor, 32 bit or 64 bit.
2. As for unpacking and setting up any Linux product, the process is simple these days when using almost any advanced Linux distribution (including Xandros SurfSide Linux). In fact, it's almost completely automated. However, you may have run into one of the many poorly designed Linux utilities which fails to install properly because the programmer assumed that everyone who might use his software would be a Linux expert.
3. If you're a computer hobbyist, Xandros is ideal because it comes with extensive documentation and lots of configuration options, two different desktop shells, and active online support and forums. But if you really want to get your hands on the guts of the OS, I suggest you pick up one of the excellent Linux books available right now such as Linux Made Easy—The Official Guide to Xandros Linux 3.
4. If program installation details elude you, fear not because you're in good company. Linux, like all operating systems, provides specific folders into which programs must place their files during installation. Basically, all Linux distributions use the exact same set of folders (names, locations, and so on).
5. Many Linux operating system files and programs files are actually text-based (not binaries), and contain information which configures the program being installed. The text files, installed in the correct operating system folders, contain information which the operating system reads in order to run the program properly. For a program to install properly, it must: a) place its own files in the correct locations, b) contain information and instructions in its configuration files which are compatible with the Linux OS kernel version installed on the PC, and c) be stable enough to run properly once installation is correctly completed.
6. If you learn a few command line instructions, you'll be able to unpack downloaded program files into a folder that you specify. Once that's done, you can examine the configuration (text) files to understand how a particular program will set itself up, or, if it requires manual installation, where you need to copy the various files. From time to time, a program will not unpack itself in the correct locations which means that you have to track down the program's configuration files and modify them to correct the problem. It's often easier to do this using the command line, but many people now do this sort of thing using the file management tools in the GUI.
7. Linux is far more easily configurable than Windows XP. The key word here is "easily". However, just as in Windows, it's possible to make configuration changes that will render the computer unbootable. This is why all PC owners (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc.) should always maintain an up-to-date bootable recovery CD.
8. 99% of the time Windows XP is far more secure than many people think. Ditto for Internet Explorer. Windows is also extremely configurable, but it's also ridiculously difficult to do because the main configuration instructions reside in the Windows System Registry, a format that for the most part is absurdly difficult to understand. Numerous Registry configuration tools which offer an incredible amount of system and program customization are available for Windows XP. One of the most powerful is Stardock's Object Desktop suite.
9. Despite the superb advances in Linux distributions, if you want to get the very best out of Xandros Linux (and any other Linux distribution), you have to spend a few days teaching yourself some basic command line instructions and studying how Linux is set up on a PC (common folders, standard names for different folders, the basic Linux OS and User folder structure and so on). If you're presently skittish about command line instructions, rest assured that once you've learned a few commands, learned the keyboard shortcut to call the command console, and how fast it can be to do certain things using the command line, you'll end up being much 'closer' to the operating system in addition to having lots of confidence about using it.

Special Offer from Mobile Stream (Palm OS games)

Mobile Stream announced a special offer for Palm users. Anyone who purchases Meteor Breakout at the PalmGear software store ($14.95 from April 15th, 2006 till May 1st), 2006 can get another Mobile Stream Palm program free of charge!

We've reviewed a couple of the MobileStream games (Meteor and MobileJigsaw) and they're quite good, so that's why they get the promotional space here.

Kickstartnews Revue - Podcast #47 - Show Notes for April 16, 2006

Here's the lineup for show #47:

• Hot News: New clockless ARM processors, NetFlix is suing Blockbuster, and say goodbye to Windows 98 and Me. All of this impacts your business. Howard explains.
• Letters to the Editor: Three new reader and listener e-mails this week. Somebody is trying to figure out whether or not to upgrade ACDSee or buy Photoshop Elements 4, somebody else has had some bad experiences with Cyberlink technical support (sort of), and tracking down documentation for iPods.
• Kickstartnews Confab: We all have a couple of clients who are overly friendly, right? They pop by anytime they feel like it, unannounced, and plunk down in a chair—sometimes in your office—and just start talking. This is wrong and we're going to discuss it and how to deal with it.
• Big City Byte: The dominant language on the Internet is not English, shocking though that may seem (sic). It's Chinese. It's Chinese and non-Latin languages such as German, French, Russian and so on. Managing Editor Howard Carson asks the question: is English being slowly marginalized online?

Here are the rest of the Show Notes . . .

Kickstartnews Revue - Podcast #46 - Show Notes for April 9, 2006

Here's the lineup for show #46:

• Hot News: Item 1 - Nortel Networks is restating its earnings again. Again. The stock price keeps dropping. There's a lesson here for small business. Item 2 is about competition. Microsoft is rolling out Kahuna - the codename for the next version of MSN Hotmail. The pundits are disappointed. They are also wrong. Howard will explains.
• Letters: Four new reader and listener e-mails this week. Tracking down a trial version of PowerDirector, Membership Plus 2005 Deluxe issues, problems with Image Armada virtual galleries, and the AlphaShield X2 security device versus software firewalls.
• KSN Confab: We're upset, a bit, because a really valuable employee announced she was quitting to take a better job. We're going to talk about that. There's a lot of time and money invested in that employee and now we've got to start training someone new?
• KSN Interview: KSN Managing Editor Howard was going to do a Big City Byte rant this week, but he also had the chance to interview Renee Revis, the founder and lead developer at Leading Step Software in Durham, North Carolina. Leading Step produces learning and teaching software that runs on Palm OS PDAs for Grade 3 to 6 elementary school students. Wonderful stuff!

Here are the rest of the Show Notes . . .

Kickstartnews Revue - Podcast #45 - Show Notes for April 2, 2006

Here's the lineup for show #45:

• Hot News: Cell phones are burning brains again (NOT) and the format wars — HD-DVD vs. BLU-Ray that is — are here again. Shades of Beta Vs. VHS. Cut up that crow and pass the salt because Howard never thought THAT would happen again.
• Letters to the Editor: We're catching up with four reader and listener e-mails — Resizing partitions in Windows Server 2003, deciding on the best new Palm OS-based PDA upgrade for business, recording an online audio chat, and somebody is looking for an Outlook addin that will read his appointments out loud.
• Kickstartnews Confab: Decorum and conduct in the office and how to best represent your company when you're outside the office. You may be a painter or a plumber, but when you're visiting with a new client to provide a quote or estimate, don't you think it's smart to clean yourself up a bit first?
• Big City Byte: This week, Howard examines the fate of a recording inadvertently sent to the buyer of a used piece of equipment. You guessed it — the recording was still sitting in the device when it was shipped to the buyer. Duh! Now what if that had been a hard drive full of important data? Business beware!

Here are the rest of the Show Notes . . .