Prankster Takes on Scammer

Scammers work hard to trick you into give them your money and person details. Sometimes they get a person on the phone, who wants to make them work even harder. Enjoy this pranksters work.

P.S. I have a variation of this call. I bought a highly awarded fix-it software named System Mechanic. Afterwards I got a couple of call from India from "System Mechanic support" saying that they had gotten notifications that my system had viruses. The problem: when they called I had uninstalled the program because the subscription had expired. The next time they called, I told them that it was impossible because I only ran Linux (I do have a couple of Windows machines.)

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elementaryOS Sucks

I bought a used HP DC7900 small form factor tower the other day. While I was waiting to get a new 2TB drive, I tossed in an older 80GB drive to play around with. I knew that the drive had a dual boot setup, but when I booted I found out it had a triple boot setup: Windows XP, CrunchBang Linux, and elementaryOS.

I have fond, distant memories of elementaryOS, so I booted that up first. When the login screen popped up, I thought "Wow, this looks great." It had an amazing wallpaper and a Mac OS X feel to it. But once I opened Slingshot, eOS' application launcher, I remembered why I switched to a different distro: app poverty. After you install elementaryOS, there are very few applications. You get a file manager (Files), a browser (Midori), a simple text editor (Scratch), an audio player (Noise), email client (Geary), and a few other odds and ends. No office suite. No torrent program. No image editor. How's a guy gonna get any work done if he has to spend a bunch of time downloading the apps he needs?

Design Over Function
One of the guiding goals of eOS is create a distro that is beautiful and has a unified UI (User Interface) across applications. According to the eOS site: "elementary is crafted by designers and developers who believe that computers can be easy, fun, and gorgeous. By putting design first, we ensure we're not compromising on quality or usability." In order to create a united UI, they created some basic programs from scratch: Files, Scratch, Noise, and Calculator to name a few. Unfortunately, these beautiful apps are empty and lack features that are incorporated with popular alternatives. For example, VLC media player may not fit eOS' UI design scheme, but it has more features that Noise. The same is true for Midori, which is the default browser. It might be lighter than Firefox, but it is also light on features. (One thing that worries me about Midori is when I opened it, instead of showing me the eOS homepage, it should me an obvious scam page telling me that my computer had a virus.) You're better off installing other apps to replace the default ones. They won't be as pretty, but they will be functional.

Ancient technology

Old Tech
Another promise that the eOS developers make is that if you use eOS you will be on the cutting edge. RIGHT. The latest version of eOS is Luna, which was released roughly 17 months ago is based on Ubuntu 12.04. SO this version is a year old and is running on 2 year old tech? Not so cutting edge. At least, they used a Long-Term Support release, which get supported for 7-9 years instead of 18 months. On top of that the applications in the eOS repositories are old. The latest version of Libreoffice available is 3.5 and Libreoffice just released 4.4. I know you can use a PPA to get the latest version of the software you want, but I think if a distro is going to claim that they are cutting edge, they had better keep their packages up-to-date.

Whenever It's Done
This more of an observation than anything else. If you asked any of the eOS developers when the next version will be done, they all have the same answer "When It's Done." You know, I've heard that phrase before. That was 3DRealms' standard answer for years while they worked on Duke Nukem Forever before they went bankrupt. I've heard of rolling release and timed release, but this is ridiculous. There is such a thing as too much tinkering and too much perfecting.

Nobody Home
After I explored eOS for awhile, I went to the IRC to talk to the users. You know that I found? Nothing. No one was on the distro's IRC chat on a Saturday. To me that is a bad sign. I've logged onto other IRC chats and found at least a few devs ready to help if not a bunch of users arguing. Nope. the eOS IRC chat was a ghost town.

Conclusion
elementaryOS is a very beautiful Linux distro, but it seems to be missing quick a few pieces. It is more of a facade than anything else. The eOS devs released beta 2 for the next version yesterday and I've seen quite a few complaints about lack of features on Google+. I know it's still a beta, but its the third release already. I would not recommend eOS for production use, just for fun and on a backup computer.

Do you agree with me? Do you hate me for attacking your favorite distro? Comment below and share. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to hit the Flattr button. For more tach news, sign up for my weekly tech newletter.

I'm Back and New Weekly Tech Newsletter

I've been neglecting this blog (and most of my other blogs) for a while. Well, that's going to change. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be writing a number of articles on Linux and all things computing. Stay tuned.

Also, I'm starting a weekly tech newsletter. If you are interested, you can sign up here. Thanks.

Give these cloud storage platforms

This last week Canonical announced that they were closing down their cloud storage Ubuntu 1. (More on that later.) Even if you aren't affected by this decision, it might be a good idea to give cloud storage a try. Currently, there is a price war going on which benefits the consumer. Here are a couple of options.

 Everyone now days knows about Dropbox. Started in 2008, this service has become the defacto standard in cloud storage. There are hundreds of websites that allow you to use Dropbox as a storage site. Dropbox also makes it very easy to share files for projects and such  However, the free account is limited to 2GB. Click here to give it a try.

Copy is a newer storage service rum by the well-respected IT firm Barracuda. When you sign up for a free account, you get 15GB of storage space. If you install the desktop apps, you get another 5GB. That's a total of 20GB for free. On top of that, they offer top-secret grade AES 256 encryption. Interestingly, if you share a folder among other users, the space used is shared amount accounts. For example, if you have a shared project folder that takes up 5GB and there are 5 people sharing the folder, it will only take 1GB from each persons' total. Click here to give Copy a try.

Come get your Linux LiveCD/LiveDVD for $5 or LiveUSB for $15

I've been a member of Fiverr.com for almost two years. This website offers a wide variety of services and goods starting at $5. I recently a new gig that should interest the teckies out there. For those out there who want to try out or install Linux, but don't have decent internet; I can help. If you order this gig, I can create and mail you LiveCD/LiveDVD or LiveUSB. If you don't need this service, please pass it on to someone who might be able to use it. Thanks.

Linux on a iMac G4

Last year, I bought a iMac G4 at a rummage sale. Because it ran Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” and very few programs are available for it, I decided to install Linux. Since the G4 is powered by a PowerPC chip, I had to find a Linux distro with PPC support. Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems getting the display to work. The distros would install, but after reboot the screen would only showed black and yellow lines. Finally, I tried Debian 6 PPC. The thing worked right away. It booted into a usable, albeit slow, desktop. Now, all I need to do is fix the color, which looks like 256 color. Below is a video of a boot. I may upload a better video later.

Another One Bites the Dust

It's amazing how fast companies can come and go. They seem to be going even faster. It seems just like yesterday I was telling you that Pears OS,  a Mac OS X clone based on Linux, was bought by an unknown and closed down. The same has just happened to what was intended to be a spiritual successor to Pear OS. Brenden Gonzalez recently started work on Clementine OS, which had the same goal as Pear OS. Unfortunately, before he could begin work, Brenden was contacted by the still known company that bought Pear OS and threatened with legal action if he did not desist. Whoever is planning to use the Pear OS name is already doing all they can to squash all copiers. Sounds a lot like Apple.

Pear OS dies on the vine, but not for long

Yesterday afternoon, David Tavares (creator of the Pear OS distro) announced he halting development of the OS. From a statement he has released, it appears that Tavares came to an agreement with an unnamed company to hand the distro over to them. Whether money was involved or how much is unknown at this time. The full statement can be found at the end of this post.

Pear OS´ main claim to fame is that it brings the look and feel of Mac OS and iOS to Linux. While other Linux distros, such as Ubuntu, can have the mac OS look and feel it required the installation of multiple themes and applications. Pear OS was one of the few distros that delivered it in one package. Another such distro is elementary OS.

Tavares´ announcement has been met by much outcry and anger. People have suggested that Tavares was pressured by Apple who did not like someone copying their look and feel. Others suggested that Tavares was just creating an excuse to end development. Almost everyone seems to fear that this news means the end of Pear OS in much the same way that Palm bought BeOS only to close down the project.

Several people responded to the announcement by calling for a fork to be created to keep the project alive. Pear OS user Brenden Gonzalez has already begun efforts to create a fork of pear OS, which will be based on Ubuntu 13.04 until 14.04 becomes available. If you are interested in giving Brenden a hand, drop him an email.

Below is the official statement on the Pear OS website.

Pear OS and Pear Cloud are no longer available for download.
 Its future is now in hands of a company who wants to remain anonymous for the moment. The concept has pleased them it and now wants to continue and improve the system for their own products. I can not give a name but it is a very large company well known ...
 I want to thank all users, moderators and other developers who have made Pear OS it is today, that without this adventure would not have been possible.
 I'm going in another direction.
 Pear Cloud users must recover their files on Pear Cloud servers. In 10 days, the files will be deleted and the server will be offline. 
 Another big thank you to all and I hope to return to the scene of open source very quickly.
 Cordially.
 David

We will continue to report on this story as more information comes in.

Update: You can check out the new Clementine OS here.

Transfer Files Securely to Your Android Device with FTP

The first thing that most people do after purchasing a tablet is to fill it with music, videos and such. While iOS devices can be very problematic in that department, Android devices are much easier to handle. The easiest method is to connect your Android device to your PC via USB and copy files using Windows Explorer (or any alternative). Another popular method is an app named AirDroid that allows you to manage your Android device remotely with your web browser. However, I've come across a better method: FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

To start, you need to install an FTP server on your Android tablet. The best one that I have come across so far it called primitive ftpd. You can get it from the F-Droid app catalog, which consists of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Here is the link to primitive ftpd on F-Droid.

Once you have installed primitive ftpd, you'll have to isntall an FTP program on your PC. The best program is FileZilla. Once you get that installed, you can change the username, password and port number in primitive ftpd. (I'd recommend doing this for security reasons.)

To move files, open the primitive ftpd app, press start, log into your tablet with Filezilla and get downloading and uploading.

Let me knowif this  is helpful.

Microsoft announces their next version of Windows

Microsoft's Newest Partner

Microsoft announces their newest partner. (Just kidding!)

Microsoft Surface Ads: Out of Touch and Pointless

    In recent years, it has become more and more obvious that Microsoft is getting more and more out of touch with their customers. One of the best examples is their release of Windows 8, which is a huge departure from all previous versions with a huge learning curve.

    One of the worst things to come out of Microsoft recently are the advertisements for the Microsoft Surface tablet. Guess what major feature these ads cover? How you can make them click. That's right, the major features of the Surface tablets are not being able to run Windows programs on a tablet, the power of a laptop in a tablet and being able to open Office documents on the go. No, the best feature is that it clicks. Watch the videos below and you will see what I mean.

     The bottom line is that Microsoft is full of old men trying to act hip and with it. So when they want to connect to the younger generation they pull our the mod music and the dancing and start clicking. Dumber and dumber.

Help Me Sell My Nook Color

Sorry for the crappy picture, but my iPod does not take very good shots.

Hi, guys. I bought a Nook Color a couple of months ago. I've decided to upgrade to a Nexus 7, but in order to do so I need your help. I just posted the Nook on Ebay. I installed Cynogenmod on it after I bought it, but I have since reflashed it to the original software. I updated the software to the latest version (1.4.3). I tested it to make sure that it works by downloading a couple books and apps. (I since erased and deregistered.) It also comes with a screen protector installed and a cover. I'm also throwing in a 16 GB microSD card because the Nook only has 1GB for non-Barnes and Noble content.

Why am I selling it? Because it works great as an ebook reader, but not so good as an Android tablet. If you want a device to read book and listen to music, that has all the extras that all tablets need (i.e. screen protector, cover, and extra memory), then give this auction a look. If you are not interested, but know someone who might be, send them this link.

You can find the auction here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221171260112.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Facebook Uses Firefox Integration to Fight the Exploding Growth of Google Plus

Back in April, I wrote an article entitled What Browser Should Facebook Buy? about the need for Facebook to use a browser to direct traffic to the social network. It is important for them to do this because Google will eventually leverage Chrome to do just that. In that article, I stated that Facebook had two options: build or buy. It turns out that there is a third option: integrate.

Starting with Firefox 17, Facebook has been integrated into the browser. This feature is called Messenger for Firefox. It adds the ability to chat, check notification, and friend requests. You can turn it on by going here if you have Firefox 17/

The Kindle App is My Favorite App (Android or iOS)

The Kindle app is my favorite app for both iOS and Android.

I say this for one simple reason: you can use it to read any document or article on any device.  I have tried other e-reader and read later software. The best one I found was the Kindle app. The beauty is that this app turns your device into an e-reader without limitations. With a Kindle DX or Paperwhite, you are limited to reading, unless you jailbreak or root it. Not so when you use one of the Kindle apps. If you have an iPod with the Kindle app (like I have), you have all of the power of a Kindle e-reader plus access to a world of other apps and games. My point is that you can use a FREE app to turn your device into an e-reader instead of shelling out extra money.

Out of the box, the only way you can get documents into the Kindle app is to email them to an Amazon account. However,the file types that you are allowed to email are limited. To over come this limitation you can use a site called WappWolf to convert documents to a Kindle friendly format. You can configure WappWolf to monitor a DropBox folder. Once it detects a file it will convert it to a Kindle format and sent it to  your Kindle.

Another great tool is called Klip.me.The Klip.Me extension for Chrome is the best extension I have found to send articles to Kindle from your browser. It works better then the official extension from Amazon, for some reason. The best extension that I found for Firefox is Push to Kindle.

To download the Kindle apps for iOS, Android and other, go here. Enjoy reading.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Windows 8

A couple of days ago, I decided I would give Windows 8 a try and installed the Consumer Preview on VirtualBox. In fact, I am writing this post on Windows Live Writer 2012 on Windows 8.
Here are my initial thoughts about Windows 8 after spending a few hours with it.
The Good

• Desktop UI (User Interface) is very similar to Windows 7. The glass taskbar from Windows 7 is still present.
• Integration of Microsoft products. In order to sign in, you need a Microsoft (or Windows Live or Hotmail) ID. Once you enter your Microsoft ID, your calendar, mail, pictures and other data is automatically populated.
• The task manager has been redesigned to give you tons more information about processor, network and hard drive usage.
• The Windows Explorer has gotten it’s biggest makeover since Windows XP. Like many other Microsoft products, it is equipped with the new Ribbon interface. It gives you the ability to perform many functions with only a few clicks.
• The Desktop UI is only slightly different than Windows 7. There are no rounded corners, only square edges. Overall it’s not much over a change, but still nice to look at.

The Bad

• In order to install the touch friendly Windows 8 apps, you need to use the Store tile. I tried it and it was slow and painful to browse. Thankfully you can still download the latest version of your favorite program and run it like before in the desktop.
• Windows Media Player no longer has DVD playback support, so you cannot play DVDs out of the box. However, you can download VLC to enjoy your films.

The Ugly

• Microsoft announced that you will not be able to boot directly to the desktop. This means that every time that you boot up, you are forced to see the new Start Screen covered with multicolored tiles.
• As far as I know, there is no way to turn off the Start Screen. For computers that do not have touch enabled screens this will become annoying very quickly. To understand what I mean, make all the icons on your screen an inch square.
• No Start Button. This is my biggest gripe. Hitting the Start button pulls up the Start Screen, which is a pain to use.

Conclusion
There are some nice features in Windows 8, but there are also some real pains. I think that Microsoft spent way too much time trying to make Windows 8 touch and tablet friendly by default. These features should be optional to desktop and laptop users. It is almost like they are forcing touch technology on you. Since I just installed Windows 7, I will not be upgrading anytime soon and I would not recommend that anyone rush out and do that either once Windows 8 comes out in the Fall. Wait for Windows 9 to see if they come to their senses.

What Browser Should Facebook Buy?

The other day there was an interesting article on Cnet.com entitled “Why Facebook Needs to Build a Browser”. The main idea of the article is that Google's Chrome browser would soon over take other browsers, including Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Since Google's overall strategy is to send people to their products to get as much ad revenue as possible, once Chrome becomes dominant all social network users will be sent to Google's very own Google Plus social network. Google has already begun building Google Plus buttons and connections into all of their products. It's only a matter of time before it becomes a built-in feature in Chrome. This mean that Facebook would need to build a browser.

The problem is Facebook should build a browser or buy one? At the current rate of Chrome market share growth, Facebook would need to move quickly, so building a browser from scratch is out of the question. Their best bet is to purchase an existing browser and adapt it to their needs. But which one? It would have to be one of the current top four browsers.

Facebook could made a deal with Microsoft to create a fork of Internet Explorer, but I don't like that idea for two reasons. First, I doubt Microsoft would appreciate losing control of their property. Second, IE is very slow and it's extension system stinks.

I doubt they could use Apple's Safari because of Apple's strict proprietary rules.

That leaves Firefox or Opera. I doubt they would use Firefox because there would be an uproar in the open source community.

Opera is the best bet for Facebook. Among other things, Opera has its own social network for its users and an email system. It would be easy for Facebook to fold these services into their current line up of features. Once again, Opera is the best bet.

One thing that Facebook should keep in mind when they create their browser is to make sure they are not too obtrusive. They need to take a look at MSN Explorer and AOL Explorer and then do the opposite. The problem with these browsers is that they force their products on the users. Subtle is better. Less is more.

Monkey See, Monkey Do: A Game of Technological Follow the Leader

Since its founding in 2004, Mozilla released new versions of Firefox infrequently, often waiting until a list of features and UI (user interface) updates were completed. Bug fixes and security updates were released as needed between major updates.

Recently, that all changed. Firefox started to lose market share to Google's Chrome browser. Google has followed a policy of rapid version release to catchup with other browsers. They have done so and in fact many people predict that they will even surpass Microsoft's Internet Explorer very soon.

In an effort to stop their market loss or even to recapture lost ground, Firefox decided that their only option was to adopt the rapid release strategy. Within a year, they went from version 5 to version 12 (which was released today). This is a very stupid move in my opinion.

This is stupid for two major reasons: it hurts developers and destroys the mystery.

When a company released a new version every six weeks or so, it's hard for extension developers to keep up. Because of the rapid release, several of the extensions I use are disabled because they are not compatible with the newest version. Some of the better extensions are written by hobbyists who don't always have the time to write the two or three lines of code need to update the extension. And when they do. The get it updated a new version of Firefox is released. What a pain!

My favorite part about the early versions of Firefox was waiting expectantly to get the new versions to see what the new features were like. Between the first 3 or 4 versions, there were major interface changes. Each version had a different look and feel. Not so with the new versions, there is nothing to really differentiate them for each other.

In the end, there is really nothing that Mozilla can do to stop Chrome from taking their market share. Google has the biggest advertisement system in the world. Eventually they will convert the whole world to Chrome. It is inevitable.

TweetDeck, The Story of a Maligned App

In today's technology and communication heavy world, it is important to have a presence in a wide range of social networks, from Facebook to Twitter to Tumblr to FourSquare and so on. If you want to submit a single message across all of these different networks (or even across multiple accounts on the same network) it is nice to only have to do it once. That is were a social media manager or dashboard can come in handy. There are several applications out there that can do that for you, but I want to talk about one in particular: TweetDeck.

As part of my job I have to manage the company's social network presence. I tried several apps, web-based and Windows-based. I tried HootSuite, Seesmic and others, but my favorite was TweetDeck. To put it simply TweetDeck had everything I wanted. It had among other features:

• the ability to look at multiple accounts across multiple networks
• use Bit.ly to shorten links
• a neat feature called Deck.ly that allowed users to post messages longer than 140 characters to Twitter

TweetDeck had a web version, an Adobe AIR version (which would run on PC, Mac or Linux) and a iOS version. All in all, I was very happy with it.

And then, Twitter bought it...

At first, I had great hopes for the purchase by Twitter. I expected great new feature to be added. I was wrong.

Shortly after purchase, Twitter released a new version of TweetDeck that was no longer written for Adobe AIR, but was now OS specific.(I imagine that this makes it harder to write.) This new version looked much plainer. This new version dropped support for LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Foursquare and MySpace and killed the Deck.ly feature.

I have the uneasy feeling that eventually, TweetDeck is going to be renamed the Twitter Manager (or something else with Twitter in the title). It's already been changed to TweetDeck by Twitter.

Even the logo has been changed to look more like Twitter.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm very unhappy that Twitter bought a program I like and messed it up. I wished they would have kept the features and improved them. But I get the feeling that Twitter is trying to boost their own product line to the detriment of some customers.

In the end, I still use TweetDeck, albeit, the pre-acquisition Adobe AIR version. The only thing that does not work is Deck.ly, so I'll need to find something else for that.

On another topic (but one very similar), Twitter has recently purchased another product that I use: the blogging platform Posterous. Twitter says they are not going to do anything to Posterous at the moment, but rumors are flying that they just bought Posterous for the talent. Lifehacker even had a article on how to switch your blog from Posterous. We'll see what happens next.

Thoughts on Amazon's New Kindle Fire Tablet

A couple of weeks ago, Amazon took the wrapping of its new and much discussed tablet. The new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet has been called an iPad-killer by some, but I have my doubts. Granted I have not actually used it yet (it will not be shipped until November 15), but I've read enough to form my own conclusions.

Operating System

One of my biggest concerns is the operating system. Amazon took the Android operating system and created their own version or fork. This creates two problems for me. One, Amazon's fork is not based on the latest version of Android (3.2.1). (Android 4.0 has just been released.) Instead, the fork is based on version 2.3. This seems to indicate to me that the Fire will not have all of the latest features you can with other Android based tablets. It almost seems that Amazon is handicapping itself before it even enters the ring.

The second concern that I have about the operating system is the apps store. Unlike other Android tablets, which use the official Android Market to purchase apps, to get apps for the Fire you have to go to the Amazon Appstore. There are not as many apps available in the Appstore than the Market and I did not see any apps written by Google. This makes me wonder if apps for the Fire need to be written differently than regular Android apps.

Browser

When Amazon modified the operating system, they also included their own web browser, which they call Silk. While it is based on Webkit, like the regular Android browser, it works like Opera Mini. When you request a page with the Silk browsers, it divides the work between the tablet and Amazon's servers. This means that besides your ISP knowing what you surf, Amazon knows (for their ad database). From what I read, even the government has questions about the security ramifications. Thankfully, it sounds like you can turn this feature off and render everything on the tablet.

Hardware

I don't know too much about the CPU in the Fire, so I won't comment on it (except that it is made by Texas Instrument, a company that is known for its calculators). There are a couple of things that bother me about the hardware configuration. There's no camera and no microphone. For me, this is a deal breaker. Every mobile device available has a camera and a microphone. The lack of both just makes it stand out from the pack, but not in a good way. Also, the Fire's screen is 7 inches, while most of the others are several inches larger. The one thing 

Final Thoughts

Amazon is making an effort to make a splash in the tablet market. With a price that is $100 less that the iPad, they will do just that. (Interestingly, Apple received a couple sample of a 7 inch "iPad mini". So far this is just a rumor. The late Steve Jobs said that 10 inches was the minimum size, but you never know. If the market demands it, they will probably make it.) To me, it almost seems like the Fire is more  of a beta, than a finished project. It may seem like a great deal for some, but I'd wait for the next version and hope they get around to adding a microphone and camera. Time will tell.