2007 July

So you are trying to drop that MS Office habit but find yourself struggling thanks in part to features missing from Open Office (Oo) such as a solid grammar check feature. As it turns out, there is a solution for Oo users looking for this kind of functionality, be it about as ‘craptacular’ as the [...]

If you are suffering a mouth breathing moment like I did today, happen to be using Ubuntu Edgy and found that after an update, that your GUI has suddenly left the building - don’t panic. Just try this.
First off, boot from a live CD on the problem PC. Now open up a terminal window and [...]

Today, David writes:
Hi Matt! I’m a long time Windows guy (16 years) with some Unix experience. I try off and on playing with Linux. I’ve recently been trying to get Linux going on a Dell Latitude C840 laptop with a Linksys PCMCIA wireless card. The card supports WPA in Windows. [...]

What is the deal with the lack of MP3, WMV along with other common codecs found in Windows but not in Linux distributions? It’s a simple matter of licensing. While some codecs are free, open source and not restrictive. Others such as Microsoft formats, DVD encryption and MP3 audio formats are not licensed in such [...]

Today, John writes:
Matt, I’ve been looking into trying Linux for several months. I have tried Ubuntu from the live CD, and was just about to install it in a dual-boot setup and really start playing with it. But it seems like almost every day I see something about another distro that is even better [...]

Today, Larry writes:
Hello Matt:
I have been using Ubuntu 6.10 for a little while on a duel boot with XP Home. I recently upgraded to the new Ubuntu fawn 7.04( the new kernel) . Now the add software and upgrade is broken and gives me error message’s.. What do I do??? Any way to roll back [...]

In the past, I have given Sputnik Inc. rave reviews for an outstanding wireless product here at Lockergnome. And in addition, I have watched with mixed feelings as they release more variations of essentially the same product - wifi access for businesses, community areas, etc. Their latest efforts with the SputnikNet(TM) Express project leave me [...]

One of the most common issues people have after getting their codecs installed into Ubuntu, is the sad discovery that Ubuntu won’t play Avi files from inside of your Firefox browser. Well, there is a fairly simple fix for this - lose GStreamer and switch to Xine.
You do this from Synaptic located from System, Administration [...]