Thursday, October 25, 2007

Gutsy So Far

So, I'm liking Gutsy:
  • Wireless stuff just works. In Fiesty, five of the wireless gadgets I have wouldn't work. In Gutsy, they all work, but on the newer model Belkin PCI card, it works for about a minute, then you get the 'server not responding' messege in Firefox for every website. The card appears to be working, but no longer connecting. I intend on trying it again, in a different machine.
  • My Laptop fan spins much less. I'm guessing this has to do with power control
  • Laptop battery goes the distance, out-of-the-box! One hour is about the best this computer ever did with WindowsXP, and 1 hour 20 minutes is the best Feisty did with some CPU throttling. With Edgy, I only got 5 minutes, if that. With Gutsy, I still get one hour, but I don't have to do any funky throttling.
  • Screen fonts look better. I have no idea why. Others have noticed it too.
  • OpenOffice.org starts up way faster out-of-the-box. Sure, I can do somethings to get it to start faster on any distro, but why bother?
  • Pages seem to load faster in Firefox. I don't know if that's Ubuntu or Firefox's doing. I suspect Firefox.
Those are the primary things I've noticed.

Other things of note:
Openproj
Openproj is a Microsoft Project-like application, but for far less money. Free is far less money. They have a new .deb package installer on their download page, for Debian based Linux distros - which Ubuntu is one of. I installed it, and it works perfect.

Project Management is a skill I'll need to acquire. In fact, many people will need to acquire it in the future. One piece of software will not make you a good project manager, but having a free one to use will help. I highly recommend doing an iTunes -or other podcast client- search for project management, and learning as much as you can about it.

I have found a site I wish every computer user would view: Securitycartoon.com
Security cartoon teaches the average user why you need to do certain things to protect yourself and your information. The how will change over time, but the why is very important. Here's a sample about anti virus software:
Reproduced with permission. Please visit www.SecurityCartoon.com for more material

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