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| This information is provided to you FYI/FTR. Well, I don't know what to say. The positive response to the first edition of this newsletter was as much appreciated as it was unexpected. I got responses back from a whole bunch of you rascals. It looks like I chose a good topic for the first newsletter. I'm glad. In conclusion, the first-ever edition of FYI/FTR created a super-paranoid army of Norton Personal Firewall purchasers who installed and witnessed what I had preached regarding Trojan Horses. Darn, should'a figured out a way to make a commission on all those copies of Norton Personal Firewall but hey, this newsletter is for the *ahem* love. Alrighty, onward and upward to the topics to be covered in this edition of FYI/FTR...shall we say version 2.0. We have a couple of big time geek contributors this edition. Russ Lefebvre is an advanced technical instructor at a college in Missouri. He is also among many other things a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and has some cool stuff for ya. Also, another Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, A+ Certified Technician, Cisco Certified blah blah blah Mr. former Senior Network Administrator for a small *insert sarcastic tone here* Hawaii corporation by the name of Alexander and Baldwin, Mr. James Itokazu will tell you a little bit about that thing called Linux. I am fortunate to have taught with both of these humans in Hawaii. I'll finish off by talking about how easy it is to sell stuff online these days. To prepare for my portion of the newsletter, swivel your head in either direction and pick out something you want to sell and I can have it for sale on the internet in about 30 minutes. Please contain your enthusiasm, hold onto the handrails, buckle up because here we go...... ------------------------------------------------- Russ Lefebvre usually sends the most hilarious emails. However, let's just say that most of them would receive an 'R' rating by the motion picture rating gang and since FYI/FTR is a family show.... Russ surprised me a few weeks ago by sending some pretty useful information so I thought I'd pass it along to all of you. Most all of you will find at least one thing you can use in Russ' list of 'utilities' which is geekspeak for 'little programs that do cool things'. For example, a popup ad stopper program called FreeSurfer. Pretty cool stuff. He also mentions a utility that consolidates all of your 10,000 email accounts into one easy-to-manage thingy. Here's the info: ePrompter is a small program that will let you check all your email accts without opening them up. It will show on your task bar tray how many emails you have in each acct and will let you check out the headers to see if you need to read them or not. If not you can delete them right from ePrompter without having to open your email acct. I (Russ) have 6 accts and it works perfectly, including yahoo, and hotmail. Get it from here: http://download.com.com/3000-2369-10045181.html?legacy=cnet Dave's Quick Search is a little search window that goes on your task bar (that gray bar at the bottom of your screen). IT IS AWESOME!! From your task bar you can quickly search for something using google just by typing it in. Or you can search yahoo, Ask Jeeves, etc. There's encyclopedias, a scrabble descrambler, calendar, time. Great addition. You can search eBay without having to bring up a browser window. Get it from here: http://notesbydave.com/toolbar/searchdoc.htm FreeSurfer is a POPUP ad stopper. Works great, is configurable and can have sound each time it stops a popup. I here the sound 3-4 times while I'm surfing. Excellent. Get it from here: http://www.free.surfer.tc/mail Or you can go to my website www.411russ.com and go to the utilities page and download them from there. But they have better descriptions if you go to the actual websites. Russ ------------------------------------------------- In response to a Federal Court judge as to why Microsoft could not reveal its Windows code, a senior Microsoft representative stated that the code in Microsoft Windows was flawed to the point that it could damage national security if revealed. Well, this is not new to those of us who work closely with it. Although just my own speculation, Microsoft's strong desire to keep as close to 100 percent compatible with all it's predecessors was bound to one day bite them in the... You know what I mean. (Full story: http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D701%2526a%253D26875,00.asp) But the purpose of this article is not to bash Microsoft for anything. The purpose of business is to make a profit and that they did. The purpose of this article is to introduce other alternatives for the business or home; Alternatives to Microsoft Windows. Everyone has seen an Apple Macintosh at one time or another. Apple also has privately held code, but it is in no way as bulky and flawed, in my opinion. Apple has chosen to rewrite the code with every major update. This was a double edged sword as it made for newer versions of the Apple OS leaner and more secure and stable, but it also has made every major upgrade less and less compatible with its predecessors. Apple's creativity and the increasing power of its hardware has since made up for this shortcoming by including an emulation mode that will make older software think it is running in an older machine with the user hardly noticing the difference. With the new line of Macintosh computers, consumers do have choices other than Windows, but many do not understand that a Macintosh running at 800 MHz may perform just as well as a Windows PC running at over 1 GHz. (Yes the slower Mac may outperform the faster PC). Now let's look at the real underdog in this race. Linux. What is it? Linux was developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds and countless others as a Unix clone. (official linux site: http://www.linux.org, Linux/UNIX timeline: http://www.computerhope.com/history/unix.htm) As a server operating system, Linux has proven its worth in power reliability and Total cost of Ownership. But let's look at it first from the home desktop user's point of view. Linux is as powerful, reliable, and available as any other desktop computer operating system. The main difference is it is free. It falls under something called the GNU license (http://www.linux.org/info/gnu.html). This means that its source code is available to the general public. You can change it around as much as you like without breaking any copyright laws. One stipulation is that if you create anything out of it, you state where you got the code from, what you changed and make your new code available to the public also. Q: So, why is this a good thing? Q: How do businesses make money? Q: So Linux is free, supported, reliable and secure. But what about
software? Q: If it is so great, why isn't it more popular? Q: So what is the latest news about Linux? From my own personal standpoint, I still run Windows. Most games are made for it…for now, but more and more game manufacturers are looking into the Linux market also. Currently many applications and games can run on Linux without reprogramming using a GNU application called WINE. WINE is an application that tricks another application into thinking it is running on Windows. I have already seen it work with Office 2000 and Internet Explorer 6. It even was able to run Windows media player with streaming video from the Internet. Awesome. From a business standpoint, the company I work for has already saved over $6,000.00 on 3 key pieces of software in our network and we are looking at cutting another $40,000.00 from the budget in the next year. Wouldn't that look good in your year-end bonus? For more information on Linux see the following sites. Distributions Software Information Linux for the New User You can even go to open a web browser and type http://www.google.com/linux nuff said. James ------------------------------------------------- Well, I told you Russ and James were good. Okay, first announcement, drum roll please....http://www.fyiftr.com. The site was just launched last week and is intended to be a technology resource for professionals from all industries. The intro flash movie was designed by my lovely fiancée, Carolyn J. Doose. I promise she'll contribute to this newsletter soon. The site contains all past editions of FYI/FTR. It also serves as a resource for all of our past and present students at CompUSA and the San Diego Community College District. Check it out. We're also developing and selling training videos through the site at http://www.fyiftr.com/videos. I've done some demo videos that you can download for free if you want. Those of you who might e in a position to help me market these videos will be receiving the first batch as soon as their developed. Alright, to e-commerce and beyond! If you have something to sell, it is now easier than ever for webmasters to create an online store for you. Imagine orders arriving directly to your e-mail inbox on a daily basis and all you have to do is fill them. For Mike Cope (www.myhomengarden.com) and Greg Maness (www.gregoart.com) this will soon be a reality. We are currently working with both of them to develop their online stores. A number of small businesses have websites but have yet to encounter a cost-effective, simple, flexible and functional e-commerce solution (in english, they haven't figured out how to sell stuff through their website). Wading through the number of shopping cart programs out there can bring on a migraine. Working with your banker to use the program they want you to use typically requires you to hire someone with the technical expertise necessary to install, configure and maintain it. $150/hour for that geek can drain your company's resources pretty quick. Carolyn and I specialize in serving the needs of small businesses (Emerald Restaurant, Vital Youth, Hawaii Fundraising, Properties of the Pacific, Dream Cruises, My Home n Garden, GregoArt to name just a few). We provide small businesses with a secure, quick-to-build-and-configure, easy-to-understand, cost-effective e-commerce solution. Check out the demo store at www.gregoart.com/onlinestore. To do your own research, go to www.paypal.com. Someone with a little bit of web design experience and a nice size brain can figure it out. PayPal is traded on the NASDAQ under PYPL. If any of you want more info, just email me and I'll give you the info. Well, my contribution to FYI/FTR was shorter than the last time but I still think we provided you with good information. FYI/FTR will hold strong to its purpose. It is a technology resource for professionals of all industries. Not too geeky. Not too techy. Just right. Go to www.fyiftr.com....NOW! FYI/FTR, subscription to this newsletter jumped 25% this month primarily from all of your referrals. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Keep 'em coming. Aloha, Clyne ------------------------------------------------- Your computer guy/girl has a bunch of acronyms after his/her name on his/her business card. Here's what they mean:
------------------------------------------------- I thoroughly invite your comments, questions and feedback. I'm not saying I'll respond but I will most likely incorporate some of your feedback into future versions of "FYI/FTR". To subscribe or unsubscribe, please email me at namuo32@hotmail.com. Aloha, Clyne G. H. Namu`o, MCP, ACE, MOUS (c) Copyright 2002 Clyne G. H. Namu`o |
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