Category: Tech Stuff

My never ending battle which doesn't seem to be winning.

Just last night while learning history on Wikipedia, I came across the following words.
Wikipedia: “To date, Linux has become more popular in server and embedded devices markets than in the desktop market. For example, Linux is used on over 50% of web servers, whereas its desktop market share is about 3.7%.”
Here I am always telling people, “Try Linux!”
In that moment I realized I have been waging battle for years, but never thought of it in that way before.
Android is built upon the Linux kernel and as above mentioned, the servers that serve us the Internet are dominated by Linux. It’s inside your modem, your router, your smart watch, your cable company runs it to give you TV and after all that – it makes a great desktop computer too.
Yet only 3.7% of the market uses it as a desktop. As Trump would say, “Sad.”
Oh I go on and on… you don’t need to worry about virus software! You won’t have to pay for software anymore! You can do everything you could before!
Will you go out and convert your computer? No. You won’t. You just read all these words, and I didn’t convince you, the reader of these words on your screen, to download it and install it on your computer.
It is, indeed, my never ending battle which doesn’t seem to be winning.

What is life like without a cell phone?

I don’t know anymore. I own a Samsung Galaxy.
But I didn’t always have a cell phone, so from that perspective I think you’d be happier. People would only be able to call you when you were home. You’d probably have an answering machine.
You could go out and watch movies and not have to disturb everyone else when you pull it out to see who texted in the middle.
I grew up without a cell phone.
We did have landlines, of course, but not even answering machines. If they called and we weren’t home, nobody answered.
They’d have to call back. There was no message to listen to.
We had to share phones. Growing up and having a girlfriend was hard, because all the other family members would want to use the phone, and you as a teenager just wanted to stay on the phone all the time.

A new version of Linux

I knew it.
I was sick. I mean sick with the flu. Can’t do much except stumble around the house in a daze. I posted a lot on Quora.com and then reposted my answers here on my blog, so there’s been a lot of blog posts today.
And I was unhappy with my present installation of Linux as I mentioned in a previous post. I’ve been using Ubuntu Studio as my operating system. I didn’t want to go back to Linux Mint, but there were some problems I was having.
Well, I’m trying something completely new.
I’m installing an operating system with admittedly a weird name: SolydXK. It’s Linux, of course, but this one is based on Linux Mint Debian. It’s an offshoot of a former project Linux Mint Debian xfce and KDE.
Mint stopped developing those, so someone else took the ball and ran and invented SolydXK. The X stands for xfce and the K for KDE, if you’re interested. I’m installing the xfce one because that’s my preferred desktop environment.
Thing is, amazingly so, I’m inside it while installing it. It’s installing, and I minimized the installation to log into my blog to post this. So this post is done inside SolydX while I’m installing SolydX. If there are problems, or everything doesn’t work as expected, I’ll let you know.
Well, I’m in. Installation completed at the previous paragraph, I rebooted, and now my computer is officially running, what’s it called, SolydXK, or in my case leave out the K (I’m not a KDE fan anymore) the SolydX version of SolydXK, and will somebody tell those people they need help with their product name. Anyway, it booted, it runs. I’m inside.

No Cease of Amazement

It never ceases to amaze me why people use Microsoft Windows. It simply bewilders me why anybody would pay for an operating system!
I’d rather build my own computer or have someone else build it for me, then install the operating system of my choice on it.
It also surprises me when people find out that you can download an operating system for free and it’s not bootlegging and it’s legal to do so. You are not downloading Microsoft Windows, you’re downloading a version of Linux.
There are, of course, many versions of Linux. My favorite is called Linux Mint.

Google Assistant vs Google Docs

Note: I wrote this article some time ago. I have an update on dictation of WordPress blogs here.
This is an example of speech recognition in Google Docs . What I like about using my headset and microphone is that when I use it for dictation it doesn’t cause the computer to stop listening every few seconds like it does with Google Assistant on my phone. The computer keeps listening even if I pause. I actually have to physically click on the big red stop button to get it to stop listening!

Of course I’m just discovering that it did stop listening and I had to re-click play. So I wonder if it stops automatically listening if I just pause too long . Let’s see.

Yep. It stopped listening alright, however it took about 20 or 30 seconds. That’s a lot longer and better than Google Assistant on my smartphone. The only problem I’m having with Google Docs is it doesn’t seem to be able to offer suggestions when something I dictated is typed incorrectly. There’s no auto-correct feature. I suppose that’s a small price to pay. In either case, when I dictate a document, I have to go over it and edit it manually anyway. Otherwise I’m going to wind up looking like this goose experiment.
I also find that I speak verbosely and have to cut down a lot of what I say when I get my hands on the keyboard. For the most part, this document was written by dictation with minor edits here and there.
 
 

Linux dictation experiment

Now I’ve got the Chromium browser on a Linux computer typing what I speak into Google Docs! It seems to be doing very well doesn’t it? Later I can just cut and paste into my blog, or anywhere else. Google Docs has a menu on top. Click on Add-ons, and you’ll find great stuff to add! That’s how I was able to dictate this paragraph on my Linux computer using a headset with mic. (The links I added later inside of WordPress’ online editor.)
I wonder if I can get my phone to do the same?
When I open this document on my phone and start dictating on my Galaxy S6, the computer keeps up. So if I dictate like this into my phone then I don’t even have to be wearing the headset. Cool! What’s happening is that the document is instantly updating in both locations as I add new stuff because it’s stored on the cloud.
So now I know I can dictate either using my phone or I can simply put on the headset and dictate directly into the computer. As I discovered the other day, however, it better not be very windy outside or noisy in the background! Otherwise dictation really doesn’t work very well.
So I finally found an incredible used for Google Docs and either a chrome or Chromium browser.
Now to copy and paste this into a WordPress document.
You might ask why not edit a blog directly on the WordPress website, but I found their online software is buggy when you really try to edit it extensively. Best to use some other software, edit it at your leisure, then copy and paste. So let’s see how it goes.

Why You Don’t Need an Antivirus On Linux (Usually)

This article was originally posted on How-to-Geek.
Believe it or not, there are antivirus programs targeted at desktop Linux users. If you have just switched to Linux and stWhen You Need an Antivirus on Linuxarted looking for an antivirus solution, don’t bother – you do not need an antivirus program on Linux.
There are some situations when running an antivirus on Linux makes sense, but the average Linux desktop isn’t one of them. You would only want an antivirus program to scan for Windows malware.

Few Linux Viruses Exist in the Wild

Package Managers and Software Repositories: When you want to install a new program on your Windows desktop, you head to Google and search for the program. When you want to install most programs on Linux, you open your package manager and download it from your Linux distribution’s software repositories. These repositories contain trusted software that has been vetted by your Linux distribution – users aren’t in the habit of downloading and running arbitrary software.

When You Need an Antivirus on Linux

Antivirus software isn’t entirely useless on Linux. If you are running a Linux-based file server or mail server, you will probably want to use antivirus software. If you don’t, infected Windows computers may upload infected files to your Linux machine, allowing it to infect other Windows systems.
The antivirus software will scan for Windows malware and delete it. It isn’t protecting your Linux system – it’s protecting the Windows computers from themselves.
You can also use a Linux live CD to scan a Windows system for malware.
Linux isn’t perfect and all platforms are potentially vulnerable. However, as a practical matter, Linux desktops don’t need antivirus software.

Cannibalism and the Linux Machine

My wife saw this on the Walmart website: HP 6300 Pro INTEL Core i3 3400 MHz Desktop With 22″ WideScreen LCD.
Price $236.25, free shipping, quantity, 1 left.
Now, I’ve built computers, and bought lots of monitors, but a 22 inch wide-screen LCD monitor is usually going to run you more than this entire system cost. So I told her, “buy it.” It was the only one left in stock, and with Walmart’s latest promotion of free shipping to compete with Amazon, it was a steal.
Basically, this computer was the price of my smartwatch.
Now it sits on her desk as of last night purring like a cat laying in a field of catnip. With the exception of it running Windows (I hate Windows), this is a great machine for her, and does everything she needs. Even came with built-in speakers. “Works real fine,” she says.
So now what to do with her old computer? The one my ex-son-in-law and I colluded together to build for her. A super-computer running Linux, with a burnt out graphics card and burnt out motherboard, and basically not something I was going to repair.
Meanwhile, I’ve got my computer. The one I’m writing this blog on. In a Gigabyte tower with 4 fans and 3.5 terabytes on 3 hard drives and a water-cooled radiator, running not Windows (did I mention I hate Windows?) but an old version of Linuxmint that I can’t update because my two Blueray/DVD burners are kaput. Wait…. my wife’s old computer has those drives. Bet they still work….
Cannibalism, not the Jeffrey Dahmer kind, but the computer kind, here we come. Let’s see if this transplant operation works out.

Ups and Downs of WordPress

The way I see it, WordPress has it’s ups and downs. If you just want to blog and get some quick thoughts up, it’s easy, and the way to go.
Oh, but the theme business is a business. When you set up a WordPress site on WordPress.com, you have to choose a “theme.” A theme controls the look and feel of your site, and allows customization. So it’s cool with a click of a mouse you can change the theme of your site and therefore the whole appearance, and to some degree, how it behaves.

Now here’s the rub. All the “good” themes cost money. Big money.

Now here’s the rub. All the “good” themes cost money. Big money. We’re talking in the $60 range, a lot for your little blog. Or you can opt for a premium membership for $10 a month, wherein the themes are free, but in a year you’re paying $120, which is twice what the theme cost in the first place.
So for now, I’m sticking with the crappy little free themes they have. And if you see this site change from time to time, it’s because I probably changed the theme.