Ubuntu | Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners

Posts Tagged: ubuntu

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 6 Comments
6
Nov 09

Early thoughts on Windows 7

photo credit: Greenmonster

Although I’ve been testing, using and writing about Windows 7 since last year, it has only been on the market 2 weeks. In those two weeks, I have setup 8 or 10 new machines already.

The setup is much faster than Vista, but I’m already getting that same ‘ol, same ‘ol feeling about it as I did with Windows Vista and Office 2007. I don’t doubt that Microsoft went back to the drawing board and tweaked and improved Windows, but overall it really is just Vista, done correctly. Plus the machines it is being released on are monsters: dual and quad core processors, 4, 6, and 8 GB of RAM and fast, capable video processors as well.

I really think the improvements in usability will be completely lost by the majority of average computer users. Pinning programs to the taskbar, jump lists, using the integrated search, file libraries, Home Groups, shaking and pushing Windows to screen edges will Continue reading →

Print Preview

Sometimes the most helpful computer utilities elude us and stay hidden for years. One such utility that I find very helpful (and have taken for granted) is the Print Preview function found in almost any program that allows printing.

Because Windows and Macintosh made the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment available to the masses, what we see on our screens is pretty close to what we see on our print outs. However, if you need to tweak margins, find the extra line that is creating an extra page, or determine whether a document (like a spreadsheet) will look better in Landscape or Portrait mode, there is no substitute for the Continue reading →

Email Tips / Macintosh / Ubuntu Tips — No Comments
21
Sep 09

Set Firefox to recognize web mail for mailto links – Video Tip

If you use a web based email system like Gmail, HotMail, or Yahoo email or any derivative of these, you more than likely run into occasions where you want to email someone from a web site. However, when you click the link (known as a mailto link), you get presented with an email system you never heard of or used asking you to enter your email particulars to send the email. Most folks usually just snarl and forget about it.

You could copy and paste the email address into your web mail. OR, if you use Mozilla Firefox as your browser, you can set it to Continue reading →

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 123 Comments
19
Jun 09

Senior uses Ubuntu system 14 months trouble free

photo credit: Nico Kaiser

Computers started making their way into homes, en masse, 15 years ago. After 15 years, computer users should not be afraid of using their computer.

This case study tells the story about a customer of mine, Wanda, who happens to be in her 70s. Like most computer users she used a Windows based computer. In her case, it was a system put together by her grandson in 2002 or 2003 and has a 1.8ghz processor, 256mb of RAM and the XP Home version of Windows.

When I first met Wanda a few years ago, she had typical Windows user problems; slow computer, slow Internet, couldn’t open some attachments, virus and spyware problems. She used dialup Juno for Internet and Norton Antivirus on her system. I couldn’t talk her into getting a DSL or cable connection, but I did change her security from Norton to Continue reading →

Email of the week — 9 Comments
12
Jun 09

Email of the Week – 007 – Why choose a Mac?

photo credit: QuattroVageena

Name: Richard Doran

From: Battlement Mesa, CO

OS: Windows XP

———————-

I have a friend who is seriously considering a switch from her Dell PC to a Mac. On a couple of occasions you have presented some really excellent “talking points” for people who should consider using a Mac. These deal mainly with their own personal computer usage, as I recall. I pulled up all Mac reference on your website and even “googled ” – but found

nothing that really covered the subject like you did.

A review of of your comments would be appreciated and this information could be a helpful useful addition to your web site!

Now I must wait to see if I get embarrassed that the info is already posted, as you so often prove.

———————-

ANSWER

Great question Richard. And I do Continue reading →

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 2 Comments
10
May 09

Comparison of Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 9.04 install

I had the opportunity today to install both Windows 7 RC 1 and Ubuntu 9.04 on my Toshiba laptop today. The laptop has an Intel Core2Duo processor, 4 GB of RAM and 160 GB hard drive. Here are the results:

	Windows 7 RC1	Ubuntu 9.04
Install time	21 minutes including 2 reboots	19 minutes no reboots
Boot time	54 seconds	36 seconds
Shut down time	20 seconds	8 seconds
Post install work required	Approximately an hour to install Antivirus software, Office, decent browser, PDF reader, and all subsequent updates (and I had the install files on a flash drive).	None, AV software not needed, Office software and PDF reader installs with OS.
Hardware recognition	Everything worked except the card reader, but after first set of updates the card reader worked	Everything worked immediately.

Overall, both operating systems felt snappy, as they should with 4 GB of RAM. I will continue to test and report on both operating systems, but thought the install information was interesting.

Internet Tips / Macintosh / Riding Shotgun with Rick / Ubuntu Tips / Windows Tips — 5 Comments
28
Apr 09

Make reading the web easier than ever – Video Tip

photo credit: dsevilla

Although we now have 19″ and larger monitors on most new desktop computers, the text seems to shrink. Why is that? It has to do with screen resolution (how much information can be displayed). Screen resolutions on today’s monitors are up to 3X that of monitors we used just 6-8 years ago. We can see a lot more information, but often the text is too small to view for some computer users.

Never fear. Using this week’s tip, you can easily and quickly enlarge the text of any web page using only your keyboard and mouse. This tip will work with any web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc) and any operating system (Windows, Ubuntu, Mac OS X).

All you need is a mouse with a scroll wheel and your keyboard. This tip can be performed without the mouse as well, but I’ll touch on that later.

First, when you are reading a web site, particularly news web sites and blog type sites like mine, look for an indication of a printer friendly page. Often designated as Printer Friendly, Print this article, or simply Print, clicking this link brings Continue reading →

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 5 Comments
25
Apr 09

2 laptop suggestions for college students

photo credit: jarnott

Millions of high schoolers will be graduating soon and will be leaving for their respective campuses (campii?) at the end of the summer. These students will more than likely go to college with a computer…probably a laptop. I would like to suggest two possible laptops ideas for these students.

Both of my ideas involve good systems that will allow college kids to word process, chat, email, listen to music, watch DVD’s, browse the web wirelessly(for school research of course), create presentations, spreadsheets, download and edit photos and much more. Neither involve Windows and thus don’t require a degree in computer security and maintenance. One of the computers costs between $1200-1800 and the other costs less than $700.

My recommendations stem from first hand accounts from parents whose college kids call home frequently with tales of woe about a slow, non-functioning new computer. Students need to have their computers operational, and running around to the campus IT people or dropping the computer at a fix-it shop for expensive repairs. These two recommendations will keep calls home for repair money, tales of woe, and computer down time to a bare minimum. Continue reading →

Riding Shotgun with Rick / Ubuntu Tips — 6 Comments
4
Apr 09

Portable Ubuntu lets you try out Ubuntu Linux

For a little over two years, I have been yammering on about Linux and Ubuntu. To get started using it, you need to either order a free Linux CD from the distribution of your choice or download a copy then learn how to burn a bootable CD from it. For many, this just isn’t going to happen.

However, if you are extremely curious about Ubuntu and would try it if it was easier, Lifehacker just wrote an article about a new program called Portable Ubuntu that installs and runs like any other Windows program. This should be a great way for many novice computer users and Ubuntu lookie-lous to give it a try. The download is still huge (a few hours for most people), but you might have fun giving it a try.

Lifehacker – Portable Ubuntu Runs Ubuntu Inside Windows – Portable Ubuntu.

Tech News — 4 Comments
19
Mar 09

An unfortunate event – Linux losing to Microsoft

photo credit: geognerd

Netbooks are the class of laptops that have screens measuring from 7″ to 10″, have no CD or DVD-ROM and use a specially designed low power processor. Initially, these small and inexpensive laptops were released with different versions of Linux on them and they ran fast and ran well. Microsoft saw a huge potential loss in their market share and quickly used their muscle to interject themselves and Windows XP into this genre of computers.

In my opinion, Windows has no place in a netbook for the following reasons:

It adds cost to the machine. Although reports indicate that Microsoft has been losing money just to get their system installed on these machines instead of Linux.
It adds complexity to the machines by requiring users to keep up with endless security updates and configuration from Microsoft and other vendors. Linux, on the other hand, requires almost no maintenance once the initial setup is finished.
Windows requires as much RAM and processing power as you can throw at it…even XP now with Service Pack 3 plus all the security software that has to sit on top of it.
Linux offers Continue reading →