Computer Architecture - Week 3

This has been an interesting two weeks, learning about Linux (downloading Ubuntu and Slax) and finding out what I like and don't like about them. Truthfully, there are parts of each I like, but both Windows and Macs operating systems takes the cake over both of those. I had problems getting Openoffice to work or me with Ubuntu; and Slax had the oldest font types. It was like looking at the initial version of DOS. I didn't care for Slax's web browser, either. It told me I had to update it. I used my old computer to work with these two, and it Ubuntu took forever to download. When it finished, about 4 hours later, I checked the burned disk and had one file corrupted. Okay. I thought I could still work with one file corrupted. Unfortunately, that one file was corrupt in many areas..all of the OpenOffice areas. I was disappointed. The games were fun, (Suduko) but not what I wanted spend all of my time doing. The web browser was great. It was nice and fast, even on my old computer. It was the first thing I looked into and was impressed with it. It used Firefox and I was able to access my email, do searches, etc. with it. I was surprised with how well it worked. What didn't work was printing. Of course, I didn't install it on my computer as I didn't want one file missing, so the printing option probably shouldn't work. When I went to get a plug-in, the program froze. Not my idea of fun. I tried the ESC button, no results. Next I tried ctrl+alt+del and again, it didn't do a thing. I turned off the computer and then rebooted and took a look at the applications again. I noticed the time was not right so tried to change that. The program didn't like me doing that. It froze again. I turned off the computer and rebooted again. I figured out a way to change the time without a problem this time. Then I looked at the calculator - it was changeable, from a basic to advanced, scientific, or financial one. Pretty impressive. No need to buy a scientific calculator when you can get one for free here. I tried OpenOffice again, no luck again. I quit after being frustrated with it. I then tried Slax.

Slax was a disappointment, especially once I used Ubuntu. It was slow, old, and needed updating. It didn't have as much to offer as Ubuntu, but then I didn't want to spend another four hours downloading another program. It wasn't as big a file as Ubuntu, either. Still, I guess I expected a little bit more than what I got. As a DOS system, it would be fine for some geek who's into programming to go into and mess around with and fix. There were fixes available to get from them, and their reporting system was pretty good. It had different games from Ubuntu, such as Battleship, KBounce, and Patience (another name for solitaire). There was a Kolour Paint program, similar to the one in Word. It had the same type of menu and worked the same way. I tried printing from it, no luck. I did create a document and was able to save it, but it was hard to find when I wanted to open it again. I tried to print the document, but again, no luck. I tried the help menu, or should I say no help menu. The help menu for Slax was there, but nothing was in it. I looked to search the index, but it did not exist. It asked me if I wanted to create it. I tried, but didn't have much luck with that either. I looked for the Applications manual..missing. All documentation was missing. This was a major disappointment. What's the use of having a help menu if you can't search it and find help? The web browser was called Konquerer. It was very basic and looked basic. It couldn't update to Firefox or IE for me, as it had problems with the plug-ins (the computer froze when I tried to update). As users need to have a good Internet browser this was majorly minimal.
Of the two systems I looked at, I'd choose Ubuntu, if I had to use either one of those, and try to get OpenOffice from the Internet. Chances are I'd use Google.docs for tools, though.

On another note, our group looked at the last of the video and I just happened to find today an article written from eschoolnews.com. Microsoft is offering "bing", a search engine that they're saying can rival Google! The article can be found at http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=58965 That so fits what we were learning about in the last part of our session..what's the future going to be. Microsoft knows it needs to keep up with the Internet area, and this is their answer. As it's supposed to be a great help for educators, I'm wanting to try it out and see if it indeed is better than Google. If so, Microsoft is keeping up in the game! No grass is growing under their feet...