Linux Alternative Applications

Firstly, many of my family members or friends are not completely computer savvy and tend to collect all manner of nasty malware etc during their newbie browsing.

I have gotten tired of reinstalling windows every time they have an "issue".. over the last few months I’ve taken to re-educating them not just on safe browsing but also giving them a choice of OS’s to install. This is particularly the case where their Windows XP cd comes on a CDR..

A friend of mine even had a TradeMe (kiwi version of eBay) transaction with a reputable dealer who gave him a system with a hacked version of Windows Vista installed on it (and called it "installed for evaluation purposes, so please delete after you have evaluated it") – damnit.. that sucked as we couldn’t even go to Windows Update from that copy.

Soooo, nowadays whenever one of the newbs screw up their PC (and they do.. often).. I suggest installing Linux on it instead. This has brought about quite a bit of happiness actually, for as good as Windows is (and i do think its good), when it comes to Linux vs Pirated Windows, i see no other alternative.

The main gripe they usually have is with "oh what about my hacked version of Office? or *insert any other windows app here*? The good news is that Linux has quite a lot of alternative applications that can be used instead of the native Windows ones.. (and yeah, taking them through Wine would have been a mission).

I’ve collated a quick few links below to point to some of the sites out there that lists these alternatives.. quite comprehensive really :)

See below:

• The Linux Alternative Project – a good site with many alternative applications for common windows applications. They even have a forum that can lead to even more alternatives.
• Osalt.com – Open Source as Alternatives – not strictly Linux, but open-source alternatives to commercial applications.
• The top 50 proprietary programs that drive you crazy and their open-source alternatives – another pretty good site.. huge list!

There are a lot more sites like above.. those i just picked within a few minutes of searching and browsing.. :)

Managing your time with ManicTime

When browsing on makeuseof I came across a gem of an application that showed me what the hell i was doing all day long at work :)

The original article that got me started is here.

We all get caught up in all manner of activities during the day and frequently, we never get a chance to do what we planned to do because we keep "running out of time". This tool allowed me to identify activities that is not in my role and responsibilities and focus on organising my time better.

With ManicTime installed, all my computer activities are logged and recorded and it allows me to tag my activities so that i get a nice little chart at the end that tells me what I’ve been spending time on.

It takes all of 5 minutes at the end of the day to go through your activities and "tag" blocks to general categories.. as an example, here is one of my days:

 
Once you have your activities tagged, reports and statistics are very easy to generate. It has shown me where the bulk of my time goes.

Sitting quietly in my taskbar, I found ManicTime to be quite robust and non-interfering with my daily work. I know most of you will think of this as invasive etc, but frankly its a tool to help me be a better person. This information is not for anyone else as its all stored locally.

One thing it doesn’t seem to have (and perhaps i haven’t tested it enough) is profile independence. IE, if someone else logs onto your machine, can they see what you’ve been doing? I’m not too sure on that…

Anyways, if you want, give it a go for a week or so.. it may tell you a lot about your computer habits :)

Installing DreamLinux on my laptop

So, after months of Ubuntu on my Dell 9300, and running World of Warcraft under Wine, I finally decided that Ubuntu was a little to heavy on my cpu and started looking at alternatives.