DataBook® — Using the Dolphin File Manager

The Dolphin file manager is a key tool for users of recent Linux distributions.  Dolphin is the default file manager for Fedora beginning with Fedora 10. It is very powerful and provides some very advanced features.

The purpose of a file management application like Dolphin is to enable you to locate specific files when you need to use them in some way, such as to open them in a word processor or a spreadsheet program, or to move or delete them. Dolphin and other file management programs also allow you to organize your files by moving or deleting entire folders. As a very organized Virgo I like this aspect of Dolphin.

Over the last few weeks I have added some new documents about Dolphin to my DataBook® for Linux Users. This chapter of the DataBook for Linux Users contains instructions for using and configuring Dolphin. If you are new to Linux or have been using it for a while but just want to find out more about Dolphin, check out Using Dolphin in the DataBook for Linux Users.

As always the DataBook® for Linux Users is completely free of charge.

Planning Saves the Day when Upgrade Fails

Not everything goes as planned, even Linux upgrades. I had a narrow window in which to perform an upgrade to a server this morning and some problems arose which forced me to abort the upgrade.

For many upgrades pretesting with virtual machines can tell you a great deal about whether an upgrade will work and how many problems you can expect to have. Working with real hardware is even better.

In the case of this upgrade I did both. But it was really more than an upgrade. Due to the number of versions between the old version of Fedora and the new one, I would basically have to wipe out the old installation and start over. So I decided to simply build the new system on a spare hard drive on one computer and transfer the completed and tested installation on the new hard drive into the old computer. I even preconfigured many of the configuration files that would need to change when I installed the hard drive in the old computer so that all I would have to do is copy the revised configuration file over the original or make a few minor modifications to the files already in place.

I figured I could make a last minute backup, replace the hard drive and make the necessary configuration changes, then restore the files from the backup and resolve any problems within the two hour time window.

This is always good in theory but it seldom works out as planned.

Of course there were problems and I always count on having unexpected problems. In this case the hardware incompatibilities with the new configurations were greater than I could resolve and still accomplish everything else that needed to be done within the window.

My plan for backing out was simple. Put the original hard drive back in the computer. I did this and everything came back up and worked fine. I now have plenty of time to determine how best to resolve or circumvent these issues the next time.

Proper planning is essential to performing any upgrade or change in a production computing environment. This includes the need to plan for a failed upgrade as happened this morning.

Security Experts: Avoid Windows for on-line Financial Transactions

More and more security experts are recommending that people avoid the use of Windows in any form when performing on-line financial transactions. Some experts say this is even more important for businesses than consumers because businesses have less time under the law to identify and report fraud.

Brian Krebs, the computer security expert for the Washington Post says in an October 9, 2009 Blog post:

An investigative series I’ve been writing about organized cyber crime gangs stealing millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses has generated more than a few responses from business owners who were concerned about how best to protect themselves from this type of fraud.

The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don’t use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.

He goes on to say that businesses, and presumably the rest of us as well, should use a “live CD” version of Linux to transact any type of financial business on the web because that is the only way to avoid the Windows Malware that steals your ID and your money.

Read the complete post. I won’t post the details here, because you can read the entire blog entry for yourself, but it seems that in one case thieves had hacked into the Windows computer of the bank controller in order to steal access codes.

How safe can your Windows computer be if an allegedly secure one belonging to a bank can be cracked so easily?

In Australia, the New South Wales police are recommending that consumers use Linux for on-line banking. Again they recommend using a Linux boot up disk or USB thumb drive to perform on-line financial transactions.

The reason? Linux is secure.

Complete Solution

I wonder why these experts only recommend using a Linux on a Live boot disk for financial transactions. Why not just move to Linux completely? Is the rest of your data, especially for businesses, not as important as your financial transactions? If you keep your accounting data on a Windows computer, your product designs, your marketing plans, emails discussing projects and potential projects with your customers, does that data not need to be protected as well?

Of course it does.

I recommend gong all the way with a complete security solution. Use Linux from beginning to end. Use Linux on your computers all the time. If you have one or two critical applications for which there are no Linux replacements and you must use Windows to run them, I recommend only running Windows as a guest in a virtual machine on a host computer running Linux.

Use Linux for a complete end-to-end, full time solution to keeping your data — all of your data — safe.

You might also want to find out what your bank is doing to keep your account information safe.

Thanks to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols whose original blog post at ITWorld, “Windows unsafe for online banking? Shopping?” led me to this information.

London Stock Exchange Moves to Linux

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has announced that it will be dumping its $65 Million (US) Microsoft based trading system, TradElect, in favor of the Linux and Solaris based MillenniumIT system. In fact they bought the entire MillenniumIT company for only $30 Million which is a real bargain.

Although some have said that the LSE’s experience with the MS .NET trading system was positive, the Linux and Solaris based system is easier to install and use and executes trades over six (yes 6) times faster than the old system. That is 0.4 milliseconds for the MillenniumIT system vs 2.7 milliseconds for the Microsoft system. In an environment where milliseconds is money, that is a huge advantage.

The other aspect of this is that this leaves the TradElect trading system with only one customer which is currently considering the switch to MillenniumIT as well. Of course they cannot buy the company because the LSE has already done.

Read more details in the IBSJ News.

John McCLean; Open Source and Inclusivity

There is an article in today’s News & Observer about John McClean, an incoming freshman at Duke University. He has an interesting view of Open Source Software and relates it to the inclusiveness and openness taught him by his parents, who are both pastors in the United Methodist Church.

Time for Housecleaning

How is this for coincidence? After yesterday’s post, The Pain of Moving to a New OS, today’s morning paper has an article, Brace for bumps in Windows upgrade,  about how painful it will be to move from Windows XP, which most people are still using, to Windows 7.

It seems that you will not be able to upgrade from XP to 7. You will have to back up your data and do a clean install of Windows 7, then restore your data. And all of those programs you have downloaded or installed over the many years on XP? You will have to be lucky to find all of the old CDs or download and install them again.

For older hardware, there will also be the usual issues with lack of drivers as well as just plain lack of the guts needed to run this new version of Windows compared to XP. Microsoft even touts Windows 7 as a “cleaned up” version of Vista. Not a very auspicious marketing statement.

More Gain for your Pain

If you are considering an upgrade from Windows XP, check with Millennium Technology Consulting LLC first. If you are expecting pain anyway, you might as well get the maximum gain. Linux can significantly reduce the overall version to version upgrade pains in the long run, as well as being more stable, more resistant to malware, far more secure and free to boot.

The Pain of Moving to a New OS

There will always be some level of pain associated with moving to a new operating system. This is true whether the upgrade is from Windows X to Windows Y, from Windows to Linux, or from one version of any Linux distribution to another such as upgrading from Fedora 10 to Fedora 11, or from one Linux distribution to another such as moving from Fedora to Ubuntu or the other way around.

Most of the time the results far outweigh the pain of the upgrade. Other times, not so much.

Points of Pain

These pain points that are due to moving from one OS to another are usually the little things but they can be time-consuming and frustrating.

The real problems for end users and their points of pain usually revolve around screen resolutions, font sizes, documents that don’t look like they did before because the formatting has changed with the new office suite. There can also be issues with getting printers webcams and other peripheral devices to work. But these are issues for the administrator and over which the end user has no control. End users have no desire to deal with these things; nor should they need to. All of this should be taken care of in the background by the system administrator.

New programs for file management, trying to find the location of menus or documents that are now in a different location after the upgrade, a somewhat unfamiliar desktop landscape and new features and concepts such as multiple desktops can also be hurdles to overcome. These are also issues for the administrator, but these can be dealt with through some level of training on the new environment.

Secrets to Success

It is important for you, our prospective customers to realize that although there are many benefits to Linux and Open Source Software, there can be pain in making the change from proprietary software that costs money to Free Open Source Software. However all of the potential issues that exist when considering a move from proprietary to Open Source Software can be mitigated with a few simple steps.

Planning

As with any major endeavor, proper planning is essential to success when upgrading to Open Source Software. This starts a thorough review of your current computing environment including available hardware and a complete inventory of the programs used in your business. Any industry or task specific software or hardware you use should also be noted.

Preparation

Preparation for any major undertaking is key. When considering an upgrade to Free Open Source Software, testing of your potential new computing environment should be part of the plan. This may include setting up a pilot project with a small number of employees or a separate test lab in which potential problems can be discovered and resolved before they become an issue for everyone.

This preparation  stage of the project should also include ensuring that your employees are kept fully informed of the potential changes. Many people need time to adjust to changes and are better prepared if they are informed in advance that these changes will be forthcoming. In fact these are some of the most important people to have participate in the planning and preparation of the upgrade.

Communication

Constant and consistent customer communication is also an important factor in a successful upgrade of any kind. Whenever issues are encountered, whether during the planning, preparation or implementation phase, you should be kept informed by your consultant. The very word consultant comes from the Latin and means “to discuss.” Your consultant should do just that; you should always be aware of the current status of the project. The consultant is there to discuss and inform you of the options and you should make the decisions.

Training

Training is an important factor in a successful upgrade. I have seen many projects fail because the end users, the employees were not trained on the new software or computing environment. While it is not possible to provide training to cover every aspect of this type of upgrade, training should cover the important every day tasks that people perform on their computers. This familiarizes them with the new environment and reduces the stress of having something new just dumped on them. If possible, initial training should be done prior to the upgrade so that everyone will be ready for the change when it does take place. Additional training should be scheduled for after the upgrade to reinforce learning in the new environment.

Training applies not only to end users but also to your in-house IT staff if you have any. You may be surprised to find that your IT staff already has some knowledge of Linux and Open Source computing.

Documentation

A computer project is not complete until it is fully documented. Yes, this takes time and adds to the initial cost of the project. Proper documentation will save a great deal of pain later. Problems will occur later and proper documentation is important for all concerned because it defines the environment that was created by the upgrade. That documentation allows any consultant or your own staff to have a complete understanding of your new environment as a basis for troubleshooting or further upgrades.

Expertise

Lastly you should choose a company whose expertise is with Linux and Open Source Software, not one whose expertise lies elsewhere and for whom Linux and Open Source is just an afterthought as it is with many companies out there today. When you select Millennium Technology Consulting LLC to plan and implement your upgrade to Open Source Software you have chosen a company for whom Linux and Open Source Software is all we do.

Contact us at Millennium Technology Consulting LLC for a demonstration of Free Open Source Software.

Warning about Lexmark Printers and Linux

If you are considering using Linux at any time in the near future, you should definitely not purchase a Lexmark printer of any kind. The company does not support Linux in any way and there are no working drivers of any kind available for most Lexmark printers.

I use Brother and HP for my printing needs and they work quite well. Even most HP All-in-one printers work very well. Xerox printers are also well supported and I have a large network attached Xerox copier/fax/printer working at one of my customers.

That is not to say you won’t have to do some fussing to get even some supported printers to print, but most Lexmark printers will never print under Linux. So this is something to be aware of when planning an upgrade to Linux.

You Get What You Pay for — or Not

The old saying “You get what you pay for” seems true on its surface, and it can be true. I like to save money, but many times I am willing to pay more for a better brand or an upgrade to a product with more features. I do this because I know the better brand will last longer or the product with more features has a particular feature I need or find useful.

When I bought my Hybrid Toyota Prius I paid more than I would have for an equivalent size car back in 2001. But I bought it to save gasoline and the environment, not because it was cheaper than the other cars. With gas prices as they have been for the past few years, I have saved more on gasoline in the long run than I paid extra for the Prius, plus I have been saving the environment as well. But my Prius has also been a very reliable, trouble-free car and the problems I have had were fixed under warranty, in many cases even after the warranty had allegedly expired. That in itself has saved me a good deal of money compared to other cars I have owned. Some things are worth paying extra for.

Cheap stuff breaks. We bought a cheap refrigerator a few years ago, even though it was an allegedly good brand. We have had service out several times for various problems and it has never really been fixed properly. It continues to give us trouble and will until we replace it.

I have seen many really cheap computers and some really great ones. Having worked for IBM, I know that they made some of the best and most reliable computers on the planet. But when the cheap junk started showing up, they could not compete on price and that is what the vast majority of consumers cared about. IBM got out of the PC business because they could not compete on price and no one cares about the quality of a PC when they can be replaced so cheaply — relatively speaking.

The Software Exception

There is one very prominent exception to the “get what you pay for” axiom. Software. Oh, sure, you can pay for software. But why should you when there is much better, higher quality software available for free?

Open Source Software is usually free and it is almost always of very high quality. All of the Free Open Source Software I use is of excellent quality. It works and does what I want it to do. I have not paid a penny for software in many years. That makes companies like Microsoft crazy!

I have worked in places where we had software that cost millions of dollars in licensing fees. And yet when we would call for support for a word processing program, for example, the best answers we could get were pathetic. You don’t need to reboot every time something goes wrong with your software, but that seems to be the first answer you get from any support people when dealing with any problem while running Windows.

Most support centers use low-paid, untrained people who do nothing more than follow scripts. If you are lucky and get to a third level person, they might know enough to actually solve your problem. Perhaps, but don’t hold your breath.

What kind of support is that? Crappy, that’s what! So why pay for software on the premise that paying for it gives you support? That sounds dumb to me. But it does give the company that bought the software someone to yell at when things don’t work. I fail to see how that helps, though, when your objective should be to keep your people productive and your customers happy.

And just try to get a proprietary software company to add a new feature that you really need! If you are lucky and they decide to do it, you can pay a very large sum of money for them to add a new feature and it will take months at best.

If Open Source Software breaks or does not have a feature I need, I can request a fix or a new or revised feature and the hundreds or even thousands of programmers around the world who work on that particular piece of software will often  have a fix or a new feature ready in a few days or even less. Security problems may be patched within hours. This is much better responsiveness than any proprietary software I have ever had the misfortune to use over the years.

Paying for software does not make it better. Contact us at Millennium Technology Consulting LLC for a demonstration of Free Open Source Software that can save your company a great deal of money.

Value add – Databook

One of the things that most companies want when they choose a consultant is a level of knowledge and support that will always be there. It is not enough to simply do the job and walk away like many firms do; you want some ongoing support and a place to find information when you need it. Whether to answer basic questions  like, “how do I…,” or to complex system administration tasks, you will always have some need for information within or even beyond the scope of the consulting contract.

Freedom of Information Act

The basic tenet of Open Source is that program code should be free. Open Source Software is free as in speech and so also should the information about it be free.

As a Linux and Open Source consultant I believe that information should be free. Not merely as with the federal Freedom of Information Act that requires the information seeker to request the specific information they are seeking and wait for the powers that be to decide whether it is in their best interest to release it, but really free as as in speech so that it is readily available when you need or want it.

This is the Value Add proposition addressed by Millennium Technology Consulting LLC. For us, Freedom of Information Act is a verb.

Memory Aid

Over the years I have collected a great deal of information about Linux and how it works. I have found that I needed the same information many times, but that I perform the associated tasks so seldom that I needed to re-discover that information. So I began saving things I had learned in a database that was intended to be a memory aid and to prevent me having to recreate the same information over and over. This database has grown significantly and will continue to grow in the coming years.

I decided that this same information could be valuable to many other people as well, whether they — you — are customers of Millennium Technology Consulting LLC or not. As a result, I opened up my database to the world so it is free as in speech, I and have made that information free as in beer as well.

That database is my DataBook® web site where I keep two books plus other information such as product reviews and a blog. The books are the DataBook for Linux Users and the DataBook for Linux Administrators. Whenever I answer a question for someone, or perform a task that requires a bit of research on my part, I try to add it to one of the DataBooks. This makes it available for me in the future as well as for anyone else who has the same need.

Proprietary vs Free

Some people have asked me why don’t I just charge for this information so I can increase my revenue stream. I could do so either by charging for access to the DataBook web site or by charging for my time to provide “customers” that same information. I choose not do to so for the simple reason that I believe that restricting information in that way sucks.

Many, in fact almost all consultants consider the information they have proprietary and want you to pay for it — all the time, every time. Frankly it is not in my best interest to work that way. What is in my best interest is to have well-informed customers with access to as much information as possible so that you can make informed, intelligent decisions. I believe that is in your best interest as well. I believe that if you are not currently a customer and you find the information I provide on my web sites useful, you will call me when you need a consultant. Period.

Contact Millennium Technology Consulting LLC when you are ready for a true Open Source Consultant. We do Open Source and Linux consulting for individuals and small to medium businesses.