MS offers free MS office.

This free edition of its Office software -- which will not include PowerPoint but will have crippled versions of Excel and Word -- will be given away with consumer machines in an effort to poison the well for competing open source productivity suites like OpenOffice (which includes a PowerPoint-compatible presentation application and full-featured spreadsheet and word processing programs.)

"Microsoft appears to have woken up to the fact that free open-source Office clones like OpenOffice may prove to be the thin end of a very slippery wedge, and if users discover they can get by with it instead of paying for a full version of Microsoft's Office, then the next step will be to switch to Ubuntu (or some other Linux) instead of paying for Windows."

Read the complete article by Paul Rubens here.

Installing Wicd in Ubuntu Hardy.

While using 9.10 Karmic, i learn of this excelent application that makes conecting to wireless lan a breeze (and my life less complicated!)

Wicd is an open source wired and wireless network manager for Linux which provides a simple but effective interface to connect to networks with a wide variety of settings and features starting with no Gnome dependencies (but note that it does require GTK), so it is easy to use and install in XFCE, Fluxbox, Openbox, Enlightenment, etc.

Need more? 

-It has the ability to connect to wired (Ethernet only, no PPPoE/DSL support yet) and wireless networks.

-Individual profiles for each wireless network and wired network.

-Many encryption schemes, some of which include WEP/WPA/WPA2

-Remains compatible with wireless-tools

-Tray icon showing network activity and signal strength

-A full-featured console interface

If you are using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty), Wicd 1.5.9 is in the universe repository, so a simple sudo apt-get install wicd will do it. If you want the latest version of Wicd when it comes out, though, you'll need to add the Wicd repository. Jaunty users who need to download the Wicd deb package can grab it from Ubuntu's Universe repository.

Non-Jaunty versions of Ubuntu (Intrepid, Hardy, etc) or Jaunty users who want the latest updates will have to add the Wicd repository to the Ubuntu package manager. To open the package manager in Gnome, go to Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. When it appears, go to Settings > Repositories > Third Party Software > Add..., and enter the following line:

deb http://apt.wicd.net jaunty extras

where "jaunty" is your version of Ubuntu in lowercase (dapper, edgy, feisty, gutsy, hardy, intrepid, jaunty). You'll also need to add the key used for signing Wicd by running the following command in a terminal:

wget -q http://apt.wicd.net/wicd.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Now, click Reload, and wait while the package lists are downloaded. Now, search for "Wicd", and right click on it. Select Install, then press Apply, and Wicd will automatically be downloaded and installed for you. This will also keep you automatically up to date with the latest and greatest version of Wicd. Please note that this will remove network-manager, which is the default GNOME network manager and may cause loss of network connection temporarily.

Ubuntu down(up)grade.

After upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 'Jaunty' and working with it for a couple of months, i took the next step and upgraded to 9.10 'Karmic Koala' to see what was new on this release, upgrade was like always a breeze (typical Ubuntu :-)) and there were quite a few features and apps that caught my attention, like the 'Ubuntu Software Center' replacing 'Add/Remove' in the Applications menu  ,a program similar to Freespire's CNR where you can easily and painlessly download and install hundreds of applications, very nice indeed :-)

But i, being a LTS user did long for my Hardy so it was time to down-up-grade my box again, not without taking some notes and installing some of the new tools found in 9.10 ;-)

Testing Zoundry Raven

Because at work they use of course windows i needed an application that i could carry on my usb stick to write stuff for my blog while at work, so after asking the wisest of the wisest Google i found Zoundry Raven, it seems quite a nice tool for that purpose, so i'm writing and publishing this first post with it, should it work you will read a bit more about it, stay tuned!