Sometime between the years 1995 and 2004, Linux reached the mainstream of
computer users the world over. No longer was it all about Microsoft or the
Mac. Now there was a new sheriff in town, and it was a penguin packing some
serious heat.
The average user indoctrinated into the Linux way of computing will no doubt
find themselves climbing a mountain at first. Like any new operating system,
finding out even normal tasks and discovering what does what constitutes the
learning curve process by which we all must understand any system.
Linux is not a black box. There are no super secrets to divine from the
interior data of the device. What it is, however, is a consumer-friendly
operating system providing multiple ways to do a series of complex tasks most
often left to the intermediate user. Linux makes it easier.
For example, to run Firestarter in Ubuntu Linux, click on "... (more)
I often wonder what happens to data when it gets erased. Just where does it
go? What happens to it? Does it "vanish" completely, or does it still exist
somewhere, perhaps in the memory bank of the expanding universe?
My theory is this: everything that is erased has been recorded by time and,
given enough technology to go backwards, we should be able to recover lost
data (if we are able to travel backwards to the point before it was
"permanently" erased, that is).
Quantum Mechanics Meet "Panks Mechanics"
Most of the data I have lost over the years resulted from poor handling of
di... (more)
Ubuntu Linux is a new experience for me. Having used only Red Hat's Fedora
Core, I was anxious to try out the recently released Ubuntu 5.10 (available
from Ubuntu's Website at www.ubuntu.com).
I was not disappointed. After waiting approximately 45 minutes to download
the 617 MB ISO file, I quickly burned it to a CD and rebooted my computer.
Within a mere half an hour, Ubuntu was successfully installed on my system.
Ubuntu 5.10 opens with an attractive background display resembling a
swirling, luminous horizon surrounded by clouds. The bottom half of the
picture looks like an ocea... (more)
My aunt and I were having an e-mail discussion about which is the easiest to
use: a real photo album with pictures or a computer photo album, as on a
CD-ROM. I suggested that we put all the family photos into an album rather
than having them strewn all over the place in photo folders. She suggested
scanning them into the computer and building a photo album that way. I tend
to agree with her, as a digital photo album is easier to preserve and present
than the more traditional photo album.
If you're like me, chances are your family has hundreds (if not thousands) of
photographs sc... (more)
Human memory and Random Access Memory (RAM) share one thing in common: they
are both very volatile. This basically means that once the power sources
feeding the memories are terminated, the memories disappear forever (at least
in the case of human short-term memory; more on that in a bit).
Human brains and computers share rather curious connections between data
(stored memories) and access points (synapses). Dictionary.com defines a
synapse as follows: "The junction across which a nerve impulse passes from an
axon terminal to a neuron, muscle cell, or gland cell." That's well and ... (more)
Paul Panks is the author of "HLA Adventure," an adventure game written in Randall Hyde's HLA (High Level Assembly) language. His ultimate intention was for others to eventually contribute to this project, so in May 2003 he released it into public domain, including the source
David Lucas
Shaul Efraim
Terence Martin Breslin
Cory Marchand
David Hughes
James Carlini
John Iffert
Dan Stolts
Joe Zeto
