Loose Laces

I am writing some of this this yesterday in case I cannot see well today.
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Twitter was offline more than once for several hours yesterday due to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. DoS is where someone (a person or persons; a government entity or entities) flood the victim's computers with so many requests for service that the servers cannot handle them and basically shut down the affected site. Tragically, if one of our pc's isn't fully protected, it could be infiltrated and used by the evil doers to help with their crime. Sometimes it is just one disgruntled geek doing his childish thing, and other times it is more sinister. It could be a foreign government sponsored retaliation against the site for allowing their citizens to see things they do not want them to see. Recent events in Iran and China come to mind. I don't think it would be North Korea because most people there do not know that electricity has been invented (discovered), much less something as exotic as the internet. Even "secure" government military computers are not immune to such attacks and they do often happen, but the military is reluctant to tell an attacker whether or not he was successful. Imagine an enemy nation making a surprise military attack on the US under cover of a DoS infiltration (remember the movie War Games? Same thing only much, much larger scale) of the Pentagon war control computers. Your beloved and protecting government will tell you it cannot happen, but believe me, it can and sooner or later probably will happen. Another of my overly pessimistic pipe dreams? Possibly.
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The Atlantic Ocean has been suspiciously quiet so far this hurricane season.
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One thing I detest to have to do for the new pc build is buy an OEM copy of Microsoft Windows Vista so I can do Carolyn's business stuff without learning a new accounting system. I've been using Quickbooks for Windows since it first came on the scene in 1998, with a couple of upgrades along the way (presently the 2005 edition). The price of Windows has stayed about the same over the years, but Quickbooks has gone from $40 to $200. No more upgrades for me. Quickbooks does have an online version that can be run from Linux via Firefox browser, but the monthly fees are so high that I am better off buying Windows and using my old software on it.

I have been using the beautifully free, secure, and easy to learn Linux Ubuntu now as my primary weekend system for quite awhile, and will contine to use it more often. The only reason I do not use it a lot more is I have to restart the computer to switch to Windows and vice-versa, and that would not be too bad if it didn't take bloated Windows so long to load: 30 second (+-) load time for Ubuntu; 90 seconds (+-) for Windows on the same machine. A two computer setup on my desk? That sounds great but at my age, two of anything is confusing.

Actually I did take Windows XP completely off Carolyn's computer and off my laptop, and the world is a better place. One thing about the Vista purchase and install; I get a free upgrade to Windows 7 come October, and from what I can tell, it is a decent OS, but still very bloated. It has almost caught up with Ubuntu and the Mac Leopard OS in usability. Virus scanners and security software are the biggest drags on my computer's resources using Windows, but Linux has only a firewall, and it is built into the system kernel, which is the best place for it to reside and be protective of everything. No virus scanner is really needed on Linux, but there are a few free ones (very good ones) to use if it makes you feel safer.

My advice if you want to install Linux and Windows on the same machine; use separate hard drives for each. That way, if one hard drive fails, you will still have an operating system to use. Install Windows first if it isn't already in place, and then install Linux. Linux will find your Windows OS and create a boot loader that will allow you to choose which one you want to run when the machine starts up. You can even place Linux on an USB external hard drive, memory stick, flash drive, or even run it from a cd. Try that with Windows. Not!
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