I often like to go a little out of my way to write blogs that contain original information.  But for some things, it pays to refer people to a resource that already exists to save time.

Alan Pope is well known in the Ubuntu Linux community for his screencasts.  A collection of them can be found at http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/.  All of his screencasts can be streamed from Google Video, as well as downloaded in MPEG-4 and OGG  format.  The one you will likely want to check out when it comes to modifying your computers login screen, desktop background, fonts, color scheme/theme can be found here:

http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/Customising_Ubuntu_Desktop

The video covers:

• Changing Wallpapers
• Changing Screensavers
• Panel Properties (Location/Auto-hide/Background)
• Changing/Adding Desktop Themes
• Adding/Moving Launcher Shortcuts to your Panel/Desktop
• Modifying Menu Layouts
• Adding Applets to your Panels
• Modifying your About Me user info
• Customizing your Login screen layouts/themes
• Using Multiple Workspaces

The video makes use of http://art.gnome.org/ for it’s demonstration of downloading wallpapers and themes, but another noteworthy site you should check for such things is http://www.gnome-look.org/.  My personal favorite website for wallpapers is InterfaceLift Wallpapers.

A couple of things this video does not cover (which I think it should) is Compiz Fusion (the software behind Ubuntu’s special effects, such as wobbly windows, action animations, etc).  But in Alan Pope’s defense, the video was based upon Ubuntu 6.10 which did not include Beryl or Compiz by default.  I’ll write a seperate blog about customizing Compiz in the near future.

The video also does not cover the installation and use of a dockbar (such as AWN or Cairo Dock).  I happen to have already written a tutorial about Cairo Dock if you’d like to make you’re Ubuntu desktop look more like a Mac.

Well I leave it to you.  Have fun customizing!

A client of mine recently wiped his computer clean when they accidentally initiated a destructive recovery via the F10 key during POST. This caused their hard drive to be formated and their OS to be reinstalled as it was when it was originally installed at the factory. The lost files on the system were not recoverable, and the only alternative would be to have an advanced data forensics lab extract the old data off, the cost of which could go up as high as a couple thousand dollars.

There are some simple things you should get in the habit of doing if you want to decrease your odds of facing such a horrid situation as the one above:

Unplug your PC when there is lightning outside

I shouldn’t have to tell people this, but some of you uber-nerds out there think that the bigger their basement-computer-bedroom-cave-hermit dwelling is, the more invincible they are. It’s not a matter of probability of being struck, but probability of surviving a lightning strike unscathed. Like the Black Knight from Monty Python.

Don’t let the price tag on that expensive Uninterrupted Power Supply fool you. Its purpose isn’t to safe-guard you from a lightning strike, but to sustain power to your PC in the event of an unexpected outage and to compensate for brownouts and power spikes. Lightning can still penetrate it and make its way to your computer. Once there, it’s up in the air how much damage it might inflict, and hard to diagnose the extent of damage after the fact. Every time I’ve seen a system that’s been hit by lightning, I’ve ended up having to tell people to buy a new computer, because so many parts were damaged in a split second.

Do what most people do during severe weather: Watch TV till the power goes out, grab a radio and flash light, salvage the remaining beer from the unpowered refrigerator, and hope for the best when you regain consciousness in the morning. Or whatever floats your boat.  If you have an Internet addiction like I do, use a wireless device like a laptop or a cell phone to get your info fix.

Backup to an external storage device

Here’s what I’ve got pictured above from left to right:

• An external USB hard drive. Advantages: Cheap for price per megabyte, easy to setup and use. Disadvantages: Subject to failure from old age after several years of use (see your warranty), and sometimes bulky (depends on how cheap you are).
• A USB Flash Drive. Advantages: Small, handy, convenient, instant plug-and-play capable (usually). Disadvantages: Must be replaced after about 250 uses, easy to misplace and lose (get a nice 4 dollar lanyard like I did). Costly if you have lots of data to backup.
• A cell phone with a MicroSD card. Same as the USB flash drive, but slower. The advantage is that it’s in your phone, and you probably aren’t as likely to misplace that thing.
• Network Attached Storage. Network attached storage is basically a “computer-less” hard drive that attaches to your local network (router) and shares hard drive space to other computers on the network. Advantage: Highest fault tolerance (there are multiple copies of files spread across hard drives, so if one drive fails, the file is not lost). Disadvantage: Expensive.

You can also backup data to external CD’s or DVD’s and keep them in a dark place. Doing so will keep your data safe for a long time. But it’s good to shed old storage media after several years of data sitting on them and move data to a fresher medium that is less likely to suddenly flake out unexpectedly.

You can also use software to automate backing data up. A good one is Amanda Open Source Backup. I’ll write more about it sometime in the future. But for now, you should consider using one of the external devices above and practice good habits to protect your computer and your documents from being lost.

For some f—ed up reason, Wordpress would give me a 403 error every time I tried to post something about access control lists. That last failed attempt at a post for this CCNA series was caused by the same problem: IOS command syntax in the writing. Really, I think that’s the problem. I can’t prove it for certain, but I can point to another Wordpress bug that would do the same thing to people who wrote posts that included a couple of very common Linux commands.

So, yesterday after losing over half of what I wrote AGAIN, I copied and pasted my text to a word file first before producing that damn 403 error again. I reinstalled my whole blog twice, and the same error was being produced by that specific text. I didn’t have a problem posting other test blogs, or that other super long one I put up yesterday.

Anyway, enough ranting. Without further a due, here’s a link to the word file I wrote my notes into. Topics touched on are Advanced ACL’s and the Cisco Discovery Protocol.

Now….back to the mystery that is my day of trying to remember where I put that f—ing thumb drive!! Don’t you just hate it when you lose tiny stuff like that?

I was going to write a bunch of stuff in here about Access Control Lists and the Cisco IOS image files, but Wordpress deleted all of my draft work I had saved up, and I’m not in the mood to retype it all. You probably weren’t gonna read that Greek nonsense anyway….

Here’s some good reading though:

• Backing up and restoring an IOS image file
• Cisco IOS access lists: 10 things you should know
• Q and A:  Wildcard Masks in ACL’s

We start with 3 basic layers:

1. Physical - (Cables, radio waves, binary 1’s and 0’s, etc).
2. Data Link - (Switch/Bridge devices/MAC address)
3. Network - (Routers)

Routers are the devices which are given the most focus. Here is the back of an example router:

The look of a router will vary greatly, but it’s function and purpose is essentially the same: Route IP traffic, as well as other management stuff we’ll discuss later.

Within the router is a Command Line Interface called the Cisco IOS. The traditional method used to access this operating system is to attach a rollover cable to the routers console port and the other end to a serial port on a PC. Then, using a terminal emulator like Hyper Terminal (included with Windows for free) to establish a serial connection. These settings need to be correct in order for the connection to work:

• Baud - 9600
• Databits - 8
• Parity - None
• Stop Bits - 1

The Aux port on a router can be setup to accept incoming connections from external devices like a phone modem, allowing for remote administration. Virtual Terminal ports can also be configured, allowing the administrator to set up any of the Ethernet ports on the router to accept incoming remote administrator telnet or SSH sessions.

When you establish a console session with a router, you begin in “user mode”, and you are very limited on what commands the router can accept from you. To escalate your privileges, you type “enable” and press enter. A password prompt can be configured later to ask for a password when this command is entered. A password can also be placed over the user mode as well, to prevent access by unauthorized users.

Tab-Completion of commands is supported, as well as ? inquires. If you type “con?” and press enter, the possible commands that begin with “con” will be displayed. If you type “config ?” sub commands that can be sent to config will be shown. This is handy if you forget your commands.

When a router first powers on, it goes through a Power On Self Test by loading a small ROM chip. This mode seeks out an IOS image file, which is the actual OS. The OS is usually stored on Flash memory.

To configure the router, you have to type “enable” to switch into Privlaged mode, then type “config term”. Then you can begin to configure other interfaces (more on that later).

Once you’re done with changing your configuration, you can save it to your startup config file by typing “copy run start”. You can also erase your config by typing “erase start”.

That’s all for now. More on the way.

CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Networking Associate. It serves as a foundation for other higher level certifications, such as the CCNP and CCIE. The school I recently graduated from provided me with all the knowledge I needed to prepare to take and pass the CCNA exam. Sad thing is, I never attempted to take the test, and essentially decided to opt myself out of it. I just didn’t really feel motivated enough. I was actually de-motivating myself a lot, so was my former employer (I hear they lost two major contracts and they laid off 50 people…had something to do with trying to save money on screws, I think. Darn!)

Let me explain a little more. I used to work for a factory that manufactures garage doors. I worked their for nearly 4 years, starting as a temp and working my way up to staff trainer in under 2 years. Then, one day the training department I was in was downsized. They tried to cover up what they were doing by slotting all trainers who were in soon-to-be-eliminated positions into available department lead positions and told them it was only going to be temporary. I was told that I would be in charge of the warehouse. The WAREHOUSE! Telling 10 other forklift operators what to do and cutting off my personal time even more (preventing me from going to school) didn’t sound like something I was just going to casually let them do to me; I didn’t feel like working 50 or 60 hours a week. So I told them I would rather demote myself than work in a position I didn’t feel interested in fulfilling. They obliged, and my pay was cut by about 3 dollars an hour. I had decided at that point I wasn’t going to work in a garage door factory for the rest of my life, and immediately began investigating their tuition reimbursement program…

I graduated from Kaw Area Technical School about 2 months after leaving that place, continuing to work on the weekends for the data center. And for me, that was enough to survive and pay the bills. I have had ambitions about starting my own tech support business, and as such I kinda slacked off when it came to having a desire to pay the 150 some dollars to take the final CCNA exam. I had already gotten a tech job in a good place with a good boss, and was happy basically taking it easy for a while. I partially felt that if I had kept in step with some other classmates after graduation that I might end up charging my way into being employed for more of the same types of people I despised when working at that garage door factory, which would also conflict with my desire to be completely self employed someday. I would tell myself, “If I’m my own boss, who cares what’s on my resume.” Kinda naive of me, but hey, live and let live. I’m only 25; I’ve got some time on my hands….

Recently, I’ve been churning up my desire to nail that CCNA certification to my wall, as well as go beyond it. CCNP is a must and I’ve also become interested in seeing what there is to get out of a CISSP certification. But that’s way down the road.

I am going to crash through the entire CCNA curriculum tonight, tomorrow evening and through the weekend, and report my progress here. I also intend to write a very skeleton sort of description of many concepts learned. I’ll then take the test, pass and post about my success here for you to read. This shouldn’t be very difficult for me, since most of the networking concepts taught are second nature to me these days.

So stay tuned. You’re going to get schooled in computer networking, and learn a few useful things you could use in the future. I’ll try to make it fun for ya too.

This blog is divided into four parts:

1. Setting up your wired Internet Connection.
2. Troubleshooting wired Connections.
3. Setting up your wireless adapter.
4. Installing Firestarter Firewall.

Let’s get started with the first topic.

Internet Connection Setup in Ubuntu (Wired)

Before I go into this detailed technical babble, I want to go over a basic check list for connectivity to the Internet.

• Cable/DSL modem is powered on and is authenticated with your ISP (meaning, the “Cable” or “DSL” light on the front is on solid, and you have a good connection to your ISP).
• Your cable modem is directly attached to your PC Ethernet port via a Cat5 Ethernet cable. If you have more than one PC in your house and you own a router see the next item:
• Your Cable/DSL modem is attached to your router’s up link port via a Cat5 cable, and your PC is attached to one of the routers down link ports.
• Once again: DOUBLE CHECK YOUR PHYSICAL LAYER and make sure everything is correctly connected.

Kind of like this:

The above is the standard connection scheme of a home network. If you have done the above, shoot for the moon and try to open Firefox and visit www.google.com. If it says the page can’t be displayed, try clicking (inside of Firefox) Edit>Preferences and then select the Advanced catagory at the top-far-right, and then click the Network tab (see below).

From there, click on the Settings button within the Connection zone of the window. This window will then appear:

From here, make sure the “Auto-Detect Proxy Settings” radio button is selected (as above). Then hit OK.

Now, close Firefox, restart it and attempt to visit www.google.com again. If it still doesn’t work, read below to troubleshoot your connection:

Connection Troubleshooting
(skip if you’re not having any problems)

Typical Internet users have to have the following equipment in order to get access to the Internet:

1. A modem (Could be dial up, could be DSL, could be cable. All three perform the same basic function: Modulate and demodulate data as it is sent to and received from your Internet Service Provider, as well as assign you one single IP address).
2. An Ethernet Adapter.
3. A Router (required if you have more than one computer in the house and you want them to access the Internet simultaneously).

Another networking device that is similar to a router, but inadequate for Internet connection management between more than one computer, is a Hub. Hubs are devices that do absolutely no routing of traffic with IP address, but instead, can only route traffic based on MAC addresses. Hubs were originally designed for LAN networks that did not need Internet access; only shared access between local, in-house computers. Hubs are also bad for security reasons, since they are nothing more than repeaters that echo all traffic out of every port on the device.

Basic Internet connectivity requires IP address routing capability (a router, in other words), as well as default gateway and DNS addresses to either be known in advanced, or (much more often) auto-configured by the modem/router using DHCP. In Ubuntu, DHCP is enabled on all Ethernet devices by default. This means that when you turn your computer on, it should ask the router (or cable/DSL modem) “What is my IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway supposed to be?” And the router replies and assigns the client PC an unused IP address along with the rest of the requested information. In this way, multiple computers on a LAN can be dynamically assigned IP addresses by the router as they are needed.

So the first thing you should check is if your computer is being assigned an IP address by the router at all. A quick way to do this is to open Applications>Accessories>Terminal, and once it is open, type in “ifconfig” (which is short for Interface Config). The readout will look similar to this:

In the above screenshot, you’ll see interface names listed down the left side (in this case, there are only two shown: eth0 and lo — which stands for “loopback”). These names vary depending on the type of networking device you are using. Another example: if you had more than one Ethernet adapter in your computer, you would likely see the second one listed here as “eth1″.

To the right of “eth0″ we see a lot of information written out for us. The “inet addr:” is your Local IP address. (In the above example, the IP address assigned to the computer is 192.168.73.129). If you have an address here, then that means your router/modem properly assigned you an address while booting your PC. If you don’t see an ip address here, you can attempt to force your router to assign you one by typing in “dhcpcd eth0″ and pressing enter.  (Note: dhcpcd is not installed by default.  To installed it from terminal, type “sudo apt-get install dhcpcd”).

An alternative place to check and see if you are being assigned an IP address is System>Administration>Network Tools applet:

Unlike the ifconfig command, you can only view the IP addressing information for one network device at a time in here. And other than that, you can’t do much here when it comes to setting up your device.

The other place to check your network settings is in System>Administrator>Network. In here, you should select your Ethernet device and make sure it is in “Roaming Mode”, which places the device into DHCP mode.

If you’re still not able to get an IP address assigned to your networking interface then the cause might be a bad cable, the modem/router may need to be reset or your network interface is broken or unsupported (rare). E-mail me if you are still having trouble.

Setting up a wireless adapter

Wireless adapters in the world of Linux have a history of incompatibility looming over them that still makes people hesitant to bother even trying Linux out because it’s thought the probability of their wireless adapter working out of the box is low. That presumption is gradually moving further and further away from the truth, and thanks to Ubuntu’s Restricted Drivers Manager, it’s moving by leaps and bounds.

For starts, check your Update Manager to ensure your system is running with the latest set of drivers and kernel headers, as well as updated software. You can do this by running System>Administrator>Update Manager. The next thing you’ll want to do is check System>Administrator>Restricted Drivers Manager to see if your wireless device uses proprietary binary drivers that need to be enabled. That might sound like a bunch of Greek, but after you open Restricted Drivers Manager, all you have to do is check off any un-checked items, and restart your computer. In most cases your device will work instantly upon reboot.

The next step to getting your wireless device connected to a wireless network is to tell it which one you want to connect to. A program that makes this simple is called WiFi Radar and it allows you to browse the airwaves for nearby access points and authenticate with them if you have the proper encryption key.

The fastest way to install Wifi Radar is to open a Terminal window and type in the following:

• sudo apt-get install wifi-radar

You can now open WiFi Radar by clicking Applications>Internet>WiFi Radar.

Once you have WiFi Radar loaded, all you have to do select the WiFi Network you would like to connect to from a list of detected networks, click connect, and then type in any necessary WEP/WPA encryption passwords. I would strongly recommend you configure your router to use WPA encryption, as WEP is an old, obsolete encryption method which can be hacked in a matter of minutes. WPA is much stronger.

SPECIAL NOTE ON WIRELESS LAPTOPS: If you have a laptop with a wireless adapter built in, check your BIOS settings to make sure the device is enabled when the computer is first turned on, and that the ability to switch it on and off can be done by the operating system, and not by the user. A friend of mine once brought me a Dell Dimensions 1300 and we couldn’t figure out why his wireless adapter was being detected properly, but no wireless networks were being displayed for us to select from. I was stumped when I first came across this problem, but after changing the BIOS settings as noted above, I had no problems with it after that. In most cases, wireless devices on some laptops can be controlled by what’s called a soft-switch, usually a keyboard combination like Functionkey-F2, a media button or a physical switch to enable and disable the card.

I can’t go into much detail about setting up your wireless router, but I can give you a check list of things to do to help you set it up and secure it. Configuring these settings into your router will be up to you, so consult with the manual of your router to find out how you can configure it manually. In most cases, you have to type “192.168.1.1″ or a similar IP address into the address bar in a web browser like Firefox, and then enter the default Admin password.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when setting up your wireless network:

• Use WPA encryption if possible, and not WEP.
• Consider adding MAC address filters to prevent unwanted users from attaching to your router.
• Once you have your wireless adapter configured to connect to your wireless network correctly, disable ESSID broadcasting.
• Change the routers Administrator password. For added security, make it something different from your WPA encryption password.
• Write your WPA and Admin passwords down on a post-it note and stick it to the bottom of your router. (This sounds self-defeating in terms of security, but if a person can physically touch your router and you don’t want them messing with it, you should find a better place to put it. Because all they have to do to give you a headache is press the reset button).

Installing and Running Firestarter Firewall Software

Firestarter is an effective, lightweight and easy to use firewall administration program that allows you to monitor active connections between your computer and others, set access rules and otherwise help make your system more secure. Firestarter also allows you to easily setup Internet Connection Sharing if you have multiple networking devices available.

To install Firestarter, type the following into terminal:

• sudo apt-get install firestarter

Once installed, you can find this application in your System>Administration menu. The program has documentation located here, including a simple introductory tutorial.  To get it to run when you boot, click System>Preferences>Session. Click on the Add button, then in the “command” line, type “firestarter” all lower-case, and you should also name it firestarter as well. Once you have those two fields populated, click ok, and that’s it!

As always, drop me a comment or e-mail if you have questions or feedback.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to edit your Grub boot menu so you can change your default OS!

So you went to Ubuntu.com, downloaded the latest Ubuntu Live CD ISO file from their website and burned it to a CD. You booted from that CD, waited for the desktop to appear, and double clicked on the Install icon. 40 minutes later, your hard drive is partitioned and ready to boot Ubuntu for the first time. Congratulations!

But now what?!

As you might have noticed, the desktop and software installed with Ubuntu by default is a bit bland. I’ve written the following guide for two reasons:

• To make installing some popular software a breeze.
• To expose you to different ways software can be installed in Ubuntu (a.k.a., “get your learn on.”)

So we’re going to jazz up our Ubuntu and learn about installing software by doing the following:

1. Running Update Manager.
2. Install Flash, Java, Windows Media Codecs, MS fonts in 4 clicks!
3. Install Compiz Fusion’s Advanced Settings Manager with one more click.
4. Reveal Archive Manager in the Accessories menu.
5. Install Phatch from a *.deb file.
6. Bonus Challenge: Install Google Earth using Terminal

Yeah! We want something more like the above screenshot. And most important of all: we want to get all of this stuff installed with ease. I said EASE! As in ridiculously simple to do. So lets get started!

1.) Run Update Manager
Difficultly: Very Easy

• Tip: To make the rest of this go faster, only pay attention to the bulleted text in bold. Like this right here. [/ Robert DeNiro]

The reason I have listed this first is simple: Typically, Ubuntu ISO images are a tad bit older than the current distribution. Therefore on a fresh install your Linux Kernel is likely out of date along with a lot of other software, and as a result your system may be vulnerable or may not be detecting all of the hardware in your computer. If this is a fresh install, you probably have at least 200 MB worth of updates you will be asked to download and install. If you are not having any hardware compatibility issues right now (as in: everything appears to be working correctly), then you can do this step last (since installing that many updates can take some time).

Running Update manager is about as easy as sitting on your hands, since it automatically checks for updates each time you turn your computer on. However, you can force this process to occur sooner by running it manually:

• Click System>Administration>Update Manager
• Click on the “Check” button to check for updates

If there are updates available, you simply click “Install” to install them. Piece of cake.

*Note: If you’re still having hardware issues after installing all of your updates, you should check in System>Administration>Restricted Drivers Manager to see if there are any devices that need to be enabled.

2.) Install Flash, Java, Win32 Video Codecs, DVD playback (and more) in just four clicks!
Difficultly: Very Easy

Did you think installing all that software is going to take you a half hour? With Ubuntu, installing software is very simple. To get started, do the following:

• Click Applications>Add/Remove…

Now that you have the Add/Remove Software app open, do the following:

• Change the “Show:” drop menu in the upper right corner to “All Available Applications”
• Search for the word “restricted” while the “All” software category is highlighted (should already be by default, as shown below):

• Once the search returns its results, check off the box next to “Ubuntu Restricted Extras”
• Sit tight, and don’t click the Apply Changes button just yet…

Ok, we’re half way done. That probably took you… a minute? Wipe that sweat off your brow, we got Compiz Advanced Settings Manager to install next.

*Notice: It has been brought to my attention that the DVD decoder included with the above mentioned Ubuntu Restricted Extra’s package is inadequate for playback of encrypted DVD’s (the kind you buy from the store). If you encounter such problems with DVD playback, this guide will show you how to install the libdvdcss2 package. Also, you may have heard a rumor that installing this package is illegal. If someone tells you this, refer them to 17 U.S.C. Sec. 1201(f). The binaries to crack the encryption are not illegal if you have a license to the content. (i.e., if you have a legit DVD, you have license to watch it.) After all, the content must be decrypted in order to make the content usable.

3.) Install Compiz Advanced Settings manager
Difficultly: Very Easy

Compiz Fusion is included by default with Ubuntu, but its super-advanced control panel is not. Need of this advanced control panel comes up if you are a power user who wants to use the 3D window management features to the max, which means turning your desktop into a rotating cube, among other things. You can also greatly customize your special effects, animations and window behaviors using this control panel. So let throw it on!

• After you’ve checked off Ubuntu Restricted Extras in the above step, do another search for the word “compiz”

• Check off “Advanced Desktop Effects Settings”
• Click the Apply Changes button in the lower right corner.

Once installed, this advanced control panel can be found in System>Preferences>Advanced Desktop Effects Settings. Your Restricted Ubuntu Extras package will also be installed.

*Notice: You will want to make sure you have visual effects enabled in System>Preferences>Appearence>Visual Effects before using the above control panel you’ve installed.

4. Enable (reveal) your Archive Manager to create zip files.
Difficultly: Very Easy

Some of you might be wondering: How can I create a zip file? The answer is with the included Archive Manager. This tool (for some weird reason) isn’t shown in the Applications>Accessories menu by default. But we can reveal it very easily by doing the following:

• Click System>Preferences>Main Menu
• Click on the Accessories menu in the left panel, then check off the Archive Manager (see below). Then click Close.

That it! Now when you open your accessories menu, you’ll be presented with a new shortcut to your Archive Manager. You can use this utility to create zip files. Keep in mind that it can also create other types of archives, such as tar.gz, so you should specify your desired file type when you create a new archive.

5.) Install Phatch - Batch Photo Management Software
Difficultly: Very Easy

Recently, I was looking around for a program that I could use that would allow me to resize multiple photos at the same time. This is what’s called a “Batch Conversion”. So I found a program called Phatch that does this job very well. To install it, you have to download the deb installer.

• Click here to download the Phatch deb file. Save it to your desktop for now.
• Find the deb file you just downloaded and double click on it.

After you double click on the deb file, this window will appear:

At this point, all you have to do is click the Install button in the upper right-hand corner. Once installed, you’ll be able to find the program in the Applications>Graphics menu.

I would also suggest that when installing programs via deb installer files, to save these deb files to a permanent location before running them. Simply clicking “Run” in Firefox will cause the file to be stored in a temporary cache folder, which could cause your deb file to possibly disappear mid-way through an installation. So saving it to your desktop and double-clicking on the file from there is the preferred method. Once you are done with the deb file, you can delete it.

6.) CHALLENGE - Install Google Earth
Difficultly: Medium

I threw this into the list because I wanted to give you a little exposure to the terminal. Don’t freak out! You’re just going to copy and paste some text so calm your ass down.
First thing you have to do is download Google Earth. To do that, visit this link: http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

After you agree to the license, you’ll be taken to a new page where an automatic download will begin and ask you what you want to do with a file called GoogleEarthLinux.bin. Simply save this file to your Desktop for now.

Next we’ll need to open up a terminal window. A terminal window is similar to DOS in that it is a Command Line Interface. To open Terminal, do the following:

• Click Applications>Accessories>Terminal

When you first open terminal you’ll be given a prompt where you can enter commands. You also will be sitting in your Home Folder. If you type in the letters “ls” (That’s ls, short for the word “list”, in lowercase), you’ll be shown the files and folders in your home folder. Notice that one of them is called “Desktop”. We need to change our directory so we can run our GoogleEarthLinux.bin file. To do this:

• Type “cd Desktop” (no quotes) and hit enter.

In the world of Linux, everything is case-sensitive, so be sure to capitalize the word “Desktop” in the above command. This command will bring you to your desktop. If you type “ls” again and hit enter, you’ll see the files which reside on your desktop right now. Listed in it somewhere should be the bin file you just downloaded.

Now for the magic!

• In terminal, type: “sh GoogleEarthLinux.bin” (no quotes) and hit enter.

After you press enter, the following window will appear, and begin to install Google Earth for you:

Shortly after the above screen appears, you’ll get another one that says the program successfully installed. You’ll then be given the option to run Google Earth right away. If you don’t want to, you can just click Quit, and start it later by going to Applications>Internet>Google Earth.

Well, that wraps up this little list. There are plenty of other applications out there worth installing, such as Pidgin, Audacity, Avidemux and many more. Most of these programs can be installed using the Add/Remove applet which we used to install our Ubuntu Restricted Extras with. Simply searching for the program will likely produce a result that you can simply check off install with a couple clicks. Sure beats the hell out of looking through a filing cabnet for a software CD or a serial number (see: Windows software).

Oh yeah, one more thing. You can’t have a bad ass operating system without a bad ass wallpaper to go with it:

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/index.php?sort=ratings

And here’s another great link for some wallpapers:

http://abduzeedo.com/20-beautiful-hdr-pictures?=main

Have fun with your Ubuntu!

by Richard Stallman

There are general reasons why all computer users should insist on free software. It gives users the freedom to control their own computers—with proprietary software, the computer does what the software owner wants it to do, not what the software user wants it to do. Free software also gives users the freedom to cooperate with each other, to lead an upright life. These reasons apply to schools as they do to everyone.

But there are special reasons that apply to schools. They are the subject of this article.

First, free software can save the schools money. Even in the richest countries, schools are short of money. Free software gives schools, like other users, the freedom to copy and redistribute the software, so the school system can make copies for all the computers they have. In poor countries, this can help close the digital divide.

This obvious reason, while important, is rather shallow. And proprietary software developers can eliminate this disadvantage by donating copies to the schools. (Watch out!—a school that accepts this offer may have to pay for future upgrades.) So let’s look at the deeper reasons.

School should teach students ways of life that will benefit society as a whole. They should promote the use of free software just as they promote recycling. If schools teach students free software, then the students will use free software after they graduate. This will help society as a whole escape from being dominated (and gouged) by megacorporations. Those corporations offer free samples to schools for the same reason tobacco companies distribute free cigarettes: to get children addicted (1). They will not give discounts to these students once they grow up and graduate.

Free software permits students to learn how software works. When students reach their teens, some of them want to learn everything there is to know about their computer system and its software. That is the age when people who will be good programmers should learn it. To learn to write software well, students need to read a lot of code and write a lot of code. They need to read and understand real programs that people really use. They will be intensely curious to read the source code of the programs that they use every day.

Proprietary software rejects their thirst for knowledge: it says, “The knowledge you want is a secret—learning is forbidden!” Free software encourages everyone to learn. The free software community rejects the “priesthood of technology”, which keeps the general public in ignorance of how technology works; we encourage students of any age and situation to read the source code and learn as much as they want to know. Schools that use free software will enable gifted programming students to advance.

The next reason for using free software in schools is on an even deeper level. We expect schools to teach students basic facts, and useful skills, but that is not their whole job. The most fundamental mission of schools is to teach people to be good citizens and good neighbors—to cooperate with others who need their help. In the area of computers, this means teaching them to share software. Elementary schools, above all, should tell their pupils, “If you bring software to school, you must share it with the other children.” Of course, the school must practice what it preaches: all the software installed by the school should be available for students to copy, take home, and redistribute further.

Teaching the students to use free software, and to participate in the free software community, is a hands-on civics lesson. It also teaches students the role model of public service rather than that of tycoons. All levels of school should use free software.

1. RJ Reynolds tobacco company was fined $15m in 2002 for handing out free samples of cigarettes at events attended by children. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/features/health/tobaccotrial/usa.htm.

Copyright © 2003 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

“Mainstream Media” is a term used to describe any major news publication (TV/Newspaper/Magazine, etc.) which is well known and arguably influential. Examples include CNN, the New York times, Time Magazine and many more. Each of these publications take pride in the work and material that they produce and do what they can to avoid tarnishing their own reputation and their public image. Each also have distinguishable differences in style, professionalism and journalistic integrity. But nearly all of these types of media suffer from a few common (perhaps fatal) flaws. Flaws such as: lack of objectivity (”embedded journalism”), sensationalism (lets talk about Britney Spears for a half hour, then talk about spring break in Cancun for a half hour after that), concision (that’s all the time we have folks/”cut his mic”), censorship (war is ugly, lets avoid showing it), and occasionally misrepresentation of public opinion/concerns (the questions selected by CNN for their recent Youtube debate. Really, do you wanna talk about immigration for over a half hour?).

Such flaws exist for a variety of reasons. The most prominent reason involves advertisers or special interest groups who pay the owners of news publications to run ads. For example, if a news paper has an account with Nike, but decides to run a story which reflects negatively on Nike’s use of child labor in the Dominican Republic, the news paper faces the possibility of Nike retracting that advertising account and taking their money somewhere else. In addition, such news publication companies also have their own obligation to keep a tight lid on negative criticism against the internal business activities of their owners. NBC is owned by General Electric, which has been known in the past to be not so environmentally friendly. Naturally, you probably didn’t see NBC saying much about GE being obligated to clean PCB contamination on a 40 mile stretch of the Hudson River a few years ago. A more recent example might be CNN’s negative criticism of Michael Moore’s movie Sicko, while CNN was/is simultaneously receiving large amounts of advertising dollars from pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly or Pfizer. These are just a few examples. (On the Internet: A recent controversy over the firing of an editor who worked for Gamespot.com resulted in a widespread boycott of the website by many of it’s regular visitors after it was suspected that he was fired for giving a poor review to a game which Gamespot was paid well by Eidos to advertise on its website).

Another flaw which I personally detest about television news in particular is its linearity; the progression from one story to another with a selection of stories that you didn’t actually select. You are forced to sit down and watch whatever the media tells you is important that day. There is little if any interactivity or feedback available from other viewers that you can read in real-time, and again, time constraints severely limit the depth of coverage on any given topic in the first place.

With such conflicts between commercial interests and public interests, it can be debated that the mainstream media we’ve been raised to admire and respect might not be representing the public it purports to be serving as best as it could. Granted, no form of media is flawless and it is ultimately the responsibility of the viewer to triangulate multiple news sources and judge reality for themselves. But it’s difficult to do when the traditional news sources skew their coverage of reality because they are more interested in taking money from advertisers instead of volunteer to fulfill any sort of moral obligations on behalf of the viewers.

The good news is that there is change on the horizon, and it greatly involves the Internet. I’d like to focus on one particular website for a moment which I’ve been a fan of for a little over a year. That website is Digg.com.

Digg is a community-driven social bookmarking website. The way it works is simple:

1. Digg users submit links to web pages containing something interesting (such as a news story, youtube video or a picture).
2. Other Digg users are able to view the link, and if they like it, can “Digg it” (essentially, vote for it).
3. If the diversity of users who digg a story is wide, it will hit the front page sooner. And if the number of those digs take off after hitting the front page, it’ll end up in the top-ten list for a short period of time.

If a user submits a link to something inaccurate or obscene, other users can vote to bury the submitted story.

I am not bringing Digg up to promote it exclusively. There are other websites out there that function in very similar fashion, such as Reddit.com. The point of all this is that the popularity of Digg and other such sites has been increasing and similar clone websites have been creeping up to cater to different audiences. Why are such websites gaining in popularity? Well, primarily because of the ability for the public (the users) to rank the importance, legitimacy or popularity of any given item submitted, and feel more participatory in the process of bringing important things to the attention of others. This is much different than sitting down to watch the 6 o’clock news to listen to 10 or 15 stories you have no say in selecting, nor have any idea how much other viewers/readers actually care about any given subject.

With social bookmarking websites, the source of the news stories is more open. You could call it open-source news, much in the same way that Wikipedia is an open-source encyclopedia, or Linux being an open source operating system. Another term used to describe this kind of productivity model is “crowdsourcing.”

The next ingredient you can add into this is the blogosphere. Granted, a majority of blogs out there are opinion oriented, but quality of these opinions can be taken into account before a person diggs or votes in favor of a blog. Another factor you can take in is Youtube, or more specifically, freelance video news coverage of public events not closely covered or even looked at by the mainstream media. A few people actually do this professionally, but more often than not, cell phones are being used to document events in public places. The quality of these types of small video cameras is getting better, and having a video of something controversial instead of just writing about it can make all the difference. I think one thing we’re going to see during the presidential elections in 2008 are the use of cell phones to root out flaws in electronic voting systems or people potentially cheating, and stuff like that.

In the future, the mainstream media will still have a role to play. But as the popularity of such community driven methods of news reporting evolve and become more popular, mainstream media will find itself in fierce competition and under constant surveillance by the public (as is the current trend on Digg right now).