$100.00 Laptop!

I want this! Can I use Time Machine to go back to be a child, and get it and bring it to the present?

It is a good DEAL! $100.00 for a laptop! They look awesome and cool. I really want it. Sigh, I don’t know if I will ever qualified to get it anyway. Good for children, they deserve for a great deal! They are operated on Linux, not Windows… Well, right now it is only distrbuted to schools directly through large government initiatives.

This initiative was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005. The website is One Laptop per Child.

What is the $100 Laptop, really?The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display—both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data.

There is also another picture of the cute laptop, can be found here at OLPCWiki

What is Linux?

Simply put: It is a free open-source Unix operating system (OS). It was created by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish university student in 1991. He used Minix, another Unix-like OS to teach operating system designs, but for some reason, Tanenbaum, the creator of Minix, did not permit others to extend his OS, so Linus decided to create his own kernel/OS, inpspired the creaton of Minix to allow extend it. At first he named it Freax, but later coined to Linux by Ari Lemmke.

Today, all over the world, people who are geeks, computer/network administrators, or developers use Linux to play around, write open-source applications as well as create their own operating system. Some businesses use Linux as the server. Why? Because it is stable (I will talk about stability in a bit). Not only server they use, but also use Linux as their default OS on their computer. Linux is a fast-growing OS. Since 1991, IBM, Novell, and Sun Microsystem, Heward-Packard support Linux. Novell has its own operating system called SUSE Linux. Oracle is in talk of owning their own Linux operating system. It has not decided yet. There are over 25 of Linux operating systems, a few to name:

Mandrake
Red Hat/Fedora
Debian
Linspire
Gentoo
Slackware
Damn Small Linux
Ubuntu

Actually, there are more. I couldn't name it all! I have tried SUSE and Fedora. I like both. I will try others, and they are FREE! Well, only one or two, maybe three are not free but cheap!

What is good about Linux?

Of course, it is free! It comes with great and free applications, such as Firefox (Internet Browser, Gimp (image editor, similiar to Adobe Photoshop), GAIM (Multi-Protcol Instant Messaging – AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, G'Talk, and many more), and Openoffice Office suite (similiar to Microsoft Office). They are excellent applications. They don't only work in Linux, but also work in Windows or Mac. You can download them. I have used them for years now. Also you can get many free open-source and great applications over Internet.

Linux is more stable and secure. It doesn't crashes often. You don't have to restart the computer after you installed applications like Microsoft Windows does. It does not attract viruses or spyware.

The images below based on the web server in Linux and Windows. Linux uses Apache and Windows uses IIS (Internet Information Services). That tells how vulnerable it is. As quoted from one source: The more system calls, the greater potential for vulnerability, the more effort needed to create secure applications. You will see the big difference between two servers below:

Linux Server

Windows Server

I am a rookie user of Linux myself. At first, it was hard to understand how Linux operates. It is not the same way as Windows operates. Linux uses different commands. But once you get to know Linux better, you will be greatly doing fine! I read a lot of articles about Linux, and how Linux works, etc. I have bought the bible of Linux. It is nice. I am still learning how to use it. It will take a while… But I am a quick learner. If you are a quick learner and very eagered to learn new things, it would be good for you. You always keep your Windows on your side, but you can fool around with Linux on the other side if you ever get tired of Windows. You can turn to Linux for a change.

Oh…. What does Mac and Linux have in common? They are in the same family of Unix, one of the oldest operating systems. See, Mac has a good stability. It does not attract viruses or spywares. It does not crash often. Ahh, yeah I said the same thing about Linux. Of course, they are based on Unix.

If you decide to try Linux, there are many help forums. websites, and downloads for Linux … I will list a few good links for you check out…

Linux Newbie User Help
All about Linux
Linux Online

Bad-Ass CPU! I want that! And Linspire Mini, too!

Check the bad-ass computer! Wow, how beautiful it is! This CPU has:

Dell XPS 600 Renegade

4.26 GHZ, Extreme Edition Dual-core processor
Four graphic cards – NiVidia GeForce 7800 SLI
No definite decision on space drives but possible as one 150GB drive, or two 250GB drives
It is good for gaming users, but hell, I want that because I can view four monitors. Often, I use 5 or 6 programs at the same time. Yeah, I need a SUPER computer!

The monitor you see from the image is 30 inch widescreen display LCD! And a cool keyboard and mouse, too! I am already drooling! LOL!

However, it is not a pretty price! $9,930 per box

Dang! I wish I am rich enough to buy that bad-ass computer!

You know Mac Mini comes out a couple of years ago…now a few PCs (Personal Computers) have the mini-alike as the Mac Mini. I mentioned once that PC Intel has created a mini computer on my blogspot, but I haven't heard if it has came out or not.

Now Linux go mini! Linspire is the OS (Operating System) on the Mini computer. Linspire Mini looks sleek like Mac Mini… nice… I like Linux myself. Maybe this summer, I will try Linspire. Right now I am using OpenSUSE, one of Linux family. But I will switch over to Fedora. It just released a new version of Fedora. I hope to set up that up on my computer this weekend. There are many names in Linux family. I will tell you all about Linux next time, everything, its history, how did it get that name, what is diffent about Linux from other OS, and etc. That mini only costs $399, two hundred dollars cheaper than Mac Mini. Remember, last December, I said that I would buy a Mac Mini. Well, I did not buy one yet. A friend suggested me to wait until Mac Mini Intel came out, so I waited. Well, it just came out not long ago. But the price increased 100 dollars more. Now it is $599. I was planning to buy a faster processor Mini with bigger space and memory. Well, the new Mac Mini with all of that costs $799. It was $699. I guess I have to save a bit more, and I hope to buy one in the summer. I am looking forward to work with Mac!!!