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 The
New, the Best, and the Worst
Collected
by Pim Borman, Webmaster, SW Indiana PC
Users Group, Inc.
http://swipcug.apcug.org swipcug(at)sigecom.net
Watch the Back Door!
Many an afternoon I see a
school bus stopping in the neighborhood to unload students toting enormous bags
of expensive text books on their backs. It always irks me because it seems so
unnecessary. The heavy backpacks put an unhealthy strain on the students'
spines, and the expensive books put a severe strain on family budgets,
especially if there are several children of school age. (Public school students
must pay for their text books in Indiana, in case you're not from around here.)
It would be so much easier
if the students used inexpensive, functional notebook computers with the
textbooks stored on CDs. Ideally, classrooms should be equipped with permanent,
networked units for common use so that the students can leave their own
computers at home to minimize damage and loss during transport. After all, most
colleges already require that students have a computer, so why not start in
high school, or even earlier?
Cost shouldn't be a problem.
A fully functional computer running free Linux and Open Source software can
cost less than a year's worth of textbooks. Acceptance will be harder to come
by, with expected resistance from book publishers about to lose a highly
profitable and captive market. Microsoft may not be happy either. Teachers may
have to be retrained, and administrators, having been weaned on MS Windows, may
oppose the use of what many still regard as a second-best operating
environment.
Often necessity is the
father of invention. Third World countries, only now entering the world of
computing, are the most likely to introduce
revolutionary progress in low-cost personal computer productivity. My own computer, equipped with all the latest
bells and whistles, sits idle for more than 99% of the time. In a Third World
classroom, or maybe a small office, it could easily support a dozen or more
terminals and monitors if provided with the right, free software. History would
repeat itself, since time sharing of computers was first introduced in the
1960's when mainframe computers were also unaffordable for individuals.
Students will only need inexpensive dumb terminals and bare-bones monitors. In
England an organization calling itself Ndiyo (Swahili for “yes”) is working on
this approach. It makes full-fledged computing available to many at low cost.
An alternate approach called
“One Laptop Per Child”, initiated by academics at MIT, aims to provide specially designed laptop
computers at a cost of less than $100 per unit to millions of children in poor
countries. The computing experience is less advanced than with the time sharing
approach, but having your own computer, no matter how primitive, has a strong
psychological advantage. I can testify to that. My first introduction to
computers was via a Telex terminal connected to a time-sharing mainframe that I
used for scientific modeling work. It was useful and interesting, but not
nearly as captivating as running my own simple programs in Sinclair Basic on my
own first ($100) Timex-Sinclair computer.
An essential part of
introducing computers to Third Worlders (and not only school children) is the
availability of free software in the form of Linux and the OpenSource programs
to do just about anything productive that computers are capable of. This in
turn will grow and mature the Linux/OpenSource technology to the point where it
may well return to the West through the back door as an attractive, low-cost
alternative to expensive and bloated Microsoft Windows and Office programs.
(Based in part on an article in The Economist, 9/23/2006, thanks to
Louis Ritz)
A South-African dotcom
millionaire, Mark Shuttleworth, is financing the development of a totally free
distribution of desktop Linux and all the necessary software. Called Ubuntu
(“Humanity to Others”), it is already preferred by many Linux users. It is
totally free. Even the CDs on which it is distributed are mailed to you free
for the asking (www.ubuntu.com).Although possibly intended
for use in Third World countries, Ubuntu is also rapidly gaining followers in
the US. What did I just write about the back door?
What Is Web2.0?
Usually when major
computer-related improvements are forthcoming, they are hyped long before they
actually become available. Have you heard about Vista? I thought so.
Surprisingly, a major
improvement in the Internet Web protocol, Web2.0, seems to have sneaked in
through the back door. And yet, Web2.0 is to the old Web what the telephone was
to the telegraph. With the traditional Web, you send a message, such as a
request for a street map, to a Web address (“www.mapquest.com”) that gets
translated into a numerical Internet Protocol address by a Domain Name Server.
The addressed site responds to your message and the connection is broken. To
send a follow-up message (“zoom in”) the wholeprocess must be repeated.
Slow-slow-slow.
With Web2.0 the connection,
once established, remains open until you close your browser window. This allows
an immediate back-and-forth communication as if the distant Web site were
located on your own computer. It allows you to go to Google Earth and
seamlessly scroll and zoom the maps to your heart's content (provided your
Internet connection is fast enough). It also makes it possible to provide
application programs, such as an Office Suite similar to Microsoft Office, on a
Web server to be made available via a Web2.0 connection. Several providers are
moving in that direction, including Google and Microsoft. News sites can provide live hyperlinks
whereby when your pointer hovers over a headline a summary of the news pops up
on the screen. The possibilities are endless.
Happily, the user doesn't
need to do anything to benefit from this new technology. The Internet servers
provide all the programming that any major Web browser can understand. Enjoy!
How Broad Is Your
Broadband Connection?
Not nearly as fast as you
would like it to be, right? If you have a cable connection and the kid next
door is online playing Doom, or Bully, or whatever, you're sharing online
access and your connection probably crawls. Not much you can do about that. But
you can minimize some other delays.
One of these is the time it
takes your browser to connect to the site you want to address. If you type an
Internet address such as swipcug.apcug.org/index.htm, a Domain Name
Server (DNS) provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) translates
it to the corresponding numerical Internet Protocol (IP) address. Unless
the entry has been cached after having been used before, the lookup procedure
may take some time.
OpenDNS is a new, independent, and free Domain Name Server
that claims to be faster than many ISP servers, mostly by using a very large
cache. In addition it keeps track of known phishing sites and blocks them with a warning message. It will
also try to correct misspellings and still provide the intended Web site, or
suggest possible sites you might be looking for. When I intentionally typed swipcug.apcug.NET (instead of the correct .ORG domain)
I got a choice of four possible sites with the correct one first on the list.
Simple instructions for replacing the default DNS addresses of your ISP with
the OpenDNS addresses can be found at http://welcome.opendns.com/ ( read
Steve Bass in PCWorld, November 2006)
If you want to check the download and upload
speeds of your broadband connection you can use SpeakEasy at http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ As I am writing this, on Friday at 10:45 pm,
my connection speed with Sigecom to Chicago is: Download Speed: 3866 kbps (483.3 KB/sec transfer rate), Upload Speed: 347 kbps (43.4 KB/sec transfer rate), about as good as
it gets in my experience. Speeds to Seattle are similar.
There is no restriction
against any non-profit group using this article as long as it is kept in
context with proper credit given the author. The Editorial Committee of the
Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international
organization of which this group is a member, brings this article to you.
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