AVG Free 8

I just finished reinstalling windows on my brothers computer, and i have started completely from scratch. I started off by installing my standard programs, I started with Spybot Search-and-Destroy, then I moved to CCleaner. I stopped and though, which free antivirus do I want to use? I have previously used AVG, and had never been impressed by it, by never under satisfied, it always did a good job, so I installed it. After it installed I was impressed by the new UI, and, it looked very easy to use. Ease of use normally isn't a problem for me, but this is my brother's computer so... I rebooted(ugh, why did I have to!!), and it started up, and updated right away. First complaint - why didn't the installer do updates?

The AVG screen had shown a problem before I updated, and after I updated it still showed a problem. The problem was, the updater was not set up to do automatic updates, and when I tried to configure it, it wouldn't allow me to do anything but update at a specific time. There was another option, but it was disabled. That is my second problem with it.

I enabled updating at some time, which is a problem, because the computer will be off most of the time, but, I can't stand it when things say there is something wrong, so, that is my solution. I decided to try out the virus scanner, so I started the scan, and I was impressed by the small amount of memory it was using, but, when I opened up firefox, the processor spiked, and all the computer's fans turned on at full speed, and that has never happened before. I quickly closed firefox, but the problem persisted, until i closed the scanner. So, I have not completed a full scan with it yet, and, I am not sure if I ever will, because, I always multitask while on the computer, and I don't like to let it sit there unmonitored when it is doing things, especially when anybody can use the computer, but I know I'm just being paranoid.

So, I was impressed at first, but the functionality of the software is not, umm, it isn't working out for me.

I did forget to met ion, it doesn't kill system resources while running in the background, which is a problem I usually have with antivirus software.

The Future of Graphic User Interfaces

What will a users computing experience be like in 10 years? Will everything be 3d?

There are multiple different possibilities I see being possible:

• Cell-Phone-like menu progression, everything leads to something else.
• 3d window managers, like today's navigation, except with lots of 3d, but still will have individual windows and menus etc. I think a great example of this would be the Croquet Project in which you are an avatar that runs around and manipulates 3d objects. This could also mean, exactly the same as today's interface, with the mouse and everything, but have even more graphical effects.
• Very simple 2d interfaces, although very unlikely, with the new idea of cloud computing, computers may become very simple and have very little memory. (cloud computing is the idea that everybody will use online services and store all of their files on an external server, all of the software would be web-based, and the computers that clients used would be think-clients).

I see a Croquet-Like interface to be the interface type of the future! I think that people are going to want to be able to interact with their environment, like it is the real world. It could make all computing like a video game. Think about that! A productivity video game!

I also think it would be possible for an interface like a standard cell phone, meaning, it would have menus that are aligned sequentially, so, for example, you start at a home screen, then you navigate to a setings menu, then to a sounds menu, etc. I do not think this interface type would be the "primary" interface type, but would be used along with an interface like Croquet.

Maine

We are in maine now, and so far I like it! The gas is a bit more expensive... Lots of mosquitos. No moose yet, mabye later. I think this will be a fun trip!

Flash in Firefox 3 on Fedora 9

so, I was trying all of these commands that linked the flash-plugin.so file or whatever to you firefox directory, but none of them worked.

Here is the command for fedora 9 with libflashplayer installed:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so <pathh-to-were-firefox-is-installed>/flashplugin.so

Firefox is probably installed in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0b5

Opera 9.50 Beta 2 vs. Firefox 3.0b5

Wow, this is a very hard comparison, but I would first like to point out that I am a firefox fan, but I have drifted over to Opera a bit since I updated to Fedora 9 with Firefox 3.0b5. Firefox 3.0b5 is intended to be faster, but fir me it is slower than the older versions. Opera is very very fast. The new design of Firefox is very nice, I don't really like the way Opera looks. Firefox has spell check install by default, Opera doesn't, you have to instal GNU Aspell to get spell check, and that probably has some advantages, but not when you want spell chexk to work without any hassle. Firefox addons are cool, I don't like the Opera widgets. Widgets are for a Desktop, not a browser. I have not been able to get Flash to work in Firefox, It works without any work in Opera. I don't really have a strong opinion either way, They are both wonderful broswers, I am very excited about the final releases of both of them.

Note: I am typing this in Opera, without spell check, thats what brought me to bring up that point.

My Views on Fedora 9

Well, I've installed Fedora 9 now, and I have really started to get an opinion about it. There are things I like, and things I don't like. First of all, I think it would have been beneficial to wait for Firefox 3 to come out of beta before releasing this final version of the OS. But, Firefox 3.0b5 isn't TOO bad. I have had a little trouble with it though, for example, NO GOOGLE TOOLBAR! but I guess that isn't Firefox's fault... One other complaint is that I haven't been able to install Flash yet, but I haven't really tried too hard. I like the new wallpapers, however, I have gone back to the plain old "No background" because if I have a background, I get lines all over my screen, I had that problem with openSuse, and it was one of the reasons I switched to Fedora. It seems like the graphics drivers aren't neer as good as the old ones, especailly with my Intel integrated graphics... I had a little trouble with the installer, because I don't understand LVM, and there wasn't an option to partition your drive to have a seperate partition for /home. The interface is very clean, thank you Gnome. That is one of the things I like, the new Gnome. I haven't played with KDE 4 yet, but I'm more of a Gnome person anyway. Overall, my experience has been pretty good, except for the couple of things have listed :)

Have fun with Fedora 9!

Video Drivers in Fedora 9 not as good as in version 8!

The video drivers are not as good for my Intel Integrated Graphics as the old ones were! I was very excited when switching from openSuse, which drew lines, to Fedora 8, which didn't, and now, fedora 9 is doing it... This makes me very sad... I guess its another excuse though, for me to buy a new video card.