Before we set some cookies, let’s look at the flow of messages and responses between your computer, and the server, where the web pages are stored. When you click on a link to go to a web site, your browser sends a “HTTP Header” request to the server for that web page. “HTTP Header” consists of the HTTP, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which describes the communication protocol, or the process of communicating between your computer and the server, and the “Header,” the message that is sent to the server to return a web page. The Header message is variable in length and can get lengthy. The browser sends the HTTP Header, then waits for the server to send a “response header,” followed by the web page. How does the server know that the browser’s Header message is complete so it can respond? A blank line is sent at the end of the HTTP Header. The server when seeing the blank line responds with a “response header,” before passing the page.

Why am I going through this? Because the event that passes the communication baton from browser to server, and back again is a “blank line.” When you pass a cookie to a browser, it is attached to the server’s “response header”, but if a blank line shows up in the web page, before you tell the server to attach the cookie to the response header, you’ll get an error message, something like, “Warning cannot modify header information – headers already sent…” In other words, your command came late, the headers already gone. This can drive you nuts trying to figure out where the bug is in your code, if your not aware of what’s happening. The first thing you want to avoid is a blank line, or even a space at the top of the file before the PHP start tag.

The first step in setting a cookie is to tell the server to attach the cookie to its response header. This is done at the very top of the web page, before any blank lines, or “HTML” or “head” tags, with PHP’s “setcookie” function, like this:

<?php
setcookie( 'message_1', 'I am loaded and ready for bear');
?>

The “setcookie” function can take up to six parameters:

1. name, the name of the cookie, a string, in this case: ‘message_1′ ;

2. value, the value of the cookie, can be a string or number, in this case: ‘I am loaded and ready for bear’ ;

3. expire, when the cookie should expire on the user’s browser. This is expressed in seconds, in linux system time based on seconds since January 1, 1970. I suggest you use a PHP time function, and add to it the number of seconds you’d like the cookie to be active in the browser, or use the browser default, since I’m using Firefox, the browser default is 90 days;

4. path, the path on the server where the cookie will be made available. There’s a lot of files on the server, default is the current path;

5. domain, the domain or url for which the cookie will be available. If you have multiple servers serving pages, on which server will cookie information be made available. The default is the current server.;

6. secure, if you only want the cookie to be sent over a secure connection, like “https://”, set it to “1,” if it’s to be secured, the default is “0,” not secure.

Cookies exist in pairs, a name of the cookie, and its value. The other four parameters are usually not sent, the defaults are used. Normally, only two parameters are passed, name and value.

When your browser receives the cookie from the server it stores it in a set file location on your computer, depending on the browser. When you access that web site again, the browser, if there is a cookie available for that web site, attaches to to the HTTP Header it sends to the server. Cookies are a two-step process, you send it first to set the cookie, and then to get the cookie back you have to ask for the page again.

Ok, we’ve set the cookie in the first response header from the server, how do we get the cookie back from the browser. Well, the cookie, when it comes back, is attached to the HTTP Header, how do we read it? Assuming you’ve refreshed your browser, or asked for the page again. Here’s a block of code to do just that,

// Always check to see if the cookie exists,
// or was not deleted by the user
if (isset($_COOKIE['message_1'])){

   echo "The cookie is loaded: " . $_COOKIE['message_1'] ;
}

If the cookie exists and is set, this will echo: “The cookie is loaded: I am loaded and ready for bear”

You also can set cookies in an array. Here’s an example with the cookie’s expiration time set to 10 days :

setcookie ( "myarray[one]" , "My " , time()+ 60*60*24+10 );
setcookie ( "myarray[two])" , "Funny " , time()+ 60*60*24+10 );
setcookie ( "myarray[three]" , "Valentine ", time()+ 60*60*24+10 );

To retrieve this array, we use a loop thus:

if ( isset($_COOKIE['myarray']) ) {
   foreach ( $_COOKIE['myarray'] as $note ) {
      echo $note ;
   }
}

And the output is: “My Funny Valentine”. And finally you can change a cookies value by calling setcookie() again, or delete the cookie by specifying a time in the past, thus: setcookie( “x”, “” , time() – 3600 ) will delete the cookie.

I mentioned cookies are public. Although, you can not look at them directly with a regular text editor, like notepad, and they can be encrypted, there are cookie management editors you can download to read cookies, and there are TCP/IP tools that you can use to watch the traffic go back and forth to a web site including the cookies with their names and values. Cookies can be useful, just be careful how you use them, and what information you store in them.

Cookies, cookies, cookies, we’ve heard about cookies now for many years, the perenial red herring, used like the threat of a nuclear bomb, to strike fear in the hearts of all who used a personal computer to surf the Internet, maybe not quite that forceful, but never in a favorable light. Cookies were started by Lou Montulli of Netscape in 1994, and they were first used by Netscape to see if a visitor had previously been to their site. Besides the Netscape browser, they were next supported in release 2 of Internet Explorer. Every browser since then has supported cookies. The general public first became aware of cookies early in 1996, and has been suspicious of them ever since then.

Cookies are bits of text information stored on your computer from a site you have visited on the Internet. They are stored in a different folder on your computer depending on what browser you are using, and if you surf the Internet a lot, you can amass quite a few of them. If cookies have such a bad reputation, one has to ask, why do all browsers support cookies?

Cookies offer web site owners and you several advantages. When your browser stores bits of text information from a web page on your computer, it allows the web site to know what page you’ve visited, and choices you’ve made on that page. For example, cookies can keep track what items you have selected in a shopping cart, and keep the list for you, even if don’t return to the site for a couple of weeks or even years, if the cookie is still on your computer. Another example is saving your login information so you don’t have to login every time you return to the site. If you have ever returned to a site, and gotten a “Welcome back, Frank” type of message, you can thank cookies.

For marketing cookies can be used to see what pages you have visited on a web site, the domain or page URL can be stored as you visit every page. Thus was born the often dreaded “DoubleClick” cookie, which can track your Internet usage from one site to the next site and gather a history of your web usage. Some consider this malware, adware, or spyware, whatever you want to call it, and they use programs to remove all the cookies on their computer to “protect” their PC.

And there lies some of the problems with using cookies to retain data. Although cookies are specifically linked to the user, his computer, and his particular browser, they are still, by many, considered to be malware, because they can pass your personal web usage history to marketing organizations, even though, it may seem anomynous, it’s still your history being passed. Cookies are not secure from others, which reminds me to warn you against putting any sensitive user information in cookies. They can be viewed by others.

Users delete cookies with cleaning and malware programs, or by disabling cookies in their browser, because of this, as a way to save information beyond the current session, cookies are unreliable for storing information, and inconsistent in storing information from one user to the next. Besides for marketing reasons, cookies are mainly used to retain user information on a current session. Instead, most websites require a user to log in, and by doing this, the user’s information is retained on the server, instead of on the user’s computer, a safer and quicker way to retain information from one web page to the next, especially for ecommerce.

Nevertheless, cookies can be useful, in retaining information from one page to another when a viewer visits your web site, and thus, they are still in use some 15 years later. Are purpose is to show how to use cookies to store information from one page to the next, which will address in are very next post.

One of the things that separates Windows from Linux or Ubuntu, a Linux distribution, is the way the operating system handles the graphical user interface. Microsoft Windows is an integral part of the operating system. It is integrated with the operating system and at this point, Windows 7, you can’t operate the computer with out the Window’s graphical interface. To be fair, you can still get to the old DOS command line by typing cmd in the run window, but it’s more there for a link to nostalgia, than it is to do day to day operations. In a lot of ways, I miss the DOS command line, I was good at it. Alas, even some of the old DOS commands are missing, like fdisk, for example. That’s all done through the windowing system, now.

In contrast, Linux has two windowing systems, KDE, and the one used in Ubuntu, Gnome. These two windowing systems are independent applications, and more important, they run as applications, just like OpenOffice or a game would run.

Linux consists of a kernal, and another layer that runs user applications, and never the twain shall meet. The kernal uses its own memory space, and each application runs in its own memory segment. If an application needs to access a disk drive, it calls the kernal, the kernal accesses the drive, and passes the information over to the calling applications memory space. Because of this the desktop can crash, say from a video game that has a bug, and it will not bring the computer down. It will just shut down that application, which you can restart from the Linux command line.

In contrast, Microsoft integrates windows with the operating system. So if you have a problem with your video driver, the entire system crashes, and you have to reboot the computer. This is one of the reasons Linux is more secure than Windows.

I mentioned you can restart an application from the command line in Ubuntu. How do we get there?  In Windows, you type cmd in the run window, and you get a black window with the command prompt.  Ubuntu is pretty much the same.  From the Gnome desktop, in the upper left corner, go to Applications->Accessories->Terminal. You’ll find a nice black window pop up with a $ prompt. Welcome to the Ubuntu Linux distribution command line.

Bringing Up the Ubuntu Terminal Window

Putting an Icon on Your Desktop

As a digression, I am at the command prompt much more often than in Windows, so I put an icon on my desktop to bring it up quickly.  To put an icon on your desktop, go back to Applications->Accessories->Terminal, but instead of left clicking to bring up the window, right click, and your given a couple of choices. You can add an icon to the laucher panel, this is a tiny icon that appears on the top bar of your screen, like the current Firefox icon, or you can add the icon to your desktop.

There is another choice, of putting it in the menu, as a drawer, the equivalent of a folder in Windows, or a an actual menu item.  Since we’re making an icon for the desktop, we don’t need to put it in the menu, since it’s already there.  By the way,  if you would like to rearrange your menus, change the drawers, or remove some menu items, the menus are completely configurable.  Go to the Applications choice on the top menu bar, for example, right click and select “Edit Menus.”

Back to the terminal window, the terminal window gives you complete access to the Ubuntu distro,  i.e. the Linux operating system command line, and its plentiful commands, but that is the subject of another post.  As a teaser, I’ll give you a couple of commands to get you started.    Everything is in lower case, type “pwd” for print working directory.   It tells you where you are.  Type, “ls” to list the files in that directory, or better “ls -al” to get a long alphabetical listing.  Some things come from DOS.  Type “cd ..” for change directory  to move up one level in the directory structure, and or to go down, type the name of the directory , for example,  “cd home”  goes down to the home directory, that should keep you busy for awhile.  Have fun and enjoy Ubuntu.

And finally, less we get carried away, you can still explore your file system through the GNOME graphical user interface, like Windows Explorer, without using the terminal window or the command line, by going to the “Places” menu in the upper tool bar.

In my last post, we covered the GET method, get is one of two methods used to get information from the client’s browser to the server, the other method being “POST.” You’ll find that “post,” by a wide margin, is the method used by developers, over the less secure, “get.”

The post method is used when you have a large amount of data in your form, and when you want to be more secure with the data, and not have it so visible, as with the “get” method.

Let’s have a little fun and review forms a bit, we’ll start with a form the developer might put on a page for the user to fill out in his browser window. Here’s the body of the html with the form.

Tell Us about Yourself


First Name: 


Last Name: 


 My favorite ice cream flavors are (pick all that you like): 
French Vanilla
Chocolate
Black Rasberry
Vanilla Fudge
Strawberry
Cookie Dough
Coffee

What is your favorite pet?
Dogs
Cats
Horses
Parrots
Snakes
I don't like pets

What is the make of the current car you drive:


Buick
Ford
Chevy
Dodge
Pontiac
Toyota
BMW
Mercedes Benz
Other


Tell us about your favoite hobby and why you like it: 

And here is what the form will look like in the browser. I’ve filled in some example data in the form in the browser window for us to use in the next file. In this case the form action will send the form information to “formctrl.php” which we’ll will use to echo out the data.

Here is the php code, minus the php tags, we’ll use to retrieve the data in the “formctrl.php” file, and then, in this case, echo out the data to the screen. Notice that the syntax to retrieve the data is the same as we used for “get,” except we substitute the word, “post,” instead. The data variable in the post portion comes from the “name” tag in the form for each input method.

In the case of asking for ice cream flavors, we selected more than one choice, so we created an array by putting an [] after the name in he checkbox, called, “checkit[]” To retrieve the data from the array, we initialized an array variable in the next file, “$checked,” and then use a foreach loop, and go through the array one choice at a time to retrieve the choices.

$fname   = $_POST['fname'];                  // First Name
$lname   = $_POST['lname'];                  // Last Name
$checked = array();
$checked  = $_POST['checkit'];              // Ice Flavors
$radsel   = $_POST['radioselect'];           // Favorite Pet
$dropcar   = $_POST['dropdowncar'];      // Car
$note   = $_POST['notes'];                    // Comments

echo "And now let's check the data from the form.";
echo "";
echo "";
echo "Hello, Mr. ". $lname . ",";
echo "";
echo "Or can we call you, ". $fname ."," ;
echo "";
echo "What are some of your favorite ice cream flavors?";
echo ""; 

foreach ($checked as $ic ){
   echo "I like ". $ic ."";
   }

echo "";
echo "And what is your favorite kind of pet? ". $radsel .".";
echo "";
echo "";
echo "Thanks ". $fname.",";
echo "";
echo "Can you give me a ride?  ";
echo "What kind of car do you drive?";
echo "";
echo "Yes, a ".$dropcar .".";
echo "";
echo "Any thing more you'd like to say?: " . $note  ;
echo "";
echo "OK, What ever you say, Let's go! ";

And here is what the output of the above file will look like in the browser window.

I think from the above example you can see why “post” is the most popular method used with forms, the user’s data remains hidden until you specifically get the data in the next file.

We’ve covered passing the user’s information from his browser to a file on the server. We’ll next move on to keeping information about an individual user separate from another user, and retrieving it later.

Wow, this is big. It is no secret that Sun has fallen on some tough times lately. Sun had a total revenue of $11.45 billion last year down from $13.88 billion the year before. In contrast, Oracle’s last year revenues were $23.23 Billion. The combined revenues of both companies should approach $35 billion. Microsoft currently checks in at $56.3 billion. We’re looking at the heavy weights going at it. With Microsoft on the decline, Google at $23.65 billion on the rise, and now Oracle stepping up into the fray, this may become a very interesting war. Oracle acquired Sun for a mere $7.4 billion, a steal.

Oracle’s revenue comes from it’s pervasive Oracle database. Depending on how you look at it revenue, or installs. Oracle is in the top 2 with Microsoft and IBM’s DB2 a close third. Let’s not forget, MySql is the most popular Open Source, i.e free, database in the world. What is surprising is when you look at installs and the number of developers developing with a database, MySql comes in a close 3rd to Oracle and Microsoft, with DB2 fourth, and MySql shows the greatest growth rate of all database development.

Oracle’s acquisition of the MySql product may be a problem for the Open Source community. Sun owned MySQL, which now belongs to Oracle. If you remember, Oracle purchased PeopleSoft in Dec. 2004 for $10.3 billion. In Oct, 2005 they acquired Innobase which is an integral part of MySql for transaction processing and foreign keys. What will Oracle do with MySql has caused a huge concern with the Open Source Community, so much so, that their already has been several forks of MySql, Drizzle, and MariaDB, just in case Oracle starts charging for MySql. For now, Oracle pledges to leave MySql independent, but this is to be expected in the initial stages of an acquisition, things usually change in six months or so.

My thought is they will continue to support an Open Source MySql and build on top of MySql additional tools, extensions, and integrations with other Oracle products with, of course, a clear upgrade path to Oracle’s flagship products for which the enterprise users will pay dearly.

And the same for OpenOffice.org, a legitimate contender, now, of Microsoft Office. Oracle has never had an Office Suite and has wanted one. Oracle is built with Java, as is OpenOffice.org. Again, tools, extensions, and integrations with Oracle products seems like a nice way to get users to start paying for more and more functionality from a previously non-existent Oracle Office Products.

Oracle keeping the Open Source products they have acquired free, and enhancing them, at first, to gain market share seems like good business sense, but as these applications gain more and more market share, I believe Oracle will take a page from Microsoft’s play book, and start charging for their enhancements to the products. What this means for Open Source, is a freezing of the Open Source components to a minimal feature level, and if you want more, pay for it.

I have great faith in Open Source software, the forking of MySql is evidence that independent Open Source Developers will continue to create other applications with the missing functionality, that Oracle will ask customers to purchase. As MySql has emerged as the premier Open Source database, so other products can, and will, emerge to take its place, if Oracle begins to get as “bean counterish” as Microsoft is currently, with it prideful boasting about “Microsoft Genuine Advantage,” and its publicly crowing about the number of companies they have sued, look for any closing down, of previously Open Source Oracle products to be a catalyst to breed a new generation of improved Open Source products.

Last post we talked about how we normally get data into a system with a form. The user enters his information into the form and clicks the submit button. The browser then sends the data to the server.

Back at the server, php sets aside some memory, the server stores the information in that memory location, and calls the next page. That page is what the developer specified in the form command.

Here’s the form again:

In this case, the action parameter tells the server what file to go to next, controller.php.

The more interesting questions are how the browser passes the information to the server, and how the controller.php file gets that information out of memory. Those questions are answered by the method parameter in the form tag, in this case, GET. Get is one of the two methods you can use to get data from the browser to your program file.

The GET method tells the browser to package the site and form data as part of the URL sent to the server calling the next page. For example, if we go to the W3C site at http://www.w3.org/ , and in the Google search box on the right side type, “CSS,” click the magnifying glass, and look at the URL at the top of the page.

You’ll see: “http://www.google.com/search?q=site:w3.org&q=css&search-submit=” The browser packaged the site “w3.org”, the variable data, “css,” and the variable, “search,” into the URL after the “?”

Now, to get this information into the controller.php file with use the php $_GET method.

And here’s how you get the data into the controller.php file:

$searchinfo = $_GET['searchit'];

Notice how the name parameter of the input tag, searchit, is the name of the variable we use to GET the information back out of memory.

if we echo the variable we just created, $searchinfo ,

echo "The search word is: ". $searchinfo;

The answer we get is:

The search word is: css

We’ve passed the data from the form input page to the controller.php page.

Now some thoughts. The best place to use get is with queries, as shown above, not when your passing sensitive information, like your social security number. Why? For obvious reasons, all your information is in the URL for anybody to see. GET is not secure, but for a search box, it’s fast and easy.

Another thing, the URL has a maximum size. Surprising it is mostly set by the browser you use, Internet Explorer is 2048 characters, Firefox is 65,536, Safari is 80,000 and Opera in 190,000. Nothing to really worry about, but its best to keep the “Get” method to short queries back to the server. Get gets a bad rap for messing up the URL line, and putting the data out there for everyone to see. It’s not used that much, except for search queries, mostly form data is posted, which we’ll talk about next.

We can’t pass data to another page until we have some data.  The way we  input data in web pages is with forms.  Forms are created with html, more easily created with html then styled in CSS, but that’s another article.

Forms are created with the <form> tag, and of course, the form ends with a </form> tag.  Form is a block element.  Any submitting elements between these two tags are processed as being part of the form.

Let’s create a form with some input elements as an example of proper html syntax:

First Name







Notes




Select an Option

   Ford
   Chevy
   BMW




Pre School Checklist:
Pencil:

Notebook:

Textbook:

Pack:




Pick your Poison:
 Cauleflour 
 Brussel Sprouts 
 Black Beans 

The above code yields a form that looks like the image below in your browser (click to enlarge image).

You fill in the form on the web page, click the, “Click me when the form is filled out!” button, and the data you entered into the form is sent to the file “../controllers/example_controller.php” which you specified in the action parameter in the opening form tag.

Some notes on the form itself, I included a hidden field not displayed in your browser window.  Now don’t get excited about secret codes, or something evil you could pass in to the site, because this is not secure.  All you have to do is View->PageSource in your browser, and you can see the “hidden field” value. It is not used a lot because of this, but it can be used if you want to pass some data to another page when the form is submitted that would not be normally obvious to a user.

You’ll notice that each type of input has a “name” tag. The “name” tag is important, it’s how you identify the the data that is coming to the next page.  For example, the name of the first input box is “firstname,” when I get to the next page, I’m going to ask for “firsname” when I want the contents of that input, Which brings us to the topic at hand, passing data to another page.

We can pass form data to the, “../controllers/example_controller.php” file in one of two ways either “Get,” or “Post.”  The method we use to send the data is a parameter in the initial form tag, like so, method = “post,” or method=”get”  We’ll cover this in our next article.  For now, in our initial web page we have collected the data, when the user clicks on the submit button, we pass the data to another page or file.  And we’ll talk about what the receiver file has to do to catch the data in our next article.

This is the start of a new series of articles on passing variables.  A series about coding web pages with PHP.  PHP is an interactive, interpretive, scripting language that works well with HTML to communicate with the database, and create dynamic applications for the Internet. As such this series will combine HTML and PHP to accomplish varies tasks.

The focus will be on passing variables.  Why passing variables?  Because the Internet is stateless.  By stateless, I mean that every request going to the Internet server is independent of any other request.  The Apache server delivers a web page from the server to the browser on your computer, and when you click on another link, probably a new server will deliver another page. The servers could be physically located half a world apart.  How do we move data from one page to the other when each page stands on it own?  The new page that loads, does not know anything about the preceding page, unless of course, you pass some informaton from the one page to the other.

And that’s where the problems start.  If I assign a variable on one page, that variable ceases to exist in the new page.  It’s gone.  Variables only persist while in an individual page.  If I type in my name on an Internet page, how does the new page repeat my name back, like Amazon does when you log in?

Well, that’s a good question and the subject of this series.  By passing variables, I mean passing data, whether its your name, or phone number, or the results you entered in a survey from one web page to another, or from the web page to the database and back to another web page.  We’ll focus on “Passing Variables,” getting data moving around your system.

“Passing Variables” probably causes more problems in coding than any other issue.  You pass the data a user fills out in a form, back to a “controller” file.  This takes in the information, and assigns the indivual data to variables or an array.  The information is validated and if there is an error, an error screen will be called, if the data is ok, We can pass these variables back to a “model” file for saving in a database, again passing variables between pages.

The next page comes up, calls a function to get the informaton out of the database, passes the data back to the new page, the new page shows the same form with the information you filled in the form populated in the form.  The form page you filled in is a different page then the page that had the blank form you initially filled out, with perhaps an error message, saying a field you forgot is required.

We will cover some HTML and more PHP.  Topics I hope to cover are: Forms, Get, Post, Cookies, Sessions, function variables, returns, arrays, and passing objects.  As far as syntax, we will eliminate any extraneous html or php that is not necessary to make our point. You’ll see no div’s, or ul’s. or li’s.  We assume you know what needs to go else where in the page to make it work, and are reading the post, because you just need that snippet of code to make it work.  We definitely want to make the page an easy reference when your stuck to quickly look up the right code sequence and syntax, and you just want to know how to do that…

And with that…we’re off…

By now you are familiar with the initial installed Ubuntu background.  When you use a computer every day, you know that after awhile you want to change the appearance of your computer, just as a change of pace.  Ubuntu has not forgotten the aesthetics, and gives you just as many choices as Windows.

The Initial Ubuntu Background

For those Windows users, Windows calls their background the desktop, and the way you change the picture on the desktop in Windows is to right click on the desktop, and bring up the properties menus.  In the properties menu you can change the theme and sounds, the desktop picture, what you use for a screensaver, the appearance of menus, and the screen resolution.

Let’s see what we can do with Ubuntu.  Just like in Windows, right click on your desktop, and there you will find a “Change Desktop Background,” menu,  left click, and up comes “Appearance Preferences.”  You’ll find 22 backgrounds you can choose from, or if you click the “Add” button you can use any of your pictures.  You can also down load additional pictures from Gnome Art.  Remember Gnome is name of the Graphic User Interface that Ubuntu uses.  This site has a bunch of additional themes and backgrounds that are easily downloaded and installed by clicking on the “Get more backgrounds online” link.

A New Background

Through the upper tab menus on Appearance Preferences,  you can change the theme, by changing the look of your: controls, colors, window borders, icons, and mouse pointers. Not only that you can change the fonts that are used along with the size of the fonts for menus and documents from the fonts menu. If your eyes need a little bit bigger fonts it’s no problem to adjust them here.

Font Preferences

There’s one other thing you may want to change, and that is your screen saver.  To change your screen saver in Ubuntu, go to the “System” menu in your upper left menu, click on “Preferences” and then “Screensaver.”  This is also where you can configure Ubuntu to go to “sleep” after a period of inactivity or just to shut the display off.  This is under the “Power Management” menu in “Screensaver Preferences.”

Screensaver Preferences

In summary, you can change the entire look of Ubuntu, and make it your own with a few clicks of the mouse.

Ubuntu comes with drivers for most of your peripherals, except printer drivers, which normally are installed separately.  In a previous blog I have written favorably about the Canon MX850 compared to the equivalent HP ink-jet all-in-one printers.  Having a good feeling about Canon, I went to their web site and made an email inquiry about a printer driver for Ubuntu.  Here is their reply, “While considering the desire to provide the best possible support for Canon’s products, Canon must make decisions on which products to support when new operating systems are introduced.  Currently, Canon has decided to support only the Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh operating systems.”

Pardon me, Canon, but Ubuntu and Linux are not new operating systems.  They’ve been around almost as long as Windows, and the Apple operating system is based on Linux.

Have no fear, though, this happens occasionally and what you’ll find when you go looking for a solution is other solutions.  Searching further, for Canon printer drivers, there is a free solution, the CUPS-BNJP Printer Driver, which mimics the Canon BNJP printer protocol for the Canon Pixma printers and works over the network. This also works with the XSane scanning software provided with Ubuntu to allow scanning of documents.

CUPS-BNJP is based on CUPS, CUPS works with other printers besides Canon.  It was built for the Fedora distribution of Linux.  Since Ubuntu uses the Debian distribution, there may or may not be an issue in using CUPS with Ubuntu.  We can check that easily.  If you go to Applications->Ubuntu Software Center->Get Free Software->System Tools and scan through the list of available software, you’ll come to two choices: Printing, Printers.   If you click on “Printing,”  a CUPS printer driver is available.  “Printers” on the menu system gives you a GUI interface between CUPS and the printer.

CUPS uses your web browser to view print jobs, manage your printers, and for online help.  However, it makes use of the command line for its configuration.  The printer GUI in the Ubuntu Software Center. according to the software description,  seemed like it depended on some other software for configuring remote printers on a LAN,  if you don’t want to install a series of dependent software, or if you prefer not to use the command line interface, you probably want to check out a commercial solution, TurboPrint 2 for Linux.

TurboPrint 2 supports ink-jet printer’s from: HP, Bother, Epson, and Canon for all Linux distributions.  For the modest cost of $29 you can be ensured that you printer will function, and pick up a nice set of additional features with the software.

TurboPrint2 features include: high print resolutions, color management that matches screen document color to printed color, printer status monitoring to track print progress and errors, like a low ink cartridge, printing on both sides of the paper, print preview of what your about to print, and intelligent ink management to save ink and extend cartridge life. The one remaining question that I had is will it work on a printer attached to your network, and it will.  This intelligent printer utility has Windows and individual manufacturers printer drivers beat hands down.

The company provides a trial version to see if it will work on your system. You can download from the web and hook it up and if everything works, then purchase the software.  What’s not to like!

Given I was not sure about the Cups-BNJP distribution with Ubunutu,  the GUI configuration tool appeared to need additional software to pick up my printer on my LAN,  which meant there may be some additional configuration issues beyond just downloading the software, and  a free trial of TurboPrint was available, I decided to go with the TurboPrint option and give it a try.

TurboPrint Control Center and Printer Monitor

I downloaded the correct distribution for Ubuntu from their website. Clicked on the install button, the install wizard came up and installed the software.  The installation was painless.  The only thing that made me pause was the request to add a printer before other functionality was available.  This is done with the “Add” button in the Print Control Center.  My model Canon was recognized immediately on my LAN and that was it.  I printed a test page, checked the level of my ink cartridges, and was suitably impressed.

Considering I didn’t have to read any documentation, install several pieces of software,  or potentially do a command line configuration of the printer.  I was up and running in 5 minutes,  and had some one to turn to for support if any problems cropped up, it certainly is worth the $29 asking price for Turbo Print to me,  so much for printer drivers.

We’ve downloaded Ubuntu 9.10 from their web site, downloaded the Infrarecorder program, to burn the Ubuntu iso file to a CD, not a DVD, built a computer from hardware components, and loaded the Ubuntu operating system. Loading Ubuntu takes less time than it takes to load Windows, and you don’t have to register the product.

What most people, who have not tried Ubuntu, don’t know is that Ubuntu comes with a bunch of free applications that load with the operating system. Let’s briefly go over these applications, as a way to show you that you have a complete computer when you load Ubuntu.

Email: Ubuntu has an email program called Evolution.  Evolution is more than just an email program though, it is a full fledged Personal Information Manager with email, calendar, contacts, address book, memos, and tasks.  It can sync with your PDA, mobile phone, and Microsoft Outlook. It was the easiest email program I have ever set up. Presto, your getting your emails.

Instant Messaging: If your in to chatting with your friends with instant messaging, Ubuntu comes with an instant messaging program, called Empathy that will allow you to integrate Gmail, AIM, Windows LiVe, Jabber, AOL, Yahoo, QQ, etc.

Web Browser: Firefox and if you attach an Ethernet cable to your computer when you initially load Ubuntu, click on the browser, and presto, your on the Internet.  Ubuntu sets every thing up for you.

Office Applications: Let’s cover these all at once.  Open Office.org was developed by Sun, to compete with Microsoft Office, Sun gave the application and source code to the community, and it is now maintained as Open Source software, it’s free, and comes loaded with Ubuntu.  It can read and save documents in Microsoft format, so other’s can read your documents, and you can read the Microsoft documents other’s send you.  Ubuntu has renamed the Open Office.org program names to make things understandable. Let’s go through each program with the Windows equivalent: Word Processor – Microsoft Word, Spreadsheet – Excel, Presentation – Powerpoint, Evolution – Outlook, and Drawing – Paint.  Open Office.org also has a database program, you can install.

Ubuntu One gives you an interface and 2 Gb’s of storage on the Internet for you to use to transfer files from one computer to another over the Internet.

For graphics, we have F-Spot, a photo manager, you can manage all your photos and pictures.  GIMP, a photo editing program that has been around for years and has the functionality of Adobe Photoshop. If you have a scanner, there’s Image Scanning software called XSane.

Ubuntu has a music application, called Rythmbox, that resembles Winamp in functionality with a music player and library, but unfortunately is not quite there in the skins department.  It does have an internet radio library and an icon for Last.fm. You can download music, buy music, download your Ipod and MP3’s, and listen to podcasts. There’s an audio and media player, the Totem Movie Player.  This will handle a multitude of formats and supports full screen video playback to view your favorite movies.

There are games for you to play: Logic, AisleRiot Solitaire, Blackjack, Chess, Gnometris, Lagno, Mahjongg, Nibbles, Robots, and Tali.

And the “piece de resistance” the Ubuntu Software Center.  This is an easy to use catalog laid out in a nice interface that loads other application that run on Ubuntu.  The Software Center loads these programs with a click of the mouse.  It also removes software you’re no longer using. This is all done with a few clicks of the mouse.  You don’t have to search all over the Internet for software, Ubuntu takes care of all of that for you.

Let’s take a tour of the Ubuntu Desktop.  The Ubuntu Desktop, really the Gnome desktop, is divided into three main sections: two panels, which are the bars along the top and bottom, and a desktop in the middle.  The top panel bar has menus, icons, date and time, and a power icon with your name on it, which is used to shut down the computer. The bottom panel has a desktop switcher, a trash icon, and icons for your desktops.

The Application Menu & Accessories Category

I think you’ll find the menus are laid out much better than the Windows layout.  The menu applet contains three menus, and you can customize your own menu if you like.  The first menu, the Applications menu, provides easy access to every program installed on your computer.  The menu is laid out a little different than Windows, because menus are grouped into categories: Accessories, Games, Graphics, Internet, Office, Sound and Video, and the Ubuntu Software Center.  If you run through each of these sub menus you’ll find that Ubuntu provides you with a lot of applications when you first load your operating system.

The Ubuntu Software Center

The last choice on the Applications Menu, the Ubuntu Software Center, is a little like Windows “Add & Remove” programs only laid out a tad better with more functionality.  The Software Center tracks all installed programs, let’s you remove them, locates free software on the internet that will run with Ubuntu, and installs the program of your choice on your system, installing the program in a category in your Applications Menu with an icon, program name, and brief description of the program, nice.  What’s nice is that you don’t have to go looking for a download site, download the file, unzip it, and install it, the Software Center takes care of all of that for you.  You can go ahead and open all of these initial Ubuntu programs and check them out, to shut a program down, click the X in the upper right corner of the application, just like in Windows.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the functionality that Ubuntu provides with the operating system.

THe Places Menu

The Places menu is like Windows, My Documents, Explorer, and recent Documents all-in-ome.  This is where you can find all your files on your computer.  All of your music, video, documents, and other data are stored in the Places folders and are easily available to you.  This is your files system, places on your computer where your data is stored.  Double click on any folder and an explorer like windows opens to show you the files in your folder.  Want to move a file to a different folder, click on it and drag it to the new folder.  Want to make a new folder, right click, like in Windows.

The Systems Menu is like the Windows Control Panel and Device Manager, in it you can change the appearance of your desktop, configure your system, install printers, networks, drivers, and run various system utilities.

The Systems Menu and Update Manager

One program I want to have you run right now is under Administration->Update Manager.  This program keeps all the software on your system up to date.  Click “Check”, put in your password, and let the program go to work.  When I initially installed Ubuntu, I had 41 things that needed updating, let the program run and do it’s job. Presto your system is updated.

Icons, like icons in Windows, are used to launch or start programs.  You should find the help icon and probably the firefox icon in the top panel.  You can add more icons by right click->Add to Panel, find the program you want to put on the top bar your done.  When I initially loaded Ubuntu I was playing with the desktop and had all my menus disappear.  If this happens to you, don’t panic, go to the top panel, right click, Add to Panel->Main Menu.  You can also add your own custom menu.  I did say every thing on the desktop could be moved, if you don’t like where the icons are, move them by unlocking the “Lock to Panel” in the right click menu for each item and then drag the icon to a new location and lock it again.   The other icons toward the right in the top panel are for: sound with a volume control, networking with information about your network connection, and empathy and email applet that you can use to set up your emails.

This brings us to the date and time.  Right click and you can copy time and date to place in your documents, left click and you’ll see a calendar with a day/night clock which allows you to edit date and time and put locations on the world map.  When you put in a location in the world, a clock will appear below the day/night clock showing the time at that location.  To close this application, you’ll have to click on the top icon again. This is much better than the Windows calendar and clock set up.  The last icon in the top panel with your name allows you to turn off your computer.

The next main section below the top panel is the desktop.  The desktop is like the Windows desktop, it can contain files, folders, and icons to start applications.  You can create a new folder, document, or launcher, an icon to start a program.

The bottom panel starting from the left, has a desktop swithching applet, if you click on it you’ll switch between your open windows and another desktop.  A desktop is the same as the main section described in the last paragraph, only you can have as many desktops as you want. In each desktop you can have a series of open applications which will appear as tabs in the bottom panel just like in Windows.  A desktop for your spreadsheet, one for email, one for playing a game. If you look over to the right on the bottom panel you will see desktop icons.  Each icon is one of your desktops.  Click on them to switch to a specific desktop.

The Trash Folder

The final icon on the far left is your trash folder.  It operates just like the Windows trash folder, in that a deleted file will not be removed from the system, until you specifically “Empty Trash.”  If you click on the trash icon you will open an explorer window showing your trash folder.

I think you can see from this overview that the Ubuntu Desktop has everything you need to take charge of your computer.  As I mentioned earlier, I think the layout is easier to use and more understandable then Windows ever was.

Before delving into the Ubuntu Desktop, let’s go over some general concepts that will lay a foundation for things to come.  Let’s start with Open System Software.  Open System Software is high quality software, and free.  It is written by a dedicated, caring, group of developers.  The software is continually improved, leading, sometimes, to frequent updates, which adds  new features, and bug fixes.  You’ll sometimes find several different programs for the same application, as each group of developers endorse a different design philosopy, trying to create the best possible product.

This is one of the reasons that the Linux operating system has not had the mass appeal that Windows has experienced.  You’ll notice Microsoft only comes out with one version of Windows at a time.  In contrast, there are many different versions of Linux available, called distros, as each development team tries to create an operating system that addresses their particular specialized needs, whether for scientific users, internet server needs, or desktop users.  Ubuntu, is the most popular desktop distro of Linux, mostly because the makers of Ubuntu are dedicated to making a distro for the desktop user that is easy to use, and continually improving their product by releasing a new version of Ubuntu every six months.

Because using an operating system from the command line is not user friendly to the non technical user, graphical user interfaces, GUI’s, were developed as applications the are run on top of the operating system that makes using your computer easier.  Windows is a good example of a graphical user interface that for a long time ran on top of the DOS operating system, and the Ubuntu Desktop is another.  In each of these applications, you can get to the command line of the operating system, and operate the computer that way, but of course, the GUI is easier.

Just like with the distros, there are several GUI’s available for Linux.  The two leaders are, KDE and Gnome, each has a slightly different feel and desktop arrangement, and are about equal in functionality.  Ubuntu 9.10 uses the Gnome version 2.28 graphical user interface, here after known as the Ubuntu Desktop.

The Ubuntu Desktop

You’ll find the Ubuntu desktop has the same functionality as the Windows desktop, however, the Ubuntu Desktop is not Windows. What I mean is you’ll find that the Ubuntu Desktop has the same functionality as Windows, but the two desktops are implemented differently with different menu names, menu layout, and commands, as they should be, their different GUI’s.  I personnally think the Ubuntu desktop is laid out better than Windows.  In other words, there is a learning curve as you learn how to drive a new interface, the Ubuntu Desktop.  Once you learn how to drive, you might not want to go back.

There are some similarities and outright borrowing from Windows.  All the applications use the same three symbols, the _ to minimize the window, the box to maximize the window, and the X to exit the application in the upper right corner of the application taskbar, just like Windows uses.  The Ubuntu desktop, just like Windows, makes use of the right mouse button.

Every thing on the Ubuntu Desktop is movable, if you don’t like where an icon is you can move it.  This is done with the right mouse button.  You can lock an icon to its position on the desktop, or remove it completely, and you can add icons to the desktop by clicking, “Add to Panel.”  A little caution here, I want  to make sure you know what the right mouse menu is when you encounter it.  I do not recommend reconfiguring or removing anything from your desktop at this time.

Icons and menus are initially located in each of the four corners with most being in the top task bar, as opposed to windows putting icons in the bottom task bar.  We’ll go over each of these icons and menus in later posts, unitl then, the first thing every one wants to know is how do I shut off the computer.  The upper right corner has an icon that looks like a power button with your name next to it, give it a left mouse click.  There you’ll find the Switch User, Log Out, Restart, and Shutdown with a couple of other choices.  Hmmm…looks suspiciously like what you find in Windows, except Windows takes three mouse clicks to turn off your system, Ubuntu only two.  I think you’ll find that Ubuntu is a lot quicker turning off the computer than Windows ever was.

If you’ve installed the Windows operating system before, you’ll find that loading Ubuntu is easier than loading Windows, and it’s quicker.  Plus you’ll never be asked to type in your disk number, and then contact Microsoft to authenticate your software.

Let’s get started.  Put your Ubuntu CD in the cd drive, with your bios set up to boot from CD.   The first screen that will come up will ask you what language you would like to use; then the initial menu screen will appear .  First, I would recommend that you “Check the disk for defects.”  This will check your cd to make sure the disk is clean and has everything needed to load the operating system.  If you remember my last post, if the disk is corrupted, you could get an error message that you will not relate to the disk.

Ubuntu Start Up Menu

Before going further, if you would like Ubuntu to install your Internet connection during install, plug an Ethernet cable connected to the Internet into the back of your computer.

After checking the disk, you can select “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer.”  This will load the operating system into your memory from the CD without loading it on your hard drive.  If you go this route, once the operating system loads, the Ubuntu desktop will have an icon on it to install Ubuntu.  Click on the “Install Ubuntu” icon on the desktop to start the install to your hard drive.  Or, you can select “Install Ubuntu” from the CD menu, and go directly to loading Ubuntu to your hard drive.

Installing Ubuntu: the first screen will ask you to select your language, and click Forward.  Next you’ll set your computer time zone, and then your keyboard.  You can just click the “Suggested option: “USA,”  and test your keyboard in the bottom part of the window.

If your building your computer from scratch, you’ll get a screen to allow you to use the entire disk, or partition the disk.   Without a previous operating system,  the installation is easy, select “Use the Entire Disk.”   The disk will be formatted with the “ext4″ file system, which is new with this release, the old file system was called “ext3.”  In contrast, windows file system is called, “NTFS.”   I recommend giving an entire disk to Ubuntu, rather than partitioning part of a disk, even if you decide to dual boot.

If you already have an operating system on your computer, you’ll get the disk partitioning screen with some choices.  You can: dual boot the operating system, erase the operating system and use the entire disk, use the largest continuous free disk space as a partition, or partition the disk manually.

The only reason to partition a part of the disk is if you want to dual boot with Windows.  I personally don’t care for dual booting.  If you want to learn to use Ubuntu, dedicate yourself to doing that, use one computer for Windows and another computer for Ubuntu.  You can use the same monitor, mouse, and keyboard with a KVM switch.  You won’t have to mess with partitioning your disk, and every time you start your computer, you won’t have to select which operating system you want to use.  Ubuntu will load smoother and quicker, and you’ll be much happier.  In the end, you’ll have Ubuntu set up just like your Windows computer, you’ll have two computers both fully operational, and you’ll have learned to use Ubuntu.  Bye, bye, Microsoft.  Let’s continue.

We come to the username and password screen.   Fill in your name, the name that will appear in the log in window, and your password twice.  Give your computer a unique name for use with a network or future network.  If several people are using your computer, you probably want to require a password to log in to the computer, if it’s just you, select “Log in automatically,” and the computer will start without a password.

The next screen reviews the installation.  There is an advanced button for installing the boot loader to another disk like a USB jump drive.  I do not recommend doing this until you become a little more familiar with Ubuntu.

Click Install and we’re off.  After about 10-15 minutes you will get a reboot screen.  Reboot the computer, remove the CD, and watch Ubuntu load, put in your password, if applicable, and welcome to the Ubuntu desktop.  We’ll talk about that in our next post.

Well, I’ve just thrown down another Wrox book in disgust, and I have to say something.  I’ve read enough technical books on web development now, and my book shelf is crammed with books from all publishers.  I haven’t seen any one comment or review of technical book publishers yet,  I thought I’d  give you my opinion, and maybe save a few of you folks some dollars.

There are a small group of publishers in the world that make a living publishing technical books.  Here is my short list in no particular order: Wrox, O’Reilly, Apres, Packt, and Manning.  This list is not a complete list of publishers.  There are the big houses that publish some technical books like: McGraw Hill, Addison Wesley, and Prentice Hall, but have not created a recognizable technical brand yet.

The first group has taken the time to establish a distinguished look and type of technical book that may appeal to some readers and not others.  Let’s take them one at a time.

Wrox is the brand name for Wiley.  These books are distinguished by there red covers and the book itself is printed on cheap paper.  The cover is cheap, the book easily bends and flops.  I have been consistenly disappointed with the content of these books.  In general, they are poorly organized, the writing is poor, and the editing is poor.  The code usually has errors, which the editors or authors do not catch before publishing.  My impression is that these books are thrown together rapidly with writers, not technical experts, just to get a title published in a new hot technical topic.  Don’t waste your money.  ONE STAR.

O’Reilly has two recognizable brands.  One is the “Head First” series, and the other brand has green and white covers with a picture of an animal done in black pen.   O’Reilly focuses on technical book exclusively, and has a huge catalog.

The “Head First” books are unique.  They feature a series of diverse activities or learning activities that interupt the writing.  The idea is to engage both sides of your brain.  These books are very good.  They run about 600 pages, but because of a large number of illustrations and white space, they read like a 250 page book.  If you want a thorough grounding in a topic, these are good books to learn the fundamentals.   Their depth is not great, but their coverage of the fundamentals are in depth.  The drawback of these books is that you can not return to them and use them as a reference.  The index is poor, and even if you found what you wanted you have to read several pages to get the entire gist of the topic you were researching.  They’re read once and remember the fundamentals books.  FOUR STARS

The other O’Reilly series is what I’ll call the “Animal” series since they always have an animal on the cover.  I think of these books as reference books.  The writing tends to be dry, but it is to the point, well indexed, with good chapter organization.  I buy these books for references, not to read.  They have a sub series entitled “Cookbooks” which are code snippets on small technical problems with explanation, which I like.  FOUR STARS

Apres books are distinguished by their yellow and black glossy covers.  The paper is a higher quality than the Wrox books and the covers are stiffer. They feature well organized chapters, detailed indexes for reference, and  good writing.  The editing is good, and the code is accurate.  The writing seems to carry you logically from one topic to the next in an order that is understandable.  The topic is covered just to the right depth.  You can tell the publisher didn’t just throw a book into the world, they took their time to get it right.  I have been pleased with every Apres book I have purchased.  Apress is my favorite publisher.  I tend to look for their titles when considering a new book.  FIVE STARS

Packt books are done in orange and black with a color picture on the cover.  They feature the same glossy cover as the Apres books and the paper is about the same.  They tend to print in a slightly larger font, and their books come in at about 350 pages.  They give you a good overview of the topic and the organization is good.  Like the writing the index is an overview and thus not great for a reference.  I leave Packt books feeling like I could have gotten more.  It’s almost like the publisher wanted to keep the book small on purpose to appeal to the technical person that does not have a lot of time and wants to get through a topic quickly.  I’ve found Packt books somehow disappoint me in the end.  The problem is you feel like the topic was brushed over and you missed something, the extra detail that you wanted.  If you want a slightly beyond a basic introduction to a topic, what I would call an extensive overview, these books fill the bill.  I don’t walk away feeling like I know the topic, but I can fake it.  THREE STARS

Manning books are distinguished by a drawing of an old 17th century costumed figure on the front.  Their titles are called, ” X in Action,”  or “X in Practice.”   The covers are glossy and the paper is good.  The font tends to be smaller than the other publishers.  They have good indexes and organization.  The Manning books tend to be the opposite of the Packt books.  They are overly dense and detailed.  The topic is covered in depth.  It’s too deep.  You read on and on about a topic that may be of interest to you, or why you purchased the book, but the rest of the book is like this, and in the end, after you grok your topic of interest, you get bored, and throw the book down.  THREE STARS

There you have it, my overall impression.  Here comes the disclaimer.  Every book has a different author, and you may find a gem in my lower rated publishers.   Ultimately, the publisher controls what they publish and their care in publishing a book says something about their care in picking their authors and editors.

There are two ways to obtain the Ubuntu operating system.  You can go to the Ubuntu web site at https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ and ask them to send you the lastest distribution on CD.   You are cautioned that although Ubuntu is free, it could take up to ten weeks before the CD will arrive in the mail.  The “ship me the CD option” exists for those who do not have access to another computer to download Ubuntu.  Almost everyone I know burns their own CD image.  We want it now, why wait ten weeks.

To download Ubuntu go to:  http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download , select a site, begin your download, save it to you hard drive, and go get a cup of coffee.  At the moment the current distribution runs 690 Mb.  Expect it will take a little bit of time to download depending on your connection.

Ubuntu downloads in an .ISO format also known as a disc image which includes all the files and file metadata in one file.  To load Ubuntu, we will need to burn this downloaded .ISO file  to a CD, that it can be read in a DVD/CD drive.  This creates a small problem.  Your popular DVD/CD burners do not support creating a CD from an .ISO file.

To burn the .ISO to a CD, Ubuntu recommends downloading an ISO burner program called, InfraRecorder, for free from: http://infrarecorder.org/?page_id=5 Download InfraRecorder and install it on your system.

The first gotcha to look out for is one that got me.  We are going to burn the 690 MB image to a CD, NOT a DVD.  What happens if you burn to a DVD is the burn may go too fast, and skip some things in the .ISO file.  The result is a corrupted disk.  When you go to Install Ubuntu, an error message something like: “Loading isolinux: Disk error 32, AX = 4222, drive 9F  Boot Failed” may appear, which will leave you scratching your head.

The solution is to use a CD, not a DVD.  Make sure the CD you put in the drive to burn can store 690 Mb of data.  Put the CD in your drive and start infraRecorder.  InfraRecorder will start and a bunch of disks will come up in a visual menu on the main screen, ignore them, and go to the top menu; select  Actions>Burn Image.  Find and select your .ISO image and click OK.  Screen shots for each operating system to show you the step by step process of using IsoRecorder are located here:  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

Burning the image will take some time, so go get another cup of coffee.  Get out a marker pen for the CD and label the disk, “Ubuntu 9.10.”  Your done.  You now have a bootable CD disk that will load the Ubuntu Operating system on your computer.  We will cover that in our next article.

Google just released a new version of their Chrome browser available for download.  This is version 3.0.195.38.  If you have Chrome installed you’ll get a new version annoucement pop up,  and its an easy install to upgrade from your previos version of Chrome, or you can download the new version by going to the Chrome download page.

I ran the Acid 2 and Acid 3 Tests on the new version, and Chrome passed with flying colors.  Safari, Opera, and Chrome are the only browsers to reach 100 on the Acid 3 test to date.  Firefox is close with a rather jerky 93 after an awkward pause at 69.  Internet Explorer 8.0 failed the Acid 3 test with a miserable score of 20 after a long stop at 12.  I guess we have to give Microsoft kudos for passing Acid 2 with Internet Explorer 8.0.  Maybe in another couple of years they’ll join the rest of the web, and stop trying to make every one conform to them.

Chrome is quick, a jaguar in loading internet pages.  It is the fastest browser out there followed by Opera, in both loading the browser window and returning web pages.

The Chrome Browser

Chrome has a different look than any other browser choosing to minimize menus and toolbars to increase the browser window space.  The tabs for individual browser windows are placed at the top of the page.  You can drag a tab off the tab bar and create another instance of Chrome with that window in it, and you can make the instance disappear by dragging it back to a tab in another open Chrome instance.  Tabs can be reordered by dragging them where you want them on the tab bar. Pretty slick.

The web url address box doubles as the search box. If you don’t know the http:// url for the web site you want, you can just type the name in the box and a drop down of possible url’s appears.  If you want to search on the name, hit the arrow key on the right and a full Google search page appears.

There is a stealth window called “incognito” that allows you to search without saving any history.  Hmmm, I wonder why you’d want to use that?  It reminds me of the old “boss” key.

There are some 95 themes that you can pick from to change the appearance of the initially loaded  browser window, although I must admit, they don’t do much for me, except change the color at the top of the page.  The themes are predominately female and kid themes, no good old American macho man themes, darn.  The browser’s initial window, in addition to loading the theme, loads the former pages you have just loaded in thumbnails for quick selection of previous browser windows, an idea originally started by Opera.  You can rearrange these thumbnails by dragging them to a new position.  No biggee.

You can also create desktop icons for web applications.  This gives us a good indication of what direction Chrome, and Google, plan on moving toward in the future.  Bye, bye, windows desktop.  The king is dead, long live the new king.  Hello, the Chrome internet desktop.

We’ve built a computer.  We’ve turned it on, went through the bios setup to boot from CD/DVD and then the hard drive.  The next step is to load the operating system.  Before we do that it might be informative to answer the question: Why Ubuntu?

First off, an operating system is responsible for running the underlying programs that make all the applications on your computer operational.  It connects you to the Internet, makes your mouse and keyboard functional, stores your programs and data on your hard drive and reads the hard drive into memory.  In short, it runs all the hardware and software in your computer.

It might seem like it, but Windows does not make the only operating system that runs computer hardware.  Apple makes a pretty good operating system, which is Linux based.   Linux is a darn good operating system that comes in several different varieties, called distros.  Ubuntu is one of those distros, there is also Fedora, SuSE, Slackware, and Red Hat, to name a few.

Ubuntu has the reputation of having the most people friendly interface.  The closest replacement for Windows.  Ubuntu has a release every six months and are continually improving the distro to make it easy to use and install.  Linux has traditionally been an operating system for geeks.  Ubuntu’s approach is similiar to Microsofts,  that is to build an operating system that is easy to use for non-technical users.

Ubuntu is free.  Ubuntu also has good documentation and support.  It contains all the applications you need: a web browser, email, an office suite, multimedia apps, instant messaging and more.

In short, everything you need from an operating system, along with a bunch of free application software, internet connectivity and email.   It installs in less time than windows.  You don’t have to put a license number in and get in touch with Microsoft to get up and running, and it’s stable, and secure.

The drawback, it’s not Windows.  What do I mean, well there is a slight learning curve since it’s not Windows.  If your open to learning a slightly different way of doing the same thing you do in Windows, Ubuntu may be for you.

Well, were back!  That took a good month, well, to be honest in the middle of that my wife and I took a trip to Europe to celebrate our anniversary.   The rest of the time, I’ll call part problems which happen sometimes, and when it does you have to do a couple of things to get up and running.  So let’s talk about how to solve hardware problems.

First, it’s a good idea to start with all new parts, which I didn’t.  I tried to patch a system together, which if your just starting out, you should not do, but hold on a second.  Even new parts, sometimes, do not work.  Let’s review some troubleshooting.

A troubleshooting check list  to check to get your system together.
1. Are all the cables connected properly?  Sometimes when you put one cable in, you can knock a previously connected cable out of its socket.  When your done connecting everything, recheck all your cables.
2. Plug all your mouse, monitor and keyboard cables in, and turn on the power to the monitor.
3. Plug the computer power cable in and turn on the switch on the back of the power supply.  Depending on the board, a light will illuminate on the motherboard to indicate you have power to the motherboard.
4. Press your computer start button on the front panel and your computer should start.
5. When your computer comes up you should see the motherboard logo screen on the monitor, if the monitor is blank, you have problems.

Sometimes you will get an error message, like I did.  No disk, or the disk is not recognized or something along those lines.  If its not the cabling, then you have a hardware problem.  Not recognizing a disk, can mean many things,
1. The disk is bad.
2. The disk controller on the motherboard is bad.
3. Some other part of the motherboard is bad.
4. The computer chip is bad.
5. Or simply, you bios software is not configured properly to recognize the disk.

No video, usually means the graphic cars is bad, but that could be the motherboard, or monitor.

Since most memory is tested on start up, memory problems come in the form of programs that don’t operate properly, because a part of the memory is faulty.

Another trick you can use is simply to see if a part you suspect is bad, is making noise, or is not cold to the touch when it should be warm.

If you have a problem, all you can do is return the parts one at a time, until you find the problem.   This can be very time consuming.  To do this:
1. You have to call or email support at the manufacturers website.  And trade several emails.
2. Work with their tech support to run tests on your system until they say you should send the board back to them, because all their tests have not worked.
3. Ask for an RMA number (Return Materials Authorization) to mark the package, so they know its your board that is getting sent back.
4. They usually test the board or component on their tester and if its good, the send the same part back to you.
5. You go nuts when this happens, and move to another part that could be bad.

You get the idea.  Then you have the pain of packaging the part for shipping, taking the part to the shipper, paying for the shipping, waiting for a part to return in a return shipment.  Very time consumming and frustrating until you find what is causing  the problem and preventing your computer from running.  It’s quite common to send a motherboard back to the manufacturer.  They usually test it and send it right back to you.

Long story short, disks are cheap now, so to short circuit a lot of the above headaches, I just purchased a new motherboard and disk.  That did the trick, and I’m up and running, and have installed Ubuntu on my system.

Ubuntu 9.10 is loaded on my disk, stable, and the computer runs fine.  More on loading Ubuntu and the software in my next post.

Well, folks sorry for the delay, but we’re having some hardware problems.

Just because you get the system to come up and “Post” does not mean that everything is connected and operating properly.  And that is the case here.

When I started putting this system together, I used parts from previous systems, instead of purchasing all new components, and now it seems I’m paying the price in terms of delays.

First initial troubleshooting, when I went to put in the operating system disk, I uncovered the first problem.  The DVD drive drawer would not open and the drives disk access light was always on.  The drive open button did not work.  If you using newer IDE cables this will not happen. I wasn’t, and I got unlucky.  The newer IDE cables have a blocked off pin, so you can visualy see which way to plug in the cable.  The older ones do not.  I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right.  And of course, I put the cable in the wrong way.  Simple solution is to pull out the IDE plug, turn it around and reconnect it.  Problem solved and the DVD drive now works properly.

Next, I put the operating system disk in the drive, started loading, and I got an interupt error which halted the process.  It turns out the SATA disk drive is not recognized.  This may mean, I have a bad motherboard, disk drive, or computer chip.  In no particular order. So I am in the process of troubleshooting the problem or problems.

The ultimate solution is to purchase a new motherboard, chip, and disk drive and make sure I have all new components.

So I beg your patience. I may need to order components, which means shipping and delay.  When I get back to the stage where the operating system loads, because all the hardware works properly.  I will fill you in on how things worked out, and we’ll pick up loading the software.  In the meantime, we’ll blog on some other topics until we’re ready to go again.