The Life long learner

For those life long learners , like my self, check out Itunes U. There are a wide range of topics from different universities. Its all free to download. The format is mostly audio, however there are some video presentations as well.
You will need to install Itunes to download the content. Hey it beats paying college fees.

The Linux Desktop - reality ?

I just recently completed a course called Organizational and Buisness communication at Fanshawe College. One of the course requirements was to do a presentation. My presentation was on Data Mining, more on this in a later blog.
One of the class members did a presentation on Linux, and showed some open source alternatives to the common windows applications. Most members of the class was intrigued, however one class member asked the following questions :

• Can you have MSN messenger ?
• Does the open source equivalent has the same functionalities as MSN messenger ?
• Does i tunes work on Linux ?

These questions showed that the Linux desktop has a long way to go before it is adopted as desktop equivalent to windows. Sure you can use an windows emulator like wine, but which non-geek computer user will have the time to configure a windows app to run on Linux.
I have three Linux boxes at home, and I too use windows sometimes. Mark you this is running a vm on Debian.
From the view of outsiders, Linux are for geeks who relish at writing complex command line statements.It will be a while to convince individuals born in the world of Microsoft windows.
Hey, I can't convince my wife to switch.

Experts Exchange

As IT professionals we usually search the web to seek solutions to some unfamilar IT problems. One source of solutions to IT problems is Experts Exchange. Although Experts Exchange is a subscription based website, if their link comes up in a search result to a problem, select the link and scroll to the very bottom of the page. You may find the answer to your problem