hatim

Since i switched to total Open Source about 6 months ago I don't have Microsoft Office on my system (even though i have got original licences to both Office2003 and WindowsXP. rare in my country where pircay reigns)Microsoft Office is an awsome piece of Software but OpenOffice also does every thing. IMO drawing tools of MS office are suprior to OpenOffice. MS Office seems slick and is more robust (there was a story that OpenOffice is using more and more java code. And I think most of MS Office content is in C++)The only reason some would want to switch to OO is taht its FREE (as in BEER)

Well for starters .. Ebuild are just plain scripts .Comprised of rules on how to install a software. ie where to get the source and hwo to compile it and what files to merge..and do the cleaning up etc.Ebuild primarily reside in /usr/portage/dir/more folder where dir may be kde-base on gnome-base etc. and more is a subdirectory like kdevelop etc. in /usr/portage/distfiles you have the source files usually tar.gz or tar.bz2 files. They are downloaded sources.Coming back to your original problem I think it would be best for you to download the latest base and Install it ie get 2005 Live CD and 2005 Package CD. Also I am suspecting that your portage is not updated ..is that the case. Cause package-cd needs to correspond with a suitable portageLast but not least . If you are using that system as a stable Desktop or Server I would recomend that you use Ubuntu. If a gentoo station is not on internet it looses one of its main advantage ..ie getting the latest stuff in least time. I am a gentoo zealot. But I would probably focus on one gentoo machine (my own) and run alot of systems on a Binary Ditro like Ubuntu or Fedora.

IE may be a security nighmare but it still has its advantages. Like handling all those plugins. and ofcourse its able to run all the sites ..including ones with ActiveX controls. Now I know its not an excuse to vot for a browser. But my point is that IE isnt that bad after all ..If keep it patching its as unsecure as FireFox. Also some times virus writers focus on IE exploit cause there are too many of those out there.(i know its not just an )If i were to suggest to microsoft on their browser strategy I would tell them to be more focused on innovation than on monopolizing. Lets see how IE7 works it out.

If you are looking for power only i would recomend going with simple P4 HT , or even better Athlon64.Battery Life in most laptops these days is around 5-6 hours give or take for any CPU..as batteries used in any laptop are of similar specs.I just worked on two Centrenio Laptops and they worked for me ok. But if i really want to replace my desktop it will be an Athlon64 with 1 GB Ram and 60+GB hdd

Firefox is safe but its not perfectly safe. There are still exploits. In recent past version updates (from 1.01-1.04) were resleased in a short span of time(meaning more and more expolits were found). The good thing is that they were released. Do wacth out for following things.1-Plugins exploits (flash java etc)2-Counterfit XUL Apps3-Malecious Websites offering downlaods with torjans viruses.That said I think that Mozilla Suite should have been counted once only ...and KHTML based browsers (Safarai, Konqueror) should have been added to the list

Why dont you tell us what software u r looking for. We may be able to suggest Open Source ALternatives for that.

Well in /var/log/xorg.0.log you need to search for EE or errorI would recomend to you that you get hold of Latest KNOPPIX CD. It will boot and detect a suitable setting for your x. You can then copy the xorg.conf to your /etc/X11 folder. But It may not give you the best 3D setup. It takes time to setup latest graphics card with full 3d support especially from ATI.hope it helps..ask me if some thing is not clear.PS: in knoppix ..xorg.conf file comes in /tmp as it is made every time.

I think starting out your own OS is a useless exercise , untill you are truly convinced that all the Open SOurce OS (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD etc) are doing things which are seriously wrong.IMO linux is just doing great and has support for alot of hardware and platforsm.Looking like Windows XP should not be the goal..Ease of use and simplicity should be . You can always configure KDE to look like Windows..btw KDE is not integral part of OS so if all that you wanted was to work on Human Computer Interfaces you probbaly want to look at KDE,Gnome and not the whole OS.It took linux a decade and tireless efoort of alot of vetran programmers....Alos MS has spent so much moeny on making their OS more usable (also more [un]secure).So the conclusion would be that if you really want to contribute to OS (and OS doesnt mean things like KDE ..mostly kernel and drivers)world you would probably need to stick with good old C (no not C++ , pure C)and sorry J++ sucks ..use Java instead

I recently worked on an Acer Travel mate (centerino) and I was preety impressed with it. Acer seems to be a good comapny (better than what i used to think of it)HP IMO is not good ..they only make good printers ..and thats about it . These are just impressions of the comany and their products ..i havent really looked up the said productas though.

Well Fedora is a community project spinned off by RedHat . its NOT OWNED by RedHat any more. they just provide code/support to it and take advantage of it just like any other OSS project (X,KDE,Linux Kernel itslef) Well if you want a free community based OS its Fedora and if you want to pay for it is RHEL4 ie Red Hat enterprise Linux 4. Fedora is good for almost any thing and even devlopment . The core is fully tested. But it will not suffice for a mission critical server ..i mean you dont want to take risk running bbc.com on Fedora (btw bbc.com is the most visited site in the world some where i read)Fedora CVS is unstable not the offical core.peace

Well if you are using nvidia video card , they used to have utilities for doing such kind of things bundeled with thier drivers. (also making windows transparent etc)i dont think there would be an easy registery tweak as you would need that for each instance of a window (perhaps a utility which performs the task should suffice)why dont you just dump windows and give Linux/KDE a try ..they have all these goodies inbuilt.

Are you sure they were iframes and not CSS faking iframes. blogger.com has CSS support (ie you can change the way your particular blog looks) May be it is possible to show contents from another blog in a (fake) iframe.

Well I am not trying to compare them all. I am asking which one to use in making a personal,extendible and nice looking website.Its a simple problem of keeping design away from content. I am trying to make a personal website which would eventually showcase all of these technologies (and more) but I was looking for one to stick with as the main design.If you have done a large project with these technologies I would certainly like to hear from you.

Just opnions. I have never made a search engine though. Never had the need to. But I have some idea. It mostly depends on the search space. It less abouit programming and more about using the right tool. Searching Algorithms are no doubt one of the most studied algos out there with varying implementations..so is the case with search engines them selves. It would be wise to look into already developed search engines. I need not mention sites like sourceforge.net tigris.com etc which host projects like these. If you find some thing interesting you may want to join them. just curious , do you want to venture into search engine technology just for the sake of it or do u have an actual problem to solve (ie you are building a website of some sort) Also search engines are taking new approaches these days , ie sound based , video , 3d etc etc and not just plain old text. You may want to check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_Engine out

For some reason I didn't like Generals very much. Its too much of special effects and less game play IMO. Lets hope there is a RA3

If you hate BIG linux distros then you must really hate big desktops,documentations, programming tools and the kernel source it self. Atleast Red Hat has an option to install the minimal things, its not out of the box.Any ways I also hate extra crap boxed in with commercial distros , thats why i chose gentoo , i can control every aspect of my desktop , but its still around 10 GB of stuff (including all sources , helpo docs, programming docs and ofcourse generated binaries and portage)Dam Small Linux is also nice. I would take a look at puppy linux though ..see how Dam Small Linux and PuppyLinux compete in compactness and usability.

php files are just plain text files . You can use any thing which can write plain text files for that matter (front page is ok , but i would recomend jedit a free editor written in Java)If you really want to learn PHP you should invest in some good book. I would recomend Wrox publisher Beginning PHP4 or 5.Then you can always go on to the next level. The time you would spend on learning from unfinsied tutorials and the problems which they would create is not worth saving money for a bookLearning any new programming language is better done by a book than online tutorials.

Well Dev-C++ is awsome ..but its an awsome IDE and not a compiler . Although its bundeled with one. The compiler is MinGW which is a port of GNU C compiler. Mingw can also be downloaded seprately. There is also cygwin gcc. One can use other compilers with Dev-C++. You may also want to check this page it contains the descriptions of various compilers and their links. Some of them are free

FreeBSD is a good choice too for this kind of setup. I have been told by new bies that they found FreeBSD documentation to be better and hence the job was done easily.

I think it should be a common forum for both if you really wanty to promote serious discussions and not just make people get credit for thir typing skillspeace

Hello all, My name is Shahzada Hatim, aka geoaxis aka Tim I am a 23 year old Computer Science Student in Pakistan. I have been tryinng to get a nice free host for quite some time. Lets see how this one comes out. By design this site looks nicer than others.I just wonder why the hosting companies insist on posting a number of posts b4 they activate your free account. How does this all work out in financial terms. Any ways if you have questions regarding Pakistan you can post me a message herepeace

well it would be a nice idea to post your xorg.conf logs fomr /var/log/X11.ATI has bearable support for linux and when I had my radeon 9000 Pro it worked fine with dual monitors. just make sure you have xinerama enabled in options.

i think installing any Linux Distro is a piece of cake unless u want to have a dual boot XP/Linux system. IMO a good Linux Distro should be easy to install with default options selected. If you chode Fedora Workstation Install on a formatted harddrive its preety darn easy. Install process for SuSe and Mandrake are better than Fedora,RedHat

I guess every OS has its positiveve and negativeve aspects.Windows XP has a big driver base for x86 arch, has a sizeable chice of software and runs all major PC-Games. But its insecure and unstable for alot of critical tasks and not to mention the virus and spyware hell.Mac OS is sweet. infact its a variant of BSD. But it runs only on Macs. Well for now. In future it may run Intel-D processors too. It looks cool but some how i always felt that it could be a little less artistic and more user orriented.Linux/Unix : not easy to learn but stable and secure. Linux may not be the best Unix variant but its the mot popular and that may eventaully make it the best one day (sad that awsome projects like CherryOS and FreeBSD dont get much attention).I think WindowsXP is the best OS for a newbie,novice.technically Unix/BSD may be the best.But overall Linux rulesjust opnions.

You may want to look at coLinux. Its an OpenSource emulator to run Linux on Windows.