Sudeep Nayak

Vista sucks in front of 3D linux. Try out Sabayon (https://www.sabayon.org/) if you need proof With the introduction of Beryl, and the release of another project, LookingGlass, last month, many linux distributions are now coming with a default 3D interface which will make your jaws drop down. If you haven't tried out any of the 3d desktop based distros, you really are missing something.I installed one such linux distribution, "sabayon" (which is also currently racing up the charts in best linux distributions) a few days back and, to sum up my experience in a word, it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Sabayon is a live CD/DVD, meaning you can directly boot into a working operating system, or install it onto your hard disk. It comes pre-configured with all the applications under the sun, and the 3D layer used in this OS is beryl. Flying windows, workspaces which are part of a cube, applications that are part of a huge flat space which you simply can't describe.. it'll drive you numb the first time you try it.Compiz is another such eye candy project which holds a lot of hope. LookingGlass, another 3d desktop initiative, seems more 3D-ish but still needs a lot of development, though the major step of releasing a working version as well as a linux based distribution (LG3D) was done in quick succession last week. Whats surprising is that all these 3d accelerated desktops target only the linux market. Though LookingGlass has a windows version, on windows it can only be used with applications that are developed with LookingGlass - which is currently a number that tends towards 0.So if you have a graphics card and love eye candy just download the latest version of any linux distribution and make sure it comes with beryl, compiz or LookingGlass. Don't miss the 3D desktop revolution! My machine: Athlon 3000+ 64 bit AM2 Asus M2N-MX with nVidia GeForce 6100/ nForce 430 I think most of the other distros will also come bundled with either of the 3d desktops from now on..

Live CDs run around 1/5th the speed of the Hard disk installed version of linux because of the rive's speed. They're used for testing purposes, and too much use can sometimes spoil your CDROM drive (at least old ones do). I'd recommend using a USB version, or installing on your hard disk.

Flash players seem to last longer in my experience. The Hard disk tends to get noisy over time. You can almost feel the mp3 player jerk as it reads your songs from the hard disk.

I'd recommend AMD athlon 64 3000+ or above. Will be much faster than the processors you've mentioned, and at almost half the price. Purchase it from an authentic shop if you fear it might blow up My last AMD processor lasted 5 yrs (and still running) My current one is 2 yrs old and going great. BTW, i'm a hardcore comp user

My work deals with mp3 players and i've tested/used most of those available in the market. I can easily say, eyes closed, that Sandisk's Sansa player is the best available out there. It supports a lot of protocols not even out in the market (the general public doesn't know about these things) and i'd say its future proof for the near future. Gives a decent 20 hr playback, FM, wma, mp3, also supports video. Also has Rhapsody, which was recently announced by RealNetworks. Can also record FM as well as voice. Sansa E250 is the one i'm using.iRiver would share second place with ipod+remoteFM. iRiver's models are sturdy while ipods are sleek. iRivers, again, support the protocols i mentioned earlier, and are future proof.

In India there's been stiff bandwidth competition in the recent past, with ISPs gaining almost nothing from it. Government owned BSNL provides high datarates at dirt cheap prices, and private operators are forced to meet the same, or die. I get a 2 mbps connection with unlimited night time downloads and 2.5Gb daytime download per month for approx $10.

This is something every webmaster would love to use.. but didn't know existed. There is a tool named "CVS" which can be used to save all versions of your program. You initially start with a set of source code files, and the project grows from there on. If you make a mistake you can always restore the changes you made from the previous version you added to the "CVS". During a website's lifetime, a lot of code keeps changing, and more often than not, some code causes a problem in the rest of your website. Using CVS would help to detect where you slipped in those "Bugs". Agreed, CVS may be a little difficult to use at first, but once you're used to it like I am, you'll love the fact that you have EVERY version of your website from the day it was born! I won't go into details aboout how you can set up CVS or use CVS, you can always google for it. You either need a linux system, or cygwin installed on windows, to use CVS. you can also configure to use this service on a remote server.. that also adds to your disaster recovery strategy Notice from Mark420: Not really a Tutorial this post so I have moved it to another section.

Software including the OS I use don't really need to be licensed.. OS: Sabayon 3.25 (free)Amarok Music player (free & too bad it isn't available for my windows friends )MPlayer video player (free)Azeurus file sharing (free)Opera 9/Firefox 2 (free)Games: Quake4 & ColdWar (free)GIMP for image editing (free)Beryl 3d desktop (free)gcc & qt for programming (free)And the best part.. I didn't have to install any of these.. except the OS! Hmmmmmm...

Flock is a modified FireFox web-browser. Here is a list of differences I could see, from Firefox:Integration with del.icio.us for bookmarks. Starring a page involves clicking on a large star button next to the address in the URL bar. Watch out! Sometimes Flock is very aggressive in posting bookmarks to del.icio.us, even if you don’t think you asked it to, it posts them. For example, dragging a bookmark to your toolbar will send a bookmark to del.icio.us.You can group bookmarks in “collections” and choose which collection you want to display in Bookmarks Toolbar.Browser Tabs have individual close buttonsNavbar style is different, with Flock’s blue, silver and orange scheme and 3d buttons. By default, Google is the default search engine for FireFox. For Flock, it’s Yahoo search.Rename Bookmarks to Favorites/StarsBrowser tabs do not show ‘favicon.ico’ iconsBlog posting tool. There is a Shelf widget. You can drop text, links and images on it to reuse these later in the blog posting tool or any other application. Clicking on the feed button in the URL bar opens an rss viewer, also like Safari. Plugins for Firefox do not always work with Flock. Google Toolbar—doesn’t workAdblock—worksGreasemonkey—worksSome have claimed that Flock is slower than Firefox at running script or css.Topbar is an extra UI section that allows you to see Flickr photos or make a blog post.

Do these software actually cost $$? Do people actually buy them? I've not heard of any of these software. Besides, you can get freeware with better features, for life.

Avast detected 10 viruses on my PC, that Mccafe or norton couldn't even mark as viruses. Antivirus applications are written with certain algorithms that may hit or miss a virus, so its more about whether an antivirus app has a majority of those algorithms or not. I think avast is good, but all the others (AVG, etc.) are equally good in some other areas.

I've had a lot of viruses on my PC in the past and from my experience, AVG and avast are the best antivirus out there (Norton and McCafe didn't even detect some of these viruses were on my system!). McCafe is good as well, but when AVG and avast are available for free download, I'd recommend these. If you have a slow system go for AVG since it consumes least resources. Otherwise Avast is better suited (from the point of view of a home PC user). A word of caution.. don't use two different antivirus software on the same system since they wouldn't add up.. they'd cancel out each other's advantage instead!