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Fedora 18, AKA Spherical Cow was released on 15 January 2013. Are you having problems installing Fedora 18? This guide is to help you install Fedora 18 on your computer. Screen shots have been provided to help you through the installation process and to familiarise yourself with the install screens you may encounter during the initial setup. It is specifically tailored for those who want to completely replace their current operating system or to install on a clean hard drive. If you require a different setup, the steps are still quite similar but you will need to adjust your choices to suit how you want to configure your system. The installation wizard can help you with those choices. What is Fedora For those of you who still do not know what Fedora is, it is a fast, stable and powerful Linux based Operating System. It is developed by people all around the world that contribute to this community supported Fedora Project which is also owned by Red Hat. The main package format for this operating system is RPM-based. Fedora provides you with a set of programs distributed under a free and open source license to run your computer and aims to be on the leading edge of such technologies. This is what sets Fedora apart from other operating systems. It is an alternative to running MS Windows TM and Mac OS X, as well as other numerous operating systems out there. How To Get Fedora Fedora is 100% free of charge and free, as in it allows you the freedom to enjoy it and share it. This means it is not going to cost you anything. If you want to download it from their website, no problem. If you want to give it away to friends and family so they too can enjoy it, again no problem. You are quite flexible to do what you like with it. Just be sure to read the license so you understand your rights. The Fedora Project distributes releases of Fedora as a ISO (9660 file system) image format. These ISO images can easily be downloaded from the internet. You can transfer, or burn, these ISO image files to a blank DVD or other bootable media like USB sticks and then use this disc or USB stick to boot off and install Fedora onto your computer. Follow this link to get Fedora from The Fedora Projects download page. There are many choices to make when choosing which provided format to download. Is your system 32-bit or 64-bit (quite modern computers would select this one), Do you want Installable Live Media or a DVD that provides more software than Live media. Usually by default the Installable Live media has been chosen for you and all you need to do is hit the “Download Now!' button to start downloading it right away. I prefer downloading the Fedora 18 DVD as you have better customisation at install time and can select what GUI you would like to run. In my case, I prefer a minimal installation and only install packages that I would actually use after I get Fedora 18 up and running. This gives me a very space efficient install but it does requires more work to get it up to your preferences that you like. For this guide I am going to run through the Live Media Installation, which is built for the general user and does not have the full customisation options like the DVD. Once you have downloaded it, you need to either write Fedora to a USB stick or burn Fedora onto a blank DVD. There are other methods too but these are the main two to pick from. This guide does not go into creating the bootable media but The Fedora Project has provided easy steps for making USB media or making an installation DVD. Lets Begin Installing Insert your bootable media into your computer and boot from it. If at any stage you are having problems with these procedures be sure to check out the Fedora 18 documentation which is more in depth than what this guide covers. If you still are having problems, then feel free to post your questions here and I will try to help you out. 01 - F18 First Boot Screen by mastercomputers, on Flickr This is the Fedora 18 First Boot Screen that you will encounter. It is by default set to 'Start Fedora 18' in 10 seconds or you can speed the process up by hitting 'Enter'. 02 - F18 Login Screen by mastercomputers, on Flickr When you Start Fedora 18 you are taken to the log in screen where you pick the Live System User to log into. It has no password and will automatically log itself in when you chose it. 03 - F18 Try Fedora or Install Fedora by mastercomputers, on Flickr We are now presented with an option to Try Fedora out or to Install to Hard Drive. Since this guide is about installing Fedora 18, we are going to Install Fedora to Hard Drive. 04 - F18 Select your Language by mastercomputers, on Flickr The first screen of the installation process is to pick which language you would like to install in. Select whichever is your native tongue or what you find easier to use, mine is English. 05 - F18 Installation Summary by mastercomputers, on Flickr At the installation summary screen we have options to change our date and time, the keyboard and also where to install it. This screen differs from the DVD version of the installation. 06 - F18 Date and Time by mastercomputers, on Flickr In the date and time configuration, select your region and city. You can easily do this by clicking on your country. If you want to configure your time manually you will need to turn off Network Time otherwise your time will be automatically synchronised via the internet each time you boot. 07 - F18 Keyboard Layout by mastercomputers, on Flickr The only reason you would enter the keyboard config screen is because you use a different keyboard layout. The default suits me fine which means I did not need to enter this screen. Your usage may differ. 08 - F18 Storage Installation Destination by mastercomputers, on Flickr I am installing Fedora 18 on a clean Local Standard Disk, in reality it is actually a Virtual Drive as I am running the install process through VirtualBox which is a virtualisation manager that allows me to install operating systems within my main operating system so that I can provide these guides to you without affecting anything but the space on my hard drive. Select the hard drive you wish to install, my hard drive was selected by default. 09 - F18 Full Disk Summary and Options by mastercomputers, on Flickr Just being curious I wanted to see what the Full Disk Summary link at the bottom showed. This lets you set whether you want the drive to be bootable as well as gives you other information about the drives you may have installed on your system. 10 - F18 Installations Options after Continuing by mastercomputers, on Flickr When you hit continue you are shown your Installation Options. This lets you know if you have enough available disk space to install Fedora 18. You can also customise the file system to use as well as customising how the drive is partitioned. You can leave everything as default but I was tempted to try BtrFS which has some major advantageous over ext4 but this guide is not going to touch those areas so if you want to know more check out BtrFS on Wikipedia. 11 - F18 Configuration User Settings by mastercomputers, on Flickr While the installation is taking place, you are now required to set your root password. 12 - F18 Set Root Password by mastercomputers, on Flickr Set your root password, be sure not to forget it as some people do after the installation as you don't actually log in as root with this install process, only if you configured your installation differently with the DVD version install process. This is the password you will use to log into the administrator user called 'root' but it is disabled by default. Just ensure you remember this password somehow incase a use for it does arrive. 13 - FC18 Installation Complete by mastercomputers, on Flickr If you see this screen you have completely finished the installation process. This is really where this guide should end but I have decided to walk you through the Welcome screen as well. What happens after the installation Once you have finished, you are still running the Live Media and can test out Fedora 18 if you like. 14 - FC18 After Installation Time To Reboot by mastercomputers, on Flickr To reboot your system, click on the Live System User menu on the top right and select Power Off. 15 - FC18 Power Off Optioins by mastercomputers, on Flickr Now choose to restart your computer. 16 - FC18 Grub Boot Loader by mastercomputers, on Flickr When you computer restarts and gets pass the BIOS POST you will be presented with the Grub Boot Loader menu, which will automatically boot into Fedora 18. Press 'Enter' to speed the process up. 17 - FC18 Welcome Screen by mastercomputers, on Flickr Because this is your first time booting, you are given a Welcome Screen to do some extra steps to get your system ready for use. 18 - FC18 License Information by mastercomputers, on Flickr You have the legal license information, which you should read and understand so you know what rights and restrictions you have. 19 - FC18 Create User by mastercomputers, on Flickr Now this is where you can create a user. Fill in all the fields. I suggest that you create this user as the administrator user by checking Add to Administrators Group. You can add more users at this screen by clicking on Advanced... or you can set new users up afterwards. It's up to you, as long as you create the first user and make them an administrator. 20 - FC18 Date and Time by mastercomputers, on Flickr Now the last step is to configure how you want your date and time to appear for your system, and how it will get it's time. Once you have finished this, that is all there is. Log in with your user you created and begin exploring and enjoying Fedora 18. I hope that this guide has helped you overcome this hurdle of installing Fedora 18 and that the screen shots provided helped you with understanding what to do at certain situations. If you still require more help. Please do not be afraid to ask as I really did speed through this and may have overlooked some things. Cheers, MC

In my final of three Joomla book reviews, Joomla <explained> is coming the boys and girls of the Joomla organization themselves, that's right, they came out with their own beginners guide to this book and so now I really messed everyone up if you read my other two reviews on Beginner Joomla books. Then you are either pulling your hair out or ready to hunt me down and beat me for wasting all your money, but there is where your wrong my friends. Why are you wrong, simple this is the second book that has come out by the boys and girls of Joomla and this time it covers Joomla 1.6 instead of 1.5 so there. So whats the premise, its simple, you follow the book and you design the example Joomla website that is built for the book and low and behold your a Joomla expert. Well, not really an expert but you will get a better understanding of Joomla, but sadly though just like the other two books I mentioned, this one is also outdated, but the messed up part is that Joomla 1.6 did not last long as they went straight to Joomla 1.7. However, if you decided that 1.5 wasn't worth the upgrade and your decided that it is time for an upgrade, unless of course you got hacked. Then this book is a great jumping off point for you. Unless, you decide that 1.7 was too much of a pain and your going to stick to 1.6 for awhile (not really). While this book doesn't go into much detail on the changes themselves, and at this point does it really matter? This book is your basic guide that covers everything you need to get started in sixteen glorious chapters (Yeah I know Jen has 33). The book isn't technical in nature so it is an easy read for you non-techies out there and it won't make your head explode and so it should be a fun experience to learn about Joomla if you were to purchase this book. At this point I realize that I review three books that covered the same thing and I will say this you could go with any one of them at this point and the kicker being that this book is even more current then the other two so clearly it is up to you on what book to purchase if any at all. That being said, this book is just as good as the other two and so it is a matter of preference.

The next book I like to talk about is called Joomla 24-Hour Trainer written by Jen Kramer, who is also the author to Joomla Start to Finish and just like her first book this one also provide a how to guide to getting started with Joomla from downloading, to installing to maintaining a Joomla based website. However, there is an added bonus it comes with a DVD with videos tutorials that go along with the step-by-step process this trainer book goes through. Another thing I like to point out that this book also covers Joomla 1.5 and like I mention in my previous review, and also mention in this book, Joomla 1.5 is still the more popular version out there as Joomla websites are slowly converting to 1.7. So what is different about this book then her first one? Well, for one its double the chapters at 33, while her first book is capped at 15. Which means this book goes into a lot more detail and covers a lot more then in her first book. So what should a Joomla user to do? Well, my thoughts are this, while both books cover the same material and the trainer being the more updated version, I would recommend getting both books just because the compliment each other and well not everyone is keen on videos. Still, this book is still a great starting point just because it goes through the process step by step and by the end of the book you will have designed the website that is built around this book. That of course, is the other reason why you would want to get the first book as your are building your own website while in this book your building a website that you won't use. Now I am not saying there is nothing wrong with that just because a lot of books do this kind of stuff, but for some strange reason I am not keen on that kind of learning. Regardless of my thoughts though, this book is still filled with useful information and it will help you prepare for your Joomla needs and odds are when I start working into Joomla websites more often, they will provide a way to make life easier as well as yours when you build in Joomla.

The next book I will be reviewing is one of two this author has written, and here is the kicker I actually know this author as she was the former head of the Master's program I am in and a former teacher at the school, was a co-leader in the Adobe and Joomla User groups as well, runs a descent size Joomla designing business among many other things as well. Now on to the book. Joomla Start to Finish - How to Plan, Execute, and Maintain Your Website is your beginners guide to running your very own Joomla website. To start, what is Joomla? Joomla is a CMS or Content Management System and to date is one of the most popular CMS's out there. So what does book have to offer? Well to make your life easier it starts off with how to install and configure Joomla on to you web host, descriptions of the various Joomla modules, adding content, Joomla templates, maintenance, tips and tricks, and more. While this isn't the Joomla Bible, it is still a invaluable source of information and while this book is already outdated as of Joomla 1.7.3, Joomla 1.5 is still pretty common enough in terms of Joomla templates, extensions, and modules. So, you could use this book to get you going and once you feel comfortable enough with understanding how Joomla works, you can go to the next step of upgrading from 1.5 to 1.7.3 and begin to work out all the new features 1.7 has to offer and believe me there are plenty. Like I said, this book is a great place to start, but when your ready to move on, there are plenty of books that get more advanced with Joomla.