I know I know, there is still nothing in the downloads section. 
I really do intend to put something there.  I also expected more
help on this.  This is free, you know.  In case you didn't
quite understand, any of the services that this site offers (blog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)s,
news, downloads, etc.) is free for you to utilize.  Just send me a
note describing the type of project that you want to setup, and I'll
provide you with the web space.  As long as it's not for profit,
and is somehow related to Libraries and/or IT, we can work with you.

I'm still trying to figure out a good way to introduce Project
Gutenberg.  We have these Mac iBooks.  I wonder if we can use
them to read ebooks.

On another note, I am making all of our newsletters and documentation
public.  You can view it at
http://www.lanterntorch.org/documents/ (../../../documents)   All documents in
that directory are licensed under the same Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.org) license as
the rest of this site.

Today I had some kids in here who decided that they would play online
games on the computer, even though they were supposed to be in here
doing work.  I told them to leave, but of course, they were taking
their sweet time, trying to avoid going back to class.

I immediately SSHed into each box and shut down the computers.  Then, they left…

I don't normally do this, but I have to give props to currently running an article about Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/). 
I suppose that's pretty big news since most people normally associate
PCs with Windows.  Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/) runs on both x86 (i.e. PC) and PowerPC
(i.e. Mac) architecture.

I got SuSE (http://www.suse.com) 9.3 and installed it on my laptop. I was immediately
impressed with some of their changes.
It worked very well with the laptop and even fixed some of the issues
that were present on the earlier version (9.1).
It has support for the ALPS touchpad, full support of the suspend
feature (I can close the lid on the laptop and it quickly goes into
suspend mode. To unsuspend, simply press the power button, and it comes
back to where you left it, albeit not extremely quickly).

Also, the wireless, KInternet tool was activated by default. When I
move between locations, it picks up the wireless signal and connects
automagically.

Overall, it was great for the laptop. As an operating system as a
whole, however, I can't say that it's that much better than 9.2 that
you should go out and spend the money on it. If, however, you're not
into updating KDE (http://www.kde.org) yourself, it's worth it just to have KDE (http://www.kde.org) 3.4 out of
the box, with full support.

Openoffice.org 2.0 pre-release has some nice features, and Novell added
their own little splash screen, which is also great.

Beagle was a dud. I still can't get it to work. I just gave up.
They also mentioned that they had some new photo program.

I came to
find out that they were referring to Digikam for KDE (http://www.kde.org) and F-Spot for
Gnome (http://www.gnome.org). Well, F-Spot is not any good, in my opinion, and I already had
and use Digikam (I think it's better than most photo management
programs on other OSes).

Bottom line, if you have a laptop, you NEED SuSE (http://www.suse.com) 9.3. If you have a
desktop with 9.2, you might not want to bother. If you have a desktop
with any older version of SuSE (http://www.suse.com), another Linux (http://www.linux.org) distro, or Windows, you
should definitely consider SuSE (http://www.suse.com) 9.3.

Our air conditioner seems to have stopped working over the
winter.  It worked last summer.  So, all projects are
suspended until it's fixed.  I'm not going to try working when
it's 80 degrees in here.  Until they come fix it, I have a
wonderful novel to read.

My book order arrived.  Lots of great books.  I ordered quite
a few graphic novels this time in an effort to try to drum up interest
from the boys.  We'll see if it works.

Right now, I'm reading Monster

Myth: The spread of Linux (http://www.linux.org) on the desktop has been limited by the
lack of support for hardware, difficulty of use and installation, and
lack of cohesion among different distributions.  It can never
compete with Windows as an operating system unless there is one
standard and hardware vendor support.

This cannot be further from the truth.  Linux (http://www.linux.org) supports more
hardware on more architecture out of the box than any other kernel (http://www.kernel.org/).

I have been hearing a lot about Linux (http://www.linux.org) being difficult to install
compared to Windows.  I find this quite odd.  Being someone
who has worked in professional environments with both Linux (http://www.linux.org) and
Windows, I can testify that many Linux (http://www.linux.org) distributions are much easier to
install than Windows.  I wondered for a long time why someone
would say that the average user would have trouble installing
Linux (http://www.linux.org).  Then, I imagined the average user (my mother) trying to
install Windows and it made sense.  Most average users buy
computers with Windows already installed.  Therein lies the
problem.

I got the new laptop.  It's an Averatec 5110H (http://www.averatec.com/archives/5110series.htm)
What's really interesting is that SuSE (http://www.suse.com) 9.2 tried to do the graphical
installation, but it didn't show up correctly.  It was mostly a
black screen and unreadable.  SuSE (http://www.suse.com) 9.1 defaulted to text-ncurses
installation, and it worked.

Everything here worked out of the box except for two things:

1. Suspend – because apparently SuSE (http://www.suse.com) disables it by default, which
makes sense because it's not a laptop distribution , which I'd like to
comment on later.
2. Wireless – because Averatec made a stupid button to turn their
wireless on and off.  You're probably thinking, Dude, isn't that
a good thing?   Well, it would be except that their little button
is controlled by software drivers (Windows only) and not by the
hardware itself.

So, to enable suspend, I simply went into /etc/powersave.conf and edited this line:

POWERSAVED_DISABLE_USER_SUSPEND=yes to read no

To fix the wireless, I had to rip out my hair for a long time (my beard
hair, mind you).  OK, so some dude, bless his heart, came up with
a linux software kernel (http://www.kernel.org/) module specifically for this brand of laptop to
turn it on, as well as a few other laptops that have this stupid
feature.  The project is called RFSWITCH (http://rfswitch.sourceforge.net/) because of the radio switch that must be enabled.

Wireless now works fine, and I am currently typing this from a wireless location.

No this is not a joke.  There is actually an organization called, The International Society of Altered Books (http://www.alteredbookartists.com). 
There was recently a discussion on LM_NET (http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/) about it.  I kind of
like the idea.  They take old, worn, falling apart books, and turn
them into artworks (collages, scrapbooks, etc.)

Some people raised objections about it, using intellectual property
as their reason.  This raises a more relevant question: To what
extent does intellectual property reach?  Does someone's
intellectual property actually include the paper on which it is
printed?  Mircosoft, the MPAA (http://www.mpaa.org), and the RIAA would have you believe
that it does.

I argue that once I buy the book, it's mine.  I cannot change it
and then republish it, but I can surely rip it to shreds, write on it,
spill food on it, and put it in the washing machine to my heart's
content (of course I would never do any of those things, but you are
free to do it).

In order for free software to remain free, it becomes necessary, from
time to time, to assess its current state and purge it of its hidden
anomalies.

1. Java – The average user is annoyed by it anyway.  Why do
we use it?  Because people make us use it.  I've never gone
out and searched for some cool java apps.   Usability aside,
however, it's also not free.  We need to drop java from our Linux (http://www.linux.org)
Distributions.  There are some people working on an alternative (http://www.kaffe.org/), if necessary, which brings me to my next point:

2. Openoffice.org – There next version, 2.0 has a disappointingly high dependence on java (http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/22/204244&from=rss).  It is now up to each distribution to make free versions of OpenOffice.org that do not contain these dependencies.

3. Macromedia Flash – With an advancing (and perhaps more
ignorant) number of web developers in the world, we are seeing more
flash-based web sites every day.  Almost every movie promo site
now uses Flash exclusively.  Flash is not free, and Macromedia's
Linux (http://www.linux.org) support has been questionable at best.  They do not even
offer a version of their Flash development software for Linux (http://www.linux.org), which
means web developers on GNU/Linux (http://www.linux.org) platforms are left out of the flash
craze.  But flash is not a web standard, and it should not
be.  It's good for multimedia presentations, but it should not be
used for web site structural design.  Furthermore, it's not
free.  There are alternatives on the horizon (http://www.affs.org.uk/~alex/HowDoWeReplaceFlash).  
A warning to Macromedia, you better use your technology wisely.  I
suggest you preempt the free software movement, as Real Player (https://helixcommunity.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=128) did and release your player under GPL.  Otherwise, someone might just replace you with a free-software alternative.

I'm sure there are more of these sneaky little non-free programs out
there.  Our goal should not be to condemn them.  That just
makes us look like extremists.  We should instead develop feasible
alternatives that can work for the average user.  What Real Networks (https://helixcommunity.org/) did is highly commendable, and others should follow this example.

This is my second attempt at purchasing a laptop.  It's actually
quite a bit better than the other one (and more expensive).  My
wife and I are going half and half on it, so it doesn't seem quite as
expensive.

It's loaded with wireless, mobile processor, 15 screen, and tons of
other goodies.  And it's been tested and proven to work with
Linux (http://www.linux.org), which I will promptly install as soon as I buy it.