King of the Mountains

So you ended up buying the PC from the big chain store? Not a good start. Firstly, check how much RAM it came with - in my experience they are chronically underpowered. Win XP needs 512mb to perform at a tolerable speed while Vista seems to be even more of a resource hog.

The good news is, you can save enough to add the extra memory with a few simple changes. Your new branded PC will doubtless come with a six-month copy of whatever anti-virus and "security" packages they could get a good deal on. Well, when the six months are up, uninstall it. Replace the virus scanner with AVG Free Edition and the firewall with Zonealarm

There’s a lot of nonsense spoken about viruses, and a lot of "new user" guides I’ve seen are so childish that it’s no wonder people have problems. Armed with those two (plus a hardware firewall if you’re on broadband, and please remember to change the username and password on that from the default…) you should have little trouble so long as you follow a few simple rules. Firstly, don’t visit sites that sound dubious. Random link clicking is a superb way to get covered in spyware, and that stuff is like Napalm. Next, if you get an email message with attachment from someone you’ve never heard of before, delete it. In fact, deleting all unexpected attachments is not a bad idea. Finally, keep your anti-virus software up to date and scan regularly. This should stop your PC joining the legions of zombie computers that are supposedly taking over the web. 

It would seem that a good proportion of the Blogerati are talking about the latest Microsoft release

So I’m not going to.

Instead, I’m going to suggest something for those of you who maybe have an old PC cluttering up the spare room. Most people who have owned a number of computers will be in this situation (well, apart from those of us who reuse the surviving parts from our PCs as spares).

Let’s look at what you can do. First, take your computer. Anything recent will do, the beige box you replaced last year because it got slow and you bought a new one is a good candidate. Try powering it up. If it works, then you can skip the next stage: First job, pop the cover off. You’ll find a load of dust. Gently brush this out using a real bristle brush – synthetic ones will create static and kill the circuitry. At the same time, check for dead components. A new hard disk will set you back about £40 at most (and that’ll buy a pretty spiffy one). Also consider cramming as much memory as you can afford in. After replacing these, switch on and check if anything else is broken. If any fans make odd noises, peel back the sticker on the centre of the casing and add a tiny drop of light oil to the small bearing underneath. If that doesn’t cure it consider replacing them – a new fan will only set you back a few £s from reputable online suppliers. If it doesn’t already have a network card, now would be a good time to add one. Second job, and by far the harder part (do not let that put you off – if you work slowly and methodically then there should be no problems). After ensuring that you have removed all data that you wish to keep from the machine, find a Linux distribution that you like. Personally I use Mandriva, although I’ve also heard great things of Ubuntu, and if you know anyone who has some knowledge of a particular distribution then it’s worth choosing that one. Using your shiny new PC, download the disk images and burn them to CD-ROM. Note that as Linux is free software this is completely legal, and you will not have to pay a penny. You can buy a complete boxed set of disks and manual if you want, but this guide is trying to keep costs down. The free edition of Mandriva is more than capable of accessing the web, playing music and video files, and completing office tasks. Insert the first CD into the drive, and reboot the computer. Assuming your PC is set to boot from the CD ROM then you will hear it spin up, and eventually see the installation screen. When asked about hard disk partitioning, tell it to use the whole disk and wipe any previous installations. Using the default settings tends to work rather well now – Linux has improved dramatically in recent years. You’ll be prompted to install the other CDs as it goes, and also to enter a username, password, and admin or root password. The latter is possibly the most crucial part of the operation. Linux maintains a higher level of security by requiring that users either login as root or enter the root password before it will allow them to make any alterations. In general, once the machine is set up you will only need to login as root every so often to check for updates. It is therefore of great importance that you do not forget this password…

After installation is completed you will be prompted to remove the CD and press a button to restart the computer. Your next boot, all being well, should lead via a boot loading screen to a fairly normal-looking login page. Enter your username and password as per normal and you will be running. Check your network connection is up – you may need to enter the IP address of your broadband router in order to allow your Linux machine to find it, but once that is done you will have web access. Now just have a play around. There is little or nothing that will do permanent harm to your computer, so just click on some icons and see what happens.

So, why would you want to fool around with putting an oddball OS on old hardware? Several reasons. Firstly, if you have a broadband connection and multiple users, you will probably have come across the situation where you would like to browse news sites, but a sibling/child/significant other is using the main PC. Your Linux machine is unlikely to interest younger members of the family as it isn’t able to run Windows games, so you now have a PC that you can almost guarantee to be usable.

Secondly, by reusing hardware like this you are doing your bit to reduce the electronic waste mountain that is being produced. Old hardware tends to either go to landfill, or in rare cases it is recycled. Both use far more energy than simply reusing the equipment. You could argue that the power used by the extra machine somewhat negates this, but to be honest a computer is far from the worst appliance for energy consumption.

Thirdly, it gives a real sense of achievement. You’ve now installed your own OS rather than simply buying whatever was offered.

If this doesn’t appeal, then one closing statement. If you dump an old computer at the recycling depot, then be sure to wipe the hard disk of all data. You can do this simply by typing format C: but for real security simply remove the hard drive. If you don’t want to install it in your new PC, put a nail through it before disposal. This will eliminate the risk of finding that someone has recovered the drive and found your bank details. I never cease to be amazed by how many bits of old hardware rescued from the local recycling place still have sensitive data on them. I am honest enough to wipe it all without reading, but plenty of others are not!

If you’ve followed internet-related news stories for a while, you’ve probably seen a split emerging on Wikipedia. There are those who support it, and those who rubbish it at every opportunity. Let’s consider why.

The intention behind Wikipedia is to create a reference source that is the sum total of human knowledge. Anyone with an internet connection can access and edit it. As may be expected this can cause problems. One of the main ones is vandalism. Edits, usually (but not always) carried out by anonymous individuals which can very from blanking pages (actually the easiest to repair) through to the more sneaky sort who change a few words and dates within an article in such a way as to go unnoticed by most readers. One piece of advice: If you have in the past considered damaging articles in this way, please, find something more constructive to do with your time. It wasn’t remotely amusing when you tried adding the name of a kid in your class that you don’t like either – 99.9% of us don’t know him and it took a Recent Changes Patroller (a user who volunteers to monitor recent edits for vandalism) about thirty seconds to repair the damage. They are likely to have found and fixed any other damage too – your IP address will have been logged, so they’ll just check other articles that said IP has recently edited.

The major advantage of Wiki over paper encyclopaedias is its depth. For example, you will not find an entry in the vast majority of encyclopaedias on numbers stations, car ferries that have not sunk, old computer hardware or odd bits of tramway. Unlike paper or CD-ROM based encyclopaedias it is also updated regularly – indeed, articles on events of major importance are typically started on the same day and rapidly expand. While some of the articles may be a tad on the rough and ready side they tend to become more polished as time goes by, and while you wouldn’t tolerate this in a book that you’ve had to pay for Wiki is free. There’s also nothing to stop you adding information that is not already there, or copy editing the article to generally tidy it up and remove duplicate information.

Unfortunately it seems to have attracted the ire of a large number of academics. Some simply refuse to take any notice of it, belittle it (often without explaining what it is that they don’t like about it) and give anyone quoting it zero marks. The more reasonable individuals point to the lack of final editorial control and the fact that no encyclopaedia can be considered a valid source in itself, as while it will provide the basic facts it provides no comment. These latter arguments have far more weight to my mind. Simply dismissing something as “kindergarten” as I heard one tutor describe it is wrong. If you have a problem with something then you should be able to explain in a coherent manner what the problem is. By all means warn your students not to rely on it as a key source, and by all means tell them not to cite encyclopaedias, but reacting in a way that suggests that merely using Wikipedia makes them the lowest form of life is completely unacceptable.

I have heard recently of a plan to assemble a rival online encyclopaedia that will have far tighter editorial controls, peer reviews, and all the other things usually found with established reference materials. The article seemed to feel that the majority of the reviewers having a Ph.D or similar qualification was a good thing. Now, as might be expected I have a bit of a problem with that.

Firstly, mere possession of a Ph.D does not make you a good writer. I have ground through books written by individuals with a list of qualifications as long as my arm, but their lack of ability to write in a coherent, interesting manner has produced a book which is about as readable as the telephone directory. If you are trying to create something that will get people interested in a topic (as all writers should aim to do) then this really isn’t helpful.

 Secondly, your Ph.D may well have had the best thesis on slug thermodynamics for thirty years, but I somehow feel that doesn’t qualify you to review or edit my articles on obscure ferries that were retired ten years ago. If someone would like to offer research grants for this topic by the way, let me know and I’ll be first in the queue!

One could almost be led to wonder if the distaste here is not purely motivated by concerns over accuracy. Think about it. You have a system where any person with knowledge of a subject, even if they have no formal qualifications, can have their research published freely. There may be no references for the very good reason that there may be little existing reference material. The writer may well be a primary source – some of the most useful information added to articles has been added by people who were there. They’ve not spent several years aiming for a qualification in the subject, dealing with the internal politics that most departments seem to suffer from, or trying to impress anyone. Now, for fields such as medicine, physics, or chemistry it is likely that people writing on the topic will have some form of qualification (let’s face it, unless we suffer from a particular complaint then we non-medics are not likely to know much about it). But for history, an individual who enjoys reading about the Tudors can be just as good a writer if not better than someone who has spent six years studying the bathing habits of Henry VIII. I guess what I’m aiming at here is this – are they scared of the competition?

If you’ve bought a new mobile phone within, say, the last three years it’s likely to have a camera built in. On the first models these were little more than toys, but they are improving. My Nokia has a 1mp camera built in which is pretty low resolution compared to the latest crop.

The main problem with these seems to be that people do not know how to use them. The number of shaky, grainy photos you see that people have taken with their phone is astonishing. And yet good results are perfectly possible. The secrets seem to be as follows: Stand still. Do not attempt to take a photo while moving as the camera cannot cope, and the camera shake will produce a blurred blob. Also, aim carefully. Quite often you will find that by shifting the aim of your camera by a small amount you will be able to drastically improve the light balance and contrast. With a bit of practise you’ll be able to turn out photos worthy of your computer desktop.

For some time now, I’ve noticed that the majority of blogs have an urban flavour. I’m trying to redress the balance a little. This blog will cover various topics from the point of view of someone living in the wilds of Wales. Expect a variety of content. I’m still trying to figure out how to use the software here, so bear with me if it looks a little untidy and ugly.