This is being written in Windoze. Sorry. :-) But hopefully this will be the last column written in Windoze, or that has anything to do with Windoze AT ALL, as the WinModem situation will hopefully soon be rectified, and then it's onto the Net. It's here I would like to pick the brains of those who are in the know about internet software for Linux. Does anyone have any recommendations to make getting Linux online painless? And decent programs to use? I'm a GNOME fan (more on that later), so GNOME programs are a great bonus.

I've also decided to run a poll. It's a simple poll, one that requires a one word answer, so get those answers mailed in. The question? Simple.

What is your text editor of choice in Linux? Don't ask me why, but Pico is mine. (It was the first I used, and it's kinda stuck, though I've always felt I should learn Emacs.) So, , and I'll pass the results on next time.

Well, I decided to finally give KDE a go. Red Hat released update RPM's for GNOME and KDE, so I downloaded the lot and (SHOCK HORROR!) only had problems installing the development packages. (See my previous entry for the library stupidity.)

So, what do I think of KDE? Well at the risk of starting a Holy War, I prefer GNOME. Now don't get me wrong, KDE has some great features, like the "centre mouse" feature when you scroll to another desktop. I LOVE that feature. I also love the themes it comes with. It's got a few nice bits, but generally I think it's just not that interesting... I love the way I can set my panels to do what I want in GNOME. I have the COOLEST digital clock (one of the included applets, can't remember which one) and various other bits. KDE is a little too Windows-like for my liking. (And according to a friend it's a bit of a resource hog.) Of course, KDE has one great thing, and that's a lack of stupid error messages when you exit. I've yet to figure out those messages from GNOME. Ah well, no big deal. Sorry KDE fans, but I just prefer GNOME. Of course that could change at anytime if GNOME starts doing stuff that bugs me, or KDE starts doing more stuff I like. If I had my way, my ideal desktop would be to merge the 2. (How's that for diplomatic. :) )

My Damn Monitor's Gone Screwy

I have chronic monitor problems at the moment. Over a period of 2 years my monitor has pretty much gone screwy. At maximum brightness and contrast, bright white shows up as light grey... Anything darker than medium to light blue is unviewable. Unless I can get it replaced or repaired, It's just going to get darker and darker... It's a nasty little 14" AST monitor. I've tried to see if anyone locally can loan me a monitor while I try and get this one repaired, but no dice so far. If you live in Calgary and can loan me a monitor, it would be much appreciated. Hell, if you have a spare 14" kicking around, I know a good home for it. :) I seem to be having nothing but computer problems lately, what with screwy monitors, damn Winmodems... Sometimes I think I should just buy myself an abacus. (At least it wouldn't crash...) Of course, an abacus can't run Linux... Tough call...

Is this headed somewhere? Yes. Since for some reason people ENJOY reading this (you mad people you), and I'm getting ZERO response from the newsgroups, I'll ask here. Does ANYONE have any idea on how to gamma correct a 3dfx card so I can actually SEE stuff on screwed monitor? I've got GlideControl, but that program isn't at all helpful. Max the gamma, or lower it all the way, I try to run GLQuake and it's still unviewable. (I can hear grenades, can see vague pixels from explosions, and that's it...) So if you have a 3dfx card, and can actually SEE what the hell is going on, please let me know how you did it, and I'll pass it on to the world through this column.

StarOffice Fun and Games

I finally installed StarOffice after getting my registration number, ran it, and it worked fine. Lovely... Then I tried to use it as a lowly user... Nothing. Lots of hard disk accessing then nada. Nothing in the terminal window either... Spent *5* (count 'em, 5) hours today trying to solve the issue, and FINALLY found it... You have to run setup as root and do something (helpful aren't I :) ), then run setup as a user and do a "workstation" installation... I've saved out the info (with about 417 newsgroups dedicated to Linux, you can find most things, except 3dfx stuff it would appear) so I look forward to trying it out.

On a personal note, I lost my job this week, welfare (which my wife and I are stuck on at the moment) screwed me out of $400, and yesterday we were served with an eviction notice due to someone else's error... So, great week. I'm just glad my ISP is free...

Any unwanted monitors, jobs, food, money, you know where to send them... (Tough week.)

Not much in this entry, but I wanted to do one (hopefully) final entry in Windows, and also to point out that regardless of everything that's happened to me this week, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth...

Oh yeah, don't forget to enter the poll as I'm curious about your editing preference. Also, if you have time, include a brief explanation as to WHY, and I'll include some of them if they're entertaining. :)

Later dudes...