At last count, I have 32 extensions installed on Firefox. Needless to say, re-installing every time I set up a new version of Firefox on a machine is major PITA. When I first heard about the Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE), I was really excited. This puppy not only backs up all your extensions, but also "will actually rebuild your extensions individually into installable .xpi files". Slick. Then I found about the same dude's Compact Library Extension Organizer (CLEO), which "works with FEBE to package any number of extensions/themes into a single, installable .xpi file." Holy mackeral! Now THAT is uber-useful! Gimme some of that! Unfortunately, the dang thing only works on Windows, which is nice for the Windows users, but just sucks completely for Linux & Mac OS users. C'mon ... we're beggin' you! Get this thing working on the other, cooler operating systems! (Check out all of our posts on Firefox.) ...

VMWare is some pretty awesome software. Basically, it allows you to create virtual machines that run your OS of choice inside another OS. For instance, on a Windows XP machine I run a VMWare virtual instance of K/Ubuntu, allowing me to basically have two operating systems running at the same time on the same machine. Very cool, eh? Now VMWare has released for free the VMware Player, which allows you to run OS images that others have created. Want to try out Linux on your (fairly powerful) Windows machine? Download the free VMWare Player, then download a pre-created image of Linux. Bam! You've got a huge choice of community OS images, including Debian, Fedora Core, FreeBSD, SUSE, K/Ubuntu, and even Minix! Guys, this one is an excellent opportunity, so definitely check this one out. Just be aware that you need a fairly decent host machine. I've got an AMD 64 3800 with 1.5 GB of RAM running Windows XP, and VMWare runs just peachy (it better!). The slower the machine, the smaller the RAM, the worse VMWare will ...

One thing that people tend to forget is that open source isn't just about Linux. Apple uses open source stuff in it's products - like it's kernel & web browser for instance - and even MSFT has released a couple of things as open source (and I'm not talking about their b.s. "shared source" license, which doesn't even deserve consideration). In addition, there's actually a lot of great open source software that runs on Windows. When I use XP, for instance, I don't use IE; I use Firefox. I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express; I use Thunderbird. I don't use Office; I use OpenOffice.org. ...

Stuck on Windows? Want some good free software (free as in beer, not necessarily freedom)? Neowin has a great page at "Neowin's Freeware Alternative List" that is the answer to your prayers. Now, many of the apps on this page are in fact open source, but many are not. But most of them are worth checking out. Go have fun installing! (Check out all of our posts on Windows.) ...

My buddy Rich emailed me today and asked me how to rip CDs to mp3 files so he can to them on his new Cowon music player. Yeah, I know he's a bit behind the times, but the important thing is that he's on the train now. So here's what I told him. OK, download Quintessential Player: http://www.quinnware.com/ It's not open source, but it's the best media player I know of for Windows, as it handles EVERYTHING - music, video, ripping, managing, etc. Also download these plugins: http://www.quinnware.com/list_plugins.php?plugin=126http://www.quinnware.com/list_plugins.php?plugin=42http://www.quinnware.com/list_plugins.php?plugin=25 <-- THE MOST IMPORTANT Install Quintessential Player and then the plugins. Now open Quintessential Player. Right-click in the player & go to Preferences (or press ctrl p). On the Settings tab, go to the Encoder section & choose Encode Format. Make these changes: Select Encoding Format: MP3 Audio Encoder Method: Average Bitrate, and move the slider all the way to the ...

Under the rather innocuous title of "Pepping Up Windows", Tom's Hardware has produced an excellent, detailed (over 20 screens!) examination of the best open source software for Windows. Programs covered include GIMP, Firefox, Tinn, Virtuawin, & many more. Best of all, the article tells you how to get rid of the Windows app so you can use the open source alternative. Excellent, Smithers, excellent. So, use Windows? Disgusted with the utter craptitude of most of the default apps that come with the OS? Then read this article & get to downloading! (Check out all of my posts on Windows.) ...

First of all, don't use KVim, the KDE version of the wonderful vim text editor. The developers have essentially abandoned the project for something they now call "yzis", and frankly, I still don't perceive that there's any there there. We'll see. I finally gave up on KVim and switched to the GNOME versions of vim, which has been fine. If you are gonna use KVim, you're very quickly going to discover an incredibly annoying bug that manifests itself in one of 2 ways: 1. You open the program, and the windows starts shrinking until it's tiny. OR 2. The program opens fine, but every time you save, the window shrinks about 50 or so pixels on the right & bottom; after 5 or so saves, I would have to manually maximize the window again, which is both annoying & ridiculous. Here's a ridiculously hacky solution, but it works. It's not elegant or clever … but it works. Plus, it's a nice example of how to use the sometimes arcane KDE Configure Windows Behavior ...

Free Software Magazine recently gave a glowing review of an open-source anti-virus program for Windows called Clamwin. While many of us might not be using Windows often, this software can join the repertoire of software we force our friends and family to install instead of forking out big bucks for the mainstream packages. (Check out all of our posts on viruses.) ...

I remember the day well that I decided to make my big move, from Windows to Linux. It was early in 2001. I'd used Linux before, but I never felt like it was really ready for me to use as my daily desktop. Then I got hold of Red Hat 7, installed it on a spare box, and knew that the time had finally arrived. Since then, it's been goodbye Windows & hello Linux, & I couldn't be happier. Making the big move can be really hard, and Novell is doing everything it can to smooth the way. It's been publishing a pretty good bunch of articles over the past several months as part of the Novell Linux Desktop Cool Solutions series, & several of them focus on transitioning from Windows to Linux - SUSE in particular, of course, but overall the series is good for anyone thinking about the switch, or new to the switch, or even experienced with the switch, as there's always something new to learn. Migrating from Windows to the Novell Linux Desktop covers a lot of stuff, including dual-booting (always ...

Proving that Firefox is gaining the attention of the online big boys, Yahoo announced that its toolbar now works on all the big 3 operating systems: Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Interested? Download it and give it a try! (Read all my postings about Firefox.) ...

Migrating from Windows to Linux has become somewhat of a hot topic in the IT & business world, and it's definitely picking up steam - let's check back in a year & see how it's progressed. To help the process along, IBM has published a free, long (over 220 pgs!) PDF book titled "Linux Client Migration Cookbook" (5.3 MB PDF). There's a ton of great info in that book, and hey, it's free - so you have no excuse. Go git it! ...

As any of you reg'lar readers know, I'm kinda partial to OpenOffice.org. But that doesn't mean that I don't recognize that there are other good office software tools out there. In particular, there's a good open source spreadsheet that ya oughta check out, & it runs on both Linux and Windows: Gnumeric. You can import files in all of your fave formats, including Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, OOo, & Quattro Pro, so it's easy to jump in & get started. Who knows - you might find that Gnumeric is the spreadsheet for you. At any rate, it's free, in both senses of the word, so why not give it a try? (Check out all of our posts on Gnumeric, OpenOffice.org, and spreadsheets.) ...

So this guy at CNET gets a new laptop & decides to run only software on it that he doesn't have to pay for. He details it all in "Never pay for software again". Yes, a lot of that stuff is "free as in beer", not "free as in freedom", but many of the programs he ends up using on his machine are in fact open source. Here's what he chooses: Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Audacity, Skype, iPodder … & then he mentions Ubuntu, which is kind of weird, but whatever. All in all, though, it's a positive piece that I hope a lot of Windows folks will read & follow up on. Jump in the open source pool, Windows users! The water's fine! (Check out all of my posts on Windows, GIMP, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Audacity, & Ubuntu.) ...

Oh, this one makes me giggle. Sure, it's from last spring, but man oh man, it's still true … & it's still funny as heck. Basically, this guy installs Abiword on Linux and then on Windows, & he counts how many steps it takes to do it on each OS. Guess who wins? It's a beautiful comparison, & well worth reading. Check it out at OSNews' "Installing Software: A GNU/Linux VS. MS Windows Comparison". And then think about how you install Office on each platform: installing OpenOffice.org2 on Linux takes me maybe 5 steps; installing MSFT Office on Windows takes step after step after step. Sometimes it's easy to forget just how advanced Linux really is over the boys & girls up in Redmond. (Check out all of our posts on Windows, APT, & installation.) ...

When you're dual-booting (or triple-booting, or …), or when you're sharing a portable USB2/Firewire hard drive among different boxes, all of a sudden, file systems become important. NTFS isn't supported by Mac OS, to my knowledge, and while you can read it under Linux, writing is still iffy. Fat32 is supported by everyone, but that's kind of a sucky filesystem. So what can you use? Ext2 isn't a bad choice, since it's supported under Mac OS X, Linux (duh), and even Windows, to some degree. Mac OS X - Ext2fsx http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/ Windows - Explore2fs http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm Mac OS X & Linux can read & write Ext2; Windows, however, can only read. However, with all OS's you get support for large partitions and large file sizes, which is great. Too bad you don't get journaling … ...