Open Office A colleague was having a hard time with her copy of MS Works at home and was lamenting the high cost of purchasing a copy of Microsoft Office. In an effort to Spread The FOSS Word (FOSS == Free and Open Source Software), I gave her a CD with the latest version of… (read more)

I’ve seen various stories like this before, but nothing in the mainstream (UK) media. An article at the BBC reports that Mozilla-based browsers are gaining and that use of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has dropped (from close to 100%) to about 90%. This is still too high, of course, but I will not be surprised to… (read more)

Haven’t written here for a while, so thought I should stick something up on the site. It’s basically all been a bit busy, I guess. I’ve found a little bit of time play Enemy Territory (ET) with a few people, online. It is a team-based World War II era game, which is available for free… (read more)

My old PC keyboard has served me well for nearly seven years. Alas, the recent effects of Small People appears to have finally killed it off. So I got a new one. A Cherry keyboard. And it’s Black. Nicely ‘clacky’ and certainly an improvement over the old one. Black is clearly The New Beige, when… (read more)

Today marks the first ‘official’ release of Mozilla Firefox. What that means is, we have reached version 1.0 – although most of the so-called pre-release versions have been perfectly usable for some time. For instance, I have been using a Mozilla browser of some sort for many years (Mozilla application suite browser, a brief period… (read more)

I have been reading SWMBO’s copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by Lynne Truss and have noticed a number of recently-erected signposts regarding fireworks that demonstrate exactly what she is writing about. For instance, I’ve seen: FIREWORK’S SALE How interesting – I wonder what the firework is selling, exactly? I’ve also seen: FIREWORK’S THIS WAY… (read more)

Sparkes has now officially left LUG-Radio. His final episode, Season 2 Episode 2, is available for download. I have a mirror copy of the high-quality Ogg Vorbis file available here. Be warned that this an audio recording of Four Blokes Who Talk About Linux And Free Software But Occasionally Say Rude Words – don’t download… (read more)