Episode 52--FIOS, Not Just a Guy with a Cool Truck

John from A & J Computers in Columbus Ohio does tech support for
one of the major Internet Service Providers. He is eager to help with educating the masses on computer technology and has been doing tech support for 2 yrs now, and says he has seen some of the major reasons that cause people stress with computers.

We went to Wikipedia for a definition of FIOS:

FiOS (Fiber Optic Service) is a fiber to the premises (FTTP) telecommunications service, presently offered in some areas of the United States by Verizon. Verizon has cited the fact that "fios" is an Irish word for "knowledge",[1][2] and has stated in mailings to New Jersey customers that it stands for "Fiber-Optic Service". Verizon has attracted consumer and media attention in the area of broadband Internet access as the first major U.S. carrier to offer such a service. In their rapidly expanding coverage areas, FiOS provides telephone, Internet and digital video services to the subscriber's premises. Some areas do not have service due to franchise agreements, and some can only receive the internet access, also due to franchising.

John’s Key Points:


1. The max speeds for upload and download.

2. The difference between what we are doing and other ISP's


3. Maybe a few ideas on how to keep your pc clean and FIOS friendly

Spy bot search and destroy
Rogue Remover
C Cleaner short for Crap Cleaner
( also talked about Ubuntu)


4. FIOS impact on smart houses.
(Travis (from Pittsburgh) short story by Ray Bradbury, written in 1950 about a Smart House that survives the nuclear holocaust “There Will Come Soft Rains.”)
Find at: http://jerrywbrown.com/datafile/datafile/110/ThereWillComeSoftRains_Bradbury.pdf referenced


6. The impact that Linux is making in
the Open Source world.
One of the listeners, Ben from Ireland, pulled up the 3-D alternative to maximizing and minimizing your screen with the latest Linux version
. Find it at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryl_%28window_manager%29


Some other sites John recommends:
For open source free programs
downloads.com
For refurbished and inexpensive computer hardware:

Tigerdirect.com


You can reach John for further Tech Support from his business if you are in the Columbus area at:
evila3333@gmail.com

Next week we will be talking to Sue Tresetti of Taylored Solutions on E-Learning.
Be there so that you don’t get an F.

You can listen to this show archived if you missed it at:

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/30986

Episode 50 Joe Polk of Pennsylvania Technology Assistance Program on Open Source and Open Office

The Open Source and Open Office
Joe Polk
Open Source
Joseph M. Polk
Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program
400 North Lexington St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15208
412-352-6836
jpolk@psu.edu
www.penntap.psu.edu
Software experts and researchers on open source software (OSS) have identified several advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage for business is that open source is a good way for business to achieve greater penetration of the market. Companies that offer open source software are able to establish an industry standard and, thus, gain competitive advantage. It has also helped build developer loyalty as developers feel empowered and have a sense of ownership of the end product. Moreover less costs of marketing and logistical services are needed for OSS. It also helps companies to keep abreast of all technology developments. The OSS development approach has helped produce reliable, high quality software quickly and inexpensively. Besides, it offers the potential for a more flexible technology and quicker innovation. It is said to be more reliable since it typically has thousands of independent programmers testing and fixing bugs of the software. It is flexible because modular systems allow programmers to build custom interfaces, or add new abilities to it and it is innovative since open source programs are the product of collaboration among a large number of different programmers. The mix of divergent perspectives, corporate objectives, and personal goals speeds up innovation Moreover free software can be developed in accord with purely technical requirements it does not require to think about commercial pressure that often degrade the quality of the software. Commercial pressures make traditional software developer pay more attention to customers requirements than to security requirements, since such features are somewhat invisible to the customer.

The free software movement was launched in 1983 to make these freedoms available to every computer user.[1] From the late 1990s onward, alternative terms for free software came into use. "Open source software" is the most common such alternative term. Others include "software libre", "free, libre and open-source software" ("FOSS", or, with "libre", "FLOSS"). The antonym of free software is "proprietary software" or non-free software.
From Wikipedia
Some major free programs:
Java
Mozilla
Fire Fox

SourceForge.net is the world's largest Open Source software development web site.

Epsidode 50—Techno Granny and Chat Friends from Pittsburgh and Australia on Open Source Technology and Free Software

Epsidode 50—Techno Granny and Chat Friends from Pittsburgh and Australia on Open Source Technology and Free Software

Once again my chat room saved me when a guest did not show up. Guest was to be Joe Polk of Pennsylvania Technology Assistance Program. Penn Tap. I am sure there was some technological difficulty that prevented him from joining me but chat listeners once again saved Techno Granny from a talkcaster’s worst fate—dead air time.

My Knights in shining armor: Travis Knight, from Pittsburgh, (no really his last name is Knight, I think, internet anonymity, you know.)
Ben Wilson, Teen Talkcaster from Sydney Australia and his publicist Rodger, also from Sydney Australia.

Below I have included the chat and also a link and list of Open Source Technology that you can use.

Travis> Wordpress
Ben Wilson: mozilla and firefox are same thing
technogranny: Mozilla, Firefox, Wordpress,
Travis: yep blog
Ben Wilson: I use wordpress and it rockes!
Travis: i do think so
Travis: Wordpress is very flexible
Travis: Has thousands of templates
Ben Wilson: http://wabw.blogspot.com
Ben Wilson: My blogger
Ben Wilson: and my wordpress:
Ben Wilson: http://popcultureplanet.wordpress.com
Ben Wilson: There are good differences but I love em both!
Ben Wilson: Over 1000 downloads overall this month!
Rodger: cool
Rodger: Here we go...steelers.
Ben Wilson: Here we go!
Ben Wilson: I have that song on my ipod.
Travis: They are going to the superbowl again
Travis: hopefully this year
Rodger: www.ning.com
Travis: I love Firefox
Travis: so many plugins and extensions available
Travis: one sec and i will put some in the chat
Ben Wilson: I Love flamedog too!
Rodger: tehe, flamedog
Rodger: Falmedog. what we call firefox
Travis: https://addons.mozilla.org
Ben Wilson: Go travis!
Travis: addblocking, color checkers, fire ftp, blogging for wordpress etc
Travis: Firefox is the decendent of the Netscape browser using what they call the
Gecko engine.
Ben Wilson: wow, this is going great!
Rodger: Yeah, joanne, you don't need carl or any guest
Travis: oddly enough, it was owned by AOL for a while then they spun it off and it thrived
since nothing AOL ever held has done well.
Ben Wilson: Travis the brain
Travis: yep
Rodger: Joanne's knight in shining armour.
Rodger: get it, his last name is knight!
Travis: I wanna visit Bondi Beach in Austrailia
Ben Wilson: Ich hasse deusch!
Rodger: Ya, nein meine freind.
Travis: Here is a nice listing of open source
Travis: http://www.opensourcewindows.org/
Rodger: WHOOOOOO!!!! VLC ROCKS!
Travis: audacity is great
Ben Wilson: Cool, gimp, paint, audacty!
Travis: Good night Austrailia, Good morning Pittsburgh.
Ben Wilson: Goodnight pittsburgh!


List of open source technology which can be found at:

http://www.opensourcewindows.org/

Web Browsing
Mozilla Firefox
The premier free, open-source browser. Tabs, pop-up blocking, themes, and extensions. Considered by many to be the world's best browser.


Video Player / Video Podcasting

Miro
Beautiful interface. Plays any video type (much more than windows media player). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.


IM - Instant Messaging

Pidgin
Connect to multiple IM accounts simultaneously in a single app, including: AOL IM, MSN, and Jabber.


E-mail

Mozilla Thunderbird
Powerful spam filtering, solid interface, and all the features you need.


RSS

RSSOwl
Solid cross-platform RSS client.

Peer-to-Peer Filesharing

Cabos
A simple, easy to use filesharing program. Gnutella network.

Gnucleus
A very good Gnutella search and download filesharing program.


Azureus
A powerful, but complicated BitTorrent client. So many features you'll lose your mind.


Video Playback

VLC
Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.



MPlayer
Similar to VLC-- plays loads of video formats.


Media Player Classic
Compact, but powerful media player. Plays anything under the sun. No install necessary.


DVD Ripping / Video Conversion

Media Coder
Great tool for ripping CDs, DVDs, etc and converting between tons of video formats.


Word Processing / Office Suites

OpenOffice.org
Big, full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Compatible with and a free replacement for Microsoft Word documents. Also supports OpenDocument Format.


AbiWord
A word processor. Leaner and quicker than OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft Word documents and OpenDocument Format.


Podcasting

Juice
Solid podcasting client.


DVD Ripping

Handbrake
DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter.


Sound Recording

Audacity
Simple sound recording tool.

Graphics / Photo Editing

GIMP
Photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features.


Paint.NET
Graphics editor with a very nice interface.

Inkscape
Vector graphics application.

FTP / SFTP

Filezilla
Excellent FTP program.


IRC

X-Chat 2
IRC client.