I learned that Windows 7 RC has an expiration date of June 2010. That’s great because it means I have adequate time to try it out to see if I like it or not.

I have been asked in the PCMech LIVE show several times, "Did you try Windows 7 yet?" My answer was no because I didn’t want to install an OS that had a close expiration date on it. This doesn’t exactly give me street cred so to speak in tech circles because I’m still using XP Pro edition and never bought Vista (nor do I plan to).

Side note: This is why you don’t see Vista articles on PCMech. Dave runs Macs. He only ran Vista for a very brief period of time before getting so sick of it that he switched whole hog to the Apple platform. I personally stuck with XP.

I want to make clear that Vista is not a "bad" OS, especially since the release of SP1 months ago. Neither of us choose to run it, that’s all.

Compared to others, I won’t be running it in a virtual session. I’m actually (gasp) going to dare and run it as my primary OS. To date I know several people that are doing this now and say it runs absolutely wonderful and that this is the one they were waiting for. Will it be for me? Time will tell.

In addition, Microsoft should be offering a way to "convert" your RC into a retail-licensed OS (with purchase of license of course), so when that time comes I shouldn’t have to install it all over again. This is assuming I even like it to begin with.

If all goes well, you should finally start seeing some Win 7 articles here on PCMech – in-depth ones that is. I was waiting for the time when a nice long expiration date would happen and I got my wish.

And yes, I did download Win 7 on bittorrent. It is well known that Microsoft purposely wants people to download this and try it out, else they wouldn’t have given out the super-long expiration on the OS in the first place.

Win 7 stuff coming soon. Watch for it.

Need your Linux fix? Ubuntu’s new version 9.04 is available today and with it some genuinely significant updates, such as:

GNOME 2.26

The biggest improvement (for me) is that GNOME does better multi-monitor setup now with this version. Multi-monitor troubles with a Linux GUI have been a longstanding complaint of mine, and while Ubuntu 8 was a huge improvement over 7 for dual-or-more monitor setups, Ubuntu 9 with GNOME 2.26 should (hopefully) finally nail this so it’s done right the first time.

Linux kernel 2.6.28

This is obviously important because the OS runs on top of this. The Linux kernel has come a long, long way since 1991. You thought the Linux kernel was older? Not really. UNIX is (very) old, yes, but not Linux.

And yes I know the latest kernel is technically 2.6.29.1 at the time of this writing, but 2.6.28 is still a step up for Ubuntu.

Optional ext4 filesystem

This is not required to use as ext3 will still work fine, but this is what Linux distros are heading towards.

Ext4 will support volumes up to 1 exabyte and individual files up to 16 terabytes.

For those that say, "There’s no way I’ll ever have volumes or files that big", remember when we all thought 1GB was huge? Consumer grade exabyte drives will happen; it’s only a matter of time and probably not that far away.

Linux is ready for (what is currently considered to be) disgustingly huge volume and file sizes now with ext4. Best to get familiar with it now if you have the chance.

You can check out more of what’s available in 9.04 here. Lots of good stuff.

I’ll be checking it out personally once the official release is available later today.

Of the new stuff with Firefox 3.0.9, I’m happy to see that several really (and I mean really) annoying issues were attended to, such as:

Cookie database getting screwed up

I have a love/hate relationship with browser cookies. But I do appreciate them for the fact they make my web surfing faster due to the fact they make the browser "remember" stuff.

However when you browse a lot of different sites in FF, your cookie db would get corrupted and you’d have to start all over again. For certain sites that FF was supposed to "remember" specific data, it wouldn’t. But this is now fixed. Very happy to see this.

Large forms didn’t work

Some web sites use really big forms, such as when filling out an application for something. FF didn’t have a problem loading the form, but did when submitting the form (it took a long time to send it). This is also fixed.

Some webmail services didn’t work correctly in FF

With inline images on certain webmail services, sometimes the images just wouldn’t show up, period. This is also fixed.

A complete list of all the stuff fixed is here.

If you’re an FF user, this is a no-brainer upgrade.

And to note, none of the add-ons I use broke after upgrading. But I recommend to any FF user to always check your add-ons after whenever an upgrade is released to make sure they still all work.

For those of you out there that compute in a Red Hat way, both Cent and Fedora have been quite busy as of late.

The deal with the new CentOS is that the contribs repository is back with v5.3. In plain English this means more empowerment to the user (you) to submit and manage packages. There’s obviously more to 5.3, so read up on that if you like. CentOS is still one of the best Linux distros out there. It’s enterprise-style Red Hat Linux’ing is very attractive to many.

Fedora 11 is coming but the beta is available now. According to the Fedora team, a bunch of improvements are coming including cutting boot time, on-demand font and file support, new virtualization features and a lot more.

For those of you who like Red Hat or just the Red Hat style and are wondering which is better for you, the answer is dependent on what you want to do with the OS. If running servers and doing enterprise-style stuff is your thing, CentOS is better. If you want something more tailored to desktop use, Fedora is the better choice. This is not to say Fedora can’t do enterprise or Cent can’t do desktop. Both can do either. But each has their intended purpose.

If one were to ask which is better overall, that’s a really tough call because both are great.

With Ubuntu it is important (as it is in XP) to know certain network command functions. When most people have a problem with their router, cablemodem or DSL modem, they simply reboot the computer to renew the IP address. You do not have to do this. Instead you can simply shut down the network interface and restart it.

ifconfig

ifconfig is the command used in Ubuntu at the command line (better known as the terminal in GNOME) to not only find out what your IP address is, but also to disable/enable network interfaces if need be.

To see your current IP, just type ifconfig and press enter. You will see a list of network interfaces. On a wired connection, the first (and probably only) network card listed is usually eth0 (that’s a zero at the end, not letter O).

We’ll say for the moment your router had a screw-up and you had to restart it, so you need your computer to request its IP address back.

Releasing (down) and Renewing (up)

The release/renew commands from ifconfig are simply down and up.

We put a sudo in front of ifconfig to grant administrator privileges, and it all comes together like this:

sudo ifconfig eth0 down (shuts down the eth0 interface, releases the IP)

sudo ifconfig eth0 up (enables the eth0 interface, renews the IP)

And yes, you do have to use sudo both times.

Why know this? It saves time. Downing the network interface and "upping" it again is quicker than a reboot – especially for those of you out there with not-so good routers.

If you’re a Mozilla Firefox user you will be getting an update shortly (if you haven’t already) to update your browser to v3.0.5.

The release notes for this version state there have been several security and stability issues addressed. So if your Firefox has been a bit on the buggy side and crashes periodically, an update to v3.0.5 should cure that ill in short order.

For Windows users, you can kickstart the update process by clicking Help then Check for Updates.

Pictured right, NVIDIA’s Quadro FX 5800, a video card that has more video RAM than most people have for system RAM.

Well I suppose if NVIDIA didn’t do it I’m sure someone else would have.

Did you just build the most awesomest superest kick-assing-est computer ever (most likely for gaming)? Well, guess what – it’s obsolete. Darn that modern technology.

Okay, in all seriousness, yes this card can be used (obviously) – but certainly not for gaming because what a waste that would be. If you want a real-world example of where this sucker can be put to good use, that would be medical imaging.

Oh, and if you want one, it’s $3,499.

And I swear, if I hear one gamer nerd say, "LOL HOW MANY FPS CAN I GET ON FULL SETTING CRYSIS WITH THAT?!" or anything to that effect, I will personally come to your house and kick you in the jewels.

[Source: ars technica]

The latest trunk build of Mozilla Thunderbird at the time of this writing is version 3.0b1pre, called Shredder (the Mozilla Firefox 3.1b2pre is called "Minefield" just in case you were wondering). I downloaded it and tried it out – more on that later.

Thunderbird at this stage of the game is really, really far behind. It has not followed along in advancement with Firefox as the official release is still at version 2 (version 2.0.0.17 to be exact). This is not to say that t-bird is bad. Rather it’s an awesome e-mail program and served as my mainstay e-mail client for several years before I switched over to using Windows Live Mail (both client and web-based).

There are times when I really miss Thunderbird. Truly I do. The reason is because the way t-bird does mail makes complete sense. Simple things like file attachments are easy. Searching your mail is at its best in this client. Assigning colored tags was in t-bird way before anyone else got it right (and the other guys are still playing catch-up to a fair degree). You can customize just about everything in t-bird and that’s just plain awesome.

However the problem with t-bird that ultimately forced me to give it up is the same even in the latest 3.0b1pre Shredder trunk build – no ability to sync the address book built-in. Local only. This makes t-bird what’s called an "island unto itself", and that’s not where the internet is going.

Yeah, I know, you could use an LDAP directory server for addresses, but that’s not the answer. The vast majority of home users don’t even know what an LDAP directory server is, never mind know how to connect to one.

~ ~ ~

If you happen to be a Gmail user, you would definitely like Shredder. Additional options have been put in the software where you can configure an IMAP Gmail account without any need to manually type in server addresses. It just takes a few clicks and you’re off to the races.

In the new interface, t-bird has tabs, star icons to quickly add people to your address book and a drop-down next to addresses to edit contacts super-easy style.

Other nice little touches are throughout the software making it really nice to use overall. In fact I’d dare to say you could use a trunk build right now and be completely happy with it.

However the problem still remains that Thunderbird is an island. The IMAP-only means of sync with no Address Book communication between local and web makes it a dinosaur even at this stage.

~ ~ ~

Thunderbird needs to have some kind of sync ability with a major e-mail service if it expects to survive. And to be honest, since it has such good support for Gmail, that should be the service it should wholly sync to as an option – or at least mail + address book at bare minimum. Mozilla is largely on Google’s payroll anyway, so why not?

If this doesn’t happen, Thunderbird could turn into vaporware quickly.

In a few days Ubuntu 8.10 will be released. For those following Ubuntu news, you already knew about this. But for those that weren’t, now you know.

Some are wondering what some of the new/improved/updated features in 8.10 will be compared to 8.04.

Here’s a short list (not a full list – just some of the newer features I noticed personally): Continued

Many moons ago when I was attending college getting my Video/Radio Production degree, the primary computers the school used for animation rendering were Commodore Amiga 2000 and 4000 boxes with LightWave software.

For our younger readers, this is before Microsoft Windows 95 even existed. Amiga computers did things back then which were nothing short of incredible. More on that in a moment.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but there is actually a new AmigaOS, version 4.1.

If you thought Linux had a strong community, ha! Amiga for whatever reason absolutely will not die. I swear that every other quarter someone says "Okay, that’s it for Amiga. Stick a fork in it – it’s done." But no. Amiga continues to bounce back and the community stays alive.

Weird? Yes. But I suppose it’s no weirder than Haiku, the OS originally aimed at the continued development of BeOS. (Yeah. Remember that one?)

AmigaOS 4.1 is, of course, meant for Amiga boxes (certain ones) running the PowerPC processor. No availability for Intel at the moment – but who knows, there may be an edition for that proc.

So.. if you happen to be of the Commodore persuasion, you’ve got a new OS for your Amiga box.

Reasons why Amiga was formerly the best computer box – ever

The Amiga box smashed the notion that PCs absolutely could not do production-ready video. When one of the boxes was outfitted with the Video Toaster add-on, all of a sudden – whoa – it CAN do it. And do it well.

When IBM compatibles were running MS-DOS and Windows 3.1, and Apple Macs weren’t anywhere near OS X, and both those offerings could only do desktop publishing and semi-good multitasking, Commodore Amiga stepped in and showed everyone how it’s done. It was awesome – and it worked.

Related reading: Amiga.org. You’d be amazed what people do with Amiga boxes even today.

Firefox users: You will be prompted soon to update your software to v3.0.2. If you don’t feel like waiting, just click Help and then Check for Updates… and you can upgrade right now.

So what’s new in 3.0.2 (hey, that rhymes)?

Quite a bit, actually.

There’s been some security fixes, "several stability issue" fixed (which hopefully means it doesn’t chomp up as much memory as before) and some Mac fixes as well.

You can read up on all the new/fixed stuff with FF here.