Counting heads
I'm going to try to put an image in this blog entry.

The image below is a graphic of how much time recent visiters have spent at at my website.

As you can hopefully see, many people don't stay long, but three visiters stayed more than an hour.

I use an outfit named StatCounter to keep up with statistics on my website. According to StatCounter, my site averages about 200 visiters a day. The Tripod counter that shows when editing the site runs about 300 per day.

I know that's not a whole lot of people. But it's gratifying to see people actually staying for awhile.

Thanks to all of you for visiting.

Virtual OSs
The last computer that I bought had 512 mb of ram built in. Now, anyone who has been around computers for awhile remembers when we ran Windows98 with 64 mb ram and Windows 95 with 16 mb ram.

Computers bought now routinely come with 1000 mb or a gigabyte of ram.

I've been thinking about that. Why has the amount of ram in new computers skyrocketed in the last couple of years?

One reason is that computer users and manufacturers have discovered that the Windows XP operating system thrives on lots of Ram and the more you give it the better it runs.

And, when and if you upgrade to the forthcoming Windows Vista, you will be glad you have all that ram because I hear that it will have the same hunger or worse that Windows XP has for Ram.
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But it's not always the operating system that demands more ram to run efficiently. I understand that video processing and some games will use all the ram you have available.

I have never run out of ram before, except the time I tried to run Windows ME with 64 mb. But, I recently ran out of ram on this computer that has 512 mb ram.
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This happened because I have been playing with a new program called VMWare Enterprise Workstation. VMWare is a program that will allow you to install operating systems on your computer that are kept separate from your main operating system.

For example I have Windows XP SP2 on this computer. With VMWare I have been able to install Edubuntu and Window 2000 to this computer without dual-booting or setting up separate partitions.

I just open the VMWare program and it gives me a choice of Operating Systems(OSs) to boot into. These OSs are called "Virtual" OSs and what you do in them has absolutely no effect on your main OS.

These virtual OSs are great for trying out things before you put them on your main operating system. If a virtual OS gets corrupted or messed up, you just delete it and reinstall it.
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Anyway, to get to the point here, I had two virtual OSs running at the same time and up popped a message saying that I had run out of ram. So, I found out that 512 mb ram was not enough to run Windows XP, Edubuntu, and Windows 2000 all at the same time. So, until I can purchase more ram I'll just be able to run one virtual OS at a time.
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If you've read very many of the blog entries here you've probably figured out that I am a computer and Internet junkie. And a cheap one at that since the major focus of my website right now is Freeware.

VMWare Enterprise Workstation is fairly pricey at $189.00. You can buy it at:

http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/pricing.html

However, if you hose your computer trying something new you might be out that much or more if you lose all the data.

Also, if you are like me, people ask you questions about computers with different type of OSs on them all the time. With VMWare you can easily access those several OSs on just one computer and find what you need to know.

And VMWare is just plain fun to play with.

Almost a Windows Clone
A good friend of mine asked me not long ago if I would like to have a copy of "White Box Enterprise Linux"(WBEL).

I had never heard of WBEL, but that didn't stop me from saying, "Sure!".

I let those CDs lay around a few days and finally had a chance to try them out on an old AMD 1000 box with 256 MB of PC100 memory. It had Windows ME on it and was just begging for an update.

The install was not uneventful. Midway through the first install something went wrong and I had to start over. The second attempt went smoothly and in due time WBL was ready for prime time.

All the hardware was recognized and the Internet connection was configured.

Those who are only familiar with Windows operating systems will like WBEL. Practically all of the Windows features are there and are presented in a way that you can recognize them immediately.

Of course I am not going to waste much of my time writing here or anywhere else about programs or OSs that I don't like.

I really like WBEL and would be perfectly happy using it from now on. As the title of this article says, WBEL is the closest thing to a Windows clone yet.

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You can download WBEL for free at ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/whiteboxlinux.org//4/en/iso/i386
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Please be advised that the download is four CDs. Three of the CDs are 650 mb and the fourth is 300+ mb. Even a Broadband connection will take some time to download WBEL.
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WBEL will ask you if you want to check the CD for errors. If you do check it for errors it will say that the CD is no good. Just ignore the warning and ciontinue with the install.

Free Ubuntu CDs
I try out different Linux operating systems occasionally just to see how they are progressing in functionality and useability as compared to Windows operating systems. That's how I ran across "Damn Small Linux" as mentioned in my previous blog.

There are several excellent Linux operating systems now that will run from a CD or from you hard drive after you install it.

These are all free if you download them from the Internet. However, if you are on a dialup connection to the Internet, a download of a 650 megabyte file will take hours, if not days.

I was trying out a Linux operating system called Ubuntu and noticed that they offered to send Ubuntu to you at no cost. They would send the CDs free and even pay the shipping.

So, I ordered some Ubuntu CDs. About a month or so later a small package arrived that was full of Ubuntu CDs.

Included were Live and Install CDs in single cardboard folders for Windows(12), PowerPC(2), and AMD64(2) platforms.

Very nice, indeed. If you have been wanting to try out Linux, this is the cheapest and easiest way that I know of.

Browse the Internet without a hard drive....
Got a nice little computer here that I put Windows 98 on with the intention of running the United Devices cancer research program on it.

It has a 30gig Hard drive, a 200mmx Pentium processor, and 64 mb of EDO ram.

This little puter ran Windows 98 like a champ. At least it did until the hard drive failed. I tried everything to get it running again. It wouldn't fdisk. The Windows 98 cd would not recognize it. Spinrite didn't do any good. The Western Digital floppy said it had a fatal error number so-and-so and to contact Western Digital support at its website.

Well, just by coincidence, I had recently downloaded and burned to CD a Linux distro iso file called Damn Small Linux.

Damn Small LInux (DSL) is an Operating System ( you know: like windows 98, 2000, XP, etc) that you can run from a CD. I had tried it on my regular computer and it worked very well.

So, I got to thinking and wondered if it run from a CD without a Hard drive on the computer.

I went into the BIOS of the computer and set it to boot from a CD. Then I stuck the CD in the tray and booted the computer. It went into an install of the DSL, but would never complete it.

Next, I did what I should have done from the beginning. I read the DSL help files. It said that a computer needed 128 mb of ram before DSL would run completely in memory.

I hunted around and found 64 more mb ram to get that computer up to 128 mb total.

I booted again with DSL in the CD tray and DSL installed without a hitch. It recognized all the hardware and automatically configured the Internet connection and I was browsing the Internet without a hard drive.

Now, if you have several computers, this idea may not be of much use to you. However, if you only have one computer, and need to get on the Internet, then it might be useful to keep a copy of DSL around. Did I mention that it is free?

DSL is not a small download if you are on a dialup connection. It is about 50 mb and will take up to five hours to download.

If you can't wait that long or pay Internet by the minute or something, you can go here and order a CD delivered for $9 US.

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NOTE:
The download is an iso file. This iso file will have to be burned to a CD. The program that I use to burn the iso file to a CD is CDBurner XP Pro, which can be downloaded here. CDBurner XP Pro is Freeware (doesn't cost anything) and does an excellent job.

For those in the dark......
In the previous blog I went on and on about the things I had been doing and will do.

You might have understood all that if you knew that there is a website associated with this blog by the name of "Dubber's Computer Resources".

The site started out as a computer resource (hence the name) for those looking for information ordinarily scattered here and there. I tried to put on one site the information about computer topics that computer users (especially newbies) might need help with.

Interestingly, I began, lo those many years ago, with posting daily an idea, news, quotes, etc(sorta like a blog, you know?). It got to be too much to do every day, so I tried expanding some of the topics with the result of one page having more than 2,000 links.

And away we go.......
Yep, here we are a blogging away for sure.

I'll have some topics to wite about now and then.

Things are fixin to get real busy for ol' dubber real soon, so he's catching up a little on the grunt work around here.

The last couple of days were spent cleaning out the Freeware Links deadwood. You may have noticed the 299 deleted Freeware Links.

Other tasks aroud here include updating the severely outdated "Essential Freeware List", rewriting the "Send to" tip that never really made sense, adding another chapter to "How to Find 2,000 Freeware Links, and I'm gonna get real brave and redo the "Home" page from scratch.

Now, I hope your nap is over and you can read my plea for you to post entries here about whatever is on your mind. This blog IS moderated and I have to approve posts ahead of time.

Got to go now. Hope your week is exciting and fruitful. Yeah right.

Later.