Why Microsoft? Compute for FREE I show you how

The Multi-headed corporate, lieing giant with ambitions of world domination does not even write good, stable software. It tries to hide this behind layers of hype and technical detail but this is so. When even its own CEO cannot show a new product without it crashing the truth becomes obvious:

• Instability
• Lies
• Bad
• Domination
• EXPENSE!

So why do we put up with it and what can we do?

We put up with it because likely our first computer had windows/vista installed because of the huge incentives microsoft gives dealers and computer builders to do so. We are used to its idiosynchratic ways and odd little quirks. We think about it like our 25 year old sports car as 'having character' , as something we are used to. Well sorry. While some of you are out there driving your clapped out old Ford that you pay hundreds of dollars to maintain (every time microsoft decide to bill you by changing OS's) some of us are driving a smooth sleek and reliable Mercedes of an operating system that we got for free.

If you are thinking of buying a new computer because your old one has got 'too slow' then DONT. Try this first and you will save yourself 100's.

Dont worry if you have MS Word files, Excel files or Powerpoint to manipulate, we can easily get around this- the operating system comes complete with a compatible office system. Here it is step by step.

1) Fire up your Browser and save your bookmarks. Export any email you have in outlook, plus your address book to text files.

2) Backup your old files. Remember its ONLY data file you need to backup not your whole disc including programs. Thats your document, music,and any other folders/files you have created on your desktop including the files you just made. Do NOT use any backup utility, just copy the files to a cd/DVD. I would be surprised unless you collect movies if this takes more than 2 CD's or one DVD. If you DO collect movies and you have Gigs of irreplaceable content simply spend $100 and buy yourself an external hard drive from PC world and put them there.

By now you are thinking this sounds like a lot of effort but this is what you should do even if you changed your pc or swapped to different microsoft operating system.

3) Goto http://www.ubuntu.com and follow their instructions on downloading and creating a Bootable CD of their newest software.

4) Boot your machine from the CD and check everything you need to work does actually work.

5) Satisfied? Good. Now look at the instructions on the Ubuntu site for installing the system, write down or print anything you need to bear in mind and cannot easily remember.

6) Install the OS and note how much faster your machine is!

Now with Ubuntu there is a whole host of FREE applications including OpenOffice which is the replacement for Microsoft Office.

You can easily add others by going to the applications menu and selecting add/remove. Applications that are worth having are:

Wine (runs nearly all windoze applications including games under ubuntu)
Gimp (Full featured graphics creator and photo editor)
K3b (DVD and CD Burner)

If you are a programmer or web designer there are a host of things but to start with:

BlueFish (Html editor)
gPHPEdit (Php, PERL and C code editor)
gFTP (FTP program)

Updates to the OS and all supported programs are FREE.

Enjoy the $400-1000 you just saved on taking a free holiday. A friend of mine is a Real Estate agent with an office and five other agents working with him. He just saved around $10000 converting the office to Ubuntu instead of buying new PC's and whats more the PC's now are all networked. Not only is the operation faster and slicker than it was but the staff are no longer standing round one PC scratching their heads for an hour a day!