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I recently got another used laptop off eBay. It came without an OS so I was going to install Linux, but seeing that Windows 10 has just become available for download, I decided to give it a try and install Linux alongside, in dual boot. First, let us look at downloading the ISO, comparing the 3 possibilities: NetSession, Direct and BitTorrent. This article represents my pre-install research – the install experience and tips coming up soon.

After unsuccessfully trying to install VMware Server 2 in prior versions of Ubuntu I finally managed to get it to work. I still can't believe it was this easy! Finally, I can run WLW and play with all the other OSs I've been dying to try!

Have you noticed your Internet connection getting sluggish even while your Speed-tests show no slowdown? Are your VoIP conversations breaking up and becoming unintelligible especially when torrent downloading? If your answer is yes, you might benefit from the following tips.

Now that the latest LTS is out, I thought the time is ripe to upgrade.

Youtube is a wonderful platform and its creators deserve to be able to make a living. Many of them actually do by serving Google ads (with Google keeping a significant portion of ad revenue) or, via some Youtube subscription model that was first called Red and now is Premium (this may be inaccurate, I’m not following it closely). If, like me, you dislike a model where Google decides who is worthy of support and who’s not and gets to keep the lion’s share of ad revenue, this article might be for you. If, on the other hand, you have the means to purchase YouTube Premium and don’t have time to waste, go ahead and get it, it’s definitely worth it!

After wasting time and intense frustration, I have decided that waiting for videos of photos to upload to online services is not something I want to do from my laptop. I shall thus explore alternatives..

After having a look at the more specific driver issues related to installing the latest version of Ubuntu linux on my Toshiba Tablets , it’s time to have a more general – and, hopefully, useful to more readers – look at what’s new and what needs to be changed in this new install. Obviously, I’m building upon my previous install notes ( 10.10 ).

After a few attempts which ended in failure, I managed to format my 2 x 2TB 4k Western Digital drives . Now that it’s done, it seems incredibly simple. It is also “sticky”, meaning it does not need to be performed on each reboot (DUH!).

For the longest time I've been renting a cable modem from my ISP for about $5-6/month. As DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems (capable of 400Mbps D/l and 108 Mbps U/l) have become widely available I've decided to upgrade my cable modem and also purchase it.

We’ve recently learned about Codeweavers’ amazing giveaway. The make a program that allows you to use 99% of all Windows applications without installing Windows. That includes Microsoft Office applications, but also games. And they’ve combined the giveaway with a political message :)

There was a time when having a “media center” involved building an HTPC, which was a difficult project to undertake, wrought with frustrations and hardware/software incompatibilities. OTA HDTV came along and many felt left behind just when they had gotten things working. Some experimented with Popcorn while others played with NZBs/NNTP/Usenet downloads. After all these years, one media interface has emerged dominant: XBMC / Boxi / Kodi.

I recently had an ISP service interruption at home, leaving me without a working Internet connection for a few hours. I used my iPhone to tether into my 3G connection, did a few speed tests, and wondered how it compared to my regular (cable modem) internet connection. Here are the test results.

One of the most annoying "features" in Windows is the "Compressed Folders" feature, where Zip files are displayed as folders. While this may be nice for some, most users accumulate a large number of zip files in a folder, making it unviewable in Windows Explorer. We look at how to get rid of it.

Continuing my SSD saga with windows installation. For what is worth, I have original Windows licenses with COA for all the new computers and laptops I purchased plus I even purchased and additional Windows license from DigitalRiver, as a student, for about $39. Unfortunately, that license was supposed to be for Windows Professional, as I ordered and was instead for Windows Home, which although at the same price point, lacked important functionality. I tried to contact the reseller to get the problem rectified but that was not possible (no response). Needless to say, I’m not as happy as one could be.

After my RAID-0 has recently failed catastrophically, the time has come to set up another pair of HDDs in my DNS-323. I figured a step-by-step howto on what I've done would not be useful only for me if I had to do it again, but to any other owner of this extremely popular unit. This is a rather long article, as it contains several smaller articles, but it is hopefully complete and suitable for a reinstall, cuz that’s the way I roll.

Not long after we played around testing our connection here in Canada over broadband (cable) vs iPhone (3G) , Akamai releases its 2009 Q3 report.

..and that day is November 18. The software, which contains Firewall, Antispyware and ID protection for PC will be available for free download for 24 hours, starting at 6 AM PDT on Tuesday, November 18, in celebration of Check Point’s (the parent company) 15th anniversary.

Prompted by the latest Kali update (the rolling Sana), I looked through all my USB stick and decided to update them all. One such stick has Tails, the privacy and anonymity minded OS on a stick with Tor and i2P, used by privacy advocates all over the world (including Edward Snowden).

In the previous article on the joys and pitfalls of freeing your Apple portable devices from Steve Jobs technoid BDSM prison, we briefly discussed the advantages and disadvantages of jailbreak. In this article we get a bit more hands-on and look at the actual methods of achieving this. Although just released, iPad has already been jailbroken (see video below) and an announcement will be made about iPhone OS 4.0 soon.

After installing Windows, I started playing with it extensively. These are the voyages of the Windows 10 Technical Evaluation, its continuing mission to explore strange new apps and computing paradigms, to seek out better GUIs, to boldly go where no stylus pen has gone before. In this article we will look at partitioning for dual boot with Linux and the very first impressions.