9th - Kaipara Konnection Weekly Newsletter - Dargaville.BIZ

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes
that can be made in a very narrow field.” -- Niels Bohr
Our answer
Hi Carol. Yes there are dozens of distributions (AKA “flavors”, “distros”) and they are all based on Linus Torvalds’ Linux
kernel; some “distros” can be very different from others. Saying all “distros” of Linux are basically the same is like saying
all versions of Windows are basically the same. For example: Linux Red Hat is very different from Linux Mint or Linux
Ubuntu. Additionally, I don’t particularly want to encourage people to use Linux, but we do want them to know they have
more options than using an unsafe, unpatched version of Windows. If someone does not have the money for a new
computer, Linux (Ubuntu) would be much safer than using an old, unpatched version of Windows XP. We’re advising
people not to play Russian roulette with their computers and their privacy - therefore nothing we will be writing will in any
way be encouraging people to hang on to Windows XP. We remember the mess when people using kept using Windows
98 after support ended. Many of those machines were compromised and became zombies distributing spam and worms
all across the Internet.
Anyone who switches to Linux from Windows is certainly going be disappointed with the number and quality of free
software available for it (a few thousand programs versus hundreds of thousands for Windows) -- that’s why I made
a point in the article of saying that if all you do is update your social networking sites, send and receive email, shop
online and browse the Web, Ubuntu would work well -- but if you do graphics, play resource-intensive games, or have
fun installing and trying free programs, or use your computer for many different projects, you probably won’t find Linux
- regardless of “distro” - to your liking.
As far as running Windows XP in a virtual machine, users could do the same with Windows 7 or Windows 8. Virtual
machines are great for testing and trying new things, but to use a virtual machine as your main computer is something
we’d never recommend.
We’re writing a newsletter for Windows users, and we’re not encouraging anyone to use Ubuntu or Linux. However, it is
an option if someone does not have the money to buy a new computer, or who cannot afford to upgrade their version of
Windows.
Eric can’t remember his wireless security key
I can’t remember my security key for my wireless network is. Now I have a new tablet computer and I can’t connect to
my network. Is there a way to find out what this key is? My brother told me I have to reset the router but I don’t want to
do that. Thanks for all your help!
Our answer
Hi Eric. You’re in luck. You won’t have to reset your router. There is an easy way to recover your wireless router security
key, and it works well most of the time. It’s called “Wireless Key View” by Nirsoft. It’s a very small download – zip file –
that you simple extract to a folder and click on the exe file to use it. In the main view you’ll see the key in both HEX and
Ascii. You’ll be most interested in Ascii – that’s your wireless key. You can download WirelessKeyView from http://www.
nirsoft.net/utils/wireless_key.html .
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