Praise for Open Source
It's confusing. Why is anyone working with just Windows and Microsoft products, on PCs and laptops, when these great alternatives are here?
Alternatives to Windows
The Windows operating system (OS) has, incredibly, only gotten worse over the years.
Luckily there are now great choices other than Windows. You can switch over to, say, Linux Mint. I've been running it for years now, no issues. It's about time we had a viable alternative to the Microsoft monopoly.
And most all of the software you'll need is freely available. There's a software manager that lets you just download whatever you want, as I said, mostly cost-free. I've been able to find everything I need to be productive — or non-productive — free of charge. I recommend that people start to take advantage of these great new opportunities and migrate over to Linux, whatever desktop flavor you choose (there are many others, like Debian, for example). You can set your machine up to dual-boot Windows and Linux, as I did, so you won't lose anything.
The support network with the open source projects is often much more extensive than what you get with corporate products, and you know it's not going to be suddenly dropped, leaving you in the cold. And... you don't get hit regularly with the demands to upgrade at a high cost. And of course Linux is generally more stable. After all, my impetus to move was when Windows started inexplicably freezing on me every ten minutes.
With all the great open source products out there, there's a whole slew of ways to reduce costs at home and in your business. And maybe bring sanity to computers, whether you are a programmer or end-user. Worth checking out.
This is an important point to consider when discussing the advantages of open-source software, and it is a statistic that should not be overlooked in any blog post about open source software statistics. Open source makes up over 80% of the software code in use in modern applications. — gitnux.org
Database Software
PostgreSQL is an excellent choice for databases. Competitive with Oracle, but probably better because you aren't tied into its wacky and exorbitant pricing structure.
Computer Viruses
Here's a valuable tip. I was wondering why everyone is getting computer viruses all the time. I rarely get them, if ever, and I don't bother with those phony "virus checker" programs. (I think people are starting to realize that the virus checkers can only check after the fact, after someone has already gotten the virus and reported it to the company.) You know, it wouldn't be surprising if some OS (operating system) manufacturers just blame things on viruses to cover up their own stinky tracks. Switching to a Linux-based OS helps too, of course.
But when it comes down to it, it must be that people are getting suckered by those downloaded executables. If you've downloaded a file thinking you were getting a movie or song and you've gotten an executable (.exe) file, don't run it. It's simple as that. It's not a movie or song or document if it's not an .mp3, .mp4 or .pdf, or .vid or other known media format. It doesn't matter how good it looks, or if they say, "Run this to install your download," or whatever, don't run these oddball .exe files you'll get sometimes when you think you're getting something else! Now this doesn't mean executables you download from a known entity, say like your browser company or Adobe Reader or such, of course, but anything else is suspect.
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