Month: December 2015

Linux Ubuntu 14 Free Alternative to Windows 10

Linux Ubuntu Alternative to Windows

You may be forgiven for thinking that Ubuntu is a foreign   language, perhaps African in origin, however the truth is it is a an Open source computer operation system often used to run computer servers.

I was introduced to Ubuntu a month ago when looking to replace my Window XP system which is no longer supported by Microsoft. I have a Windows 8 system running on a laptop and have never really been happy with the way it works. The thought of paying out again for a new system with potential bugs and security issues was daunting, so I looked at Linux Ubuntu.

Open source means free, so can a free system be better than one you pay for, well after one month of use I believe so, It takes up less space and can run on computers with lower specification that those in the shops today. I am considering loading Ubuntu onto an old Dell computer purchased some 10 years ago as a machine for my son.

Software wise, I migrated from Microsoft word and Excel some years ago using open source products from Open Office and Libre Office which are fully compatible, there is a small learning curve. Not many people use the full power of Excel and I believe Librecalc is able to meet most requirements. For a full comparison between Libra Office and Microsoft Office https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office

You need to check the software you use to see that it will operate on Linux systems main browsers have Linux versions. I had to replace my financial system Quicken with Moneydance, this caused a minor headache and would have been best to have done at the end of the financial year, but I am now up and running. I do not play games so cannot speak of support in that area, however Skype, Thunderbird, Gmail, Ivocalise , Kodi media system and Viber all work fine. I have also installed Kazam to replace my Cam video system.

Changing operating systems had one great advantage, giving an opportunity to clean up my disk drives. Over the years I have collected software that I may have only used one or two times, they have now gone. Virtually all my data is held on an external Drive, so in event of computer failure, I can access my data on a laptop. I store backups on hard drives, which is kind of reverse to usual, but works for me as I have moved houses many times, and can work from a laptop until my tower unit catches me up.

Ubuntu is certainly faster than XP, I have not checked out windows 8 but intend to replace the operating system on my laptop with Ubuntu, knowing that Kodi which we use for streaming TV and films works better on Ubuntu.

I have also set up an Ubuntu group on MarketHive to help out fellow members

 

David Ogden
MarketHive
Helping people help themselves

David

After Endless Demonization Of Encryption, Police Find Paris Attackers Coordinated Via Unencrypted SMS

from the anonymous-sources-say dept

In the wake of the tragic events in Paris last week encryption has continued to be a useful bogeyman for those with a voracious appetite for surveillance expansion. Like clockwork, numerous reports were quickly circulated suggesting that the terrorists used incredibly sophisticated encryption techniques, despite no evidence by investigators that this was the case. These reports varied in the amount of hallucination involved, the New York Times even having to pull one such report offline. Other claims the attackers had used encrypted Playstation 4 communications also wound up being bunk. 

Yet, pushed by their sources in the government, the media quickly became a sound wall of noise suggesting that encryption was hampering the government's ability to stop these kinds of attacks. NBC was particularly breathless this week over the idea that ISIS was now running a 24 hour help desk aimed at helping its less technically proficient members understand encryption (even cults help each other use technology, who knew?). All of the reports had one central, underlying drum beat implication: Edward Snowden and encryption have made us less safe, and if you disagree the blood is on your hands. 

Yet, amazingly enough, as actual investigative details emerge, it appears that most of the communications between the attackers was conducted via unencrypted vanilla SMS:

"…News emerging from Paris — as well as evidence from a Belgian ISIS raid in January — suggests that the ISIS terror networks involved were communicating in the clear, and that the data on their smartphones was not encrypted. 

European media outlets are reporting that the location of a raid conducted on a suspected safe house Wednesday morning was extracted from a cellphone, apparently belonging to one of the attackers, found in the trash outside the Bataclan concert hall massacre. Le Monde reported that investigators were able to access the data on the phone, including a detailed map of the concert hall and an SMS messaging saying “we’re off; we’re starting.” Police were also able to trace the phone’s movements.

The reports note that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the "mastermind" of both the Paris attacks and a thwarted Belgium attack ten months ago, failed to use any encryption whatsoever (read: existing capabilities stopped the Belgium attacks and could have stopped the Paris attacks, but didn't). That's of course not to say batshit religious cults like ISIS don't use encryption, and won't do so going forward. Everybody uses encryption. But the point remains that to use a tragedy to vilify encryption, push for surveillance expansion, and pass backdoor laws that will make everybody less safe — is nearly as gruesome as the attacks themselves.

David

Global Waste on Pace to Triple by 2100

Masaru Goto / World Bank

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • Solid waste generation rates are rising fast, on pace to exceed 11 million tonnes per day by 2100, urban specialist Dan Hoornweg and his colleagues write in the journal Nature.

  • That growth will eventually peak and begin to decline in different regions at different times, depending in part on population growth, waste reduction efforts, and changes in consumption.

  • Until that happens, the rising amount of waste means rising costs for governments and environmental pressures.

The amount of garbage humans throw away is rising fast and won't peak this century without transformational changes in how we use and reuse materials, write former World Bank urban development specialist Dan Hoornweg and two colleagues. 

By 2100, they estimate, the growing global urban population will be producing three times as much waste as it does today. That level of waste carries serious consequences – physical and fiscal – for cities around the world. 

Hoornweg and co-author Perinaz Bhada-Tata expanded on their work from the 2012 World Bank report What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management to estimate the trajectory of solid waste growth globally and to determine when it might peak.

In the earlier report, they warned that global solid waste generation was on pace to increase 70 percent by 2025, rising from more than 3.5 million tonnes per day in 2010 to more than 6 million tonnes per day by 2025. The waste from cities alone is already enough to fill a line of trash trucks 5,000 kilometers long every day. The global cost of dealing with all that trash is rising too: from $205 billion a year in 2010 to $375 billion by 2025, with the sharpest cost increases in developing countries.

In the new article, appearing in the journal Nature, Hoornweg, Bhada-Tata, and Chris Kennedy forecast that if business continues as usual, solid waste generation rates will more than triple from today to exceed 11 million tonnes per day by 2100. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, where waste levels are the highest today at around 1.75 million tonnes per day but populations aren’t growing as quickly and waste reduction efforts are underway, are likely to see their trash levels peak by 2050 and then start to decline, the authors write. Asia-Pacific countries won't peak until 2075. How soon Sub-Saharan Africa's waste increase peaks will determine how soon the world’s trash problem begins to decline.  

The results hold serious consequences for public services, government budgets, and the space consumed by landfills. Already, Mexico City's Bordo Poniente and Shanghai's Laogang receive more than 10,000 tonnes of waste per day, and the world's more than 2,000 waste incinerators raise concerns about ash disposal and air pollution. Landfills, and uncollected waste, also contribute to climate change through the production of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

It doesn’t have to be this way

The authors based their estimates on a "business as usual" scenario. The future doesn't have to turn out that way, they say.

" Through a move towards stable or declining populations, denser and better-managed cities consuming fewer resources, and greater equity and use of technology, we can bring peak waste forward and down. The environmental, economic and social benefits would be enormous. "

Dan Hoornweg, Perinaz Bhada-Tata and Chris Kennedy

Authors of "Waste Production Must Peak This Century"

"With lower populations, denser, more resource-efficient cities, and less consumption (along with higher affluence), the peak could come forward to 2075 and reduce in intensity by more than 25 percent. This would save around 2.6 million tonnes per day," Hoornweg and his colleagues write.

Some cities are already setting positive examples for waste reduction. San Francisco, for example, has an ambitious goal of "zero waste" by 2020 with aggressive recycling. About 55 percent of its waste is recycled or reused today. Industries in Kawasaki, Japan, divert 565,000 tonnes of potential waste per year – exceeding the city’s current municipal waste levels.

Other tactics cities can embrace include:

  • Reducing food waste with better storage and transportation systems, which can both help lower trash levels and help feed a growing world population.

  • Construction strategies that reuse materials, saving trees and the energy that goes into developing other building materials and reducing waste.

  • Policies such as disposal fees and recycling programs that encourage less waste.

"The planet is already straining from the impacts of today’s waste and we are on a path to more than triple quantities," the authors write. "Through a move towards stable or declining populations, denser and better-managed cities consuming fewer resources, and greater equity and use of technology, we can bring peak waste forward and down. The environmental, economic and social benefits would be enormous."

The article, Waste Production Must Peak This Century, is the cover story in the Oct. 31, 2013, issue of Nature.

 

 

David