Brazil trip continued

Posted on June 24, 2009

Did you know there is a new strain of the “swine” flu? It is called the Sao Paulo H1N1 - because it was first identified there. When we “flu” in last Tuesday we were greeted by people in white smocks and surgery masks handing out flyers about the flu. If you (or anyone around you) have been coughing, sneezing, running a fever or just not feeling well you should report immediately to the nearest clinic. There were posters and signs to that effect all along the way from plane to terminal. luckily no one around me turned me in for having sneezed more than once on the plane (every time the flight attendant with horrible taste in perfume walked by). i also did not feel that well - after having spent a full day at the Chicago airport, ate airport food and then flew 9 1/2 hours in economy and actually having eaten the “meal” they served.

Also in the Sao Paulo airport I finally found out what drive in restaurants do with their drive through speaker and mic systems when they get too bad for even them to use - they obviously sell them to the Sao Paulo airport to use as the PA system announcing flights.

Brazil, at least the parts I was in, are not geared to American tourists. There were no stores hawking the sorts of things we tend to buy as gifts to take home. I could only find a handful of “Brazil” t-shirts, two “Brazil” refrigerator magnets and some mini “Brazil” soccer-balls. They also need to make sure the rent a car agencies not only offer but strongly encourage use of GPS units. Also all those people that spend their days whitewashing the curbs - let them have real paint and have them paint signs with street and highway names.

Now, as to the idea that drilling for oil is good not bad, the only drill rigs we saw were in the bay at Rio and they were under construction or being refitted. That alone accounts for a large number of good paying jobs. Once they are put to use (obviously far enough off the coast that you can’t see them) they account for more jobs, not just on the rigs but supporting them. Petrobras is very busy recruiting and training the people that they need. And of course, the effect of all those jobs is even more jobs in businesses supporting all those people - stores, services, home building - it ripples wide through the economy.

There is zero impact on the beautiful coastline of Brazil from the drilling off shore. I read today that just one area off their coast is thought to hold some 45 billion barrels of oil. That one area can supply all of Brazil’s oil for over 10 years - that is what I call energy independence! They don’t need to turn all their food into “alcool” or put a windmill on jesus’s head over Rio.

Not only are there more areas with the potential for that sort of oil discovery off the coast of Brazil, there are the same potential sources off our coast - in areas that Obama, Gore and Florida Senator Nelson - won’t let us drill. There is more in Alaska, where they also won’t let us drill and in Colorado and Utah and Wyoming.

My boss - who was born in Germany - pointed out how short sighted the Brazilians are in not working harder to have more people speaking English. Think about it, how many places can you really expect to do business in the world only speaking Porteugeuse? Brazil and Portugal pretty much are it. And it is hard to attract businesses or tourists without lots of people speaking a more widely used language.

That said - Brazil is a very interesting place to visit and the people - all that I met - are friendly and try very hard to help the crazy “Americans” (I tried very hard not to call us or others from the USA “Americans” pointing out that Brazilians are also Americans). They generally tried very hard to understand us and make us understand them.

Oh and if you think that everything there will be inexpensive - nope - most everything we bought cost about the same as it would here. But, the Coca Cola there is EXCELLENT!!! They still make it with cane sugar - not high fructose corn syrup! Oh and as far as I can tell - there is no penalty for drinking the water - it tasted great, in fact better than the tap water here in Parker Colorado! I cannot travel to Dallas and drink the water but Brazil - no problem!

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» Filed Under Liberals, Energy, economic recession, Jesus Christ, Travelling |

A most eventful trip

Posted on June 22, 2009

A week ago Sunday my boss and I embarked on a trip to Brazil. From the very beginning it was “eventful”.

When we arrived at the Denver airport there was a report there were funnel clouds reported in Denver. The storm was tracking very near the airport. Our flight was delayed and delayed and delayed. We finally took off about an hour late, hoping that the connecting flight to Brazil from Chicago would also be delayed. It wasn’t.

The flight to Sao Paulo left the gate about the same moment we arrived.The airport was nearly empty that time of night - except for the line at customer service trying to rebook. We tried to rebook using the phone and were informed that we had been rebooked on the same flight - Tuesday night - meaning we would miss half the four day trade show. Not an option. They tried to rebook us but my ticket was paid for with frequent flyer miles so the options were limited - they could not rebook us to a partner airline. We looked into all sorts of options on the phone and later at the customer service counter.

While waiting at customer service counter, a young Chinese man with an elderly Chinese man was behind us. The elder man had missed his connection after a long flight from China and the young man was trying to help him get at least a hotel room for the night. The young man had to go catch his connection and had the elder man follow us to the counter. He did, and when we were called to the counter the woman helping us couldn’t understand why we were talking about just two of us when there were obviously three. Once we explained what was up, the man at the next counter took care of him using a by phone translation service. It seemssince his delay was strictly weather related and he was not entitled to a hotel voucher - onjly a discount coupon. Our flight was over booked as well as being weather delayed so we got the voucher.

We then tried to retrieve our suitcases but were told doing so would somehow cancel our newly aquired reservations for Monday night (24 hours later). We were assured that our bags - which contained not only our clothes but all the literature and trinkets to be given out at the show - would be on the flight with us.

Monday morning we tried again, with the help of a travel agen to get an earlier flight - still no go since my ticket was paid by miles. Finally, we accepted that the red eye flight that night was our only choice.We again asked about our bags and were assured that they would make the flight with us - the clerk even entered our claim check numbers into the computer to make sure they were associated with our tickets.

Guess what, my bags made it the bosses did not. Again, the claim check numbers were entered into the computer and we were assured they would be on the Tuesday night flight and delivered to our hotel by Tuesday night.

While we were at the airport in Chicago we made sure emails were sent to the rental car agency and the hotel letting them know we were delayed 24 hours. The rental car was not there.

Of the 4 rental agencies at the Rio airport - only one had cars available.

We quickly found out that having a map was pretty useless- Brazil seems to see little need for putting up road signs with the names of roads. We took a several mile side trip into Rio proper after we missed the turn to the bridge across the bay. The maze of streets with no names and very limited oportunities to turn resulted in our finding the only obvious “retorno” toward the bridge not only was marked with a no righyt tur sign (tose they put up) but manned by a policeman. When a motorcycle made the turn with no reaction from the cop we tried it. He reacted, we held up the map jabbered in English (which at least 99% of Brazilians do not understand) he smiled, looked at what we were pointing to on the bridge - jabbered some Porteuguese and waved us on to the road we needed.

we made the rest of the road trip of about 150km with little difficulty (and zipping past who knows how many photo speed traps because we did not recognize them). The route we took was mostly a two lane with many trucks laboring up the many hills. the tiny Fiat we rentedhad some difficulty accelerating enough to get safely around the trucks so we did what the locals did - cut it way too close and passed them anyway.

We drove past the trade show venue on our way to finding the hotel - it took over an hour getiing from the one to the other even though it was only a few miles.

The hotel honored our reservations (but I am sure we had better rooms waiting on Monday than we got on Tuesday. The view was of a blank concrete wall and looking down from the balconies we found the hotel employee’s break area - the alley behind the hotel. We asked for directions back to the show venue and the hand drawn map the busman let us look at (he only had the one copy) indicated the route we had taken getting there. So we headed out (me in clean clothes and armed with a handfull of literature and trinkets from my bags) and drove the hour back to the show. We paid the R$20 to park and were there for the final two hours of the evening.

Our “hostess” we hired was a very pleasant surprise - she was so good at translating and learned our products so well that she quickly did not need to translate the questions but simply answered most of the questions directly.

Wednesday we went to the show, found we could park across the street for only R$10 and had a good day at the show. At least the boss was able to wear one of my shirts with the company logo - but was still in Sundays clothes otherwise. Returning to the hotel Wednesday night we found that the airline had again failed to deliver the lost bags.

Our translator told us there is a “mall” in the city - near the hotel. The desk clerk said the only directions “You should take Taxi”. Diligent internet searching found themall’s web site with a rudimentary map. Only one of the roads on that map could be found on Google or Yahoo maps. But Thursday morning, instead of going to the beach (the hotel is on the beautiful beach and the trade show started at 2 pm) we set out to buy clothes and a phone charger for the boss. We found the road shown on all the maps (linhqa Verde - Green Line) and it is a four lane divided highway. We of course missed the turn to the mall - this time because there were not only no signs but a construction project blocked us actually seeing the mall.

That missed turn led us to the realization we could use that highway to reach the show venue in considerably less time than the through the city route.

We got clothes and the phone charger and went to the show. (n between we went to the hotel and parked in the attended lot across from the hotel and - as instructed - had the hotel stamp the ticket. When we went to get the car we gave the attendant the ticket - he tore it up and demanded R$4.)

At the show we found a farmer allowing parking in his field for only R$5 (we only had a 50 and two 2’s so we negotiated it down to $4.

The end of the day at the show left us with exactly 4 pieces of literature.

THE BAGS arrived!

Friday we managed to get stuck in the elevator at the brand new hotel (it had not been finished when we made our reservations). The boss wore his own clothes and we had plenty of literature and several different “trinkets” to give out. On the way to the show we decided to stop at the only money exchange house in the city - armed with what details we could glean from the internet mapsrealizing actual street names might not help,I had counted the number of blocks from recognizable landmarks, only to realize too late the internet maps left off at least half the streets. We wound up asking directions on the street and two women gave up trying to make us understand and simply got in therecar and waved for us to follow. We did and many turns and several close calls from the kamakaze drivers she waved out the window at the proper building.

To be continued… too late to keep typing tonight

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» Filed Under Travelling |

Macae’ - Brasil oil boom town

Posted on June 18, 2009

We are here in Macae’ (Mack-I-ya) Brazil (Brasil the way they spell it) for a trade show. It is a town that without oil would be a nice stretch of beach that nobody would go to unless they had relatives there.

The discovered oil off shore here and - unlike the USA - the Brazilian government actually lets them drill for it. Did I say “lets” - no - they make sure they drill for it. The oil revenue is paying off the national debt - it can be paid off? These Brazilians are so clever - why didn’t anyone in the US think of that?

There are no hotel rooms to be had here, the traffic through town is terrible (we found out today there is a much better way to get there on a very nice 4 lane road. The people at the hotel did not include that in their directions.

Yahoo maps and mapquest were of little help finding our way around - not so much because of anything they do but the fact that Brazilians seem to see no need for street signs, certainly none with the name of any street you are actually on. Add to the lack of road signs the drivers who make your worst foreign born cabbie in the US seem like a grandmother off to church on Sunday, the kamikazee motorcyclists weaving through stopped or slow traffic at twice the posted speed limit and it is easy to find your self quickly lost of at least needing to find the next “retorno”(U-turn) to get back on track. There are city buses that squeeze by on the right with inches to spare (with motorcyclists squeezing through those inches).

We have been introduced to the Obama future car of the US - it is a tiny Fiat (didn’t they just get Chrysler?) with a tiny engine that has just enough power to let you pass a slow moving truck and leave a few inches to spare before the oncoming car flashes past. It looks remarkably like a 4 door “Smart car”, runs on Gas or “alcool”. We drove it about 150 miles and then bought R$75 worth of alcool ($40 US). I work it out at 15 mpg and the cost of alcool (made from sugar) R$7.20 per gallon about $4 US. Gas is double alcool but the mileage is probably better - not sure if it is double.

The poor mileage could be partly from the hour long traffic jams through town.

Since the Unnamed Air Line (which I’ll call UAL for short) lost the boss’s bags in Chicago from Sunday through tonight (Thursday night) we went in search of the Plaza Macae’ (sole shopping mall) to buy a phone charger so he could consult his Blackberry, some clean clothes and other necessaries. The hotel declined to offer directions saying - better to call a cab. Yahoo maps and mapquest couldn’t find it by name, the plaza’s web site did not include an address or directions but did include a not to scale short on detail “map”. The usual map sites could not identify the few street names on the plaza’s map, the not to scale feature (and not terribly accurate even as to the relative directions of the roads it did show) made comparing it to the other maps useless. There was one named road that seemed familiar - I had seen a sign pointing toward it near the hotel. So we went and found that road, then drove down it looking for the “mall”. A less than convenient road construction made it impossible to spot the mall on first pass - we had to go several km before finding a “retorno” which conveniently led us to a road that appeared to go to the convention center.

We back tracked, found the mall behind the construction vehicles and got the needed items.

Of course this evening the bags appeared at the hotel.

We ended the day at the trade show with 4 company flyers left. The rest are in the now found baggage so tomorrow, we can be much more free with them.

I really have to say something about Pollyanna our interpreter. We thought we had hired another interpreter and had lined her up as a “hostess” to hand out flyers and just be friendly. We were not expecting our interpreter to bail on us and for our “hostess” to be a very smart, pretty assistant who not only did an excellent job interpreting for us but quickly learned about our products and then was answering nearly all questions directly.

Well, TCM just finished showing “They call me Mister Tibbs” in English with Portuguese sub-titles and is now showing an old Clark Gable movie dubbed in Portuguese. Guess it is time to turn in.

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» Filed Under Travelling |

24 hour layover in Chicago

Posted on June 15, 2009

Watched Marine One (and the decoy and at least 4 other Marine copters) fly past the window of the Chicago hotel that United put us up in because they were an hour late getting us here on our way to Brazil (or Brasil if you live there). We were supposed to have a meet and greet with the US Ambassador today. Oh well!

We have been re-booked unbooked re-rebooked and again unbooked on flights so many times that I lost track.

Could have been on a flight out of JFK today except my ticket was “paid for” with Freq flyer miles, could have been rebooked on another flight out of Miami - but - Freq flyer miles.

At more than one point I would have arrived 4 or five hours later than my boss but the several hour drive from Rio to the trade show was a problem. At one point the difference in confirmed flights was 24 hours.We could have flown to Sao Paulo and then had a 24 hour layover before heading to Rio.

Anyway, here I sit at gate C11 next to a woman that has so far not made her connecting flight to Denver for the 6th time today. We are sharing one of the sparse public outlets. There were 100 standby’s for the last flight she did not get on. Yesterday there were 100 stabdby’s in Denver waiting for the flight that we got on. Maybe United would be doing better if they actually flew passengers rather than trapping them in airports. She discussed renting a car and driving the 16 hours to Denver - might get there quicker. I am sure that most of the passengers on the flight here last night missed connections - they all seemed to be in line at Cust Service with us. So was a poor little man who spoke only Mandarin and had missed his connecting flight to somewhere from China. They didn’t even offer to put him in a hotel - only offered a discount.

Somehow our weather delayed - overbooked flight made us special in their eyes - just weather delayed did not qualify him.

But there did not seem to be any disruption due to AF one being on the ground when we arrived from the hotel.

Hopefully all the people who come to the Macae Offshore Drilling show looking for handling tools will wait for us to arrive.

Drill here - drill there - drill now!

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» Filed Under Democrats, Travelling |

Blue Hampshire predicting NH goes RED!!!

Posted on June 1, 2009

I looked at the Graphic Blue published under their Headline ”

Consequences of Marriage Equality

and I think they are exactly right. The Consequences of the drive to legalize Homosexual Marriage in NH will be to turn the state red! I can’t read their captions in the graph but the message got through!

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» Filed Under Republican Revolution, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Legislators, Democrats, NH Politics |

Obama’s automotive disaster

Posted on June 1, 2009

Actually that headline reads Obama is automotive disaster. He took over Chrysler and gave it to the unions that destroyed it and Fiat!

Fiat has clearly demonstrated that they cannot build cars Americans want to buy. They have tried several times to enter the US market and failed every time. I had a friend in high school (back in the 60’s) who was - and probably still is - a Fiat fan. And yeah, he could take a tiny little Fiat about the size of a “Smart car” and with some stuff from Abarth make it pretty zippy - but the few thousand people who bought them back then were not enough to keep them importing. Then in the ’70’s Fiat made some cute Spyders - and they were fun little cars. You needed a real friendly mechanic though to keep them running. Again the few thousand buyers were not enough. Now, when Yugo started shipping their cheap knock offs of a Fiat design and a few thousand of them were imported (and then junked because that was all they were - junk). The result of Obama Fiat motors will be to destroy what there is about Chrysler that appeals to American buyers and replace it with bad Eurpoean stuff that no one wants.

Now then Obama’s destruction of GM will be even more disastrous. Already the decision was made to axe the Pontiac line. Pontiac outsold Buick and Cadillac but of course neither of those divisions have a performance image which Pontiac did. I won’t even speculate on what voting block would have rebelled if Obama axed Cadillac. If you think it is obvious - so be it!

I suspect that Obama will kill off the Corvette, the Camaro and the SSR. V-8’s if still available at all will be in heavy duty trucks - which will be rare. SUV’s - those allowed by the Obama administration - will be on the order of the the (now orphaned) Pontiac Vibe. So small that two adults and two children (in small) child seats might fit. The Suburban - after nearly 60 years - will be extinct, as will the Tahoe/ Yukon. Want a crew cab truck - you will probably have to verify that you have a six “person” construction crew to ride in it.

My hope is that Roger Penske is able to buy Saturn - maybe they will throw in the Corvette. Of course Saturn cannot be allowed to survive as part of UAW Obama Motors since it has prospered without the UAW.

It should be noted that the rush by Obama to axe dealers both at Chrysler and GM exactly targets a group of wealthy people who contributed to and raised money for Republican candidates. Almost zero car dealers contributed to Obama and the Dems.

With the demise of GM, Obama and his minions will seek to make it impossible for those of us with GM cars that Obama does not like (for instance my Vette) to keep them on the road. Across the country for several years there have been efforts to legislate away the ability to keep old cars on the road. The current “polution” system inspections in many states make it nearly impossible for anything not produced by the original manufacture to pass the inspection. That being the case - they will simply stop making key components for the cars they want off the road.

As I said - Obama is disaster for the US Automotive industry. (Oh, and I didn’t even mention the hundreds of thousands who will lose their jobs as a direct and indirect result of Obama’s take over).

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» Filed Under Pelosi, Reid, Republicans, voter fraud, Liberals, Obama, dirty tricks, Democrats, Global Warming, National Politics, World politics, Legislators, Taxes, NH Politics |

Trust everyone, but brand your calves!

Posted on May 27, 2009

Yes, seriously, I am in cattle country. Saw that bumper sticker today - on Saturday I stood in the yard and watched a young eagle catch and devour its lunch about 20 feet away. The prairie dogs all took cover, the way a couple robins were harassing the eagle I suspect lunch was also a robin.

The sunsets over the snow covered Rockies are another unique part of life here - watching the Rockies lose to the Dogers was tempered by watching grandsons having fun at Coors Field.

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» Filed Under Colorado politics |

My Great Niece - really Great!

Posted on May 25, 2009

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» Filed Under positive values |

Goodbye Mike

Posted on May 20, 2009

My best friend in school and on through life has passed on today.

He was 60 and one of those freak incidents that just should never happen got him.

He survived being blown up in an ammo dump explosion in Viet Nam. His letter to me at the time just said “should have seen that explosion - biggest Fourth of July you ever saw”. He didn’t tell us the “rest of the story” until some 15 or so years later. The blast threw him across the compound, seperated his ribs from his sternum and put him in a hospital in Japan.

He also survived his Huey helicopter being shot down twice I think (again he didn’t talk about it at all until years later) and one of those times he pulled the mortally wounded co-pilot from the wreckage and carried him a hundred yards or so across a rice paddy which resulted in his getting the Bronze Star with the V for valour.

He survived the night of carousing the night before reporting for induction - the car he was passenger in didn’t - he and our mutual friend (also named Rob) - to the sound track of Grand Prix - took a turn on a rural gravel road way too fast, rolling Bob’s ‘64 Fairlane.

He survived years of drag racing and road racing in his Corvettes.

What Mike didn’t survive was a blood clot that lodged in his lung and stopped his heart.

I met Mike when I was 13 and he 14 or 15 (between our birthdays each year we were a year apart, then it was two until my birthday again). I’d known his sister Betsy since at least 1st grade - our mothers were friends. He recruited me to become a part of the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps. His dad was a director. We spent several years together doing that.

We were carriers for the Denver Post together for several years also. When he got his license we’d load all the Sunday papers for both routes in his dad’s Ford wagon and toss them all before going to Davy’s Chuck Wagon Diner for breakfast at about 4 am.

Tossing papers we met another long time friend John. He is a year younger than I but the three of us all loved cars. It was though John I found out the details about what happened to Mike this week.

Cars also played into us meeting yet another long time friend Frank. Frank had a shop where he build honest to God race cars. We spent many a day at Frank’s and later we both worked for Frank for a while.Frank helped john get in touch with me with the news. The year we worked for Frank he won the Stock car class in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. We learned a lot from Frank.

At one point Mike got a “job” on a pit crew for a late model stock car that ran at the old Englewood race track. Many a weekend night was spent there getting the required white pants (unlighted pits) unbelievably dirty.

While I was still in school Mike was in college and took bowling as his PE requirement - he said “The instructor has a daughter your age, she’s really cute and hangs around the bowling alley”. That is how I met Vicky - she’s here beside me tonight as I write this.

Mike taught me a lot about cars - and we learned a lot together by trial and error. Like the “trial” of bolting a big Pontiac rear axle with 5.13 gears under his ‘56 Chevy - using the stock U bolts and no traction bars. That 389 Injun motor launched one great wheel stand - until it straightend out the U bolts and ripped the drive shaft apart - that be the Error.

Once when he had lost his license for too many tickets, I was driving his 55 Belaire hardtop downtown to cruise 16th street. He had trashed the 283 he’d built for it and stuck in a rebuilt but bone stoch 265 complete with 2 barrel Rochester, oil bath air cleaner and the top mounted oil filter. That night we left the hood off so anyone looking could see it. Drew some snickers. It had a 4.56 rear gear, traction bars, super stiff springs all around and (the secret weapon) a 50 pound flywheel. I could wind that little mouse motor to around 5,000 rpm and drop the clutch and it would pull the wheels about 3 inches off the ground and make a very short trip stop light to stop light. The snickers stopped when the wheels left the ground.

Mike’s reputation as an engine builder got around in high school. That 55 with the 283 laid waste to a 64 ford Galaxy with a 427 a rich kid had. Some time later that same rich kid advertised a 389 GTO motor for sale - Mike went to look at it and during the bargaining the rich kid said maybe Mike would trade one of his small block chevy’s for it. What Rich kid didn’t know was the 265 Mike traded him was a very tired piece he had just pulled from what later became the late model stock car Mike worked on. That thing barely had the compression to start. A dollar or so at the quarter car wash and some new Chevy orange paint were his total investment. The rich kid bolted it straight into the slick little 34 ford pick up he had - next time we saw the kids car it had a 289 Ford in it.

Mike got one of his dream jobs when he moved to Phoenix and went to work at the GM proving grounds. He got to test all sorts of new stuff - some pretty unusual - like a twin turbo V6 Corvette.

The Viet Nam war was something he didn’t want to do but when his draft notice came he went down and volunteered rather than wait to be inducted. He didn’t like his year in the war zone but even though he started the deployment driving a dump truck building roads (that Charlie blew up daily) he volunteered to be a door gunner on a huey helicopter.

When he came home from Nam he was in the best physical shape of his life, but the war changed him. He wouldn’t ever eat rice. He had a hard time holding a job. He held in a lot. He covered up by telling “war stories” usually prefaced with “know how you tell a fairy tale from a war story? One starts Once upon a time - the other with This ain’t no shit”. Turns out the real stories he wasn’t telling were just too real. Long after he came home he found some kindred souls in a Viet Nam Vets group and then started to write it all down - I think it was good therapy.

Lately his favorite pass time seemed to be as a track photographer - taking pictures at the races and selling them to the car owners. He also like to talk aout car. Even though we lived a country apart, I would find a couple times a year there was something aout my tired old Vette that I needed to talk to him about. Those call were often hours long and sometimes we actually figured out my car problem.

Saying Mike was my closest long time friend doesn’t really describe it. He was more like a brother.

I’m sure going to miss him.

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» Filed Under Veterans |

Goodbye Micro$oft - hello Linux

Posted on April 19, 2009

My aging laptop had a failing hard drive. I researched the several options to retrieve the data and transfer it to a new hard drive. In the process of doing that I made a full copy of all the data to an external drive and also made an image file of the drive and a rescue disk.

Making the story shorter, I couldn’t get the rescue disk to properly prepare the drive for restoring Windows and the image file.

In the past the reason I have decided not to go to Linux (or before that to Unix) was that there were programs that I needed to use that were either not available in Linux or Unix or would cost more than I wanted to spend to replace.

That is no longer the case. Open Office does all the Word Processing, Spreadsheet and Data Base tasks at least as well as Microsoft Office. Although I don’t use it the Open Office equivalent of Power Point seems to do all that would be needed there.

I often use Corel Draw to create vector graphics and now Inkscape - an open source vector drawing program not only does what I need but will read my existing CorelDraw files.

Of course the Thunderbird e-mail and Firefox web browser I have been using in Windows are also freely available in Linux.

So for the cost of a $79 hard drive I now am Windowless.

For anyone interested - I am running Kubuntu “Intreped Ibex” - also known as version 8.10

It comes with everything you should need to install. It will work on any PC and once you have the CD burned (or get the free CD from Canonical) you can install it without Windows.

Once installed on my old laptop it suggested I connect to the internet and update everything - it did all that without a hitch. I then went to the install new programs icon and added the few programs not automatically loaded - Open Office data base, Inkscape, Spider solitaire, Firefox and Thunderbird.

Doing all that is also painless - all are installed from the same install programs app by just selecting them from the many catagories available.

So, i am now free from Microsoft and Windows. And have yet to find anything I cannot do without them.

Best of all, if I hadn’t needed a new hard drive - it cost me nothing! (Truth be told I have not bought any new Microsoft software since 2005 and that was the XP on the laptop. My 2000 Office package was an upgrade from ‘97 from ‘95 from… Today all the components of open Office automatically upgraded to the latest version - for free.

No money to upgrade your PC? There is another route! For free!

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» Filed Under economic recession |

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