Ok , Its been my new years resolution, and so far I’m totally diggin' it. I promised myself to use as much open source software and freeware as i could. And so far that promise has led me to using products like : FreePDF, Firefox, Thunderbird, AVG Antivirus, Freecommander, Deepburner, Openoffice and soon : Firstclass. Its amazing what you can find on the internet if you look for it. Take Firefox for example. I started using it about two months ago, and now i'm SOOOO hooked on the tabbed-enabled-ultrafast-googlesearch-barred superbrowser, i NEVER EVER wanna quit it. Played around with MS office 2003 yesterday and I’m soooo sick of it all that i decided to make the invoices for my company in Open Office this year. Enough MS based crap. Now I know i should not bitch MS around all the time , Its like Swift said : "ANY operating system that we work with as intensively as we do, will give us a hard time". True, but still its nice to know there IS an alternative. Ok , I still use MS a lot (maybe to much) and I still haven't made the big step to Linux as yet. ( using it for ALL my needs) The thing that keeps me on the MS box is that I'm just no good on the Linux Shell. But when i think of it : Who the hell says I can't use Linux from the Guy. Let's say I want to become a Linux DESKTOP user. not yapp around in the shell all night long, BUT actually USE Linux as a desktop alternative. And so far I’ve tried that often and surprisingly it works very well. So why the hell don't I start making' the switch. I'm already gearing op to hop onto OSX (when my Ibook eventually arrives) and i'm not going to go command line on OSx, So perhaps i'll explore Linux as a Desktop system a bit more. Meanwhile I’m getting ready to switch from my exchange mail server to FIRSTCLASS mail and 'Tuuke' was gonna come over and help me out. So I’m pretty exited about that too. The way it looks like right now is that for more and more proprietary MS products, I’m finding better and free alternatives. The list so far ?

Internet explorer Mozilla Firefox.

MS Media Player BSplayer

Outlook Express Thunderbird

MS office OpenOffice

MS Exchange Firstclass

MS Desktop search Google Desktop search

MSN Hotmail Gmail (duh!)

MSN Messenger Jabber/gaim (ok, no webcam-coolness, but it works)

Nero Deepburner

Photoshop The Gimp

Norton Antivirus AVG Antivirus

Adobe PDF writer Free PDF

Winzip Powerarchiver

And it goes ON this way , all these programs have been personally tried , tested and approved. So if you're looking for some MS-alternatives ? Time to make the SWITCH !

Ok , I’m on a computer rant again, but the last couple of weeks have been SOOOO stressful in dealing with this whole PC shit. I'm so fed up having to spend hours and hours in a row just updating, repairing, securing, debugging the whole PC park at home.. I've just about had it. I want to work WITH the damn things, not FOR them. To those of you who are wondering just how many computers i have at home (counting EVERY pc ? ) That would be around 10

1 firewall

1 server

3 laptops (one lame ass 486 laptop)

4 desktops

1 test system

Ow f*** I'm such a geek.