Technical Tips

I am a fan of anything that brings people together and few communities are as strong as the open source community. These people work hard to bring quality, earth-changing products to you and me.

I am also a big fan of increased security, greater user control, system flexibility and fantastic prices.

My latest open source infatuation is Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a flavor of Linux that is incredibly user friendly.

I used to dabble in Linux though it has been several years since I actually did any installs myself. Putting Ubuntu on my new laptop took less than an hour including downloading the free software, reading the directions, moving my Windows partition to make room and getting it all installed and running.

On this laptop I’m trying an experiment to see just how far open source has come. I do have a Windows XP partition just in case but even that only uses the commercial software for the operating system. The rest is all open source including OpenOffice, Thunderbird (for Win) and Evolution (for Ubuntu).

For the record, OpenOffice works even better than expected, especially Calc (their version of Excel) and Presentation (PowerPoint) looks amazing! I’m also particularly impressed with the robust features of Evolution.

Like you, I am an incredibly busy person. This transition has been easy and even… fun! In fact, I’m already thinking about setting up a server so I can get even more functionality from Evolution like an online calendar.

Total cost so far: $0

Total time: 2 hours (1 hour to install and a second hour to configure various programs)

If you are a small to medium sized business looking for ways to make life easier and reduce expenses (like the one where you have to track all your licenses!), there is probably a flavor of Linux out there waiting for you. Or, if you are unsure about the process go ahead and contact me. I’ll be happy to discuss my experience and offer suggestions for your situation.

I’ve moved this site over to the new domain (www.incluesive.com) that builds a stronger brand. It’s tougher on the SEO but the customer - you - come first!

I’ve moved several WordPress blogs over in the past. And I’ve always run into the same problems:

• Not all posts make it over
• Design isn’t an exact match

I’m still trying to figure out why the template changes. But I did find a fix for transfering data over cleanly: Technosailor’s WordPress-to-WordPress Import. It’s built for pre-2.1 versions of WP and supposedly is included in the 2.5 version. What I noticed is the exported code from the default setup has some errors. Technosailor seems to have cleaned them up so all posts move over nicely.

Special thanks to Aaron Brazell and Matt Mullenweg for making my life that much easier. Moving dozens of posts over by hand is time-consuming!