One of our customers recently brought an Acer Aspire 3002NLC Laptop to install Ubuntu and to configure the laptop as a Samba server for his home networking. There was one more thing that he wanted to us to configure - that was internet through the Reliance Datacard. The card provided was ZTE MC315. Installing Ubuntu and configuring the rest of the applications were easy but the reliance datacard installation took some time. But once we figured it out, the steps involved were very simple.
Click here to read more»

While installing Ubuntu on Laptops, one common problem that we have identified is that the mouse pointer movement using the touchpad is very slow with the default settings. We were hoping that this would be fixed in Ubuntu Hardy Heron but it still is not. Ubuntu allows for the configuration of the acceleration and sensitivity using the System > Preferences > Mouse menu but that too might not give the desired results always. Here is a sure shot way of speeding up your touchpad in Ubuntu.
Click here to read more»

We had an opportunity recently to provide support over the phone for one of our customers for installing Ubuntu and configuring Airtel broadband on a desktop PC. The Airtel broadband was connected through a Beetel 220BX ADSL modem but the instructions should work for most broadband connections where the device is a modem router.
Click here to read more»

When you have more than one system with Ubuntu installed, and you have to install same or similar set of packages on all your PCs, you can save on a lot of bandwidth if you had some ways of sharing the downloaded packages and updates. There is an easy way to do this in Ubuntu. This is done using apt-cacher a proxy server for your package repositories. It is very easy to set up and configure apt-cacher on a PC with Ubuntu inside your LAN.
Click here to read more»

Recently we came across a virus in one of our customers computers. The system was brought in with the complaint that it was running very slow and internet access was too slow to be of any use. We scanned the system with AVG and as was expected found a slew of viruses which AVG removed successfully after a complete scan. All but one - a file named startdrv.exe located at C:\Windows\Temp\startdrv.exe. AVG could not delete the file, neither could we delete it manually from Windows.
Click here to read more»

Ubuntu 6.10 had complete multimedia support including mp3, video cds, dvds. This was taken out in 7.10 because of license restrictions on the decoders and their incompatibility with the GNU GPL under which Ubuntu is being released. Enabling multimedia support for formats requiring non-GPL codecs in Ubuntu 7.04 was a pain. This is now child's play in Ubuntu 7.10
Click here to read more»

This is another common worm that infects computers and spreads from an infected system to another using Windows APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), emails, file-sharing networks and network shares.
Click here to read more»

A general issue faced by many of our customers is that they forget the administrator password which is required to login to the computer. Without this password, there is no way a normal user can gain access to the computer system and its contents. Most of us will end up formatting the hard disk or installing a fresh copy of Windows as a remedy. As a result, we make an unwanted payment for the service provider for both formatting and installing Windows. There is always a remedy for gaining access to the computer system without formatting or installing new copy of Windows.
Click here to read more»

Mircosoftpowerpoint.exe is a file that is created by a virus named w32.USBWorm. This virus is an epidemic and spreads very rapidly through USB drives. When a USB drive is connected to a computer which is already affected by this virus, it gets affected. The virus in the computer will transfer all its files into the drive. When this USB drive is connected to another unaffected computer, it will transfer all the required files to the computer's hard drive.
Click here to read more»

Ubuntu installation on a system which already has other operating systems is simple. Ubuntu will automatically detect other operating systems already installed on the computer and enable booting into them from the grub boot menu. However if you install Windows on a system which already has Ubuntu installed on a partition other than the partition on to which you install windows then you will inevitably lose the option to boot into the Ubuntu installation. There is a simple way to rectify this issue.
Click here to read more»