It has been a busy couple of Linux weeks starting with saving a Windows based Laptop which the owner forgot the administrator password. While they were doing the right thing not using the administrator account for every day computing, forgetting the Windows password is a pretty daunting problem for a Windows user.

I do not remember an easy fix for restoring the administrator password. I did have a few live Linux cd’s along, and one I could use to fix the Windows lost password problem. I inserted the live cd into the laptop, and in another ten minutes the administrator password was set to something hopefully more memorable.

I took off Debian Linux from my laptop and installed Zenwalk Linux this week. My wants are pretty simple lately, and Zenwalk Linux idea of one application for each task suits me well. I have also been tinkering a little more with the configuration files and scripts, and Zenwalk is a good system to tinker with because everything is so clear and well written. Some Zenwalk Linux desktop images in place of a picture.

Click to see more of this amazing desktop!

Zenwalk Linux has a pretty default desktop called the XFCE environment. I prefer XFCE because I find right clicking anywhere on the desktop for the menu is easier and faster than clicking on the start button equivalent, although it is also present top and bottom of the screen. Plus the XFCE desktop is simple to configure and has some amazing theme creators who do desktops that look like this!

I was also asked if I had time, would I the forgotten admin’s password laptop other problems. Watching the laptop run without any virus protection installed, it was obvious what the problems were. I did not want to take the time to fix it, so I pulled off the files they wanted to save once again using a Linux Live Cd and saved their files to a memory stick I had with me.

I reinstalled Windows, replaced their files, and strongly suggested they use an anti virus product, or stay off of anything by mainstream web pages on the net, and not click on every pop up. Compared to a virus protection program that may not seem much of a defense although I used XP for a few years without virus protection and got along just fine. Some common sense goes a long way in keeping your computer running well.

Someone sent me an email recently telling me how I should protect myself and my finances when using online banking. The email suggested that I watch for ‘https’ which is a secure connection, and when done, clean out my browsers cache, cookies, and history. The person resending the email is not aware of Firefox Web browser and its option to clear private data. Perhaps other web browsers are doing the same data clearing too now. Personal privacy is a big issue these days and using the internet smartly should be everyones priority.

I would have added to the email if I had sent it on my thoughts about wireless connections. Many wireless internet connections are little better than standing at a bank teller’s window with a crowd of people behind you. If you are doing anything that you do not want the world to know about, do not use a wireless connection. There are some available programs that any twelve year old can run that will crack your wireless WEP Encryption a lot faster than you can set up your wireless connection. That is if you have your wireless connection secured. It has been my experience that only about half of all wireless connections use encryption.

I installed Puppy Linux on two older memory (usb) sticks, showed two people how to boot their computer off a usb stick. I used disk encryption on the Puppy Linux portion of the memory sticks and explained anything they saved on the memory stick is fairly safe is lost. They thought that it was pretty neat, running their computers off a usb memory stick. Linux is worth checking out and learning about.

I made changed my boot loader from Lilo to Grub 2 today and I spent some time figuring out why Lilo would find my Windows Vista partition and Grub 2 would not. I found a good fix on the Zenwalk website in the Zenwalk Companion section. Grub 2 is pretty slick. I can’t say I examined how Grub set things up, but in Grub 2 there are separate configuration files for each operating system which makes life easier by default. One of the best things about light Linux distributions such as Zenwalk is the questions are more precise and the answers are correct more often.