Nick - Completely agree with you as to how Linux skills offer great career possibilities. I sometimes even wonder about coming out of retirement, but reckon that I deserve the slow & gentle life after almost 50 years banging my head against computer problems! (I started in this game in 1964, on a Sperry Rand machine.)
Just one thing, though. Perhaps one of the reasons behind the demand for Linux skills is the rather geeky nature of the beast, especially in the areas like system admin. Ubuntu have done a pretty good job in simplifying Linux in end-user areas, but I don't know of anything similar in the sys admin arena. Sure, this isn't, by its nature, simple stuff. but I've seen lots of small offices that (barely) coped with Windoze servers but could never have managed a Linux setup. Maybe "Ubuntu Server" will see the light one day? Do you know of any initiatives along these lines?
Regarding Nick's post below, I would help you to get a bit familiar with photo and video editing on those open-source programs you think you need.
If you looking to get into a career in IT, then now is a good time to get yourself into Linux, as the market is exploding with demand. This has mainly been brought on by the web and cloud deployments, but it is everywhere in Enterprises now, and France Government uses a lot this technology already. Here is another article I came across today, which makes this very point.
Linux skills demand in rapid increase
If you need help on where to start then contact me directly via PM or on this forum, and I will point you in the right directions. All you need is a PC, so time and dedication, as all the software is free, and the resources on the Internet are also free.
Brain, maybe I wasn't clear: of course CS, even this PS 7 is the best photo editing & thats why I still use Windows, but only when I need fast results. The destruction, even with highest compression, JPG under Windows is for everybody to judge ;-), so all has to be in PNG. To work on RAWs under Windows with Photoshop is fine for amateurs. Once you work with gears of over 30 million pixel the quality was never acceptable and there are much gentler programs for conversion. But maybe Windows finds its way in the future. I fully agree with your suspicion regarding Apples Adobe policies. Question is how long its going to last.
Brain , by saying "... a shame there is not a version of Photoshop & Dreamweaver for Linux..." you speak from my heart. Because of this I'm forced to drag either this ebook or the small accer win around when travleing t be quick enough. GIMP is a nice try, it still does not come close to this RAM consuming CS versions. But then, digiKam, once you are used to it, beats Lightroom. And I also agree that the UNIX based Apple clearly realized the that the will not a competition from MS Dos based OS, but from other UNIX OS. The simple fact is, MS dos is sooo much more destructive for file formats like JPG.
I agree Dorothy, wearing blinkers about any security flaw in whatever system is just silly, they all have them. I also agree saying I have OSX and their won't be any problems is also silly, they all do.What pleases me the most about this issue, is they have identified it and issued a patch already, that is a good response time. Fast response times to serious bug fixing in whatever system is always to be applauded. I just hope everyone updates their system today to get the fix, I know I will.
I don't like the walled garden for Apple either, which is why I use Macports and homebrew to install opensource software onto OSX. I speak as I find though, and having run OSX for several years, it has been very stable and secure, but I buy zero from their web store, and use it like any other Unix.
I have used FreeBSD and PC-BSD, both great systems, but find for everyday practical work today Linux is great for hardware compatibility and driver support.
Dorothy, all software has bugs, that's why there is a noun that describes them. I have no doubt as we all use our computers today there are some more lurking in the system somewhere. The key though, is how responsive a group are to fixing those. Microsoft Windows has been like a Swiss cheese for years with bugs, but to be fair they have worked hard to improve things, and with proper maintenance can be made reasonable secure. Don't forget however , they were the first company to sign up to the NSA PRIME agreement. They also kept several severe IE bugs unfixed for many years, so they have zero moral high ground.
Apple have in the past been too secretive and slow about bugs and fixes, but also have begun to see the light and be far more proactive. I don't like everything they do, but OSX is based on solid secure technology. This bug looks like a programming error that their QA should have caught.
Open source/Linux, by it's very definition is open to all, and historically has tended to be fixed rapidly, though it has on occasion been found wanting with errors as well, like the Debian ssh keys issue.
You will also notice that if you had been using an Open Source browser like Google Chrome or Firefox you wouldn't have been impacted at all with this SSL issue. They offer the best web security and would always be my recommendation for any secure transactions there.
It's like I keep saying to anyone who will listen, no software ever written is perfect, it all needs patching and fixing all the time, it is up to you the user to be vigilante and proactive.
In my 35 years experience in IT, Unix/Linux - and by extension OSX - are without doubt the most stable and secure systems you can use.
Ok, with this "I have nothing to hide," its like having a flirt with a dictatorship. Or, how sexy is surveillance...;-).
Its good to remember: as in the middle of the 19th century in Europe in most states for Jews a subscription in a registry was obligatory, no one have had even imagined Auschwitz.
I have the same philosophy Brian, slightly different. I was in the demonstrations and protests in the 1960s, in the UK and Germany plus popped over to Paris a couple of times. My political dissidence has never been a secret and so on. They have known so much about me for so long without me being dragged off to a secret detention camp that I am past caring. I still often give them my regards when having a possibly controversial exchange with other people.
Brain, I know its all easy. Thats why opensource is better. Are the non-conspiracy realists more honest! Or are they getting only more shameless? At least the theorists have enough fantasy left. Of course there are no finger print scanners in this button when you press on it at the traffic lights ;-)
Mmmmm.....I wish I knew what you lot were talking about. ;o))
Thankfully I'm blissfully unaware as I suspect are the majority of PC/MAC users. I'm grateful however that I never trusted the MAC rhetoric enough to invest...
Who doesn't like a good mystery? The question for Clouseau: Was that security bug in Apple's iOS devices and its Mac OSX that it scrambled to fix over the weekend a mistake in coding so basic as to be almost unbelievable or was it "a deliberate attempt to create a backdoor for government spy agencies." I leave it to those who Nows Sat All ;-)
Threema is a mobile messaging with end-to-end encryption for your iphone and android https://threema.ch/en/index.html
Thank you for the information regarding the Orange internet account configuration Brain. Very useful.
Thanks Theo. The Ubuntu 12.04LTS is already the Linux part of the dual-boot Acer, so I'll try it out from an SD card.
Peter, as for the Acer (if it is the Aspire One 531) Ubuntu 12.04LTS is certified & it works great. (Don't use the 13, also not Mint 13 or higher for the Acers!!!) Mint is great if you do not need it for photography, Ubuntu & Fedora are better to work out photos when you need to keep an archive with DigiKam.
Theo - many thanks for the SD card concept. Which distribution do you use for this, and what's the reasoning behind that one rather than another?
As for Nick's original post, the spec. of the M-Budget system specified in the article seems pretty tasty for the price, and I live right on the border with Geneva! After a bit of thought, though, I'm going to stick with my Ubuntu/XP dual-boot Acer Netbook (c. 2009) for now. The reason? For travelling, I've always tried to keep the weight down, and the M-Budget, though cheap, apparently weighs some 2.25 Kg. (& I bet that this figure excludes power supply & cable.) It'll be interesting, though, to see if this processor, the Quad-Core A4-5000, which seems to be an AMD equivalent of Intel's Atom series, appears in a Netbook form factor. Then it might be time to upgrade.
I agree Theo, a great idea for travelling. I know lots of people who use USB and SSD bootable Linux just to do their internet shopping and banking. They can make those devices read only - so nothing can be installed remotely - and nothing gets saved to the device when stopped. I personally use a Linux virtual machine running from an ISO file which I boot every time I wish to do such internet transactions.
There are now over 60,000,000 Linux users world wide and over 1,000,000,000 if you include Android and ChromeOS, so it's not like a new idea ;-)
Nick thats a nice post! Hopefully it will encourage some to get more familiar with open-source software and the various OS. Most Linux Version of course work also on the more stable WIN 7. The laptop described with HDMI & USB3.0 is really a bargain. Perfect for traveling. HPs monitors are often too blurry, thats probably why they have this high resolution. His remarks about "Create a Microsoft Account" are true, - I'll bet on it that Mickysoft will enforce such "outing" in the future to ensure costumer dependency. They simply own this to their costumers in the "free market"...
There is also a solution to use a 32 GB SD card with Linux OS on it. When I travel I have 2 of this SD cards. Full access to Win but its save while traveling. Not even in Saudistan & Dubai they could access my C, and if it would have screwed up, well I just insert the spare one. In China many people are doing it like this.
If you want to buy yourself an inexpensive laptop and install Linux on it for increased internet security then here is a good article on how one person got himself a real bargain, and saved a fortune.
Inexpensive laptop getting ready for Linux
He is following up this first article with a series, so you may find this very helpful if you wish to dual boot with Windows 8 as well.