Long ago, in a galaxy, far, far away there was a blog post warning about the end of days for XP.
And you didn’t pay any attention at all.
I know, you are an artists and don’t have any time for all of this computer nonsense. But you see, you have to make time. Computers are used for all kinds of art these days and you will probably have to jump in and use one so you’d better pay close attention cause if you don’t one day soon you’ll open your computer OS and find that it has become a roach motel or at least the home for some very nasty bugs.
When Micro-Jerk ends support for Windows XP April of 2014, all of the nasty little kids with time on their hands and nothing else to do will start writing programs to completely mess up your OS and Micro-Indifferent will just smiled indulgently and say, “You had two years to buy a new computer or upgrade to a modern operating system so you are just SOL.”
Now I know you don’t want to be SOL so let me whisper in your ear and maybe we can figure out a way for you to get out of this problem without spending five hundred dollars on a new computer or spending two hundred dollars on Micro-Sleaze’s new operating systems which will barely run on your old XP computer and you will have to upgrade all of your hardware and when you have done that you will also have to upgrade all of your software cause once you upgrade all of your hardware the old programs which you have been using for years and know all of the ends and outs will not run on the new hardware so you’ll have to go out and spend more money to buy them and then spend the next year and a half trying to learn how to use them so that just in time for the next wave of Micro-Robber’s operating system upgrades all of the stuff you bought when you gave in to their blackmail and bought a new computer or did all of that work on your old computer will be useless cause the new operating system will not be backward compatible.
You know it’s true.
That’s the way they have always done it or in a stroke of genius have you seen the latest con; they want you to pay by the month. That’s right you don’t get to own your software any more, they want you to rent it!
It is a whole bundle of snakes. And they aren’t even ashamed of their deceptive practices enough to try to hide them they put it right out there for everyone to see so that when you scream you are being extorted again, they can say, you knew it before you bought it.
You remember that old Tom Jones song? That’s right about the pretty woman and the snake? ‘Nuff said, so instead of doing all of that, before it is the last minute and you have to panic and do something irrational like buying a new computer or giving in to the protection racket, why not try something a little different.
Try Ubuntu.
Don’t take my word for it take a look at this article from five months ago in PC World. Or maybe you think this is something that would be workable only for computer geeks?
That’s not what the nice folks in Munich are thinking.
They don’t want the whole population out in the streets weeping cause that would cause a flood and then the sewers would backup and cause another flood and you know what happened when Noah had that problem so I think it is very wise and forward thinking of the city fathers of Munich to try and stave off a frenzy of ark building, although it would put a lot of people to work which would be good for the economy, but has sort of a self limiting future and besides there is only so many cubits to go around and you know for sure that somewhere, someone is going to get left out and that’s what happened to the unicorns and that’s why we don’t have unicorns any more and if we could just limit it to Congressmen then it would be alright, but you know some innocent person would get caught up in the congressional web and then there wouldn’t be any more of them and that would be sort of unfair so I guess we’ll have to live with Congress and save those innocent folks.
Now you know that I would never suggest you do something I wasn’t willing to do so all those long months ago, before I was struck down by the medical malaise, I bought a use laptop for fifty bucks.
I did that intentionally. I wanted a machine that was old and slow and had old hardware and would be likely to fail the upgrade test for Micro-Thug’s hardware test. Sure enough it did and I knew that I was on the right track.
The system was pretty obsolete, it has a 40GB hard drive, 512MB of RAM, one PCMCIA Type Two slot, two USB ports, a CD drive and that’s all she wrote.
Now for most new Windows OS’s you’d be hard put to even get it to load much less install so this was just perfect for what I had in mind.
I went to the Home Page for Ubuntu
Found the download page for the Disc and did a download.
You have to Download a Disc Image, now don’t be frightened, The Ole Trawler will tell you all about it, be sure you know where your downloads are stored. Go find the disc image and burn it to a Disc.
That’s not a problem is it? You done that millions of times to submit your work to a show and this is just like that but you only have to do the one click to get it to burn and not all of the “Where did I put the images of those aardvark pictures I need for the Fourth Annual Anteater and Pangolin Contest?”
So now you have a disc, be sure to eject it and label it, black Sharpie works fine and then you can put it back in the Disc drive and close the drawer. Now you have to restart your machine but that won’t be a problem, cause you’ve had to do that five or six jillion times a day cause Windows is so unstable that it gets clogged up and if you don’t clear the registers it won’t run at all so you have to do a restart and wait while the systems loads and all of your precious time goes down the drain.
When the machine restarts you will see it loading Ubuntu, but don’t panic. This is what it is supposed to do and you will be pleasantly surprised cause it will give you the option to try working with Ubuntu before you install it. Or if you are ready willing and able you can just go ahead and install it. Or if you still have some doubts, you can set it up as a dual boot, don’t panic, it just means you have both operating systems on your machine. That way if you just have to have Windows you can keep using it until April 2014 when you have to decide of you want to go Ubuntu all the way, no your momma won’t faint cause it isn’t in the back seat of the Plymouth and the Pastor will never find out what you have been doing in the privacy of your own computer. See, guilt-free.
So there you are with a free alternative to the extortion game Micro-Grifter wants you to play. Now try it, it won’t hurt, it’s fat free, carb free, just free and you can do it and not have to refinance the house for a new computer.
Stay tuned for the next thrilling episode when we learn all about other free programs which can help free you from the clutches of the National Syndicate of Computers and let you build a life without monthly charges and yearly upgrades. And you don’t have to worry that there’s a file on you in some Federal Agency!
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