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With Chapters having recently unveiled their budget-priced Kobo eReader, it seems like every major book player has jumped on the electronic book bandwagon. There’s lots to like about these little digital wonders: you can fit thousands of novels into something that’s thinner than a children’s book. That’s far more pleasing to bring along on a trip than a pile of books. The screens use eInk, so they don’t tire the eyes like a traditional screen. It’s more like looking at paper.

However, I myself, will never buy an eBook. There’s a few reasons for this. For one, I see the price of eBooks as being far too high. Comparing prices, eBooks are still only a few dollars cheaper than their paper counterparts. This is amazing to me, given that digital distribution is virtually free. It has been suggested that the prices of eBooks are artificially inflated as a means for publishers to protect their main revenue stream, the paper book.

Second of all, I own the [paper] books I buy. I can resell them, if I so desire. I can lend them to a friend or a family member. Not so with an eBook. In fact, the digital controls placed on the eBooks mean that publishers can even delete legitimately purchased books from your eReader, as happened to customers in the ironic Amazon “1984” and “Animal Farm” fiasco.

Other publishers sell you time-limited titles. You can buy eBook textbooks – which self-destruct after three months. You can’t resell them like you do your old textbooks. This time-limited practice is reasonable if the cost reflected it, but alas – the price for these digital textbooks is almost as bad as their hardcover brethren.

The books I buy don’t require batteries. They don’t self-destruct after a time defined by the publisher. If the publisher or distributor disappears, my books will still be there. I don’t have to worry about them vanishing in cyberspace. They’ll work no matter where I go in the world.

That’s not to say I won’t buy an eReader. I’ll gladly use it to read long PDF documents, and to download free books from legitimate outlets such as Project Gutenberg. But if I am to actually purchase a book, I will never go the eBook route.

Windows and Linux are both mature operating systems, and they both have their advantages. If you’re like me, then you like having both. Windows for those high-performance commercial games such as the newly released Starcraft 2, and Linux for it’s multitude of awesome open-source tools.

Now usually, if you want to have both platforms running on your computer, you think of dual-booting. You install both operating systems onto the computer, and when you start up, you choose the one you want to boot into. Although that’s better than nothing, you still end up in a situation where you’re running one operating system and kind of wish you had access to software that only runs on the other.

This is where what I do comes in. I use a virtual machine (the free VirtualBox) so that I can run both at the same time. I have Windows 7 as my host OS, which allows me to keep that performance for my games. Meanwhile, I run Ubuntu 10.04 as my guest OS.

To create the illusion of a single seamless desktop, I have the virtual machine go full-screen and take up the whole right monitor. I download a dual-monitor wallpaper from mandolux, with one half of the image taking up the left (Windows-dominated) screen, and the other taking up the right (Linux-dominated) screen. Because the VM is an application within Windows, the Windows applications can be placed on either screen, as in the screenshot above. This further reinforces the idea of a single unified desktop when in reality two operating systems are running simultaneously.

Now I can run both my Windows and Linux applications together, at the same time. As for the speed of the Linux VM: not an issue. I have Compiz effects running, and on my two-year old Intel box, I’ve never hit a performance snag.

Yesterday I shared the story of Paul, and how he doesn’t stop calling me – only to listen silently and hang up 8-10 seconds after I answer.

He called again tonight. As per usual, his Caller ID was blocked. “Hi Paul” I answered. He hung up immediately. This time, I called his home. He picked up the phone and hung up. I called again. It went to the answering machine – and I left this message.

Hi Paul. I have the phone records. You’ve been calling me multiple times a day, every day. This has to stop. Goodbye.

Maybe he’ll delete the message before his parents get to it, I don’t know. Hopefully now things should quiet down. Time will tell.

With all the recent hoopla about security issues going around, I thought I’d share some tips on how to keep your computer safe. I assume that you already know not to open attachments from strangers, and that you should always have a firewall and anti-virus program installed. This entry goes into a little bit more depth than that.

The router. Having a router is a first line of defense. Do not ever connect your computer directly to the modem. Due to how routers work, outsiders are unable to have direct access to your computer – unless you initiate the connection with them first, or modify the settings in your router to allow them to have access. An unpatched Windows XP machine that’s connected to the modem directly will be compromised in minutes.

The Internet browser. Aside from trying to get you by sending you virus-laden emails, the big way that the bad guys will try to get at you is through your web surfing. There’s two facets to this. Some bad guys will try to infect your computer outright, and turn it into a spam-machine. However, the more recent trend is to compromise your online identity: load custom code that gets your computer to spam Facebook or Twitter, without your computer itself being infected. This works by turning your web browser against you, and its much easier to pull off – all you have to do is surf to a website.

Older web browsers have no defense against this type of attack and will fall right for it. So if you’re one of the millions that still use the ancient Internet Explorer 6, switch. Newer browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome check what websites are getting your traffic, and look at the behaviour of the websites you’re on, and will try to warn you if it detects anything suspicious.

At the present time, Google Chrome is my browser of choice. I especially like that it patches itself regularly to defend against the latest attacks aimed at the browser itself. Firefox auto-updates as well, but usually you have to press a few buttons and it’s an invasive process. Chrome does it in the background and doesn’t require any user intervention.

Block ads. Even if you surf sites that are well-known and considered safe, the bad guys can still get some of their code to be loaded by your web browser. Third-party ads are one such approach. The ad company might be legit, but they might sell some advertising space to company B, who divides it up and sells it off to company C, D, and E. Company E might actually be a front for a cyber criminal. He loads in custom code, which then gets displayed on the legitimate site you surf. You and thousands of others get compromised.

Modern browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have plug-ins you can download to block ads. I very much recommend that you make use of these.

USB Sticks. If someone else passes me a USB stick, I never run anything that’s on it without first scanning its contents with an anti-virus. If you have Windows XP, disable AutoRun, otherwise, the contents could be made to run automatically as soon as the device is inserted into your computer – and inject a virus along with it.

I remember that there was this kid whose computer I cleaned from malware. He put a USB stick that he had used during the infection back in, and his computer got infected all over again.

Beware of PDFs. Alright, so you already know to not open executable files (.exe and .scr) when you check your emails from anyone, including your family. You have to be careful with PDFs as well. Adobe Acrobat is a pretty popular target for bad guys. If you must open the files, then I use something like the Google PDF Viewer, which takes out the offending code.

Update: Check the comments section for some great tips from Sakuramboo!