Ever since I first had to use it for real work, I have known that I tend to get a lot more writing and programming done when I use the command line interface than when I'm in X11. Somehow, though, my increase in productivity didn't fully register with me until I put OpenBSD on my laptop computer. The lack of proprietary video drivers and Web browser plugins helped me overcome the distractions presented by my big, powerful, tricked-out GNU/Linux desktop machine. I'm hooked now -- there's no going back. I'm through being over-stimulated, over-styled, and over-teched.

Most of the books about specific GNU/Linux distributions that I've read tend to be either too advanced to comprehend or too elementary to stomach. Apress's Beginning Ubuntu Linux tends toward the latter, but doesn't totally ignore more advanced GNU/Linux topics. Despite its shortcomings, readers who are new to GNU/Linux and are decided on the Ubuntu distribution will find some benefit in it.

So domain registrar GoDaddy recently decided to move 4.4 million parked domain names (Web addresses that don't have sites yet) from GNU/Linux to Windows. Does that mean that the company is anti-Linux? Maybe, but GoDaddy certainly isn't against free software -- it just made a U.S. $10,000 donation to the OpenSSH project.

There are a lot of books that try to teach both object-oriented programming and the Java language to autodidacts, but few do it so effectively as Prentice Hall's Thinking in Java, now in its fourth edition. If you're totally new to computer programming, or if you have trouble concentrating on what you're reading, you may need a more elementary text, however.

If your laptop computer is a complement to your desktop machine, you're probably well aware of the need to synchronize data between the two. When you're in the middle of a big project and know you're going to be spending the afternoon in a doctor's waiting room or on an airplane, it's nice to be able to quickly transfer your project files--and maybe your email and contacts--to the laptop, then vice-versa when you return to your desk. This article will show you two ways to accomplish this on GNU/Linux-based machines.

Do you know someone who can't stop talking about their latest purchase from Apple? You've found a gift they'll enjoy. Do you know someone who spends hours trying to convince the first person they could have gotten a far better computer for much less from Dell? You've found a gift that they'll completely loathe. From the very outset, it is fairly obvious this book is aimed at Apple devotees.

The Python interpreted programming language is relatively easy to learn and use (especially when compared to C or C++), but that doesn't mean you should do it on your own. Whether this is your first foray into programming or if you're interested in adding Python to your repertoire, Apress' Beginning Python can assist you in your learning.