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    9 TIPS: Don't Sell Me - Persuade Me
    We all have something in our past we believe someone “sold” us. It might have been a lemon yellow car, a skimpy skirt or a purple tie. We bought it because -despite our gut feeling - we thought we were doing the right thing. We wanted to please the salesman - and we believed that person knew more than we did. Until we got home.One of the two major complaints from trade show attendees is about the booth staff that has a heavy sales pitch. You know that pushy salesman stereotype.. (FYI - the second complaint is staff that doesn't know its stuff - i.e. is not knowledgeable about the company products and services..)Trade shows have the disadvantage of compressed time. You might have 30 seconds or 30 minutes but it’s not a regular sales call. You can’t talk faster. Just listen closely to the attendees and try to persuade people that your firm can solve their problems.Here are nine conversation points, and examples, to consider when speaking with people at trade shows.1. Authority - Why are you important? What gives you the authority to ask for clients? Perhaps it’s your firm’s expertise in a certain area, or a partner’s experience. It’s no longer because your company has a long history or is the newest dot.com.TIP - It has to be a proactive, not a reactive, reason. “We’ve taken the position that e-learning is critical. We developed a great program in-house that improved our sales productivity 45%, and now we’re sharing it with others in our industry.”2. Conformity - Are you certified? In every industry, some form of certification carries importance and gives you and your firm authority. Knowing that as a consulting firm, half your staff are CPAs, lets me know that you conform to accounting standards.TIP - Don't just tell me why you are ISO9000 certified, tell me why it’s important to your company. “We were the first HVAC company in this area to be certified and it really helps us focus our goals to service clients like you.”3. Commitment - Is your firm committed to your industry? Are you a leader or just in the middle of the pack?TIP - Don’t say you’re committed to customer service, tell me how. “We found that 85% of our customer service calls come during regular business ho
    lving a problem and forget to update the client about the progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client with the progress.

    Koffice/ Open Office

    M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those who still use M$ products.

    Lyx

    Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX (http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

    What is LyX?

    LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) document processor.

    LyX is what?!

    LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visu

    Develop a Stone Floor Care Program for Your Cleaning Business
    Office buildings have many types of flooring and growing in popularity are stone floors. Stone floors give buildings a classic and upscale image. Popular choices in flooring these days are natural surfaces including marble, slate, granite, and terrazzo. As more and more buildings are installing stone floors there is a growing need for cleaning contractors who have the experience and knowledge to take care of these valued surfaces properly. Learning the tricks of stone floor care can lead to extra income and profit for your cleaning company.Before expanding into the area of stone floor care make sure that you understand the differences in the types of flooring and how to design a maintenance program to keep stone floors looking their best. It helps to develop a relationship with a distributor that has quality products and can help you with technical support.The first step in any floor maintenance program is finding out what type of stone you're dealing with. Stone floors are broken down into one of two categories: stone that contains calcium and those that do not contain calcium. It is important to note that acids will attack and etch stone that contains calcium.If the floor is not coated on the surface, a simple test can determine what type of stone you are dealing with. Place a drop of hydrochloric acid in an inconspicuous area and watch the reaction. If the acid fizzes the stone contains calcium. If there is no reaction, the stone is most likely granite, slate, sandstone or some type of ceramic that has been designed to look like natural stone.Your second step is to decide what type of results you want with your floor program. Do you want a polished surface, a slip resistant floor or a floor program that is easy to manage? Any stone floor program should also take into account the type of surface - polished, honed or textured. Also, remember that stone is a product of nature and should be admired for its inconsistencies. The imperfections of stone create random patterns, which is what makes natural stone so desirable.When looking at how you should maintain stone floors, both calcium containing and non-calcium containing stone floors should be maintained in identical ways except when it comes to re-polishing. A marble floor develops wear patterns fa
    World War II - Germany decided to attack Poland. Poland had many great warriors. They all prepared to fight the Germans. They were all ready with the best armor, the best and well trained horses, and ofcourse the best weapons , swords , spears .... And the Pols were brave and were ready to give their lives for their country. Sadly they did just that... give their lives. The Germans had tanks... It is very important to have the right weapons when one goes for a war.

    In the same way it is very important for system administrators to have the right tools to to work smart. Linux is a great desktop OS for developers as well as system administrators. Let us take a look at some of the utilities which makes this a great environment for system administrators and developers. Most of the content below is taken from the home pages of these apps and the I make no claims on the originality. My aim is to introduce the reader to the wonderful tools that are available in a Linux/BSD desktop environment.

    Konsole

    Let's start from what most people think Linux is all about - a text based shell. Konsole is what is known as an X terminal emulator, often referred to as a terminal or a shell. It gives you the equivalent of an old-fashioned text screen on your desktop, but one which can easily share the screen with your graphical applications. What makes Konsole special? Konsole's advanced features include simple configuration and the ability to use multiple terminal shells in a single window, making for a less cluttered desktop. Konsole is also available as kpart and can thus be easily embedded in other applications, like practiced by Kate and Konqueror.

    As most system administrators need log into servers on a regular basis the konsole gives them a benefit over the Windoze command prompt. In windows one needs to use a program like putty to log in using SSH. Also as linux is the desktop OS the techs can use the man pages on the local system.

    One can also try out the various commands locally. Consider a simple example.

    Is it

    $ ln sourcefile destinationfile

    or is it

    $ ln destinationfile sourcefile

    Such things can be easily found out locally without carrying out experiments on the server. Many techs believe that servers are places where they can experiment. However, such experiments can lead to major losses to the customers due to one small error. A system administrator must understand that people have immense faith in them when they give their entire data to them and they cannot risk carrying out simple experiments on servers.

    Some screenshots of the konsole can be seen at the konsole site

    Personal Information Manager / Groupware

    There are two popular choices here. Evolution from Novel and the Kontact from KDE. Both these an email client, calendaring, meeting scheduling, a task list, contact management and syncing functionality. Kontact is essentially the regular KDE PIM components which have been put in together i.e. kmail, korganizer, knotes etc.. It is very a very neat package and is stable and light. Both these are very functional and can connect to many groupware servers.

    Klipper

    Klipper is the KDE clipboard utility. It stores clipboard history, and allows you to link clipboard contents to application actions. Klipper can perform actions on the contents of the clipboard, based on whether they match a particular regular expression. For example, any clipboard contents starting with “http://” can be passed to the web-browser as URLs to open.

    Copying text is as simple as highlighting the text. And to paste the text all one needs to do is click on the center mouse button. This can be particularly useful for sys-admins as they use a sequence of commands from time to time. Having these in the clipboard and using them often can make the work a lot easier.

    Gaim / Kopete

    Communicating via an instant messenger is an essential these days. Linux has a very clean solution for this. Both Kopete (http://kopete.kde.org) and Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) are capable of handling multiple IM protocols such as supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus SameTime. Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.

    Kjots

    KJots is a small program that helps you to write down some short notes and organizes them for you. It has two basic items used to organize your notes - “Books” and “Pages”. This is a good light tool to write in all the templated responses and other important notes for quick references.

    Kwallet

    A lovely password manager which can store passwords for all the logins including those of kopete and websites.

    Tea Cooker

    KTeaTime is a handy timer for steeping tea. No longer will you have to guess at how long it takes for your tea to be ready. Simply select the type of tea you have, and it will alert you when the tea is ready to drink. Now how can a tea cooker be useful for techs. Often techs get involved in solving a problem and forget to update the client about the progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client with the progress.

    Koffice/ Open Office

    M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those who still use M$ products.

    Lyx

    Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX (http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

    What is LyX?

    LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) document processor.

    LyX is what?!

    LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visua

    Work From Home with Affiliate Marketing
    Do you want to work from home? I can understand your sentiments, and there could be any number of reasons why. It might be you're sick of your job. It might be you must stay at home because you can't accomodate the restrictions of corporate life for one reason or another. It might be that you want to take care of your own kids and generate an income too.But how do you go about that best? You could join an MLM, but my personal experiences with them lead me to believe they will involve more expense than you anticipate. If this doesn't appeal to you, or you happen to be short on money, you should consider becoming an affiliate marketer.What's affiliate marketing? The short version is that it's freelance sales work. You promote other merchant's products and services for commissions. These could be for getting that merchant sales, clicks, or leads, depending on what they want. You learn the skills required, join an affiliate program, and then go to it.What are the advantages of affiliate marketing, as opposed to some other home business opportunity? You don't need your own product or service: This is a big one. It's not even 'You work as a distributor for this or that company, so you dropship their products which you still must buy'. There are no products or services involved with you selling products or services as an affiliate marketer. You promote other people's products or services and get commissions. They deal with the shipping, inventory, customer service, and so forth. You don't have to buy, ship, maintain inventory minimums, or otherwise endure the hassles of doing it yourself. You can find a program to promote regardless of your interests: All manner of companies promote affiliate programs because affiliate marketers are an extremely cost-effective way to advertise. They don't get paid unless they produce. So many merchants and companies with an online presence have gotten in on the act. I've seen companies that sell everything from metallic coatings for statues to women's accessories with affiliate programs. At Commission Junction, the listings are so numerous they sort them by category and provide a search engine besides. So it's likely a merchant that sells something you find interesting has a program you can jo
    creen with your graphical applications. What makes Konsole special? Konsole's advanced features include simple configuration and the ability to use multiple terminal shells in a single window, making for a less cluttered desktop. Konsole is also available as kpart and can thus be easily embedded in other applications, like practiced by Kate and Konqueror.

    As most system administrators need log into servers on a regular basis the konsole gives them a benefit over the Windoze command prompt. In windows one needs to use a program like putty to log in using SSH. Also as linux is the desktop OS the techs can use the man pages on the local system.

    One can also try out the various commands locally. Consider a simple example.

    Is it

    $ ln sourcefile destinationfile

    or is it

    $ ln destinationfile sourcefile

    Such things can be easily found out locally without carrying out experiments on the server. Many techs believe that servers are places where they can experiment. However, such experiments can lead to major losses to the customers due to one small error. A system administrator must understand that people have immense faith in them when they give their entire data to them and they cannot risk carrying out simple experiments on servers.

    Some screenshots of the konsole can be seen at the konsole site

    Personal Information Manager / Groupware

    There are two popular choices here. Evolution from Novel and the Kontact from KDE. Both these an email client, calendaring, meeting scheduling, a task list, contact management and syncing functionality. Kontact is essentially the regular KDE PIM components which have been put in together i.e. kmail, korganizer, knotes etc.. It is very a very neat package and is stable and light. Both these are very functional and can connect to many groupware servers.

    Klipper

    Klipper is the KDE clipboard utility. It stores clipboard history, and allows you to link clipboard contents to application actions. Klipper can perform actions on the contents of the clipboard, based on whether they match a particular regular expression. For example, any clipboard contents starting with “http://” can be passed to the web-browser as URLs to open.

    Copying text is as simple as highlighting the text. And to paste the text all one needs to do is click on the center mouse button. This can be particularly useful for sys-admins as they use a sequence of commands from time to time. Having these in the clipboard and using them often can make the work a lot easier.

    Gaim / Kopete

    Communicating via an instant messenger is an essential these days. Linux has a very clean solution for this. Both Kopete (http://kopete.kde.org) and Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) are capable of handling multiple IM protocols such as supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus SameTime. Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.

    Kjots

    KJots is a small program that helps you to write down some short notes and organizes them for you. It has two basic items used to organize your notes - “Books” and “Pages”. This is a good light tool to write in all the templated responses and other important notes for quick references.

    Kwallet

    A lovely password manager which can store passwords for all the logins including those of kopete and websites.

    Tea Cooker

    KTeaTime is a handy timer for steeping tea. No longer will you have to guess at how long it takes for your tea to be ready. Simply select the type of tea you have, and it will alert you when the tea is ready to drink. Now how can a tea cooker be useful for techs. Often techs get involved in solving a problem and forget to update the client about the progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client with the progress.

    Koffice/ Open Office

    M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those who still use M$ products.

    Lyx

    Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX (http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

    What is LyX?

    LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) document processor.

    LyX is what?!

    LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visu

    Internet Content Provider Wanted: To Make Adsense Web Site Visitors Go Click Crazy
    In your low Adsense moments have you ever badly wanted an Internet content provider who would somehow magically make your web site visitors go click crazy? If you have, maybe you ended up dismissing the whole thing as some pipe dream. Actually it isn’t.Internet Content providers who actually possess this badly wanted skill exist. In fact it is not too difficult for any web site or blog site owner to develop this skill, once they understand what it is all about.The first question you need to ask yourself is what makes people click on ads. Remember that folks are often in a terrible hurry when they come online with too many things to do and see and not enough time to do even half of what they want done. So you can be sure that they will not click on the Adsense ads on your site for fun or idly.The answer to the question is that it is only visitors who are hungry for information who will click at the relevant Adsense ads displayed at your site. Smart Internet content providers have quickly realized that this is what is really wanted. So they’ve gone out of their way to create hunger for information through the content they produce. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that hunger for information is created by supplying shoddy limited information that is designed to leave readers asking more questions than are answered.Actually the wanted result is created by doing the very opposite and many Internet content providers have realized this. What you need to do is to supply such valuable unique information that opens the minds of the readers to new possibilities they did not think of before. If you are successful, then they will be hungry for more information and will start to feel very excited. Excited persons tend to be hungry for more information and persons hungry for more information at an Adsense site, tend to go click crazy. Simple and it works.If you can develop this Internet content provider’s skill in your writing, then you can be sure of getting all those high volume Adsense clicks you’ve always badly wanted.
    can be seen at the konsole site

    Personal Information Manager / Groupware

    There are two popular choices here. Evolution from Novel and the Kontact from KDE. Both these an email client, calendaring, meeting scheduling, a task list, contact management and syncing functionality. Kontact is essentially the regular KDE PIM components which have been put in together i.e. kmail, korganizer, knotes etc.. It is very a very neat package and is stable and light. Both these are very functional and can connect to many groupware servers.

    Klipper

    Klipper is the KDE clipboard utility. It stores clipboard history, and allows you to link clipboard contents to application actions. Klipper can perform actions on the contents of the clipboard, based on whether they match a particular regular expression. For example, any clipboard contents starting with “http://” can be passed to the web-browser as URLs to open.

    Copying text is as simple as highlighting the text. And to paste the text all one needs to do is click on the center mouse button. This can be particularly useful for sys-admins as they use a sequence of commands from time to time. Having these in the clipboard and using them often can make the work a lot easier.

    Gaim / Kopete

    Communicating via an instant messenger is an essential these days. Linux has a very clean solution for this. Both Kopete (http://kopete.kde.org) and Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) are capable of handling multiple IM protocols such as supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus SameTime. Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.

    Kjots

    KJots is a small program that helps you to write down some short notes and organizes them for you. It has two basic items used to organize your notes - “Books” and “Pages”. This is a good light tool to write in all the templated responses and other important notes for quick references.

    Kwallet

    A lovely password manager which can store passwords for all the logins including those of kopete and websites.

    Tea Cooker

    KTeaTime is a handy timer for steeping tea. No longer will you have to guess at how long it takes for your tea to be ready. Simply select the type of tea you have, and it will alert you when the tea is ready to drink. Now how can a tea cooker be useful for techs. Often techs get involved in solving a problem and forget to update the client about the progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client with the progress.

    Koffice/ Open Office

    M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those who still use M$ products.

    Lyx

    Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX (http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

    What is LyX?

    LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) document processor.

    LyX is what?!

    LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visu

    Article Marketers are often Competitive in a Sneaky Way
    One thing I have noticed in the online article marketing and online article authoring sector is that there is often a fierce competition. Much of it is unspoken and much of it stems around a fight for targeted traffic. Online article submission sites are often caught in the middle of such catfights and really wish they were not.As an extremely prolific online article writer occasionally I get emails from other article writers who indeed are angry that I have filled up their specific niche category with articles of my own due to my experiences or observations in those fields, industry sub-sectors or areas of expertise. These people see my article and go to my website only to see that I am not selling anything in that particular category.This upsets them because they feel I am stealing their traffic. Well that is silly because most of the traffic to online article submission sites comes from the Search Engines and if you want your articles to show up, write more articles with more defined specific topics as the titles. Additionally, if I could write said articles and it is their specific niche, well why didn’t they write them first? Further, if you cannot handle a little competition then why are you even bothering to market stuff on the Internet anyway? Do consider all this in 2006.
    an instant messenger is an essential these days. Linux has a very clean solution for this. Both Kopete (http://kopete.kde.org) and Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) are capable of handling multiple IM protocols such as supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus SameTime. Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.

    Kjots

    KJots is a small program that helps you to write down some short notes and organizes them for you. It has two basic items used to organize your notes - “Books” and “Pages”. This is a good light tool to write in all the templated responses and other important notes for quick references.

    Kwallet

    A lovely password manager which can store passwords for all the logins including those of kopete and websites.

    Tea Cooker

    KTeaTime is a handy timer for steeping tea. No longer will you have to guess at how long it takes for your tea to be ready. Simply select the type of tea you have, and it will alert you when the tea is ready to drink. Now how can a tea cooker be useful for techs. Often techs get involved in solving a problem and forget to update the client about the progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client with the progress.

    Koffice/ Open Office

    M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those who still use M$ products.

    Lyx

    Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX (http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

    What is LyX?

    LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) document processor.

    LyX is what?!

    LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visu

    Don't Get Stuck Having To Deal With The Seller's Household Hazardous Wastes - After You Move In!
    I have a confession to make!I was just outside with Frankie (my dog) and noticed I still had an old car battery sitting by the foundation, at the rear of my house.Yes, I'll admit it's not right, and quite environmentally insensitive for me to have it there. However, even though I know I should have disposed of it by now, that fact is, it's still there. Seeing it there prompted me to think about, if I was selling my home, how easy something like that would be to 'forget' about and leave behind - for the buyers to deal with.It also prompted me to recall the 3-4 spent automobile tires, and rims, that I found in a basement closet - after we had moved in!It reminded me of all the paint cans, stain cans and a host of other household hazardous waste that was left behind for me to deal with and dispose of properly.All innocent looking, sitting there on a shelf or in a corner of the basement, in a closet, under a sink, in the attic, or in the garage - stored neatly between the wall studs. There are lots of places such household hazardous wastes (HHW) can be found.I don't believe they were left here intentionally or with malice. Rather, I imagine they were left here as a gesture of goodwill - that perhaps it's something I would be able to use. Problem is, the sellers likely hadn't used any of the stuff during the waning years they were here. What made them think I would use the stuff?Luckily, the municipality I live in has a "Household Hazardous Waste Collection Program" that homeowners can take advantage of without having to pay. I urge you to check out the link above and see exactly what qualifies or is considered to be HHW - I guarantee it will be an eye-opener for you.Although I was able to dispose of the typical HHW without being charged, I did have to take time out on the designated Saturday to do something that the sellers should have done - before they left.I also didn't get out of it without having to pay anything. I was required to pay for the disposal of the tires the seller had so graciously left behind since those needed to go directly to the landfill.Which brings me to the point of this post...Not many homebuyers even think about this when they're looking at a home.This is one
    lving a problem and forget to update the client about the progress. Without communicating with the client, on many occasions the entire effort goes down the drain as the client get very agitated thinking that nobody is looking at his problem. What the tech can do is use the tea cooker and get a reminder so that he can respond the client with the progress.

    Koffice/ Open Office

    M$ Office is one of the most used software and a major reason why customers do not shift to other operating systems. They need Word and Excel for just about everything. K-Office and Open Office are two great solutions. Open Office can open M$ Office files and can even safe the files in M$ Office format which makes it easy to communicate with those who still use M$ products.

    Lyx

    Besides office suites which replicate the windows world products in features, Linux also has some great alternatives. LyX (http://www.lyx.org) is an example of a great document processor.

    What is LyX?

    LyX is the first WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) document processor.

    LyX is what?!

    LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visual layout to the software. LyX produces high quality, professional output -- using LaTeX, an industrial strength typesetting engine, in the background; LyX is far more than a front-end to LaTeX, however. No knowledge of LaTeX is necessary to use LyX, although it will give a user more power. LyX is stable and fully featured. It has been used for documents as large as a thesis, or as small as a business letter. Despite its simple GUI interface (available in many languages), it supports tables, figures, and hyperlinked cross-references, and has a best-of-breed math editor.

    Dia

    Dia is a great tool for creating diagrams. It has a huge in-built library of objects which are specially useful for software engineers. So making a diagram of a computer network is as easy as dragging a few computers and switches from the list of objects available. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

    Gnucash

    An average tech earns a good salary and spends it is well too. To keep track of all these personal expenses the best is to have a great software. Gnucash is an ideal way to manage personal finances. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.

    KTuberling

    And finally a product for all those techs who maintain their servers well and have no work or pending issues and yet have to sit through the nights waiting for some issue to popup.

    KTuberling (http://opensource.bureau-cornavin.com/ktuberling/) was originally game intended for small children. Of course, it may be suitable for adults who have remained young at heart. Most techs in general love this software. It is a “potato editor”. That means that you can drag and drop eyes, mouths, mustache, and other parts of face and goodies onto a potato-like guy. Similarly, you have a penguin and an aquarium on which you can drop other stuff.

    There is no winner for the game. The only purpose is to make the funniest faces you can. There is a museum,like a “Madame Tusseau” gallery, where you can find many funny examples of decorated potatoes, penguins and aquariums.

    World War II - Germany decided to attack Poland. Poland had many great warriors. They all prepared to fight the Germans. They were all ready with the best armor, the best and well trained horses, and ofcourse the best weapons , swords , spears .... And the Pols were brave and were ready to give their lives for their country. Sadly they did just that... give their lives. The Germans had tanks... It is very important to have the right weapons when one goes for a war.

    In the same way it is very important for system administrators to have the right tools to to work smart. Linux is a great desktop OS for developers as well as system administrators. Let us take a look at some of the utilities which makes this a great environment for system administrators and developers. Most of the content below is taken from the home pages of these apps and the I make no claims on the originality. My aim is to introduce the reader to the wonderful tools that are available in a Linux/BSD desktop environment.

    Konsole

    Let's start from what most people think Linux is all about - a text based shell. Konsole is what is known as an X terminal emulator, often referred to as a terminal or a shell. It gives you the equivalent of an old-fashioned text screen on your desktop, but one which can easily share the screen with your graphical applications. What makes Konsole special? Konsole's advanced features include simple configuration and the ability to use multiple terminal shells in a single window, making for a less cluttered desktop. Konsole is also available as kpart and can thus be easily embedded in other applications, like practiced by Kate and Konqueror.

    As most system administrators need log into servers on a regular basis the konsole gives them a benefit over the Windoze command prompt. In windows one needs to use a program like putty to log in using SSH. Also as linux is the desktop OS the techs can use the man pages on the local system.

    One can also try out the various commands locally. Consider a simple example.

    Is it

    $ ln sourcefile destinationfile

    or is it

    $ ln destinationfile sourcefile

    Such things can be easily found out locally without carrying out experiments on the server. Many techs believe that servers are places where they can experiment. However, such experiments can lead to major losses to the customers due to one small error. A system administrator must understand that people have immense faith in them when they give their entire data to them and they cannot risk carrying out simple experiments on servers.

    Some screenshots of the konsole can be seen at the konsole site

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