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General Links
Below are links to sites of interests for the lectures
and course material for my various courses. There are some things I would like to note
here by way of cautionary notes:
Practical Suggestions For
Link Use:
Fair warning about the links, the links in this
page are not to resources that I have created or that I control. Nor
are the opinions expressed necessarily in agreement with my own. Pages
for the various links may disappear without notice. If you find a broken
link or would like to suggest a link, e-mail me.
Free Stuff
Office Suites
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Open Office: Sun
Microsystems has developed this open source office suite that is
compatible with microsoft office. The software is free and governed by
the GNU agreement.
http://www.java.com/en/download/openoffice.jsp
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StarSuite 9 Beta
for Windows: This is the beta for Sun Microsystems' open source office
suite that is compatible with microsoft office. This version is targeted
at vista 32 and 64-bit OS. The software is free and governed by the GNU
agreement.
http://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_SMI-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewFilteredProducts-SingleVariationTypeFilter
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Google docs:
Google has a beta of it’s web-based free office suite. Like Sun’s
the Google is compatible with Microsoft Office. You can run all of the
functions through your browser (see browsers below), including
presentations. You can also import Microsoft files and export your files
into Microsoft office for saving on your computer.
http://docs.google.com/#all
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Browsers
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Firefox is a
well-known and highly functional browser that is GNU open source and
free. The latest version is 3.0. Mozilla also makes a very good e-mail
management opensource package called Thunderbird.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.0.1&os=win&lang=en-US
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Google Chrome is
Google’s new browser beta for windows (macs soon). It has been written
from scratch–sort of--to minimize the resources it consumes and
maximize speed, stability, and security. Chrome lacks full java
functionality, and many of the more subtle options of other browsers but
will eventually be as robust as Explorer or Firefox. It does seem to me
to be quite fast.
http://www.google.com/chrome
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Operating Systems |
All of the free operating systems are versions of Linux. Linux is a
GNU regulated operating system that is, to be frank, about 1,000 more
efficient than Windows or Mac OS. One version of the Linux OS consumes a
mere 16MB of memory. However, Linux does not always have all of the best
and whistles of the major operating systems, and compatibility can be a
problem if you have no inclinations towards hacking. Having said that, I
would note that Linux is actually one of the more popular server OS
options for one simple reason: It’s MUCH faster and MUCH less resource
intensive than any other OS. This popularity has spawned lots of
development. I would strongly urge you to install Linux as a dual-boot OS
on your computer, and discourage you from trying to install it as a
replacement. Better yet, install it on your old computer and work out any
bugs. I can pretty much guarantee that once you have Linux running on your
old computer, it will outperform your new computer. I give you my
candidates for the three best versions for novices below:
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Debian works on
Alpha, AMD64, ARM, HP's PA-RISC, x86, Intel IA-64 (Itanium), MIPS,
PowerPC, IBM S/390, and Sun's SPARC architecture. The original founder of
Debian is now the head OS strategist at Sun. The most recently released
version, 4.0 was July of 2008.
http://www.debian.org/
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Fedora works on x86,
AMD64, and PowerPC. It is a GNU spin-off of Red Hat and usually has tons
of cutting edge features. For instance, it has an automatic updater.
http://fedoraproject.org/
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Solaris is Sun
Microsystem’s open source version of the Linux operation system. They
claim, “Solaris has the largest installed-base of any other commercial
UNIX or Linux distribution on the planet.”
http://www.opensolaris.com/ |
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General
Philosophy Links
Ethics
Links
Religion
Links
Critical
Thinking Links
Epistemology
Links
General Cognitive Science Links
Neuroscience Links
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