Scholarly work using Linux

I have not been able to post here lately because I received an invitation to publish a scholarly article and, therefore, I got busy writing. I worked passionately on this project, sometimes getting up early to gather sources before my one-year old daughter would get up. You know, once she gets up, I prefer to play with her ;-).

The writing process went as usual. However, when I finished with the article, I remembered everything I did to complete my thesis back in the days in which I was an avid Windows user. I could not help it: I compared the way in which I worked then (with Windows XP) and how I do it now (with Linux powering my computer).

To be able to finish my thesis, I had to steal sleep hours; I would get up every day at 3AM for a month. My Windows computer helped me with the task: it would turn on by itself, load my thesis document, open my browser, and play a song to wake me up. Remember I am no computer guru. To achieve all that, I had to download several programs (and their corresponding cracks). No wonder my Windows box was always infected and throwing tantrums at me!

In Linux, I do not have to install anything for my computer to do all that: the OS includes all the functionalities I need. From KOrganizer, I get the computer to wake me up with a song and to launch Firefox and LibreOffice with my article without exposing my computer to any malware. I simply used the process for a song but selected "application/script" instead of "sound". Then I wrote libreoffice3.4 for "application" and added the path where the file was in "arguments".

But that's not all: Linux has a great tool for copying citations from PDFs: Okular. Its fabulous feature to select text from virtually any PDF, copy it, and paste it truly facilitates the process of adding citations to one's article. Even in the rare cases when it is not possible to get the selection as text, you can paste it as an image with Okular...simple and quick.

Oh, and the workspaces! They are so convenient; you can work without all the clutter. I kept a thesaurus in one desktop, the browser ready in another, some PDF sources in another, and my main document in another. This way, you just say good bye to the waste of time caused by the repetitive minimizing and maximizing of the wrong application.

Thus, when I hear all those silly claims of Linux not being ready for serious work, I chuckle. Waking up, doing research, formatting my sources, writing, proofreading... from nothing to completion, every step of the writing process was a lot more efficient thanks to Linux. I do not even have to worry about MS Office compatibility: the magazine accepts .odt files!

So, I finished this article pretty quickly. And the best part is that I did not have to sacrifice the time to play with my daughter.

Adobe Reader and Malware

I was reading that some Windows users, perhaps too upset by what they consider "cultic Microsoft bashing" by different Linux communities, started claiming that the reaction against Adobe Reader was another attempt to praise Penguin software over programs that run natively on Windows.

Nothing can be further from truth. Adobe Reader was nominated the most dangerous software in 2009...but few people are aware of the reasons why. Well, I am talking about inexperienced computer users, the ones that might even own netbooks, but for whom the word "extension" triggers an image of hair artificially made longer instead of something related to computers.

So, let us just say that most computers use Adobe Reader to handle pdf files. Pdf means "portable document file", an open format used to store documents in a rather stable way, so that you can open them in different computers and the files remain unaltered.

Adobe Reader is provided in most driver CDs and DVDs, which explains its preeminent place in many computers. This seems very convenient, except for the fact that malicious code can be introduced into a pdf and then your computer can become a zombie or it can be infected by viruses via pdf reading...under the patient eyes of your antivirus, which, instead of preventing the malware from going rampant, gives it its blessing. Did you know that more computers got infected this way than by USB viruses in 2009?

The response of the company disappointed everyone: Adobe has been extremely slow in releasing heavy-to-download patches and these have been circumvented by hackers easily. To make matters worse for Adobe, its reader is slow to launch and consumes computer resources with the gluttony of a loccust!

Here is where Linux users started mentioning that they do not have those issues because they normally do not use the widespread software (which can also run under Penguin-powered computers) and suggested alternatives, such as Foxit (in Windows) or Okular (in Linux) that, apparently, do not execute dangerous code embedded in the pdf.





I remember I used Foxit in Windows. It is fast and stable and, as most users only require to READ the pdf, not to annotate it, the little program is excellent for the task. In Mandriva, I am more than satisfied with Okular, a program with beautiful pdf navigating features.

Again, dropping Adobe turns into a question of knowledge over comfort. Do you want to protect your computer? If so, ARE YOU WILLING TO LEARN?

Too much of a hassle, you say? Watch this video, then. It is really inspirational. And remember that the more you know about the computer, the more usable it becomes... Your computer can work with you, not against you.



Being a computer user, I grew sick of an OS that tells me I'm stupid (do YOU really want to see this folder? Important files are in here and you will mess them up!) and became fed up with software that claims to take care of threats but doesn't. My journey of learning with Linux has made me see all the possibilities I never dreamed my computer has. Wouldn't you like to exploit all the HIDDEN resources in your system as the people in the video have learned to use their instruments, bodies, and abilities? Linux can help you unleash the potential of your computer, but this power becomes useless if you do not trust yourself and fear from training holds you back. You can learn and free the magic!