Open Source Software

Written by: Noteforself 

Photo Credit: custom-build-computers.com

I bought my newest computer over the summer at Costco.  It is an HP laptop that was on sale for $450. It has a 17 inch display at 1600×900 resolution, and it came with Windows 7. The first thing I did when I got home was to create the recovery disks.  That used up 4 DVDs. If I had a USB stick with at least 19 GB of space that would have worked too, but I didn't. For anyone who knows computers, 19 GB to reinstall your operating system is simply ridiculous; there is way too much bloatware that the hardware manufacturer is putting on your computer. That being said, making recovery disks is always a first priority when you get a new computer; you will need it in a year or three when your computer gets slow and you need to reformat it.

In my biased opinion, the software that comes preloaded on a computer is often bloated and slow.  Besides the operating system, I usually remove everything else and, instead, install open source software.  Open source software are software that have source code available, in case you want to modify or learn more about the software you are using.  The source code is the written text that makes up the software; the hardware, the physical computer, reads the text and runs the software.

Below are some open source software that I use.  I believe they are smaller and faster then the software that comes with your computer.

7-Zip 
If you ever download a file that is compressed into a 7z, BZip2, Gzip, Tar or other formats, you can use this program to uncompress it.  You can also use this file to archive your files.

ClamWin Free Antivirus 
This is my anti-virus program.  I use it when I want to check to see if my files and folders have anything dangerous in them.

TrueCrypt 
I use this to protect my sensitive documents.  It would create an encrypted file, and I would store all my important things in it.

Gimp
This is my image editor.  I do basic cropping and resizing of my images.  Since I am not a graphics artist, it fulfills my basic needs.  For 99% of computer users, this makes an excellent Adobe Photoshop replacement.

Sumatra PDF 
This replaces Adobe Reader; it's a simple PDF reader.

Notepad++ 
I use this instead of the Notepad that comes with Windows 7.

LibreOffice 
This replaces Microsoft Office.  Hands down, this is the best alternative to it, and it's completely free. However, you can still pay to show your appreciation by sending money to The Document Foundation so they can continue to work on this software.  LibreOffice used to be call OpenOffice. Anything Microsoft Office can do, LibreOffice can most likely also do.  It comes with Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentation), Draw (build diagrams and sketches), Base (database) and Math (equation editor).  It can save in different formats and open many formats, including but not limited to past and present Microsoft document formats.  Additionally, you can save your documents in PDF format.
I highly recommend LibreOffice.  To me, it is on par with Microsoft Office.

VLC 

MPC-HC 
Both VLC and MPC-HC are multimedia players.  You can use them to watch most video formats.

ImgBurn 
This software is to burn CDs/DVDs.  It's simple and works well.

Firefox 
Chrome 
Please don't use Internet Explorer; it can be unsafe.  I would recommend either Firefox or Chrome.They are both good in terms of speed and security.  Additionally, they are updated often to keep pace with technological advances.

In brief, whenever I reformat my computer, I would install the above programs.  Using these programs would also ease you into Linux if you ever want to give Linux a try in the future, because these programs are also available on Linux.  Before using any of these software, please read the instructions; I don't want to be held responsible for bad experiences.

As you can see, I embrace open source.  First, it's free.  Second, I have access to the source code, which allows me to modify it.  (If I knew how.)  Third, the open source software that I use are faster and  smaller than the software they replace. Without open source, Google, Facebook, Amazon and other  technology companies would not be what they are today, and I feel that the world would be a grimmer place.

If you have any interesting open source software, please let me know.  I'm always curious.

Ordering A Cake At Jewel-Osco

Written by: Noteforself

 Photo Credit: farm4.staticflickr.com

"Hi, can I help you?"

"Yes, do you have a Michael Jackson cake?"

"No. If you bring in a picture that you own the copyright to, we can

scan and print it on an edible wafer. We can then place it on top of

the cake."

"Oh."

"We also have cake designs in that book over there."

Customer then looks at book.

"Please let us know if you have any questions or if you're ready to order a cake."

Many customers come in wanting to order a cake but not sure how the process works. I would be too if I didn't work there. But having worked at Jewel-Osco for some time, ordering a cake, to me, is a piece of cake. (Not that I'm particularly fond of extremely sweet mildly nutritious desserts.)

When taking a special order I usually have a piece of paper I have to fill out and a set of questions I usually ask the customer. Below are basic cake ordering information that would be useful for first timers.

There are 3 kinds of cakes that you can special order at Jewel-Osco: chocolate, yellow and marble. Yellow, I'm assuming, is vanilla cake. Why we don't call it vanilla I am not sure. Chocolate is self explanatory; marble is a combination of yellow and chocolate together, mostly yellow with some chocolate in it.

There are different cakes sizes. A 1/8 sheet cake feeds about 6 to 10 people, depending on how you slice it.  A 1/4 sheet cake feeds 15 to 20; A 1/2 sheet cake feeds 30 to 40. Our biggest cake, the full sheet, is two 1/2 sheets put together and it feeds 72 to 80 people. (As usual, depending on how you slice it.) Besides the sheet cakes, we also have an 8 inch round cake, which can be either single or double layer, which feeds from 8 to 12 people. Lastly, we have the 5 inch round cake, also known as a baby cake, which some people get so their baby can play with, and it feeds about 3 to 5 people.

There are two main icings, whip cream and butter-cream. If you have a party and the cake is going to sit out, I would recommend a butter-cream iced cake because whip cream needs to be refrigerated. Additionally, we also have better-cream icing, but I usually don't bring that up because not a lot of people are aware of it, and, unless people want it, I assume they are content with the two main choices.

Once I get the above information, I would ask if you want a filling in the cake, something to put in the middle of it. If you don't that's fine, but if you are interested then the fillings are, in no particular order: fresh strawberries, fresh bananas, custard (Bavarian creme), German chocolate, fudge, chocolate, whip cream, butter-cream, lemon filling, raspberry preserves, pineapple preserves, cherry preserves, and strawberry preserves. The fresh strawberries and bananas we would get from the produce department; they are the same fruits you can get on the sales floor. The only difference is that we cut them up and put them in your cake. We would add a layer of butter-cream or whip cream, depending on your icing, before putting the fruits in. For the fresh strawberries, we would also mix it with strawberry glaze, to keep it fresh and jelly.

Once the food part of your cake is determined, I would ask you how you would like it decorated. You can either point to a picture or design in the cake design book or you can describe how you would like your cake to look. If it's a design from the book, I would jot the number associated with the design down, and then ask you what you would like written on your cake. After that, I would quote you a price and we would be almost done, unless you would like your cake modified to your desire. Modifications include, but not limited to: border colors, additional balloons or roses, primary or pastel confetti’s, ribbons along the border, exclusion of certain features of the design from the design book, etc. Now, if you don't want the cake looking like a design from the cake design book, you usually have two choices. You can bring in a picture that we can scan, print out on an edible wafer, and then placed on the cake, or you can explain to us how you would want the cake to look. If it's mainly roses and balloons and something simple, I can most likely do it. If not, I would tell you I can't and then look for the main cake decorator, who is also my crew chief, and see if she can do it.

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This is just a quick look at ordering a cake at my particular Jewel-Osco. It is my opinion and does not represent the company. There are more details that I probably missed and might address in the future.