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You seem to have missed Zotero (it's up there in the comments somewhere) which is a FOSS plugin for firefox. It keeps an offline database, and for nearly any site (e.g. journals) you click one button on the URL bar and it downloads the citation including full pdf so you can read it whenever. It will also let you perform full text searches of your database, and can be configured to perform OCR on scanned documents. Best of all, it's trivial to make bibtex (or many other formats) bibliographies.

I use that in combination with TiddlyWiki for personal typed notes not associated with a journal article/textbook, and Xournal for annotating documents and taking notes with my tablet computer. When annotating documents (textbooks, journal articles) just configure xournal as your pdf viewer and you'll be able to save every annotation you make. TiddlyWiki has a ton of plugins to do whatever you need, including a GTD (Getting Things Done -- it's a book) variant that's probably comparable to Emacs Org-mode, LaTeX math (I wrote that one -- use it every day), and many more.

The one drawback to all this is that I have no way to automatically organize my handwritten notes from xournal. Though they're computer files, my organization for them is horrendous. I still fantasize about some kind of hybrid mutant of TiddlyWiki, OCR (that can magically read my handwriting and equations), and xournal that would let me do all this on a pen-based tablet...

You're right, I didn't include Zotero in that comment! Having looked at it before, my impression of Zotero was that it is a (very competent) reference manager / source collection. Is it more than this? TiddlyWiki sounds familiar too - this is a subject I've dallied with before, so perhaps I came across it previously :-). I'll have another look at Zotero and TiddlyWiki and see if I can get it to do the categorisation thing I'm looking for that I mentioned in my other comment. Cheers!

You seem to have missed Zotero (it's up there in the comments somewhere) which is a FOSS plugin for firefox. It keeps an offline database, and for nearly any site (e.g. journals) you click one button on the URL bar and it downloads the citation including full pdf so you can read it whenever. It will also let you perform full text searches of your database, and can be configured to perform OCR on scanned documents. Best of all, it's trivial to make bibtex (or many other formats) bibliographies.

I use that in combination with TiddlyWiki for personal typed notes not associated with a journal article/textbook, and Xournal for annotating documents and taking notes with my tablet computer. When annotating documents (textbooks, journal articles) just configure xournal as your pdf viewer and you'll be able to save every annotation you make. TiddlyWiki has a ton of plugins to do whatever you need, including a GTD (Getting Things Done -- it's a book) variant that's probably comparable to Emacs Org-mode, LaTeX math (I wrote that one -- use it every day), and many more.

The one drawback to all this is that I have no way to automatically organize my handwritten notes from xournal. Though they're computer files, my organization for them is horrendous. I still fantasize about some kind of hybrid mutant of TiddlyWiki, OCR (that can magically read my handwriting and equations), and xournal that would let me do all this on a pen-based tablet...

You are not looking hard enough. Please check at least the last link.

I'm sure there are 1000 "password wallet" applications out there that will do all this for your grandmother. I haven't looked. (kwalletmanager?) And I'm too paranoid to use them anyway. And I configured vim to automatically decrypt/encrypt files when I edit them. While I'm at it, here's the perl script. This is a solution for me, not your grandmother. But the principle can transfer.

If there *isn't* some suitable password manager for your grandmother, why not write one? As Scheier says, passwords are dead.

My bank asks these stupid questions. I think it's the only instance where I actually recorded my gibberish answers to such questions.

I've been trying to buy a Linux laptop. Unsuccessfully. I'm looking for a low-end system, just enough to give presentations and access systems remotely. My main systems are desktops. I don't need to be able to play movies. I don't need dual boot. I don't need much compute power or a big screen. I do need WiFi capability to public access points, and VGA output to projectors. One would think this would be easy.

So first I try Fry's, which used to have Linux machines on sale. No more. Everything is Windows or Mac. I try Best Buy. No joy, even after a talk with the Geek Squad guy.

Online, we have LinuxCertified. No obvious business address on the web site, always a bad sign, and a criminal offense in California. Low-grade domain-only SSL cert. Phone number not answered during working hours. Not looking good.

There's an article about a $498 Linux laptop from WalMart, but it's been discontinued. WalMart no longer seems to have any Linux laptops.

There's EmperorLinux, but their laptops start at $1145 and go up to $6000. Their $1145 machine is a Dell 520, which Dell sells for $599. $400 extra for Linux?

So now we're down to the blogger/enthusiast sites. One guy has a list of Linux laptop vendors. Going down the list, it doesn't look good. The HP link is dead. The Dell link leads to Dell's French site, and even that's selling only Windows laptops.

But some of the links aren't dead. MGE PC Online will actually sell a Linux laptop. It's a bit overpriced; $805 for the cheapest Celeron machine. But you get Red Hat Fedora preloaded. ShopRCubed has Linux laptops that start at $840. Their advertising is deceptive; they advertise a model with "Intel Dual Core Technology" for $799, but in fact that's the price with an Intel Celeron. Adding WiFi and a Ubuntu install brings you up to $840.

There's American Computer, or ACC PC, or CompAmerica, or whatever. Very low base prices, but they don't install Linux; they just sell you a bare machine and claim "Also Certified to run the Linux Operating System."

Let's try Google's "Froogle" system. There we get some Linux laptops. There's a discontinued Acer model that's out of stock. There's a Pentium II laptop on eBay for $80. ("Boots Linux; some keys don't work") Nothing useful there.

Face it. There are no major commercial vendors of Linux laptops any more. There are a few resellers buying machines, adding Linux, and increasing the price. That's it.

Have you already tried to buy a laptop without Windows, or with Linux? Well, you can't. Unless you're ready to pay *more* than with Windows pre-installed.

Yes I can. You are wrong. I have bought laptops without Windows installed, and have been able to get them cheaper than without Windows pre-installed. I posted this in another of my posts but just for you AC.

http://mcelrath.org/laptops.html

If you claimed I couldn't get it from a big name brand liek Dell I might agree with you but then again no one is forcing you to buy from Dell at all.

The base PC models should come with a cheaper/free OS like linux, and (as much as I hate and disagree with the phrasing) users could choose to "upgrade" to windows.

There is information here

I looked at WikiTeX and mediawiki long ago, and the reason I decided against it is that it does not align equations with the surrounding text, the fonts look vastly different tex/html, and the input syntax is very un-latexlike.

Right now I have an experimental combination of jsMath and tiddlywiki that is pretty darn cool (using ziddlywiki as a backend server storage). I'm thinking of migrating my entire site to that...

-- Bob

So, why don't you buy a Linux-only laptop then?

Terrasoft Solutions sell Linux-only laptops, desktops and servers using Fedora Core 2 based YDL.

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/

They specialise in PPC only, so if you insist on an x86 powered machine then you'd have to find another such shop. I am confident there must be companies just like Terrasoft who specialise in x86 based Linux pre-installed gear.

In fact, a quick google search for "linux preinstalled laptops" shows the this very interesting site as first hit ...

http://mcelrath.org/laptops.html

according to that site, there are plenty of options for people interested in x86 based Linux-only laptops.

I also have a page of linux-preinstalled and no-OS laptop vendors. By my count there are at least 20 vendors that sell linux and no-os laptops, so nobody should have an excuse anymore for whining about not being able to find linux laptops.

P.S. All you currently looking for a laptop...please email me if anything on my list needs to be updated.

Keep in mind that Emperor Linux purchases name-brand laptops with windows and removes the windows. You're paying for windows you're not using . For a list of companies that sell linux laptops and do not do this check here. -- Bob

-- Bob

There's a nice list of non-windows x86 laptop vendors at mcelrath.org/laptops.html

Don't pay the windows tax (or the Apple tax for that matter).

I settled on a Sager 4060 from PCTorque. It's heavier than the toughbook but all its included devices are well supported under linux and it's got a lot of nice features for the price.

I have collected a list of vendors and some other information on the subject. Unfortunately this information is rather difficult to find. If you know of other vendors not on my list, please reply!

-- Bob

-- Bob