Don't make illegal copies of Microsoft Office. Get OpenOfficeorg instead.

E-mail received here..

"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" - but everyone wants to know what your cat looks like.

Are you angry?

Perhaps you should be? Are you one of those who have to clean spyware and other nastiness from your PC, have to re-install Windows because it has nearly stopped working?

You really don't have to put up with it, do you?

First of all: Stop using Internet Explorer as net browser, and stop using Outlook Express as your e-mail program.

Use Opera as browser, or Firefox. Both are freely available from the net. Opera is closed software, Firefox is open software - free as in freedom. Both have versions for many other operating systems and platforms in addition to Windows, both are far more secure against unpleasant surprises than Internet Explorer.

Outlook Express can be replaced by Thunderbird. Did I mention that Firefox and Thunderbird are available in many, many languages? If your language is not supported, you can participate in supplying translations? Wow - what a concept. You can download software, change it to suit your needs, make the changes available to others and not get sued or arrested for it!

Did you know that much of the spam you get in your mailbox is sent from Windows PCs that have been cracked by malware - malicious programs - and converted into e-mail relayers? Isn't it strange that one of the world's largest software houses can't secure their systems better, when OpenBSD, made by all volunteers, is the world's most secure operating systems for home and server use? The most popular free (as in speech) PC system is Linux, almost as secure and well protected as OpenBSD.

If you would like to try Linux without disturbing your current installation, try Knoppix, or another of the many Live CD versions you can find on the net. Download a CD-ROM image, burn it, boot your machine from the CD-ROM and enjoy. It will be very slow, since a CD-ROM is so much slower than a hard disk, but it will show a good selection of what you can do with Linux.

BSA threatens everyone not running Windows with jail time. Their logic is as follows:

• Joe's PC was put together without a Windows system on it.
• All PCs run Windows.
• Therefore, Joe has installed an illegal copy of Windows.

Funny. BSA is welcome to audit my software licenses, it's a long time since I liberated my PCs.