Horneker Online is a collection of web resources that is about Linux with emphasis on the PCLinuxOS distribution, digital photography, commentary about technology issues that effect us, and most importantly, our freedoms, including freedom of choice, freedom of access, freedom to collaborate, and freedom to think.

These days, surfing the Web as we know it has changed. Mobile devices such as Android tablets and smart phones are a popular tool for web browsing. Also, the integration of television and Internet makes another venue for web surfing possible. In the 1990s, we had WebTV, a set top box that allowed web pages to be viewed on analog television sets, and used a 56K landline modem for Internet access. Today's television sets that integrate Internet applications rely on broadband access to the Internet for some content.

In fact, the ever growing usage of smartphones to visit websites is the primary reason why I had to give this website a complete overhaul. Up to now, I had hand coded all the pages. Writing a website for a desktop or laptop computer is one thing. But writing to optimally support smartphones and similar devices at the same time making the website look good is another.

Your browser will claim that this is not a secure website. This is true, but I am getting this fixed. HTTPS, in my opinion, exists to ensure that websites can be trusted for online shopping or for "personalization" of the user experience be requiring the visitor of the website to register for an account to login to the website.

Here at Horneker Online, I do not request information from the viewer, that is, name, e-mail address, passwords, and so forth. Never had. Never will. Period.

My privacy policy is simple: Private means private. No exceptions. No nonsense. I never had to ask for information for the viewer in the past twenty years, nor do I have any intention on starting such a practice.

For this reason, the only contact information available is an e-mail address. I consider physical addresses, and phone numbers to be private information, and hence will never be given out here.

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A Bit of History

Back in July 1996, this website supported OS/2. OS/2 was a great operating system. It was a true 32-bit operating system with 16-bit compatibility (for DOS, Windows 3.x and 16-bit OS/2 applications). The problem was that IBM was not able to market the product effectively. IBM started discontinuing support back in 2002 for version 2.x and earlier. Version 3.0 (Warp) was discontinued back in 2004. Finally, in 2005, IBM pulled the product off the market. What is left of OS/2 is now ArcaOS 5.0, and is being developed by Arca Noae of Leesburg, Virginia.

ArcaOS is a commercial product, and costs $129.00 for three machines for the Personal Edition. The good news is that like Linux, it is not vulerable to malware, viruses, or other problems Windows has (and never has), and ArcaOS is still OS/2, with the difference being that it can run on computers built in the past 15 years.

The Comdex event in Fall 1998 introduced the mainstream computing market to Linux (as well as Open Source software in general) and its benefits in the enterprise, as well as in the consumer market. The introduction of the General Public License to the mainstream changed the way that software was distributed. Linux was the first operating system for consumers where the cost for one installation is the same as the cost for a thousand installations. In other words, Linux itself does not cost anything to install, configure and use. What you pay for is the cost of the disks, and the labor to download and produce the distribution disks.

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Linux Involvement

These days, I use PCLinuxOS as my main Linux distribution on a laptop.

Of all the Linux distributions I have used, I find that PCLinuxOS is the best when it comes to hardware support out of the box, keeping the software updated, system configuration, ease of use, and suitability for the consumer market. What other distribution offers plenty of support options, including a downloadable magazine (in PDF format)?

While PCLinuxOS may be focused on the desktop, Fedora Project is focused on the latest trends in computing, not just the desktop experience.

Fedora is also a great distribution for learning information technology skills that can be used in an enterprise environment. Fedora started out in 1993 as Red Hat® Linux, and has evolved into a distribution suitable for everyday use, and the basis on which Red Hat® Enterprise (and derivatives such as CentOS®, Oracle® Linux and Scientific Linux) was built. Actually, the same could be said for Debian®, Ubuntu® and OpenSuSE®.

That is not to say that I have not used other distributions. I have used Slackware for some time, as well as Fedora®, Ubuntu®, Mandriva (pre-Mageia), OpenSuSE® and Debian®.