Mr Alewine

I am realizing there are good and bad aspects to both Firefox and Open Office, but both are comparable to their non-open source counter parts.

Firefox is great for organization (which is helpful for someone like me) by saving a session and allowing me to return where I left off when I close Firefox. It also keeps track of sites I visited and brings them up automatically when I type a URL that has similar text in it. The features are accessible and easy to read, and it runs as fast as any web sever available.
However...
Firefox routinely crashed, leaving me to continually restart the program. This doesn't seem like to be a significant issue, but it's not a problem I had with Safari. This happened more often when I used ESPN360, (a tool for watching live sporting events through espn.com) which would make me move to Safari in order to watch the game (because I'm not giving up watching sports for something silly like principles).

Open Office had the same ups and downs. There were times I could not tell there was a difference between it and Word, and I actually preferred Open Office to Macintosh Pages. It surpassed both programs by offering features like finishing longer words when I started to type them.
However...
Open Office required three more steps to open a document then Pages or Word. If I saved a document in Open Office, I had to start Open Office first and then open the document through the program. If I opened the document by just going to the folder it was saved under, it would have opened through TextEdit. This may be more of a problem with the settings on my computer, but as for now it is a hassle.
Also, Pages allows me to save a document in Pages or as a Word Document. This offers options when sending a document to someone using Microsoft Word. (I know Dr. Pfaffman has asked us to swear off sending Word attachments, but I have not learned this yet.) Open Office does not always work as an attachment, which is frustrating when turning in an assignment.

Open Office and Firefox have as many strengths and weaknesses as their non-open source rivals, and consumers need to determine which meets their needs. But Open Office and Firefox offer one feature non-open source programs cannot; Freedom from Microsoft and Macintosh.

Thank the Lord! Ophcrack worked and the Dell is back and better than ever! (Well... maybe not better than ever.) As it turns out, I was not burning the program onto a disc correctly. I will walk through the entire process, and try to show some screen shots.

- First, visit Ophcrack's site, which I have posted here.

- Install "Ophcrack Live CD". There will be two choices. Choose the Live CD. This program is quick and easy to install, so it should only take a few minutes.

- Once the program is installed, it needs to be burned to a CD. This is not standard CD burning procedure though.
First, you must incert a blank CD and go to Applications->Utilities->Disk Utilities. The image you will see is at the top of this post.
Next, drag the program from your desktop to the window and select "Burn". Dr. Pfaffman explained what this does and why simply burning a CD does not work, but I honestly had a hard time understanding what he meant and do not want to risk confusing anyone else.

- Back to Ophcrack, all that is needed is for the computer to load from Ophcrack instead of Windows. This happens when the computer first turns on. You must hold F12 and choose to "load from CD".

- Ophcrack does the rest. All that is needed is to press Enter a couple of times, and Ophcrack works its way through the computer. It clearly presents your password and all other passwords from other accounts in a simple chart.

All I did after that restart it and sign in as before. All my information was all still there, safe and sound.
I just hope there is not some German spy watching me now through Ophcrack..... uh oh.

So I tried Dr. Pfaffman's idea to register new password for the Dell. This site is Offline NT Password Registry Editor and it operated just like the other two programs. I downloaded the software, burned it to a disc, put it in the computer, and tried to boot it from the disc... Again, nothing. Windows loaded again, just like Ophcrack and Microsoft's free software.
I am beginning to wonder if something awful has happened to my computer.

Dr. Pfaffman is not going to like this post, but I am beginning to consider the legitimacy of Open Source software. As one of my projects, I chose to capitalize on my skills as a journalist and write an article describing the possibilities for education available through Open Source. My thinking was going along with Dr. Pfaffman's, believing this was a legitimate way for schools to save money or use money to fund different needs. It seems so obvious if this is available, why not use it?

I finally attempted Ophcrack, the Software used to crack into computers with lost passwords. I found this site through the video tutorial I posted earlier, and the process seemed fairly simple. All that was needed (according to another video tutorial on youtube) was to download the software, burn ophcrack to a CD, and put the CD in the computer you are trying to crack. The claim was this would work with over 90% of computers using Windows XP and some with Vista. My Dell uses (or I should say "used" since it has been on the shelf for so long) XP, so I assumed this would be no problem. The instructions were to turn on the computer, put in the CD, restart the computer, and enter F12 before Windows starts to load. This allows ophcrack to load instead of Windows.
I followed all these instructions, only to find Windows loading and returning to the same screen where my password was rejected. I tried this several more times, but to no avail. I will burn another CD and try once more, but I believe ophcrack (like the other programs I have tried) does not work. Open Source software is not proving to be beneficial at the moment.

I am in the process of writing an article for the Oak Ridge Observer on the benefits and downfalls of Open Source Software for the Oak Ridge Schools. I spoke with IT Director Doug Cofer this afternoon and will sit with him for an in depth interview tomorrow morning.

Oak Ridge Observer's website.

So after following the advice of the video from PC World, I visited the site http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/download.php and downloaded the free software to recover passwords. The site said the software can recover 99.9% or Windows passwords, I felt fairly optimistic.
The download lasted only a minute, I saved it to a junk drive, and plugged it into my Dell Inspiron... Nothing. Just like last time with the CD that was supposed to recover my password and nothing happened, this new software left me with the same results. I wonder if there is a special button I am supposed to be hitting, or maybe it needs to turned on and off, or maybe something horribly wrong has happened... or maybe it's just a pathetic computer...