{"id":43,"date":"2006-03-23T12:03:30","date_gmt":"2006-03-23T12:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garfnet.org.uk\/cms\/software\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T23:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T23:59:10","slug":"software","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/garfnet.org.uk\/cms\/about\/garf\/software\/","title":{"rendered":"Software"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the early days, main programming skills were VisualBasic, HTML, a bit of JavaScript & a shed load of applets using VisualBasic for Applications. Most of the applications I have developed were primarily for the M$ Windows platform. However, due to the unease of many of my clients regarding Microsoft’s draconian licensing arrangements, I’m starting to get heavily into<\/em> Linux and the rich diversity of software and ideas that now emanate from the ‘Open Source’ community. Consequently, main avenue of enquiry today is PHP & mySQL. The new GarfNet <\/em>sites are all Linux | Apache | PHP | mySQL based<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Like most of the computing world, I am already very familiar with  MS Office. I have also become very disillusioned with Microsoft and its products. Consequently I have moved almost all my supported customers from MS Office to LibreOffice (the free open source office suite for Windows & Linux, available from https:\/\/libreoffice.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Most of my customers now run GNU\/Linux, mostly Debian or one of its derivatives. As part of my support package, I perform all software upgrades remotely over SSH. I also offer off site backup using rsync over SSH<\/p>\n

I think that open source will become very important over the next few years. Tux, the Linux penguin will gradually become a familiar sight on computer desktops all around the planet. Or to put it another way, I won’t be buying Microsoft shares anytime soon!<\/p>\n