The school board I worked for, from what I heard from the Manager of Information Technology, have added Firefox and OpenOffice.org to their default list of programs on their Windows images, although Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office are still the default.

That's a step in the right direction at least but before you blast this school board for relying on Microsoft technologies, I want to state that last summer they implemented a system using N-Computing devices that allow one computer to turn into four terminals (saving money through lower energy costs and Windows licenses) and experimented with creating Ubuntu images pre-installed with Edubuntu-type programs, like GCompris.

Unfortunately, large organizations such as this school board need to worry about long-term support and N-Computing only supported Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake and beta-supported Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn, both of which were soon to be unsupported by Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu. Ultimately the technicians couldn't get N-Computing to work fully with Ubuntu and abandoned the Ubuntu images but kept the N-Computing devices. That's too bad, but at least they experimented with it and maybe will give it another shot in a few years time.

I was in contact with Canonical at the time to discuss the support issues of how N-Computing only supported their older releases and asked them to call the Manager of Information Technology, but nothing came of it.

Interesting dilemma though, where Canonical supports their every fourth release (such as Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake) for 3 years on the desktop and yet it still seems too fast for corporations such as N-Computing to keep up with.

My current university, Trent, will at least be installing a Xubuntu thin-client solution (dual-booted with Windows XP) for the Mathematics and Computer Science departments. This is in large part thanks to Ryan Oram of Infinity OS fame.

As noted by Bob Sutor, an IBM employee, Mozilla Firefox will now be the default browser for the entire staff at IBM. He stated that a few thousand employees used Firefox by choice on their Linux, Mac and Windows machines, but the browser will now be installed by default on all their laptop and desktop images, extending to their ~400,000 employees.

Sutor has even stated,

Any employee who is not now using Firefox will be strongly encouraged to use it as their default browser. All new computers will be provisioned with it. We will continue to strongly encourage our vendors who have browser-based software to fully support Firefox.

This is significant because, working as a computer technician for a local school board in the past, we had to run software such as IBM/Tivoli Remote Deployment Manager and IBM/TLC School Connect to provision Windows images to broken thin-clients and manage their Active Directory set up, respectively. When I used my Ubuntu laptop to connect, Firefox would struggle to display a couple pages and I would be forced to use a working thin-client just to connect.

Did it make sense that School Connect only worked with Internet Explorer? Well, maybe, since it connects to a Windows-only Active Directory server, but that's really restricting your audience, like DRM for web browsers (you buy an MP3 on an iPod and you can only play that MP3 on an iPod, not any other music player or device). Was this Firefox's fault? No. I looked at the source code (don't forget, I'm a web developer) and noticed the software's dependence on archaic Microsoft technologies and closed standards. IBM pushing Firefox internally will only force this software monolith to program web-based software with open standards, which will allow fair competition between web browsers and not lock any user out from using their software (including us dolorous computer technicians). I am hoping this will also push my local school board and former employer into not only adding Firefox to their Windows images, but making Firefox their default browser for thousands of students and staff in due time. I have noted to the Manager of Information Technology, my former boss, that Google has dropped their support for Internet Explorer 6, so at least they'll be getting rid of that non-open-standard-complying piece of &%$! technology.

I find this not only a win for Firefox, but a win for open standards in web development, allowing us web developers to breathe a little easier while programming and designing web sites, knowing that all our features are supported once it is released into the wild.

This is a repost of my HOWTO: Fix GPG errors for bad/deleted keys on UbuntuForums.org

I don't know what I did, but one day I started using Ubuntu and all my public signature keys for downloading software were all deleted.

This error popped up after running System > Administration > Update Manager

W: GPG error: http://archive.canonical.com jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 40976EAF437D05B5
W: GPG error: http://download.virtualbox.org jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY DCF9F87B6DFBCBAE
W: GPG error: http://packages.medibuntu.org jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 2EBC26B60C5A2783
W: GPG error: http://archive.ubuntu.com jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 40976EAF437D05B5
W: GPG error: http://archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 40976EAF437D05B5
W: GPG error: http://archive.getdeb.net jaunty-getdeb-testing Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY A8A515F046D7E7CF
W: GPG error: http://archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-security Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 40976EAF437D05B5
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 6E871C4A881574DE
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 28A8205077558DD0
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY D739676F7613768D
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 8C851674F96FD737
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY C0B56813051D8B58
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 4874D3686E80C6B7
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 60D11217247D1CFF
W: GPG error: http://archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-backports Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 40976EAF437D05B5
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 5A9A06AEF9CB8DB0
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 6D975C4791E7EE5E
W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used.GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 5A9BF3BB4E5E17B5

W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 7FB8BEE0A1F196A8
W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-da...jaunty/Release

W: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

The fix for this is to re-download the keys using the hexidecimal numbers given in the error (I bolded them above).

NOTE: Your hexadecimal numbers may be different then mine, so make sure to use the hexadecimals numbers in your error, not mine.

Type this command into the terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal)

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys #don't actually run this line yet

And then add the hexadecimal numbers to the command (again, these are my keys from my error. Make sure to use your own):

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 40976EAF437D05B5 DCF9F87B6DFBCBAE 2EBC26B60C5A2783 A8A515F046D7E7CF 6E871C4A881574DE 28A8205077558DD0 D739676F7613768D 8C851674F96FD737 C0B56813051D8B58 4874D3686E80C6B7 60D11217247D1CFF 5A9A06AEF9CB8DB0 6D975C4791E7EE5E 5A9BF3BB4E5E17B5 7FB8BEE0A1F196A8

The output should look like this:

gpg: requesting key 437D05B5 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 6DFBCBAE from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 0C5A2783 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 46D7E7CF from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 881574DE from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 77558DD0 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 7613768D from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key F96FD737 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 051D8B58 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 6E80C6B7 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 247D1CFF from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key F9CB8DB0 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 91E7EE5E from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key 4E5E17B5 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: requesting key A1F196A8 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: key 437D05B5: "Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key " not changed
gpg: key 6DFBCBAE: public key "Sun Microsystems, Inc. (xVM VirtualBox archive signing key) " imported
gpg: key 0C5A2783: public key "Medibuntu Packaging Team " imported
gpg: key 46D7E7CF: public key "GetDeb Archive Automatic Signing Key " imported
gpg: key 881574DE: public key "Launchpad PPA for Bisigi" imported
gpg: key 77558DD0: public key "Launchpad PPA for GNOME Do Core Team" imported
gpg: key 7613768D: public key "Launchpad PPA named vlc for Christoph Korn" imported
gpg: key F96FD737: public key "Launchpad PPA for Paul Gevers" imported
gpg: key 051D8B58: public key "Launchpad PPA for GStreamer developers" imported
gpg: key 6E80C6B7: public key "Launchpad PPA for Banshee Team" imported
gpg: key 247D1CFF: public key "Launchpad PPA for OpenOffice.org Scribblers" imported
gpg: key F9CB8DB0: public key "Launchpad PPA for Ubuntu Wine Team" imported
gpg: key 91E7EE5E: public key "Launchpad PPA for XBMC for Linux" imported
gpg: key 4E5E17B5: public key "Launchpad PPA for chromium-daily" imported
gpg: key A1F196A8: public key "Launchpad PPA for Pidgin Developers" imported
gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found
gpg: Total number processed: 15
gpg: imported: 14 (RSA: 12)
gpg: unchanged: 1

Then you should have no more errors!