Earlier I wrote about some serious problems with online banking, and even had a letter to to the editor published in A.M. Costa Rica. (And no, if you visit the link, it’s not the article about the hookers—you have to scroll down the page some). After that, I received some nice comments and offers of help from readers of that online newspaper.
What started out to be a little experiment in using a small and simple version of the Linux operating system called Puppy turned out to be a long ordeal, learning more about USB memory sticks than I ever wanted to know.
Anyway, I finally have several changes working that I hope will make this a safe and easy way to bank online. I have created a page with details on getting started using this (see the link just below). One issue for folks here in Matapalo is that the Puppy Linux download is 162 Megabytes. While this is small in operating system terms, it is still a lot to download over a dial-up connection.
This version of Puppy Linux, available right here, has been customized. I’ve made a few changes that I hope will make this safer and simpler to use from a “LiveUSB” memory stick. Visit the link above for more details.
If you are in the area and want to drop off a USB stick I can install it for you. If you don’t have an extra USB memory stick, you can find a 2GB stick (good quality, made by Kingston) in Quepos for 6,700 colones at Importadora Monge, right across the street from Banco Costa Rica.
For others here in Costa Rica with slow networks, you’ll just have to find an Internet café that has a high-speed ‘net. While you’re there, ask the owner if s/he would let you reboot one of their computers using your own operating system on USB. I would be quite interested to hear what they have to say. If you do this, post a comment to let me know.
If you decide to give this a try, I would appreciate hearing about your experiences with this. Please post your comments below. Thanks!
While this process works great for PC users, I am hoping that this will also work on a Mac. I was able to create a single USB stick that would boot the “Ubuntu” version of Linux on both a PC and a Mac, so the concept is possible. Stay tuned for more.
