2 Days Ago - It's hard for me to admit it but there are things, ten things to be exact, that I really hate about Linux. Sometimes I think it's just me but I do see other people stating a few of these in the forums so I'm at least not alone with some of these issues. These are in no particular order and they... (Read More)

7 Days Ago - According to an ongoing debate over the GPL version 3, he does. How can this be, since Linus Torvalds, creator and chief architect of the Linux kernel, knows about software freedom and free software? He doesn't have a problem with what Richard Stallman refers to as "tivoization," which is the... (Read More)

Aug 31st, 2008 - Welcome to the 10th installment of the Crystal Ball Sunday series. This is an exciting time to be involved with Linux because the temperature is right for some Linux vendor consolidation. In my August 22nd post, Microsoft and Novell: Buying In or Selling Out, I subtly predicted that Microsoft would... (Read More)

11 Days Ago - At my last, best count, there were over 550 individual Linux distributions. From the most generic, flat installs of the most common distros to ultra-specialized, multimedia-oriented to the eye-popping, fancy ones--they're all there for the taking. I found ten distributions from among the 500 or so... (Read More)

Oct 11th, 2009 - It was exactly one year ago today that I published my original "The 10 Best Linux Distributions" and it's time to put forth a new list for this year's best. Without looking at the old list, I've decided to compile this one from scratch. This 2009 list takes several factors into account for... (Read More)

Sep 29th, 2009 - Since I check my linkbacks religiously, I noticed one of the comments over at linsux.org (An anti-Linux rant site) on my recent post, "5 Things You Can Do to Put Linux in the Driver Seat" and thought I would share one of the entries with you. He wants us Linux types to stop work on so many... (Read More)

Sep 22nd, 2009 - Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, said at the LinuxCon in Portland yesterday that, "We are not the streamlined, small, hyper-efficient kernel I envisioned 15 years ago," he said. "Our kernel is huge and bloated. Whenever we add a new feature, it only gets worse." It's time to put Linux... (Read More)

Sep 28th, 2009 - This is a plea to all hardware manufacturers: Please create Linux drivers for your hardware. OK, so Linux isn't the Stormin' Norman of the Desktop arena but that doesn't mean its users don't want or need drivers for hardware. I don't blame the kind volunteers that donate their time to program bits... (Read More)

Jul 7th, 2009 - Quick question: What do the following things have in common? A Mythical Horned Rabbit from Douglas, Wyoming. A French-Canadian Linux Guy. An A4 Format. An African Word. A Double-sided DVD. An Abundance of Information. Give up? (Read More)

Aug 26th, 2009 - Just when you thought it was safe to return to those keyboards knowing that all is well with the world and the ownership of Unix is happy with its rightful owner, Novell; he's baaaack. I'm sure that I'm not the first to look at this latest news and say "WHAA? AGAIN? I thought we had this settled."... (Read More)

Aug 29th, 2009 - OK, I can't resist this whole SCO thing, since it has again raised its ugly head. My previous post on the subject the other day drew a lot of attention from a diverse gaggle of readers and commenters so I thought I'd go back to the well at least once more for good measure. Here's the real shocker... (Read More)

Aug 16th, 2009 - Today I'm pondering if the current open source model is still valid or if it's outdated. Do we need licensing for open source software? Do we need the GPL, LGPL, APL and all the other licenses that plague...er, grace us? If your software is free and open source, why bother with a license at all?... (Read More)

Jun 13th, 2007 - Check Point Software Technologies, developers of the ZoneAlarm security range, has announced the results of research which suggest that half of all staff will happily walk away from employment with competitive information about your business in their pockets. That they are walking straight into... (Read More)

Dec 27th, 2006 - Here in the UK it is pantomime season. A peculiar form of traditional slapstick stage play that is performed during the Christmas season. In essence favourite tales such as Peter Pan, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk and Aladdin are retold with the lead boy played by a girl and an ugly woman played... (Read More)

Oct 19th, 2009 - Just when it looked like every avenue to prevent the extradition of self-confessed NASA Hacker Gary McKinnon had been exhausted, especially when just last week a couple of High Court judges denied him leave to appeal his case to the highest court in the UK, it looks like the hacking cause célèbre... (Read More)

Sep 16th, 2009 - One third of businesses totally fail to encrypt their sensitive data transfers. That's the conclusion of a new survey into file transfer security which noted the huge disparities in attitudes towards data security in general and data security during transfer. According to the 2009 File Transfer... (Read More)

Sep 8th, 2009 - It's good news for those in the security business, according to Gartner at least. It is predicting that security software and services spending will outpace other IT spending areas in 2010. The Gartner report suggests that security software budgets will grow by approximately 4% in 2010, while... (Read More)

Aug 26th, 2009 - I'm not a great fan of the phrase 'total coincidence' and nor am I a fan of The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills and Lord President of the Council to be formal. While I'm on the small matter of things I don't like, I'm not... (Read More)

3 Days Ago - Has your server's memory reached its 192GB limit? Last week a company called Netlist was demonstrating a new RDIMM technology that it claims can double per-CPU memory capacity without doubling the cost and without replacing any other hardware. At Supercomputing 09, the high performance computing... (Read More)

Feb 20th, 2008 - The Internet has shown that reputations are important but don't have to be tied to specific real individuals. The entire banking system is built on top of the idea of reputation, but tries hard to tie them to real identities. The problem of identity theft is likely to break this connection. We will... (Read More)

22 Days Ago - "If we went into an “evil room” and had an “evil light” shined on us, and we then behaved in an “evil” way we would be destroyed… there is a fundamental trust between Google and its users.” ~Eric Schmidt, Google CEO Google released an exciting new product today called the Dashboard. I don't... (Read More)

24 Days Ago - 12439 Leslie Stahl had a piece Sunday night on 60 minutes on the supposed impact of piracy on the movie industry. (You can watch it here.) Her piece was so slanted toward the Motion Picture Association of America, it was almost laughable (if it weren't so maddening). At one point, Stahl... (Read More)

Oct 13th, 2009 - To put it mildly, it's been a bad week for cloud computing. First of all word got out that Microsoft, the keepers of the data for users of Sidekick phones completely hosed the data. I mean kaput, gone, vanished. See you later, bye. If you don't have a back up, you are pretty much screwed because... (Read More)

Feb 27th, 2009 - You can tell a lot about a company by the way they treat the employees lowest on its pay scale. Pay cuts and, yes, even layoffs are inevitable in today's economic climate. The decisions are painful, but they're often necessary and unavoidable. They aren't, however, a license to be callous and cold... (Read More)

Oct 19th, 2009 - Symantec has published one of those rare things - a report that contains an actual surprise. It seems some 4 million people have fallen for Scareware in the last 12 months. I'm stunned. Not because people are installing fake antivirus systems. That's a shame but in some ways it's inevitable;... (Read More)

Oct 5th, 2009 - Smaller businesses and people who use Hotmail as n email system or backup email system need to change their passwords - Microsoft has confirmed it's investigating a security breach. It seems that in spite of the industrial strength security everybody of any size applies to these systems - and... (Read More)

Oct 2nd, 2009 - A judge has said a lawsuit can be delivered via Twitter. It's an interesting case, an odd idea and a pity there are going to be so many logistical obstacles. The scenario is simple. Someone is posing as a (real) right-wing blogger - they've effectively 'borrowed' his name for a Twitter account... (Read More)

Sep 14th, 2009 - The UK has finally ratified the 802.11n standard for WiFi at last. Although we've had '802.11n-ready' kit on the market for a fair while, it hasn't been official as yet. I can only hope people in stores will be able to explain what people are buying. I say this because of what happened the last... (Read More)

31 Days Ago - In addition to funding broadband projects in the states, particularly in rural areas, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, includes funds for collection of state-level broadband data, as well as state-wide broadband mapping and planning. The... (Read More)

34 Days Ago - Two groups are working to set up a .gay top-level Internet domain, with plans for using some of the proceeds for registering sites in that domain to support gay causes, according to an article in the New York Times. While it can cost up to $400,000 to set up a new top-level domain, companies... (Read More)

33 Days Ago - The Associated Press reported this weekend that the official White House website has been switched to using the open-source Drupal content management system Using open source will result in improved security -- because more programmers will be looking for errors in the software -- as well as... (Read More)

Oct 20th, 2009 - In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, Congress appropriated $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans, and loan guarantees to be administered by the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications... (Read More)

Oct 19th, 2009 - The other day I was on Facebook and a chat window popped up from a college friend of mine. Bob: Hey there. How are u doing? Sharon: ok. you? Bob: Am not too good. Im in some kind of deep mess right now Sharon: uh oh. what happened? What "Bob" didn't know was that I was already suspicious... (Read More)

Sep 29th, 2009 - In its ongoing effort to become the coolest city in the U.S., the mayor of Portland, Oregon, is going to attempt tomorrow night to make it an "open source city," making its data as open as possible while respecting privacy, and buying open source applications when possible. If passed by the City... (Read More)

Sep 25th, 2009 - Idaho, where I live, likes to brag when it makes lists such as "best places to live," "best places to start a business," etc. Now we've made another list: we're the most spammed. According to MessageLabs, which was acquired by Symantec in November, the ten states with the highest percentage... (Read More)

Sep 22nd, 2009 - Remember Terry Childs? He was the network administrator for the city of San Francisco who -- claiming he was protecting the city government's computer system from incompetent coworkers -- changed the system's passwords and then for more than a week refused to give them to anyone, even after being... (Read More)

Sep 20th, 2009 - Two students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have learned that it is possible to predict which men in social networks are gay, even if they aren't out, based on who their friends are. It's the theory behind traffic analysis, or the process of intercepting and examining messages to... (Read More)

Aug 29th, 2009 - What, you hadn't heard? "A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a "kill switch" to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks -- a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties," FOX News said... (Read More)

Oct 20th, 2009 - It's not just phishing scams that Facebook users have to worry about right now, According to Roger Thompson, the Chief Research Officer with security vendor AVG, hacked Facebook applications are increasingly reaching out to exploit sites based in Russia. As Thompson says, this is different to... (Read More)

Aug 30th, 2009 - Symantec has detected a new Trojan which targets Skype users in order to monitor and record conversations made using the Internet telephony service. Apparently the source code for this particular Trojan, called Pesky Spy, is already being touted around the usual places where the bad guys can pick... (Read More)