Talk

If I had a magic wand, I would take Novell’s resources and Ubuntu’s (Canonical) vision and see the birth of a single Linux product. Each entity has half of it right and the other half of it totally wrong. Novell understands the needs of the enterprise situation while Ubuntu has the DPKG system for software. [...]

This past Saturday, I had a couple gigs up on Chicago’s North Shore. These two customers were literally just down the street from each other, which always makes it more worthwhile to hike up there (it’s really not all that far). The first customer just purchased a Brother Multi-Function Laser Printer (she expressly did not [...]

Why is it that when a piece of hardware fails, it has to bring a friend? A couple days ago, one of my across-the-street neighbors contacted me. His roommate’s PC was blue-screening repeatedly every time the PC completed the boot process. He goes on to e-mail me some info from the BSOD and informs me [...]

Today, laptops are mainly used by almost all computer professionals and business people.
Leading manufacturers introduce new versions each year. So finding the top ten laptops from this wide spectrum of the computer world is quite difficult. Some of the latest laptops available are Gateway NX850XL, Toshiba Qosmio G35, Toshiba Satellite M65, Sony VAIO VGN-TX670P, HP [...]

These days, I try not to have any preset expectations about what the New Year will bring. 2007 is no different. A year ago, the office I work at in downtown Chicago (20th floor of a modern Loop office building) suffered a massive flood caused by a burst water pipe a couple floors above us. [...]

Well, it’s Ubuntu tutorial day again and you might be wondering where the latest piece is for today? Now before you assume that I fell asleep at the wheel, let me explain what the deal is. During my off-hours, I’ve been pounding out what I believe is going to simplify some of the headache involved [...]

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail recently with a link to an article about Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats in the context of DRM and Windows Vista. Being that I harbor strong opinions about DRM, reading that article reminded me how loath I am to move to an OS that has DRM so core [...]

Not too long back I made the claim that any enterprise move to Vista was going be lackluster at best. Sure enough, enterprise migration has been off to a pretty slow start. Much of it has been claimed to be security oriented, however I believe more than that, it comes down to the OS not [...]

When I first read about this botnet issue, I was rather shocked that the target OS was not being examined at length here. After all, it’s not OS X or Linux allowing this botnet issue to become so prevalent. It’s Windows.
Now in an effort to be fair about this, I will take the stance that [...]

Alex King writes:
I organized a bounty for the creation of a “BlackBerry as a modem” solution for Mac OS X earlier this year. The resulting product (Pulse, from Brain Murmurs) is a solution that allows you to use your BlackBerry as a standard Bluetooth modem. It works great on both Windows and Mac.
Current problem:
The Pulse [...]

I am definitely liking what I see with EmperorLinux more and more each day. My latest discovery is support for EVDO and RTT pre-configured without this kind of headache! It’s wild as I have never purchased a pre-configured Linux box in my life (for myself), but when you have someone who takes care of TabletPC [...]

Don’t you just hate it when you try to do the right thing and get a headache in return? On the heels of the battery recall saga comes a critical Broadcom WLAN driver vulnerability. My company’s fleet of Dell laptops, of course, was impacted by this security issue. We quickly did a sweep through our [...]

It’s taken me awhile, but I am only using Windows for work related needs with regard to my consulting duties these days. Short of that, I am now Windows free!
And this brings me to a conclusion that I have recently come to. Over the past few months, I have found myself saying something aloud that [...]

So Microsoft is considering the robotics game. Right on, more power to it. But you have to admit, the very idea of a Blue Screen event or, worse yet, a zombie event, poses a less than rosy picture here.
Jokes aside, I have to wonder what level of security Microsoft can bring to the robotics world. [...]

A funny thing happened on my way to this forum… or I should say in my nondescript office in downtown Chicago. One of my users, and next door office neighbor, stepped into my doorway and blurted out that her “Excel was broken.” She continued on by saying she knew the cause - my colleague had [...]

I am a very happy Linux user, but am also aware that Linux is not for everyone. Having said this, I was a fan of SLED 10. So it’s not like I am anti-SuSE by any means.
When I heard that SuSE 10.2 had come out, naturally I was curious. Has it overcome some of the [...]

The inkjet printer market cracks me up. So many advances in print quality and technology, and yet most major manufacturers seem to design their printers to drive the sale of ink cartridges. Why do you think they are so eager to give many printers away these days? I mean… really… have you seen the size [...]

I’ll be honest here, I have yet to find a consumer level router brand that has even approached impressing me. Usually, this routine starts off with me spending a fair amount of coin on one brand or another. Even after doing a ton of research, it takes about a month or so to find a [...]

It’s been a while since my last post… I’ve had some more family crises to deal with. My mother, who has been in a nursing home for over a year, has had some setbacks that have put her back into the hospital. It’s been so tough on her since we lost my dad last [...]

Enough of the news regarding the “Wii,” let’s move on to the “why” of the Pepper Pad. For those who are unaware, the Pepper Pad is a new Web-friendly, handheld computer running on Linux.
Now here is the problem as I see it: the Pepper Pad is not the most ergonomic device that I have ever [...]