Practical Technology

It’s one thing to have a skunkworks operating system project, Midori, that could conceivably replace Windows. It’s another to actually have plans on how to switch users from Windows to Midori. Guess what? Microsoft actually does have such plans. According to David Worthington, Microsoft isn’t only building a Windows replacement operating system, its “carefully conceptualizing a [...]

No, I’m not talking about killing Vista. Microsoft is already burying that living dead operating system as fast it can. I’m talking about killing Windows itself. That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn from David Worthington’s story about Microsoft’s plans for Midori, a next generation operating system. According to Worthington, who managed to get his hands on Microsoft’s [...]

A new version of one of the two major Linux desktops, KDE and GNOME, came out today: KDE 4.1 While I don’t hate it, I don’t see myself switching over from KDE 3.5.9 either. That said, I will say KDE 4.1 is an improvement over the last 4.x version. I hated 4.04. I disliked it so [...]

Linux overcame most of its former driver woes years ago except for one noticeable exception: Wi-Fi drivers. While many Wi-Fi cards and chipsets were Linux friendly, two major Wi-Fi chipset vendors, Atheros and Broadcom, kept their drivers proprietary. Now, things are changing. Atheros has released a true open-source driver for its latest 802.11n chipsets. Madwifi.org, an [...]

Here’s how it works: Novell owns Unix’s IP (intellectual property). SCO sold Unix’s IP to Sun. Sun then included some Unix IP into Solaris. Finally, Sun open sourced Solaris as OpenSolaris. Sounds like trouble, doesn’t it? While Sun’s Chief Open Source Officer Simon Phipps described the line of logic above as “sheer speculation,” others see a [...]

You did patch your Linux servers with the new DNS patch didn’t you? Well, if you haven’t, get on it. Now. The genie is out of the bottle. According to Robert McMillan in PC World, the creators of the Metasploit hacking toolkit have included a viable DNS server attack in their ‘penetration testing toolkit.” They can [...]

KACE, a systems management appliance company, announced that their recent survey of IT administrators showed that 60 percent of them have no plans to deploy Vista. That’s almost 10% more turning their backs on Vista then in KACE’s last survey in November 2007 . According to the company press release, “42 percent of them said [...]

When you buy a new PC today, unless you hunt down a Linux system or you buy a Mac, you’re pretty much stuck with Vista. Sad, but true. So, when I had to get a new PC in a hurry, after one of my PCs went to the big bit-ranch in the sky with a [...]

You’d think the electronics vendors who keep breaking the GPL by using the BusyBox Unix utilities would finally learn that they can’t get away with it. It doesn’t look like they have though. This time the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) is taking on Extreme Networks, a major network hardware provider. The SFLC announced on [...]

As promised, Dell is bringing the latest Ubuntu Linux, Ubuntu 8.04, to its line-up of Linux-powered consumer desktops and laptops. Starting on Friday, July 18th, 2008, Dell started offering Ubuntu 8.04 on its XPS M1330N and Inspiron 1525N laptops and its Inspiron 530N desktop. That’s just the beginning though. Dell will also shortly be offering Ubuntu [...]

Even though SCO has suffered another legal defeat, the company looks like it has enough willpower, if not sense, to keep its legal losing streak going. On July 16th, Judge Dale Kimball ruled in favor of Novell in SCO vs. Novell and said that the maverick Unix company owed Novell $2.5-million for its Unix deals, and, [...]