Search

A vulnerability has been discovered in the Firefox Web browser that could be exploited by malicious people to gain knowledge of potentially sensitive information, according to an advisory from security research firm Secunia. The vulnerability comes less than six weeks after the Mozilla Foundation re...

Five months after a preview version of CherryOS was released to cries that it was merely a copy of the open-source PearPC, software distributor Maui X-Stream has done it again. The Hawaii-based company re-released a final version of CherryOS on Tuesday to a similar reception. PearPC, a PowerPC archi...

In response to high double-digit growth in 2004 in the number of customers deploying IBM collaboration software on the Linux platform, IBM today announced plans to invest US$100 million over three years to expand Linux support and technology across its Workplace software portfolio. Big Blue said the...

Ellen Simonetti is a former Delta Airlines flight attendant who writes a Web log called the "Queen of the Sky." She is a "former" flight attendant because Delta fired her after she posted pictures of herself in uniform showing off her legs while lying across a row of seats in a Delta plane. Even th...

Some friends of mine are considering setting up a new company around an e-commerce idea and asked me to research the cost of the IT infrastructure needed. As part of that, I went Web shopping for a low end server to get them started, and found some surprises. Note that all pricing data shown below i...

Sun Microsystems officially started down the path to an open-source version of Solaris on Tuesday with a partial release of source code which ultimately will be OpenSolaris. Being released under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which was reviewed and approved by the Open Sourc...

One of the oddest facts about the Wintel versus Unix (including Linux and the Mac) debate is that the Wintel proponents practically brag about never having actually used Unix while the most committed Mac/Unix advocates have generally used both. If in reality the Unix products really are better, fast...

Last week's announcement that Big Blue was giving away patents was viewed as uncommonly good news in open source circles. When IBM decided to contribute 500 of its patents to a "patent commons" for the benefit of open-source software developers and end users, it conjured up visions of a city commons...

The non-profit Mozilla Foundation has placed a pricey ad in today's edition of the New York Times. The open-source advocacy organization is pleading its alternative case with a two-page spread that asks readers the direct question: "Are you fed up with your Web browser?" Spread Firefox, a v...

The Mozilla Foundation today officially released its open-source browser, Firefox 1.0, but the news won't come as a surprise to a great many computer users. Since it released its preview version in September, 8 million people have downloaded the super-fast browser, a direct descendant of Netscape. T...

About two months ago, I looked at the cost of the Macintosh relative to Dell PCs and discovered that not only are Macs cheaper than PCs once you upgrade the PCs to rough comparability, but the PC line is narrower than Apple's, with Dell offering nothing to compare to the 17-inch Apple powerbook, the...

Computers are becoming pervasive learning tools in K-12 education, whether in individual classrooms or in a shared media center. Both Apple and Microsoft have donated millions of dollars worth of equipment to schools in order to aid education and spread their doctrine. But what about the growing inf...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has made courting Linux users and those considering the open-source option a top priority and said the sheer volume of innovation that Longhorn development efforts are producing will make the next version of Windows worth the wait. Ballmer commented on a range of topics d...

As regular readers of this column know, I'm a big fan of the Apple Macintosh, but I'm much less of a fan of Apple Canada in general and their dealers in the Toronto area in particular. This morning (Tuesday, October 19) I needed an external power adapter for a 17-inch titanium -- since it doesn't ha...

Sun Microsystems has settled its long-fought patent infringement case with Eastman Kodak, heading off a jury decision on the penalty. Faced with the prospect of paying damages of more than US$1 billion in federal court, the software giant reached an out-of-court agreement late last night, according ...

About a month ago, I compared the cost for Apple's desktop, server and laptop products to their nearest Dell equivalents and discovered that Macs generally cost less than comparable PC products. That was a bit of surprise, but the truly astonishing thing that came out of the comparison was that Dell...

The Gnome Foundation today released a new version of its popular Linux desktop. The new release, Gnome version 2.8, boosts speed and usability and offers several new features, the foundation said in a statement. Gnome is the default desktop on the Red Hat distribution, among others, and is available...

Although Internet Explorer still dominates the browser market, there are some rumblings of change being heard, especially as browsers like Mozilla and Opera find more widespread use. The latest browser to garner attention has been Firefox, a product of the Mozilla Foundation. The group has updated t...

Linspire today announced the availability of Internet dialer software that provides direct access to the Internet for desktop Linux users via AOL's dial-up ISP service. AOL, a subsidiary of Time Warner, is the world's largest ISP with 29.7 million AOL subscribers in the U.S. and Europe. The AOL Dial...

Everyone knows PCs are faster than Macs, but Macs cost more. Right? There are two issues here: cost and performance. Right now I want to focus on the cost side of the myth, leaving performance for another column, possibly in late September. For today, I'm simply going to argue that Macs and PCs are ...