You too can use the preferred OS of the maxi-zoom-dweebie

There are certainly ideal groups of people who are capable of moving towards a 100 percent Open Source or Linux environment in both their professional and personal lives. I’m not really interested in discussing the political and ideological aspects or why someone would want to make that choice.

The greater and more important question is, who CAN switch to Linux?

Click to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Snow Leopard Coulda Been a Contenda

I have said on numerous occasions that Apple has missed the boat when it comes to enterprise adoption. This is sad, really, when you consider how good an operating system Mac OS X really is, in that it is the only UNIX-based OS that really could have had any chance in displacing the status quo of Windows and Microsoft hegemony in large enterprise environments with a “full stack” for end-user acceptance as a desktop OS. Consumers may enjoy its niche status, but In the enterprise, Apple is a “Coulda Been” contender of unfulfilled potential.

Click Here to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Summer Doldrums? Listen to the Frugal Tech Show!

While Off The Broiler is primarily focused on food, as many of you know, I also write technology articles for ZDNet, CBS’s technology news site. Over the last few months I have been teaming up with Linux Magazine and DaniWeb columnist Ken Hess, where we broadcast live on BlogTalkRadio every Friday at 6:30PM EST on leveraging technology to save you and your business money. The format of the show is news and commentary for the first half hour, with the second reserved for special guests from the technology industry. This summer we are going to be featuring a lot of Linux and Open Source guests, so be sure to tune in.

The replays of all the shows are available at www.frugaltechshow.com, just in case you miss them.

Novell produces its 2002 BMW 7-Series with SLED 11

At first glance, Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (SLED 11) is virtually indistinguishable from the company’s Free/Open Source and community supported Linux distribution, openSUSE 11.1. But does SLED 11 have the extra polish and the value add to justify its position as Novell’s premier enterprise desktop OS?

Click to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Geeko needs some Quality Assurance, Novell!

From a pure technical achievement, openSUSE 11.1 is at package parity with the best Linux distributions available — such as Fedora 10 and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10. In many ways it’s more polished, as clearly it has a lot of customization work that went into it to make it well-integrated, but at the same time, the distribution still feels like it was designed for people who know what they are doing, not for regular end-users. By trying to be a Server, Developer, and end-user Desktop platform at the same time, its target audience remains unfocused and its scope is too big. It’s now the Linux equivalent of the Swiss Army knife with 50 separate tools in it.

Click to read the rest of this article on ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Apple: The Time for Legal Clones is Now

Over the years, I’ve been a stalwart advocate of cloning Macintosh PCs. This has made sense ever since Apple moved from the PowerPC to the x86 platform, where the genetic distinction between “Mac” and “PC” was reduced to the flip of a single electronic chromosome – the use of EFI versus the PC BIOS to boot the OS. Of course, switching to EFI was not going to stop the most dedicated hackers who wanted to run Mac OS X on their PCs. Since the very moment of moving the Mac platform to Intel chips, The “Hackintosh” community has been engaged in various underground activities to make the OS boot on standardized, off-the-shelf PCs.

Click to read the rest of this story at DATAMATION

Microsoft, Please Release Windows Server as a Workstation

As I write this column, I’m using the Milestone 3 release of Windows 7. While it’s still probably too early to make any sweeping judgments about a product that is probably close to a year from release, if current results are even a fleeting indication of what is in store, I’m not impressed. With the exception of a few tweaks, Windows 7 looks to be just another Vista.

Read the rest of this article at DATAMATION.

Remember the Zaurus

Computing Unplugged is running Part 2 of my article about the new PalmSource ALP embedded Linux successor to Palm OS. Here, I discuss lessons learned from the Sharp Zaurus and how PalmSource should endeavor not to repeat the same mistakes.

The Sharp Zaurus was a powerful Linux-based handheld computer which shared many similarities with the new ALP platform. Unfortnately, due to lousy marketing and bad management, the Zaurus failed in the US and European consumer electronics market. Its still sold in Japan, and you can buy one if you are willing to pay the grey-marketeers big bucks ($700-$1000) to bring one into the US.

Okay, enough technology. I’m getting really psyched for this New Orleans trip. How about a nice double cut Niman Ranch pork chop from Bayona?