The big news in the Linux realm for the past few months has been Dell's introduction of Ubuntu-preinstalled computers. The systems themselves are a little low on the quality scale, but so is everything else that Dell makes these days. At least they aren't expensive. A cheap computer can be worth the money it costs if you adjust your expectations accordingly. Dell's not the only game in town, though -- there are also some Lenovo (which bought IBM's PC division a while back) machines that are certified to work with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. You don't need assurances and certifications to get a good laptop system that will work with Linux, though.

An issue recently surfaced in the forum regarding a misprint in an online ad for a hard drive, and the subsequent debacle with replacement and shipping costs that ensued. The company's employees were obviously incompetent and did not understand the difference between a 2.5" laptop hard drive and a 3.5" desktop hard drive. It's tough to find great deals from reputable manufacturers, but there are a few sites out there that make the game a little easier for deal hunters.

The FreeBSD Project posted its periodic status report and the list of new features in the upcoming FreeBSD-7 branch to let people know where it is headed with operating system development. The project's goals have always been ambitious and technologically impressive, but it has not always followed through with their proper implementation. Will Linux users finally be able to switch to a cohesively-developed operating environment? This Linux user hopes so.

Ubuntu is open source, right? Most of it is, small parts of it are not. Even though it ships with some proprietary hardware drivers (a necessity in the desktop computing world, no matter what the hardliners say), one thing stands out as oddly hypocritical is the fact that Ubuntu's development tools -- collectively called Launchpad -- are proprietary. Even worse are the company's explanations for why Launchpad is proprietary.

The Software Freedom Law Center recently issued a detailed statement analyzing a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding wireless devices. Though there are many interesting points in the paper, the big news here is that the FCC has said that devices that have firmware that is designed to be modified or replaced by outside developers or users will have to go through a special certification process. That may sound bad at first, but consider the fact that a few wireless network chip manufacturers have claimed that they cannot release their hardware documentation or firmware interface documentation to open source driver developers because FCC regulations forbid it. That excuse is no longer valid.

Recently I received an email from a PR person trying to get some press about a software product that monitor's people's online activity. The purpose of this horrifically invasive product is to cut down on the amount of time employees "waste" in such grossly unethical things as reading articles on Web sites like this one, and other "online activities." I think this would be better marketed as a method of getting employees to quit instead of laying them off.

Today I tried to help a Mac user save some pictures to a DVD. There were more than 1GB of photos, so it made more sense to use a DVD than two CDs. Unfortunately, Mac OS X thinks that you need to make movies when you insert a blank DVD disc -- it has no idea that you want to save data to it. What you, the user, want to do does not matter. All that matters is that you do what Apple says a computer should do. This is "the Apple way," and some people find it enjoyable.