Sean Michael Kerner

How confident is Novell’s CEO Ron Hovsepian about the appeal of Linux? He is calling the open source operating system a key driver helping to push the company through the current global economic slowdown. His confidence comes in part from Novell’s (NASDAQ: NOVL) financial earnings for 2008, which show improvement in net revenue and a […]

From the “Linux-everywhere” files: Startup Linux networking vendor Vyatta is set to announce a new hardware appliance on December 9th. The new device will add more power to Vyatta’s lineup of networking products that they are targetting competitively against Cisco and other proprietary vendors. The Vyatta 2502 will be a step up from the existing […]

It will take some time, but the Domain Name Service (DNS) is on its way to be secured around the world with DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions). A new industry consortium called the DNSSEC Industry Coalition has been formed to expedite the implementation of DNSSEC and in so doing will help to secure the Internet itself […]

IBM is taking another step forward in its bid to undercut Microsoft’s dominance on the PC. Together with Ubuntu Linux backer Canonical, Big Blue is now rolling out a virtual desktop solution that delivers IBM Lotus software to users. The new solution includes a Ubuntu desktop with IBM Lotus applications, delivered via a Linux virtual […]

From the “it’s not Linux, but it’s got the same apps” files: Sun has rolled opensolaris 2008.11, loaded with open source applications that are well known to Linux distribution users.  The ‘What’s New‘ page for opensolaris 2008.11, lists the new features which include GNOME 2.24, Firefox 3, Songbird and OpenOffice.org 3. On the apps that […]

From the “Guido must be happy” files: Python 3.0 is now officially out – breaking compatability (in many respects) with currently deployed Python 2.x series. Don’t worry it’s not all lost for existing Python users, though the official Python release does sound dire. Python 3.0 (a.k.a. “Python 3000” or “Py3k”) is a new version of […]

When you click “Save” for a file, you expect that the file will be saved. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, that doesn’t always happen. If you’re a Linux user, though, you might now have better success than other operating systems’ users, thanks to new, block I/O data integrity infrastructure code from Oracle that’s […]

**UPDATED 1 PM ET with Apple comment ** Yesterday there was a lot of buzz about an Apple support page that recommended Mac users to use antivirus software. Today that same Apple support page has been deleted. Does that mean that Mac’s don’t need antivirus? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. One of the biggest problems […]

Linux users are getting closer to full Microsoft Silverlight functionality to view rich media applications on the Web. The Novell-sponsored Moonlight project today released its first beta of its Linux implementation of Microsoft’s Silverlight media framework. The beta release is considered to be feature complete and is the predecessor to a generally available Moonlight 1.0 […]

From the “keep on rockin in the free world” files: Songbird 1.0 the Mozilla powered open source customizable music player is out today and it could give iTunes a real run for Apple’s money (or maybe not). What makes Songbird special in my view is the fact that even though it’s a decent music playing […]

Apple Macs have long had a reputation for being free of the viruses and malware that often plagues Windows. But even Apple is now admitting that its users could benefit from protection from security threats. The company began recommending that users of its Mac operating system to consider using antivirus software in a message on […]

Sure, Google’s Chrome browser is fast. But since its launch, it has lacked add-ons and extensions that provide additional functionality — one of the key features found in Mozilla Firefox. Today, Google Chrome still doesn’t have extensions, but Google developers now have a design document that signals the start of a roadmap leading to extensions. […]