If we imagine two baseball teams – the Windows Windjammers and the Linux Lumberjacks – the Windjammers are the longstanding pennant holders and the Lumberjacks are the struggling up and comers. Judging by my experiences last weekend, things may very well stay that way for the foreseeable future unless the Lumberjacks make a serious effort to get their act together.

As part of its monthly patch distribution, Microsoft has issued a series of new security updates, two of which are categorized as critical. We are told that the vulnerabilities, if left unpatched, allow hackers to run malicious code on unprotected computers.  How many times have we heard the same song and why are we paying a fortune to keep hearing it?

I must admit I like my anti-spam folder. I’m not quite sure how the vendor configured it but it works as an almost perfect catchment area for my technology stock alerts. I know that’s the folder to visit for my daily updates on tech stocks or any other important emails that I seem to be missing from my other folders on a particular day. Oh I still get tons of spam – just not in the anti-spam folder.

About six months ago, after a chat with some local Linux evangelists, I decided to take the bold step (at least for me it was bold) to download a copy of Open Office.org 2.0. As a long standing user of successive versions of the less than brilliant but workable Microsoft Office package, I wanted to see if it was true that you really can get a professional quality and compatible office productivity package for free.

Jon “maddog” Hall is a legend in the Linux world. During his 30 year career, the executive director of non-profit Linux advocacy group, Linux International, maddog, as he prefers to be called, has worked and taught with the best of them. He will be in Sydney in late March to present to the inaugural LinuxWorld Australia conference and expo and he thinks Microsoft has a problem. Needless to say, that problem is Linux and Open Source. We caught up with maddog via Skype and he told us all about it.

The closure of the leading Adelaide-based Playstation 2 development house Ratbag by its new US owners in December 2005 highlights the danger of selling the farm.

By Peter Stewart*

One definition of madness is continually trying the same thing and expecting a different result.  Yet this is exactly what much of the industry is doing with the current “solutions” to prevent spam.

By Greg Gianforte*

How would you feel if your mechanic handed you a 125-piece wrench set rather than actually fixing your car?  What if another mechanic then walked up to you with his tools and started arguing with the first guy about whose tools were better?

The announcement last week, that National Australia Bank is to spend $1.8 billion to return the financial institution to its former glory days, provides some valuable lessons. One of the most important is that you can’t be a first rate organisation with second rate technology.