Jason Brooks

OpenOffice.org Base is a desktop database application that can be used to perform the standard tasks of creating and manipulating tables, queries, forms and reports. Base is well integrated with the rest of the OpenOffice.org suite-for instance, data sources that live in Base are easy to pull into mail merge documents in Writer-but the feature […]

This was the week that T-Mobile and Google lifted the reviews NDA on the long-awaited Google Phone–now called the T-Mobile G1 with Google–and Andrew had almost as much to say about the new device as he did about his iPhone activation troubles back in 2007. For your Google Phone-gawking pleasure, Andrew served up: * A […]

The impending announcement of Microsoft’s cloud operating system at the company’s Professional Developers Conference has me thinking about how the struggle between open source and proprietary software models will play out in the cloud. There’s been much chatter about how the relocation of code from one’s premises to the virtual skies might threaten, render irrelevant […]

Linux-based operating systems are built on an open-development model, which can afford organizations an early view of-and an opportunity to influence-the technologies and implementations that will eventually work their way into these companies’ infrastructures. What’s more, these early looks extend beyond points on a presentation slide to comprise run-able code that’s gathered into fast-moving, community-supported […]

For the past six years or so, my office productivity suite of choice has been OpenOffice.org. In that time, I’ve watched the suite progress slowly but steadily toward the goal of being “just as good” as Microsoft Office. And yet, for my needs, the free software suite has been Office-like enough since Version 1.0. In […]

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to get my hands on Research In Motion’s much-anticipated touch-screen device, the BlackBerry Storm. The new device, which had been known in rumor mill circles as the Thunder, offers up an ingenious solution to the thumb keyboard versus virtual keyboard dilemma: The Storm’s touch-screen is built atop a […]

Lotus Symphony 1.1 is a freely available office productivity suite from IBM that brings together a trio of word processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications under a clean and well-implemented user interface. IBM built Symphony’s UI atop the Eclipse IDE and the company’s own Lotus Expeditor managed client application framework, and turned to the 4-year-old OpenOffice.org […]

When Sun Microsystems bought the little-known StarOffice productivity suite in 1999, and soon thereafter released the product’s code base as open-source software, it was unclear how far the arguably quixotic initiative might reach-and what damage it could possibly wreak on Microsoft’s ironclad grip on the office productivity market. Now, nine years later, Sun is on […]

Recently, Cameron Sturdevant and I waded into the world of application whitelisting–a set of products and technologies aimed at ensuring the integrity of Windows clients by enforcing control over which applications are allowed to run. I think that whitelisting, when combined with diligent paring of user and application privileges, can go a long way toward […]

Malicious software is a disease, and the conventional-wisdom remedies of diligent patching, anti-virus deployment and user education haven’t proved potent enough to bring about a cure. Enter application whitelisting, a different approach to the problem of securing Windows clients. Application whitelisting has been around for a while now, but has gained new currency over the […]

Recently, eWEEK Labs has been putting a handful of high-profile smartphones through their paces, which has led us to consider what elements would comprise the ideal business smartphone. While it’s easy to get caught up in the physical characteristics of a device, there’s more to an effective device than the slimness of its chassis or […]