Jason Brooks

The smoothest way to install a new desktop environment, such as GNOME, is to wait for the distribution-blessed packages —or, failing that, depend on the kindness of strangers whove compiled binaries for your platform and have made them available for download. However, for those who would rather not wait or whod otherwise prefer to take […]

One of the cardinal virtues of open-source software is its penchant for preserving choice. Its no surprise, then, that theres more than one good option available when it comes to the desktop environments through which users interact with Linux and similar operating systems. Among the best and most actively developed of these desktop options is […]

Sometime around this summer, Microsoft will release the 2003 version of its Office productivity suite, with hopes that companies and individuals will find enough value in it to undertake the upgrade. What most impressed me about Office 2003, the Beta 2 release of which we reviewed in this weeks issue, is the way that Office […]

I have an inkjet printer at home that I rarely use. The things always out of ink, and when I go to my local office supply superstore to buy cartridges for it, Im always too dumbfounded by the cost of those little plastic boxes of ink to buy more than one at a time. Usually, […]

I generally dont get too excited about notebook computer releases, because as useful as these systems are, they never seem to deliver quite the mix of attributes Im after. Recently, though, a new notebook has emerged that really grabs my interest, and it isnt the 12-inch PowerBook we review in this weeks issue. The notebook […]

In a bid to shift a greater share of its computer sales to portables, Apple Computer Inc. extended its PowerBook product line further into the low and high ends of the notebook space, with the introduction of 12-inch and 17-inch models at Macworld Expo last month. eWeek Labs has been testing the $1,799, 12-inch PowerBook […]

The “best” product doesnt always win since, given advantages of predatory pricing and clever marketing strategy, “good enough” is almost always good enough to carry the day. Im talking, of course, about Microsoft, its software and its business practices, and if youre a fan of BeOS, OS/2 or another innovative software product that ended up […]

The handheld computer business has seen better days. According to a recent report from Dataquest, worldwide handheld shipments fell by 9.1 percent from 2001 to 2002. Word is that slack enterprise demand for these devices is to blame. IT budgets have been tight, and most companies never quite figured out how handheld computers delivered value […]

Theres a strong argument to be made that all the pieces needed for an effective Linux desktop system for the enterprise now exist. Less clear, however, is whether a Linux vendor can collect and package those elements into something thats ready—right out of the box—for the mainstream corporate desktop. This is what SuSE Linux Inc. […]

Vendors working to parlay the server room successes of Linux into a spot on the mainstream corporate desktop (see review of SuSE Linux Office Desktop) have a powerful ally in KDE Project developers, whove been hard at work extending the performance, polish and functionality of their namesake K Desktop Environment. In the latest release—KDE 3.1, […]

Although the simplest way to get up and running with a new version of a complex piece of software such as KDE is to wait for your Linux distributor to release its official software packages, part of the fun of Linux is being able to compute on the bleeding edge. For any software package, that […]

Users of Apple Computer Inc.s Macintosh systems may treasure their Start Menu-less desktops, but theyve still had to turn to Microsoft Corp. for productivity software. Apples trying to change that, at least in part, with the release last month of Keynote 1.0, a presentation software application that competes head-on with Microsofts PowerPoint X. Keynote is […]