John Dvorak

Although nobody has been able to smuggle out a single screenshot of the top-secret IBM Linux desktop OS—often referred to as Blue Linux—I have friends who have seen it. I am assured that it not only exists, but is being used by large numbers of IBMers. “They are going through a process of eating their […]

Comdex is broken. I suspect this happened because of a combination of changing ownership, lost vision, and pent-up resentment of the show that has been building for a decade. The sociology could fill a book, but the show has never been liked much, and it seemed as though people everywhere were waiting for the moment […]

The sadomasochistic nature of programming, in my opinion, means that open-source software will always be better than commercial software. This is a whopper of a concept, but something has to account for the excellent code coming from the open-source movement. It may seem like an exaggeration, but hear me out on this one. Recently I […]

Over this past weekend yet another virus/Trojan/worm/whatnot attack culminated in a lot of panic. Apparently, far too many systems were infected with this latest disease, and the Net was once again choking on the aftereffects. Probably the blackout in New York and much of the Northeast saved us because it simply took machines offline. This […]

Back in the early 1980s, when many of us were using CompuServe or MCI Mail, it was obvious that e-mail would provide a very important contribution to society. The instantaneous aspect of e-mail is what made it so appealing. You could communicate fast, effortlessly, and cheaply. But these advantages ended up handicapping the technology. And […]

There is a growing buzz about the initiative known as Trusted Computing, as outlined at the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) Web site. The TCPA is a group of vendors founded by AMD, HP Compaq, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. Now the list of companies supposedly involved is over 200. According to the rationale on the […]

Microsoft is making a lot of noise about the next version of Windows. Considering the companys track record on security, spyware, creativity, and hubris, this doesnt bode well. The upcoming Windows is code-named Longhorn, after a bar in the resort town of Whistler, British Columbia. We start right off with FUD and misinformation. In explaining […]