Patrick E. Bennett, Jr., Computer Consultant ... computing support for small business

A short and sweet write up of one man's frustration with Windows in his business and his and his employees' experience kicking the tires on Linux.

"Code Red: How software companies could screw up Obama’s health care reform." by Phillip Longman for Washington Monthly.

Rather than shoveling $20 billion into software that doesn’t deliver on the promise of digital medicine, the government should put a hold on that money pending the results of a federal interagency study that will be looking into the potential of open-source health IT and will deliver its findings by October 2010.

As it happens, that study is also part of the stimulus bill. The language for it was inserted by West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has also introduced legislation that would help put open-source health IT on equal footing with the likes of Allscripts and Microsoft. Building on the systems developed by the VA and Indian Health Services, Rockefeller’s bill would create an open-source government-sponsored "public utility" that would distribute VistA-like software [note: VistA is a strong, practitioner-developed, open source healthcare management software], along with grants to pay for installation and maintenance. The agency would also be charged with developing quality standards for open-source health IT and guidelines for interoperability. This would give us the low-cost, high-quality, fully integrated and proven health IT infrastructure we need in order to have any hope of getting truly better health care.

Great great article!

A new error condition has been identified in various versions of the Windows operating system (NT, 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7) which results in a user getting nothing but a black screen after entering their user name and password at the login screen.  The condition has been named "the black screen of death", a play on words referencing the infamous Windows "blue screen of death" that has been around for years.

At present, Microsoft has issued no fix.

Microsoft has announced they plan to fully document the data structure used for its flagship email client, Outlook, and make it easily and freely available to developers.

This is a move that could result in huge improvements to interroperability between email programs and innovation in the communications and groupware suite (email, contacts, calendaring, tasks, etc.) software sector.  At the very least, it will mean that your email will no longer be locked up in an Outlook prison, but can be easily backed up and restored, read even if you do not have a working installation of Outlook, and even easily transported from one computer to another.

In a stunning revelation of the obvious, Microsoft seems to have had the profound insight that "data portability was becoming increasingly important to customers and clients."  Maybe they're finally getting it.

This is what happens when open source philosophy and technology, like that behind Linux, BSD, and OpenOffice.org, meets one of our most beloved gadgets, the camera.

It appears that the days of trust in WPA-TKIP wireless security are over.  Is your wireless network secure?  Get in touch; I'd be happy to evaluate your wireless network and implement security-enhancements.

A nice little article detailing the veratility of BSD Unix.

A very scary article from the NY Times on "keylogger" malware - hacker software that secretly infects your Windows computer and then sends every thing you type (including your online banking password) to the hacker.

Mr. Stewart found that each of those machines, in turn, was programmed to notice when their users visited any of 4,600 specified Web pages, including banks, brokerages and other sorts of sites.

Then Clampi starts sending a real-time stream of the user’s actions using a modified version of standard instant messaging software. The hackers log into the user’s bank account, quickly copying the one-time password if one is used. They start initiating wire transfers to accomplices (mules is the term of art) who send the funds on to the crooks. Sometimes they have even set up “mules” or fake employees who earn fat salaries by direct deposit.

One victim of Clampi was Slack Auto Parts in Gainesville, Ga., which lost $75,000 to the scam, according to a post in the Washington Post’s Security Fix blog.

This may be the point at which the cost of using Windows instead of Linux (or even Mac O/S) far outweigh the benefits.

Here's a nice little review from ZDNet of 10 backup solutions that work with Linux (and in some cases also work with Windows and others).

You really need to be backing up.  In my 15 years of experience providing technical support to small businesses, failure to implement and execute a good backup strategy - and regularly confirm that it is working - is hands-down the number one most common sin, and probably the single most costly one also!

You know what to do if you need help evaluating, implementing, or confirming your backup solution: contact me, I would love to help!

Legendary tech author John Dvorak of PC Magazine recently gave Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) a spin and says, for his personal computers, he's not going back! A couple choice quotes of interest to us home and small business computer users:

"If I had a small or mid-size company, I'd probably use only Linux and open-source software, just to stay out of the way of the software police and their onerous "audits"—another abhorrent situation that, to me, is intolerable."

"I seriously appreciate the fact that Linux is mostly immune from malware, in much the same way as the Macintosh. I had a small machine in the kitchen running Windows, and every time I ran a scan on the thing I kept discovering too many problems.... I'm tired of dealing with Windows malware, patch Tuesday, and the never-ending deterioration of the OS as it clogs up like a drain in a greasy-spoon restaurant. I can't take it anymore."

Check out the rest of the article, "Dvorak Likes Linux", over at PC Magazine online.

   -Patrick