Matt Hartley

There is a common belief that if someone switches to a desktop Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, then security concerns generally take care of themselves. Unfortunately, reality has a different take on this. Like with any operating system today, there are always going to be potential targets for exploit. Buffer overflows, stack overflows, sloppy code, […]

I do not believe anyone needs to be reminded that this holiday season is going to be substantially tighter economically than anything celebrated in the recent past. Realizing this, it may be time to dig deep in order to see what each of us are truly made of. Not just being able to weather through […]

With all of the talk these days about the desktop Linux taking on Windows in the enterprise sector, have you ever considered that with some simple compromises, using Linux desktops running different thin clients can work very well within the confines of what most businesses need? The real trick is ensuring that application functionality and […]

Linux has been a part of my life for a number of years now. In one period I leaned heavily on live CDs loaded with Knoppix for my notebook use, along with a trusty Prism PCMCIA card for connectivity. But once I discovered SimplyMepis (also known as Mepis), I found that Knoppix was simply too […]

Nearly everyday we hear about how the modern Linux distributions are not only ready for the home user, they can even meet the growing demands of many small businesses as well. But rather than debating this point, I’ll examine the tools that would potentially mean that more small businesses would feel the confidence to take […]

Switching to Linux. We are either talking about it or simply telling people to do it. Yet despite this all this “action,” it seems that we have somehow forgotten to include the “how” when it comes to this life changing switch. In this article, I will not only demonstrate how it can be done, I […]

As the US economy continues to shift for the worse, I find myself thinking back to recent trips to a local bank where I noticed that Windows 2000 Pro is the norm and the computers, if updated at all, might be using Windows XP. Vista is clearly not happening. And this is not even taking […]

I have been attending Linux install festivals for years. Always fun, often educational and (in some cases) completely missing the mark of their potential for the people they interact with. While I believe the organizers of such fests have their hearts in the right place, more often than not I am finding these events cater […]

“Software alternatives are just not available for Linux.” I hear the statement above almost everyday. What makes the statement so ridiculous is that it is completely inaccurate 99 percent of the time. Normally I would dismiss this as the loss of the person or the business that has opted to limit their horizons with their […]

Not all that long ago, you could not give the Linux desktop away – no matter how hard you tried. It was simply not at a stage in its development where the casual PC user felt comfortable without certain levels of GUI-based functionality. Flash forward just a few years later and there has been no […]