The other day I read an article on the web that said that "Firefox, Adobe top buggiest-software list" and which stated that Firefox had reported the most "vulnerabilities" of all the "application programs". The article admitted that the #2 and #3 "application programs" ("Adobe" and...

I am at the 8th International Information and Telecommunication Technologies Symposium hosted by the Federal University of Santa Caterina (December 9th, 10th and 11th) and I have just finished listening to a very interesting talk by Professor Antonio Alfredo Ferreiro Loureiro (Federal...

Five years ago I started shifting my discussions regarding Free Software to try and address the question of "How do I make money with Free Software?" Four years ago issues around usability of closed-source software in today's modern world began to creep into my talks, leading to the question of...

A short additional "Blog" entry depicting the conferences and events I will be in the next few weeks:November 26-27: SoliSC - Santa Caterina, Brazil November 28-29: Open Beach - Florianopolis, BrazilDecember 4: Conisli - Sao Paulo, BrazilDecember 5: LPI Exam at 4Linux in Sao Paulo,...

Seven years ago, in early December, I helped to proctor the first Linux Professional Institute (LPI) test in Brazil, which had been hosted by 4Linux in Sao Paulo. At that time I gave out a "Linux License Plate" made by Compaq (nee Digital) Computer Corporation and a clock made from a CD-ROM...

I woke up on the morning of October 9th to find that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. There was a lot of discussion about whether President Obama had "earned" the honor or not, and a lot of discussion about how the Nobel Peace Prize is not always for what you have done, but...

I heard recently, and could not really believe it until I saw it, that Microsoft was encouraging people to throw "Tupperware(R) parties" at their homes in order to launch the new version of Microsoft's products. That is right...plain old down-to-earth "homies" extolling the virtues of quickly...

The Ohio Linux Fest is September 25th to 27th, and one of their major themes is the 40th "birthday" of Unix. Two of their major speakers will be addressing this topic, Dr. Peter Salus and Dr. M. Douglas McIlroy. Why is forty years of Unix important? During a chat session one night, one of the...

This is the first year in a long time that I will be missing the Ohio Linux Fest (September 25th to 27th in Columbus, Ohio). I had a previous commitment, and I try to honor my commitments. But for the rest of you, it is time to register and (equally important) get a Microsoft Windows user to...

I have some more new videos on YouTube. First of all, as promised, is the video of Brazil's President Lula at FISL 10 in Brazil. I was sitting in the first row, and with my trusty video camera was able to capture most of it. About 15 minutes into the speech I ran out of recording room and had...

A lot of people have been writing about Google's Chrome OS. There is a lot of speculation going on that Chrome will hurt the current distributions of Linux, and therefore will somehow help Microsoft. What are these people smoking? First of all I do not believe that Chrome OS will meet the...

Here is a young man that I met at Campus Party in Bogota, Colombia. I am fairly sure that he is not the youngest user of Linux, but he had his Classmate computer, his installed copy of Ubuntu, and was extremely happy with it. He wanted me to autograph his notebook, which I did. Later on I saw...

FISL 10.0 in Porto Alegre, Brazil was the best yet, for many reasons. For a long time I have been impressed with how the FISL organizers (most, if not all of which are volunteers) have brought together government, industry and the community to put on an ever-larger and more complex event. This...

    Jun 16, 2009 9:49pm GMT     You have to admit that the British have a unique way of doing things from time to time. This is why I enjoy going to London, even when I have to suffer a two-day subway strike just at the time my conference is being held.   The...

This year is a very special year for me. It is forty years ago, in 1969, when I was a college student that I programmed my first computer.   Since I could not afford the high prices of software in those days, I joined the Digital Equipment Corporation User's Society (DECUS), and made...