Do you still have an old machine kicking around in the basement or the back room, long forgotten? For no cost and almost zero effort, you can set it up as a dedicated network appliance, using one of the many turnkey products from the open-source TurnKey Linux project. I’m serious. You don’t need to know [...]

I have to admit that I mocked the device from the outset. I sort of chuckled as I said “Boy, they really hit the ball out of the park with the iPhone, but this thing doesn’t know whether it is a laptop or a iPod Touch. Why would I want one?” I have a nice [...]

A while back I had a rare opportunity indeed: I went on a business trip to India to visit our offshore team. We knew it was a once in a lifetime trip, so four of us took some vacation days and paid our own way on a side trip to some of the great cities [...]

Last summer I finally gave in to the tantalizing siren song of the Kindle and bought one to take on a road trip—it was everything I had hoped for and more. Soon after returning from that trip I wrote a review of my Kindle experience. Now some time has passed and I am coming back [...]

After a short vacation on the road with my family, I have come to the conclusion that Kindle is my new favorite gadget. Sadly, I have also found that the Kindle Store is far too easy to use, even when you are on the Interstate in some far corner of Georgia. When the original Kindle [...]

Thanks to its face-recognition tool, iPhoto ’09 can now put names to the faces in your photographs, letting you quickly sift through your library based on content rather than how photos are arranged. But putting this feature to work requires some effort on your part. A few months back I received my copy of iLife [...]

23 tips for getting organized, streamlining your online time, managing your media and more In this Computerworld article, the writer gives several great tips on getting your geeky side in order. I’m happy to note that procurement of a Fujitsu ScanSnap and scanning your life to PDF made number 4 on his list. Other useful [...]

Anyone who has kids in their home worries about how easy it is to access the seamier side of the Internet, even if by accident. Indeed, it is thrust upon us in our email in-boxes daily in the form of misspelled spam with links that only a fool would click. Another issue altogether is the [...]

Last week I wrote about some different ways that you can get around having a photo printer in your home. Indeed, the ubiquitous photo inkjet printer tends to introduce frustration in a life that has no pressing need of more. In this article, I address the photo printer’s more formal companions: laser printers and their [...]

Even in a paperless home we occasionally need to print something. Why put up with all of the aggravation that comes with the care and feeding of a printer when there are so many other options available?