David Lane's blog

I used to have a paperweight sitting on my desk that read something like “Robert H. Lane, appointed President of Commodore Computers....” It was the sort of thing that they gave to executives. A brass plaque of their appointment as it appeared in the Wall Street Journal or the Globe and Mail. more>>

Occasionally I get a chance to poke my head up and see what is new and different and occasionally I get asked if I know anyone that could help.  This is one of those cases. more>>

If you work with Open Source software every day, you probably do not think for a moment about license compliance. In fact, if you are not an IT manager or professional intellectual property lawyer, you might not even think about it at all. Until you get the phone call. more>>

Cloud computing is the hot buzz phrase. more>>

One of the standards that has become normal in the US federal sector is the requirement that all mobile devices, such as laptops, have encrypted drives. This was a direct result of a number of laptop thefts earlier in the decade that resulted in the supposed leaking of personal information. more>>

November 1st kicks of National Novel Writing Month—a chance for budding authors to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboards, and bang out a 50,000 word (or more) novel in 30 days. Sound like fun? Well, it can be. And unless you are really fast with a pen, most of the budding authors use some sort of software to write their novel. more>>

If you are a Systems Administrator, the refrain the network is down is routine. Depending on the sophistication of your users, it might be a more specific lament, such as the Internet is broken or email is unavailable. If you have really sophisticated users, you might actually get a real error message to work with. more>>

Overnight I received an email from a friend, forwarding me an article from Redmond Magazine. The topic of the magazine was the huge Patch Tuesday dump that our friends in Redmond have sent down. There was also some discussion about the patch bundles dropped by Adobe and Oracle as well. more>>

When I think of (a) Blender, I think of a device for making slushy adult beverages, not an Open Source tool for rendering images, despite coverage in Linux Journal by Ben Crowder, Robin Rowe, Dan Saw more>>