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In going through a stack of resumes last week, I came across one from a person, certified as expert by both Microsoft and Cisco, who claimed to have "architected secure network solutions" at a previous employer. When I recovered from the consequent daydream about flying lead balloons, I decided to sort the candidates according to claimed Linux experience -- and promptly found a problem worth warning you about...

In my recent commentary on the role dishonest and incompetent IT textbooks play in education [Paul Murphy, "Eight IT Textbooks, 4,031 Pages, 17 Mentions of Linux," LinuxInsider, April 2, 2004], I used the acronym PHB (pointy-haired boss) to refer to people who just don't get it with respect to systems. Unfortunately, that also demonstrated that I don't get the global nature of the LinuxInsider readership, because I didn't stop to think that not everybody gets the Dilbert cartoons and so a lot of people wouldn't grok the reference...

Two weeks ago, I wondered out loud about the top 10 worst IT business decisions ever made and nominated HP's decision to follow DEC down the road to oblivion for top spot. Today I'd like to suggest that the U.S. Defense Department's continued use of Microsoft's software is likely to top a future list of this kind ...

Sometimes bitter humor is the only sensible response to absurd injustice. A few years ago, for example, a lot of frustrated Apple fans were sure that if Steve Jobs walked across San Francisco Bay, the PC press would thunder "Jobs Can't Swim!" and The Wall Street Journal would editorialize the experience as a business disaster from which Apple should never hope to recover...

About a month ago we had some people over for dinner and the discussion, at least on my side of the table, drifted to top-10 lists of the Letterman variety. What had happened to make that topical was that Canada's entry into the late-night talk-show format had just been cancelled and the local papers were snitting about an American talk show host whose "insult puppet" had taken a round out of some walking embarrassment from Quebec.

Want to know why most business analysts and venture capitalists simply don't get it with respect to Unix? Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll understand that their ignorance isn't entirely their fault ...

Paul Murphy appeared on scene immediately -- arriving in a Solaris-powered personal helicopter -- to counter the naysaying. "The friendship between Stallman and Gates is the only hope computing has," said Murphy. "Unless, of course, Bill Joy comes back to Sun." "Besides," said...

The standard chip-making process, based on using lithography to etch circuits in silicon and other materials, has been in use since the mid-1970s, with change expressed mainly in increased manufacturing precision as decreases in the wavelengths used allowed the development of ever smaller components. ...

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column on LinuxInsider to think out loud about the fundamental differences between Microsoft's operating systems and Unix variants like Linux, Darwin, BSD and Solaris. That drew the usual kinds of responses: Some people said nice things, others critiqued my work, and a lot of slashdotters wandered off to express their own opinions.

One way or another, anti-outsourcing legislation seems likely to pass both houses of the U.S. Congress relatively soon. Whether this comes about through the House initiative led by Bernard Sanders or through other routes isn't important. What is important is that most of the proposals being discussed have bipartisan support and outlaw the use of government dollars to support foreign jobs at the expense of American workers...

What really are the most fundamental differences between Windows variants like 2003/XP and Unix variants like Linux? ...

Want to know why most business analysts and venture capitalists simply don't get it with respect to Unix? Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll understand that their ignorance isn't entirely their fault ...

I've been puzzled by Sun's Linux strategy for a long time. On the software side, things make sense: Linux is Unix, so supporting Linux in the short term brings new value to Solaris in the long term. On the hardware side, however, I couldn't see any logical reason for Sun to sell x86 boxes until just last week, when Intel announced its 64-bit Xeon extensions. My idea about this is pure speculation, but if I'm right, Sun may be creating some interesting opportunities for Linux users everywhere to save a few bucks now while positioning itself to lead the next great wave in technology change...

One of the unfortunate realities of the Wintel monoculture is that expectations are set mainly by ads, the Sunday supplements and stereotypes like TV character Marshall, the supertech on the show Alias. But delivery is constrained by reality. As a result, the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) has no chance of meeting user expectations and must always operate in a kind of rear-guard mode, balanced between short-term fixes and Microsoft's promises for the next upgrade...

Microsoft's Get the Facts site, which I discussed in last week's LinuxInsider column, "Getting the Facts About Windows and Linux," makes the case that Windows is cheaper than Linux. The site includes a contribution from Meta Group dedicated to the proposition that the combination of Linux plus a database costs more than a Windows Server plus SQL Server...

If you read a report sponsored by the Flat Earth Society in which an independent research organization found the world to be flat, would you believe it? I'd guess not, but any reputable research organization hired to survey the society's membership on the question would have to come to that conclusion -- and I don't think you could call the result dishonest...

My Web logs show that somebody asked Google an interesting question sometime just before 08:03:41 Eastern on January 24th and then again sometime before 04:54:29 Eastern on January 26th. As entered the first time, the search was for "linux to unix relationship," although that became "relationship of linux to unix" a few minutes later and "what is the relation of Linux to Unix" two days after that...

If you were to make up your own list of the top 10 issues likely to affect computing over the next five to 10 years, would you include liability reform in the American legal system? I think you should, even if you live, as I do, in Canada or some other country where American law doesn't apply directly. Change is coming, and that change will affect anyone who works with hardware or software made or sold by American companies...

The May 2003 publication, in the Harvard Business Review, of an article by Nicholas Carr titled "IT Doesn't Matter" raised so much controversy that opportunists like Anne K. Keehn and Donald M. Norris, writing in Syllabus Magazine, can now use a denunciation of his views as a kind of publicity virus to get their own rather special pleadings more media attention...

A few years ago, the only IT system I wasn't responsible for at a multimillion-dollar company consisted of a SCO server with an ancient accounting application maintained by the remaining representative of the company that had originally sold it. At the time, I thought old Vitki (not his real name) was a fool and that his protector in the finance group was a greater one. But an Apple-related incident over Christmas left me with more sympathy for both of them than I'd ever managed to feel before. For just a minute or two, I was made to feel some of their pain...