Chrome is the Antitrust Problem, Selling It is Not the Solution

Google is worse than Microsoft ever was. With a stranglehold on search and online advertising, backed with an Orwellian surveillance of users, dominating the browser market is too much. The solution cannot be to sell Chrome to OpenAI, however.

I Want a Better Mac, so I’m Cheering for a Better Linux

My recent column on Apple’s declining software quality hit a nerve. So why do any of us put up with software that grows increasingly buggy? One word: hardware.

Apple Needs a Snow Sequoia

The same year Apple launched the iPhone, it unveiled a massive upgrade to Mac OS X known as Leopard, sporting “300 New Features.” Two years later, it did something almost unheard of: it released Snow Leopard, an upgrade all about how little it added and how much it took away. Apple needs to make it snow again.

Chasing the Unified Messaging Dream

Microsoft gave it a try in 1999 and failed. The same tantalizing possibility returns every few years: a single place to communicate rather than an ever-expanding cacophony of apps, each with its own quirks. Are we any closer to this hope a quarter century later?

Tech Shouldn’t Die Young, But Increasingly Does

The Humane Pin has died and HP has killed it. The burial of last year’s tech darling, DOA as its concept was from the get-go, isn’t that important in itself, but continues the troubling trend of things we buy dying unnatural deaths.

The Fourth Generation Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard

The Apple Extended Keyboard's Torchbearer

Last week, I reviewed the Unicomp New Model M, the torchbearer for a line of keyboards that elicits reverent voices and knowing nods from those who have used one. Cross over to the fruity side of things and there was a similarly admired board, the Apple Extended Keyboard, and a modern continuation, Matias’s Tactile Pro.

Intriguing Cyber Monday Deals

There are an overwhelming avalanche of great deals (and not so great ones masked to look great) on any given Cyber Monday, but here are a few of Testy Tim’s standout favorites for 2024.

Those Were the Days (of Repairs)

I never intended to become Archie Bunker. But, he had a point: the old LeSalle ran great. Things of the past did, because they were easily repairable. In an age of disposable everything, working with something old is a reminder of that.

Warned to Death

I can barely hear right now. The cicadas’ songs are in full swing. One cicada isn’t that loud and many are still a wonder of the world, but what of the less pleasant cacophony of man-made noise we call “warnings” and “alerts”?

iPad: Forged from the Humane or Destroyer Of It?

Apple created a lot of stir with the advertisement for its new generation iPad Pro. The shocking video shows a huge variety of things we love, including musical instruments and artistic tools, being crushed by a cold, dark metal press. Is Apple admitting its apocalyptic agenda?