Of Visions, Dents and A Score and Five Years

Twenty-five years ago today, the lights turned on here at OFB. We were going to help the Linux Desktop revolution happen. We’re not there yet, but it has been an interesting ride.

Silence Isn't Violence

The last decade, we’ve been told we have to speak — and speak loudly — or we’re the bad guys. And, of course, say what the mob says or we’re still the bad guys. But silence is often more profound.

Geeking Out on Prime Day 2026

Prime Day isn’t quite the keyboard gripping mad dash for deals it was the heady days of the mid-2010’s. Back then, Amazon had hour by hour changes to the “decor,” musical performances and — my personal favorite — an emphasis on lightning deals that were extremely good, but limited and appearing throughout. With a four earth days to one Prime Day exchange rate and similar Big Spring Sale, Prime Big Deal Days, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the competitors’ answers — phew — it feels like less of a standout event each year, but there are still some genuinely good deals if you look. Here are a few of my favorite TestyTim-approved options.

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.

A Cloud of One's Own

I’ve been spoiled by the cloud. A decade and a half after I first used Dropbox, and years after iCloud made the dream of secure, seamless “login and forget” cloud sync a reality (most of the time), it seems obvious that all of my stuff should be available from every device I have whenever I need it. But what about content too big to keep on the cloud?

Trying Ubuntu

I've always liked Debian GNU/Linux distributions, but I've never gotten around to trying Ubuntu. Given my appreciation for GNOME and simplicity on top of the aforementioned appreciation for Debian, I decided it was time to give it a whirl.

Presently Ubuntu is installing itself on my Shuttle XPC which I have just given the new name of guildenstern (I'm tired of my Dilbert derived naming scheme for computers). I'll post in the coming days what I think. This will be the first entirely new distribution I've tried in quite some time.