Jason Brooks

About

As Editor in Chief of eWEEK Labs, Jason Brooks manages the Labs team and is responsible for eWEEK's print edition. Brooks joined eWEEK in 1999, and has covered wireless networking, office productivity suites, mobile devices, Windows, virtualization, and desktops and notebooks. Jason's coverage is currently focused on Linux and Unix operating systems, open-source software and licensing, cloud computing and Software as a Service.

The Year of OpenSolaris

At the end of 2006, ZDnet blogger Paul Murphy made what I thought at the time to be a poor prediction: That 2007 will see Sun’s OpenSolaris eclipse Linux in the size and activity of its developer community, and all OS development projects, save Windows, will adopt OpenSolaris’ organizational structure and licensing provisions. Now that […]

Red Hat Needs to Lighten Up

When I learned that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, which is a big release for Red Hat to which I’ve been looking forward for some time, was coming out on March 14, one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was, “Great, when’s CentOS 5 coming out?” Even though Red Hat has always been […]

Pondering Linux Preloads

In recent weeks, there’s been quite a bit of buzz surrounding Linux and its chances for earning a spot as a preloaded option on the client PCs sold by major computer OEMs. Buzzing most loudly has been Dell’s IdeaStorm customer suggestions site, which has turned up a ton of support for the notion–even though many […]

Linux for Beginners

Linux is getting hotter and more mainstream all the time—enough so that even IT administrators who deal primarily with Windows would do well to get their feet wet with Linux. After all, even Microsoft, through its recent deal with Novell, has begun to cozy up to Linux. However, Linux can be confusing for newcomers, even […]

Pondering Linux PC Preloads

In recent weeks, theres been quite a bit of buzz surrounding Linux and its chances for earning a spot as a preloaded option on the client PCs sold by major computer OEMs. Buzzing most loudly has been Dells IdeaStorm customer suggestions site, which has turned up a ton of support for the notion—even though many […]

NAC Is Whack?

Network access control schemes seem to be all the rage, with IT heavyweights and smaller players alike pushing them full force. While theres no disputing that these NAC initiatives are aimed at worthwhile goals, what remains to be seen is whether and to what extent these initiatives are worth the time and money that enterprises […]

Look Out, Microsoft

We in the computer trade press remain ever poised to chronicle the next major battle between Microsoft and whatever company, governing body or new concept that seems even remotely positioned to challenge the Redmond giant. During the past few years, Google has been one of our favorite such challengers, even though Google hasnt yet directly […]

Microsofts Virtual PC 2007 Is a Good (and Free) Virtualization Option for Windows Users

Microsofts Virtual PC 2007 offers developers and administrators an inexpensive option for satisfying their testing, support and application compatibility needs through the magic of virtualization. The most notable addition to the product, which is a follow-on to Microsofts Virtual PC 2004, is support for Windows Vista as a host or guest operating system. VPC 2007, […]

Microsoft, Novell Have Much to Prove

Microsoft and Novell have been making a big deal of their big deal to work together to soothe customers cross-platform pain points. But it remains to be seen whether and how far the deal will end up extending beyond the realm of press releases and presentation slide decks. In fact, vaporous cooperation pledges arent even […]

VMwares VI3 Suite Delivers on Virtualizations Promise

VMwares Virtual Infrastructure 3 offers enterprises an impressive, mature framework for making virtualizations promises a reality. eWEEK Labs installed VMwares ESX Server, which forms the foundation of Virtual Infrastructure 3, onto a variety of Intel- and Advanced Micro Devices-powered servers. We bound the boxes together under VMwares VirtualCenter management server. From there, we installed several […]