P. J. Connolly

For many people, being in “real IT” means that you ignore the word processor in your corporate-issue office suite in favor of a text editor. After all, a text editor, if only at its simplest (vi, anyone?), is likely to be on almost any system one has to deal with. But when you write code […]

The announcement that HP is strangling its smartphone and tablet businesses before they can embarrass the company any further, and considering the sale of its PC operations, are a new low for the company. (At least from a business perspective; its longstanding problems with executive leadership would read like a script idea rejected by the […]

One of the things I hate about installing software is the almost inevitable post-installation patching. This is unavoidable when one’s using physical media, since providing customers with updated versions of an optical disc is somewhere between impractical and impossible. But electronic software distribution is supposed to fix that, or so its proponents argue. I seem […]

Maybe Autodesk’s romance with the Mac is more than a one-night stand, after all. Last year, when the company released a Mac OS X version of its flagship AutoCAD design software, I wasn’t sure if we were looking at a flash in the pan or not. But today’s announcement of AutoCAD 2012 for Mac, and […]

The “Lion” Server may be the last version of the Mac OS X Server that matters, and, if that’s the case, it is a solid operating system designed for ease of use. But any other goals Apple may have for the Lion Server aren’t easily discerned. Since Apple’s exit from the enterprise server market at […]

At-a-Glance Hardware Details Lion Server makes it easy for admins to obtain basic data regarding server hardware through the new Server application. Alerts of Updated Software Lion Servers alerting feature includes notification of refreshed versions of Apple software published through the Software Update service. Allocate Resources Through iCal Server Lion Servers iCal Server supports the […]

Congratulations go to Google today, for its decision to pay over $12 billion for Motorola Mobility. In one swell foop, the search king has expanded its IP portfolio in hopes of giving its Android mobile device OS a fighting chance in present and future patent litigation, while presumably annoying Android handset makers such as HTC […]

It was thirty years ago today that IBM released the Personal Computer model 5150; although it may not have been the first computer marketed at the individual user, it certainly set the stage for the widespread adoption of computers by ordinary office workers and consumers. [WP_IMAGE] That first IBM PC was designed in an era […]

It seems that the cloud’s greatest enemy is lightning. Or at least, that’s the conclusion I’ve reached after considering the latest outages affecting Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cloud services in Europe. It’s been widely reported that a lightning strike outside Dublin took out part of the power grid, which then led to the outages; although the […]

Well, it looks like the case of the purloined iPhone is in the home stretch. The San Mateo District Attorney’s office has filed misdemeanor charges of misappropriation of lost property against Brian Hogan, the man who found a prototype of the iPhone 4 in a Redwood City beer hall, but has declined to prosecute Gizmodo […]