Right on the point of the matter. The FUD, backstabbing, lack of crdibility, etc... Yes you can save an S-load of money by switching from Windows to Linux.

When attending SCALE SCALE12x in Los Angeles iover the years, I have talked to multiple Systems Admins that have successfully scaled Linux well above 10,000 desktops with no problem that could not be worked around and overcome. I did not have to go to SCALE to learn that Linux would scale, but it was nice to hear all the same.

While larger companies (and government agencies) can save millions even small companies can save significant dollars. In one of the many positive posts about this that have been rated down to zero or negative 1, one poster stated their small company/site (56 employee office) will realize over $22,000 per year in savings. My guess is they would save even more if they looked at everything and not just licensing. So many other factors figure in to the total cost of ownership for the company.

I just finished a year long contract at a worldwide company where we were supporting multiple Java Apps + Linux in the Cloud. One of the individuals that was responsible for updating 2,000 ~ 4,000 of their windows PCs (that was at only one site in one city in one state, there were 14 sites in that state, no I will not tell you the company's name, so don't ask as I have no wish to embarrass them) lost his job as the company said it was no longer cost effective to update all the Windows PCs at the site. (I started in the DP / IT field in 1979 and when the auto update crap started, many of us said that this would eventually happen.) If this has happened at other companies, I would not be surprised.

And as other posters have pointed out, it is much easier to secure Linux than Windows. Those that do not believe it, have not done it.

My biggest pet peeve with Windows 8 is the proprietary chips provided by the manufacturers, on Microsoft's instructions, that force one to obtain a valid MS Windows License even to install Linux on that proprietary hardware. I like donating old hardware to the various school programs when I am through with them. They almost always need to install Linux and are not interested in extra expense of a Windows license just to install Linux. Of course we can avoid these proprietary chipsets by only buying hardware from Linux vendors like ZaReason, System76 or others. As a copy of Windows can be purchased for those wanting to run Windows and when that version of Windows is no longer supported, that hardware can be re-purposed utilizing one of the many distros of Linux, instead of being thrown in the city dump. Just seems smart to me.

I am sure there are multiple websites / blog posts documenting many positive results from switching from Microsoft Windows to Linux. Please share them if you read this as I am most certainly interested in seeing them. I am sure Munich is not the only proof out there!

Note / Full Disclosure: I have a Windows 7 box for testing purposes and used a MacBook Pro in my last position, its a great laptop, that I did not want to like, but did, however my preference will always be Linux. Since I do not utilize touch on my desktop, servers, laptops or netbooks, I have moved away from Ubuntu's unity toward other distros of Linux, primarily Debian or CentOS, however have an interest in Arch and a few other low memory footprint Linux distros. I understand how Nokia blew it by moving away from the N800 and N900 Linux handhelds. Nor am I frightened by Android.

I started with DOS 2.0 before Windows was an app and my bias against windows is well earned, based solely on first hand experience. With over 30 years of various problems caused by that operating system and that company. While I almost got fired because of the General Protection Fault memory creep (my opinion) BS in the 90s (My VP did not believe it was Microsoft's fault until I proved it to them, what a waste that GPF troubleshooting guide was and I went through it over 3 times, the third time to prove to the VP the truth of the matter and they were just as disqusted as I was.), The straw that broke the camel's hump was with Windows 2000, when after setting the configuration so that no automatic updates would occur without my consent, the darn updates happened anyway. So much for having any ability to control your own PC. It was interesting, and disappointing, watching different things get archived off (without my knowledge or consent) and magically re-appearing even if I had not touched those files. It was a mess.

I still had to use Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 7 after that experience with Windows 2000 for various contracts, because some pinhead in the Mgmt chain above me mistakenly thought it was better. It wasn't than and its not now.

My guess is there is plenty of Proof out there, we have just seen the tip of the iceberg.

Right on the money. With the public's interest in war after too many years, this should not be a surprise to anyone.

No they don't need to wait another day and it only benefits those desiring depressed wages to wait a second longer.

Right on the money, not surprised you got rated a 0, such is the way of those that don't like hearing the truth.

If they were serious about giving American s health care, both parties, they would give Americans the same coverage as Congress, doubt that will ever happen.

Republicans got allot, just to sit down a the table that enacted the Sequester cuts, and now they they were too stupid to fund and pay the bills they have already spent (not future spending) money on, what cry babies. Many said President Obama was playing chess while the Republicans were playing checkers...and has turned out to be true. The law was enacted, now they want to delay it for yet another year, heck no, Americans need Insurance yesterday, not a year from now. ( 1 - You don't hear the Reps being willing to give back all that they gained in the past, so why should the President delay his legislation. 2 ~ They did not have a plan, remember the blank sheet of paper debacle, for many months and what they put together was BS. 3 ~ The plan they put together basically let the industry continue business as usual, death panels, deciding who gets what and how, denying coverage, etc... )

Can't trust Democrats either, stupid Harry Reid could have removed the BS 60% must approve in order to take a vote rule, returning it to a simple 51% majority as designed by the Constitution, but he did not, he got suckered and now the Tea Party and ultra conservatives can force all the Republican to toe the line else get primaryed (sic)

Lets look at costs, KISS, was looking at rolling over full time with a company for the benefits and now am not so sure. I need to see the health care costs. The last time I had insurance, the family only had to pay out $2,000 before it kicked in. Co pays were never more than $20, start out as $10 and went to $20 from there. This new company is huge and honestly a great American company, however their health care does not kick in until you are out of pocket 100% up to either $4,000 or $6,000, then kicks in at a graduated scale up to either $8,000 or $10,000 before it pays 100%. And that would be $8,000 or $10,000 every year before it pays out. So unless you have something catastrophic, its useless.

Having worked 3 minimum wage jobs while attempting to get a software company off the ground, and was unsuccessful, I understand how difficult it is for the average American to save $8,000 ~ $10,000 per year. I totally stoked that there is some form of single payer available that I can go for. I definitely plan to check it out and as long as its cheaper then $4,000 per year, its better than most company insurance policies, period.

And many Americans have already found out that its CHEAPER than anything in years. No surprise there either.

Had the Republicans prevented it, they can not now, rates would have continued to sky rocket.

Democrats wake up and change the house 60% to take a vote rule, back to the simple 51% majority as described in the Constitution. Get rid of Harry Reid, he is a traitor to have kept that rule in affect. Convinced that it would help them if they ever became the minority again, controlled via FEAR.

To everyone WAKE UP, earnings on stocks are taxed 10 - 15% google, find out about and learn from James L. Cramer and learn how to make more money from the Stock Market than you will ever make at a job.

Only Private companies like In n Out are smart, paying a High School 1rst time employee $10,00 per hour (have been for a decade, as the patriarch was a true capitalist, understanding that his employees needed money to buy and sell products) while other companys fuss that if the minimum wage is raised to $9 per hour, they will have to lay off employees. How many of those doing the lay offs make how much money on bonuses, stock profit sharing, etc... If in n Out were a publicly traded company they would experience stockholder pressure to lower wages to the minimum wage no doubt.

Only on the West Coast they have begun to expand under leadership of the daughter to Texas and East. If this hamburger restaurant, that is wildly successful, can afford (for the last 10 years) to pay a staring employee $10 per hour, what is the excuse of all the others, Burger King, Wendys, McDonalds, Arbys, Hardees, White Castle, Krystal, etc...

History shows us that jobs are only created when taxes are so repressive that company owners will not cash out until they sell out. If lower taxes created jobs, we would be awash in jobs, but we are not. Taxes are probably going to remain at the 36% level for the next 40 years, so a tax rate of between 10% to 15% on Stock market earnings is HUGE.

James J. Cramer, Mad Money, CNBC, has been sharing his knowledge for over a decade now. I for one am no longer waiting, remember there will be a Bull Market somewhere, even in an economic downturn as the market corrects itself. Have discipline, apply the strategies and earn enough to pay for your own Health care.

Ironic that Single payer hurts Unions as this was one of the main reasons people joined Unions back in the Day. Why does the 9%, who control America, want this bill defeated, because they are greedy. And don't think they will created jobs with the excess money, as thanks to Reagan ~ Clinton ~ Bush, tax rates have dropped from over 50% to 46% on wages and many corporations pay 0% tax, yet we are NOT AWASH IN JOBs.

Cut the rhetoric, be a capitalist, to spend you must have your health, you must have livable wage else you can not afford to buy our goods and services. That is capitalism, plain and simple.

It is not a surprise that as the middle class shrinks, the economy stutters, staggers and does not recover. Think about it.

If you want to get rid of single payer, give us the same health care as Congressmen and Representatives (The House) have or shut up.

On the news yesterday, they decided to spin it that someone nearby was intercepting signals through the air from the readers...total BS #2, first the pin pads were magically replaced in 60 different geographically distributed locations. Second, they want us to believe that there are crackers (people) intercepting signals through the air at each of those locations. What will they say next... Someone did not think their spin through, did they...

Not only outrageous to any thinking person, as you said, such activity would be observed by staff and or the many security cameras in these stores....guess they think we Americans are not very bright. Wrong again.

posted by an AC, what else is new...please stop spinning. It could NOT be just the Pin pads, especially in 60 geographically separate stores.

This comment from GrandWaz00 proves its not just that as well:

While this would be interesting to know, (per Snowman, VeriFone, Ingenico, Hypercomm are three possibilities) it sounds like most of the pin pad industry, if not all, does not bother hashing the pin number of a user's card at the PoS Pin Device. If the hash was secure enough and combined with a store ID + device ID + IP/network location, it would be much harder (if not impossible) for anyone else to spoof a transaction from some other geographical location, (ie. Brazil). Add to that, that the transaction should ONLY come from a secured (separate) backend financial or banking system (only authorized entities would have access to this network and any store not securing their end would risk losing access) that would also have a unique label/ID...not sure how some cracker could continue to do this without a rootkit or other exploit in that company's IT environment. (How could a transaction from Brazil happen, guess the stores unique network identifiers are not used and/or checked...that's a fail.)

In fact based on this comment from GrandWaz00, it appears the pin pad is NOT the problem and that the cracker has other exploits yet to be revealed or not found by the company's IT System Administrators.

I wonder if the Barnes & Nobles IT Managers allocated budget for the Systems Admins to baseline their systems, network, operating systems, transaction work flows and monitoring of said systems for events that appear strange (outside norms) when compared against those earlier baselines? In my over 33 years of IT experience they (Managers) rarely if ever allow for time spent making their systems safe, including ongoing monitoring in order to catch an exploit before it impacts anyone.

It can not be just the pin pads as the cracker/thieves compromised more than a few dozen pin pads, they could not have swapped out the pin pads as tlhingan suggested in his post in that many locations. That is unless they hooked up with one of the gangs that have a presence in many US cities...it simply would take too many individuals to pull this off in 60 or more stores in multiple geographic locations. In that last scenario too many people would know.

Meaning the real exploit (yet to be revealed / yet to be found) is further up the TCP/IP network + Operating Systems + Software Application food chain from the pin pad, not just that pin pad. Or the thieve is a frequent flier in order to reach 60 plus stores in cities around the USA. A few of the cities ("New York City, San Diego, Miami, and Chicago.") listed would be a long drive from each other.

Its common in our industry, in order to make a company's IT systems to see more secure than they really are, to blame something else, usually some innocent human (human error), at least they blamed a dumb device instead of a person.

Regardless stop calling these people hackers, they are crackers not hackers. Hackers do not do harm. Once someone crosses the line and steals information (or money) they are no longer a hacker, but a cracker. Hacking is an honorable way to learn about technology and with proprietary environments, often the only way for an honest Systems Administrator (White Hat) to discover exploits and plug them in order to protect whoever is paying their paycheck. Of course at most companies, this type of activity is rarely if ever allotted time to pursue...as already stated above.

You think companies would understand that its all about TRUST, once customers lose trust in the company, their systems, their people, their products, that company is close to going under and out of business. Of course talking the game and not walking the walk, is what gets companies into trouble like this to begin with. Its a shame that one of the few book sellers out there has experienced this type of problem, I like open source Android book readers, but still prefer to open a book and flip real pages when reading.

I was thinking that as well. I would like it expandable up to 16GB, thankfully running Linux means the memory in the device can be re-purposed for other things, in addition to everything running faster.

I would rather see the device focus toward debian instead of ubuntu. There are also a bunch of distros that run in tiny memory foot prints. My guess is all of them would work if Ubuntu will. Arch was a nice touch too.

I want to see at a minimum 512MB of RAM, even if the Linux distro will run in only 128Kb of RAM. Being able to put 1GB and up to 4GB of RAM would be nice as well. The more RAM the merrier...and faster the apps will run.

Could not disagree more. Based on the size, you could fit two of those in the size of an old Nokia N800, allowing for a decent size screen also. And if one of those two devices was simple an add on board with more memory, more ports, additional processors etc...so much the better.

When installing, I prefer Ethernet to Wifi.

Even if I do not use the Ethernet port all the time, I want to have it for the times I need it.

I would add no fewer than 3 USB ports to as many as 5. 2 USB ports are not enough when the USB hub will not connect for some weird reason.

I would also want 2 Micro SSD slots. One could be internal, say under the battery, harder to get to, but still exchangeable but one should be available without turning off the device or opening the case.

I too agree that Wifi is sadly considered to be fast and that is pathetic. I want to live in one of the less than 30 US communities that offer Fiber To The Home (FTTH)...when I move there, I would appreciate the device having a second ethernet port for out of band monitoring of that device. Basically a second network not connected to the same VLAN and/or firewall/router as the connection to the Internet. Overkill perhaps, but something I would like to have.

I want the device to be able to do more, than a just one use case or one task.

Yea everyone is saying that, love the Cloud monkier too. The future for me is never going to be an application and/or service that can ONLY be accessed via an active internet connection.

The future for many of us are applications, esp web applications, that work whether we are currently connected to the Internet or not. Let em sink up to add value when we are connected, but tying me to the net like a dog on a leash is just not going to work in my world, ever. That is DUMB.

The future means being smart. Smart means the device, whoever makes it, runs more applications on day one than the last release of that device. There are no acceptable exceptions to this rule. To do that it must be rootable.

To be smart, the device must be open, it must be rootable (allow admin access) so that the owner of the device can configure as they wish and install the software they wish on it.

I imagine purchasing only open rootable devices that will allow me to install and run, PHP, Python, Ruby, whatever I want and therefore have access to every application written in those environments the first day I purchase the device.

If a device will not allow me to install, configure, run and play the content I want/need, well it just is not smart and I will never purchase it.

If you change your answer to web enabled apps that will run standalone when not connected to the Internet/cloud, than we are in agreement...something tells me that is NOT what you were saying. Sigh.

That dog did not hunt when people started spinning it, many of us realized this from the beginning, we are just waiting for the rest of you to figure it out as well. Eventually you will be forced too, not a matter of if, only when.

Great article and thanks for sharing the link.

I have yet to find another browser that takes a users Privacy and honestly treats them right as Firefox historically has. I am more concerned that the rapid release update/upgrade cycle will eventually result in some proprietary feature diminishing my ability to 100% control my privacy online.

This is my main concern with the divergent HTML 5 standards as well. When a new feature ONLY works with a minority of the available browsers, its a fail no matter the reason, even if because its a living standard. Sounds like a pathetic excuse NOT to be compatible. ..but its a living standard.

Chrome will never be an option as it only allows the user to control the main site cookie and does not allow individual control over each and every advertising, tracking and flash cookie. Firefox has always allowed this via the Exceptions-Cookies dialog. This does not exist in Chrome, most likely never will. Being faster is NOT enough.

IE/MS violated my trust years ago, more than once...they will never be a viable option either. Not going to put myself back there. Even when everyone was wasting time developing IE hacks, I learned a simple truth, if you develop your site with HTML that works in Netscape (back than) / Firefox (today) than other browsers will render it correctly, unless MS does not want them too. However the converse is rarely true. if you develop in IE first, you can guarantee that one or more HTML IE-ONLY statements will prevent proper rendering in other browsers. Thus wasting time on specific hacks is just that a time sink and best to be avoided.

I too am concerned when others are lied to (what the update/upgrade will do eventually) as many posters have commented about. Changing the UI in such away that the user can not preform their work flow (because options/buttons are missing after the update/upgrade) will always be wrong. It should never happen, but it does, doesn't it. Pathetic.

Great article, here and on that blog!

Ken;s comment in that article talked about spinning the reason for the update/upgrade to a positive. I don't want spin, I want honesty, I want reliability, I want to control 100% when my work flow is interrupted through an update/upgrade. No matter what that update/upgrade is intended to do. Anything less and my investment in hardware and software is negated and my machine becomes an expensive paper weight.

I see the same thing here...living standard...pathetic. Don't misinterpret, I want to see these new HTML 5 commands, especially the ones that will allow a smart Linux handheld to run a web app when NOT connected to the Internet (or the cloud). Those HTML 5 commands should work in all the major browsers without exception...Major browsers being FF, Opera, Chrome, Safari, IE at a minimum. There is one other, just does not come to mind at the moment.

I do read the security updates and 8 out of 10 times, the exploit being prevented requires 'local' access to my PC and I already know that is NOT going to happen, thus not worth interrupting my day to proceed. I will never give the keys to my home to another, thus no one will ever get 'local' access to my machine to attempt an exploit.

Eventually, via rapid release, the users wishes get ignored and an update/upgrade proceeds without the users permission. At that point the developers have irreversibly failed. At that point you taint the user's TRUST in your product. TRUST takes years to build, but can be destroyed in seconds, usually via a forced update/upgrade. Shame as its totally avoidable if the business really truly walks their talk, caring about their customers. And if the devs do NOT have time to adequately test in order to prevent accidental breakages, well that is not a failure on the developers part but the process and powers that be that are proceeding at an unsustainable velocity.

With the differences in HTML 5 standards, I see MS doing the same BS they did years ago during the browser wars. It would be a mistake to assume that they do not have someone on one or both standard setting committees.

Does it really matter if W3C goes too slow if one or more proprietary vendor, only interested in building their monopoly does not intend to follow the standard anyway? I think not. Back in the day, one or more proprietary vendors would sit on the committees slowing down the release of new standards, perhaps this is why W3C is so slow today....would not surprise me.

I am not surprised that activity is the same or has increased.

its absurd to assume / assert / suggest / claim that on every street of every block, of every neighborhood, of every community, of every city, of every county of every state, of every country there is even ONE much less more torrent users. That's crazy talk.

I doubt I have one neighbor who has used a torrent.

The idea of compressing data to save bandwidth seems like something providers would promote...unless they are trying to force you to use more bandwidth (by spreading FUD to deter torrent usage), exceed your caps and thus be able to charge you more money.

My bandwidth is throttled to less than BROADBAND speeds (768Kbps) both upstream and downstream, yet I do not use torrents...guess I will have to start using them. Why are Cable providers allowed to fraudulently say their service is broadband when they throttle bandwidth to less than 768Kbps, especially upstream, 24 X 7. The only time I see 768Kbps or greater upstream is during the Speed Test.

The DRM / DCMA pro industry wants us to believe that torrents are widely used. This is NOT true. They want us to believe that ONLY thieves use torrents, which based on comments (not that I need them) to this post we KNOW NOT TO BE TRUE.

So what is their game? Pathetic.

Which is the only reason companies, entities, people can pull this crap with anyone. The only rational solution is to choose not to play. Take your business elsewhere. If everyone did this, the BS would stop tomorrow.

I have suggested it before, will again, when any company does BS like this, start a 3 year "no purchase anything" from them clock. If they do any additional 'badness' (of which you are the sole determiner of what is bad for your) increase that clock to a 7 year clock, "no purchase anything".

For each additional incident that is anti-freedom, anti-society, anti-family, anti-capitalism, against your life code (what is important to you) restart your 7 year clock.

If a company knew a significant number of potential buyers would stop purchasing their products for seven years because of their bad behavior, their bad behavior would stop. They might actually consider the long term ramifications of their actions.

Best of all, you are no longer basing decisions on what anyone says, avoiding lies. You are basing your purchase decisions based on their actions, the only things that matter.

The same thing can be done with politicians, how did they vote on legislation that matters to you...forget what they say as we all know the majority of them lie...base your decision (in this case your vote) on their ACTIONS ONLY.

This is 100% capitalism as the bad players go out of business and go away, newer, smaller, more responsive (to you) businesses will emerge to fill the gap, thus economic activity is increased. All you have to do is care about yourself and others benefit indirectly

This sounds familiar with what they are doing to Youtubers. If you create content and point to a URL and they delete, move the content that URL points to, you are left with what?

Add to that the public / private issue and whats the point.

To add insult to injury, should someone wishing to censor information you have pointed to in links from your blog, content, website, etc... all they have to do is put in a DRM / DCMA take down request and those supporting links to your content are useless. Do you cache a copy? If not, what are you left with?

Feels wrong in many ways... another chip of TRUST gone.

I stay with Firefox simply because it allows me to control not just the website main cookie (all chrome allows) but every single one of the ad and tracking cookies. I can also control Flash cookies completely by using Linux and redirecting the crap to /tmp which is deleted between reboots.

Perhaps your inability to granularly control Chrome is the point. They can pretty much do what they want, track what they want, put stuff on your device without your being aware and without your consent.

I strongly believe Google is less evil than most other companies, but they are not perfect. And no telling what will happen should the owners sell the company one day.

If you do not control your device, you are one event away from an expensive paper weight. Of course your work flow will be interrupted at the worst possible time.