While Linux is still not entirely ready for people like my parents, it's really matured over the years, and in many cases it "just works" [...] In fact, Linux has grown up so much and so well, today I can devote an entire column to some of the cooler media players available to Linux users.

Amarok is much more than just another music player or iTunes clone; in fact, it blows iTunes away. It is Kryptonite to iTunes Superman. It's the Death Star to iTunes' Alderaan. It's — well, I guess I should tell you why it's so great, huh?

The security vendor's Security Response Advanced Threat Research group has released four reports on the security implications of Vista — with two more to come next week — and found that while the underlying OS is more secure, there are still unplugged holes that will allow malicious code to penetrate a user's system, says Oliver Friedrichs, director of Symantec's Security Response Emerging Threats group.

Friedrichs acknowledges that it may be self-serving for Symantec, which offers add-on security products for Windows, to publish findings that the OS is not secure.

By creating a forum for feedback and now having that forum filled with customer "wishes", Dell is now in the uncomfortable position of having to respond. Silence won't work and neither will the marketing-speak filled "thanks but no thanks" response to every idea that Dell doesn't like or involves a cash outlay. IdeaStorm is now nothing more than a focal point for everything that is wrong with Dell, and the lack of any obvious moderation over at IdeaStorm is making the problem a lot worse.