Chutzpah: n. (Slang) — 1892, from Yiddish khutspe “impudence, gall” from Heb. hutspah. The classic definition is that given by Leo Rosten: “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”

You would be hard-pressed to find a corporation that [more...]

Regular readers of this Journal know that I’ve been using personal computers since 1979, and I’ve been using Linux full-time instead of Linux since July of 2006.

Having been a DOS and Windows power user and support person since the early days, I’m really grateful that [more...]

The Web has a lot to offer — from email and Web surfing, to shopping and bill-paying, to Web site creation and social networking.

But we all know that it also has several annoying features; things that aren’t bad enough to make you stop visiting the sites that you like, but are bad enough that you [more...]

I’ll bet that every single Linux user has run into this problem — probably numerous times.

I’ve run into it several times with my DSL provider.

But there’s really nothing I can do about it.

Except try to be patient. [more...]

Two days ago, I installed Debian Squeeze onto my new 64-bit PC, using ext4 partitions, KDE4 and grub2.

Two nights ago, I was up until 3:00 AM, thanks to Debian Squeeze’s version of KDE4.

My experience may surprise you. It certainly surprised me. [more...]

This short announcement is to let you know that I plan to replace this announcement with today’s Journal post some time this evening, after I’ve taken a little nap.

Yesterday, I installed Debian Squeeze onto my new PC, using ext4 partitions, KDE4 and grub2.

Last night, I was up until 3:00 AM, thanks to [more...]

With everything that we’ve learned over the years about its never-ending list of serious security vulnerabilities, I find it really hard to believe that anyone would choose to run Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser any more.

Personally, I switched to Mozilla’s much-more-secure, free and open-source Firefox browser — first in Windows, and then in Linux — on the [more...]

About ten years ago, I became so disgusted with Windows’ opaque frailty that I started looking for an alternative. In 2002, I learned some of the main differences between Windows and Linux.

But back then — and on until November, 2005 — I was on a slow dial-up Internet connection that made it nearly impossible to [more...]

It’s been over 15 months since I confessed that my baby boy, Max, often ghost writes these Journal posts.

I was pleasantly surprised a few years ago, when he caught on to using Linux right away. And since then, he’s been very happy that [more...]

Many years ago, I was a professional singer-songwriter-musician for 5 years. I wrote over 50 songs and my wife and I did 427 performances in 26 states, for audiences ranging from 9 people to over 3,000 people.

I played the 12-string guitar, which plays just like a 6-string guitar, except that instead of playing 6 individual strings, you play [more...]