I have to deal with a lot of different software in my various roles.  Lots of it is good, but there's always the odd software package that makes me want to run ahead of it with a loud, clanging bell, shouting "Unclean! Unclean!"  Here are a few such packages which i've encountered lately:...

I've had a few problems over recent weeks on both Ubuntu karmic (9.10) and lucid (10.04) whereby web pages built on Flash player (such as ABC iView) would display a large error screen proclaiming that Flash player had crashed. I first saw it on my son's ThinkPad X31 which i had upgraded to lucid very shortly after it was released, and assumed that it was just part and parcel of the new release, and that the bug would be fixed shortly....

IT Toolbox has a great little summary of the experiences of Mike Kavis, a guy who's been living Microsoft free in an all Microsoft shop - at work!...

Michael Reed has a good piece on his experiences in moving his mother from a Windows-based PC to Ubuntu Linux. The result? Amazingly successful, although it did take some tweaking on his part.

Serdar Yegulalp has an interesting article comparing Ubuntu Linux and Windows Vista for average desktop users. Teaser: "Is Linux finally ready to take on Windows as a desktop OS? We tried out both Vista and Ubuntu on individual PCs to see which works better. Here's who won."

Jason Brooks at eWeek writes a useful perspective on Red Hat's approach to RHEL licensing and its implications for CentOS....

It's great to see some mainstream press suggesting that Linux (specifically Ubuntu) is a painless option for basic computer users.