Michael Hall

We’re all pretty used to running networked services in our homes or small businesses: Mail servers, file servers, Web servers and the like are common, easily configured and generally easy to run. One service that you might not see as much is instant messaging, mostly because people are content to use the many free public […]

There’s a popular game among online journalists that bears a mild resemblance to batting at a piñata: It’s called “Keeping Up with The New York Times’ Technology Page.” It’s fun for some because the writers at the Times, trying to write for a general audience, are largely helpless against charges that they’re behind the times. […]

In addition to writing Networking Notes each week, I also manage a site devoted to networking in the enterprise. “Enterprise IT” is a slippery concept. I once asked a developer who worked in fairly large shop exactly how he defined “enterprise class” software, and he told me it was stuff that was about as complex […]

Let’s see here … It’s bad idea to buy beta hardware? Check. It’s a bad idea to buy a Windows release early? Check. It’s a bad idea to let newbies run SMTP servers? Check. It’s a bad idea to connect an expensive router to a $5 K-3646621, Mart power strip? Check, kind of. Sorry for […]

If you’ve been thinking of dipping your toes in the Linux pool, you might find a lot of the sound and fury surrounding licenses, technologies and strange dealings with Microsoft more than you bargained for when you signed up for a low-cost and powerful file server. This week, though, I’m going to wrap up a […]

A recent issue of The New Yorker included a morbid little cartoon that depicts a tombstone with the inscription “Wouldn’t stop picking at it.” Windows customers might want to secure a copy and tape it to their monitors, because the temptation to pick is going to be strong over the next few months. The source […]

Maybe it’s a little box that doles out IP addresses, provides NAT and offers e-z wireless connectivity. Or perhaps it’s an operating system with enough wizards, control panels and big red buttons to open the world of SOHO networking up to an 8-year-old. In any case, the problem they all have in common is how […]

If I told you I wanted to sell you a DVD player that wasn’t guaranteed to play store-bought movies in color after Christmas, would you buy it? How about a wireless network card I can’t guarantee will operate at full speed with other vendors’ access points in six months? Even for the computing industry, which […]

At some point on the road to creating productivity suites the idea behind office software went terribly awry. Microsoft Office has evolved into an expensive, bloated software package designed for corporations in need of ratified features and, at the other end of the spectrum; you find a few low-end applications suitable for junior-high students putting […]

As Hewlett-Packard prepares its customers for the end of nearly 30 years of e3000 computing, the company affirmed last week that it remains on previously announced schedules to stop production of the venerable systems by the end of this year and eventually end support of the product in the coming years while hoping to ease […]