Jim Lynch: Tech Analyst and Community Manager

Last week I covered the problems I had with my 24-inch iMac and how I ended up exchanging it for a 27-inch model. This week I want to share some of my experiences with my new iMac.
After the Apple Store employee brought my iMac out to my truck, I carefully loaded in the computer and [...]

Over the course of my computing life, I’ve had mostly good luck with hardware. But every once in a while a computer or component comes along that just keeps crapping out over and over. So it has been with my 24-inch iMac, and two weeks ago it finally came to its end.
When I first bought [...]

It’s that time of the month again: Time for me to respond to some reader comments and cover a few potpourri items.
Eye on the iPad
sverrisson, writing in response to my “5 Reasons Why I Won’t Buy an iPad” column, said this:
Who cares if the name resembles a female product? Would anyone care if it resembled [...]

Back in the old days, Linux used to be a tough cookie to get installed. It was way more challenging than Windows and certainly nothing like Mac OS X. You never really knew if it would work well with all of your hardware until you tried it. Sometimes things went great and other times—well, let’s [...]

I have a confession to make that might shock you. I used to smoke.
In my late teens and early 20s, I was a chain smoker. I enjoyed it. I loved having a cigarette in my fingers and I enjoyed the experience of smoking. I especially enjoyed it in college while I was writing papers; there [...]

The ridiculous hype is finally over and Steve Jobs has given birth to yet another neat consumer device. The iPad isn’t even shipping yet, and it’s already made a huge splash in the press. Coverage of the iPad has been everywhere and Apple fans are swooning and waiting to whip out their credit cards to [...]

I’ve gotten quite a few comments since I started writing for ET again, so I thought I’d take one column per month and address some of them. And I’ve also included a few potpourri items about current technology events that are interesting, but might not warrant a full column of their own.
So let’s start with [...]

For the last few years, Firefox has been the only browser I use regularly. I’ve never cheated on it. Oh sure, I’ve had brief flings. I tried my best to really like Safari on my Macs, but it always left me cold. I don’t use Windows enough to have Internet Explorer as my main browser. [...]

It’s a sad time for Ubuntu users. Canonical has announced that it is removing the GNU Image Manipulation Program, aka GIMP, from the default Ubuntu installation routine.
Canonical hosted its biannual Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) last week in Dallas, Texas. I was one of many open source software developers who attended the event and participated in [...]

There’s absolutely no denying that we’re in a terrible economy right now. Unemployment is way up over the last year and consumer spending is down significantly. So what’s a person to do for Christmas gifts this year? Instead of stuffing your loved ones’ stockings with fat-laden candy or silly doodads made in China, you should [...]