Jim Lynch: Tech Tips, Opinions and Reviews

I’ve been a big fan of Amazon’s Kindle for quite a while now. I own a Kindle ereader and I often use the iPhone Kindle app to read my Kindle books while I’m out and about. I’ve been waiting patiently for Amazon to finally come out with a Kindle application for the Mac and now [...]

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship going with iTunes. On one hand I’ve loved the sheer amount of content I could get from it. Movies, music, audiobooks, iPhone apps…there’s just a ton of stuff available in the iTunes store. But I’ve also been annoyed by its slowness, clunky interface and various other things.

We’ve looked at a couple of religious based distributions such as Ubuntu: Christian Edition and Ubuntu: Muslim Edition. But there’s another version of Ubuntu…a dark and evil one. A version so hideous and so terrible that it’s name is only spoken in whispers among Linux users… Ubuntu Satanic Edition 666.6 (Jesus’ Jugular) Yep! There really [...]

This week I decided to take a look at a lesser known distribution called Wolvix Linux. Wolvix is based on Slackware and, according to the Wolvix site, is geared toward the home user. Wolvix uses the lightweight Xfce desktop environment and provides a somewhat greater range of apps than some of the other distributions. But [...]

Linux has, in some ways, always been a bit politicized in the sense that there are true believers among Linux users and developers that all software should be truly free. When I say free, I mean free as in free to use and share with others without any restrictions on that usage or sharing. gNewSense [...]

Before I get into this review let me be clear that gOS is not “Google OS.” It is not put out by Google so nobody should be confused by its name. gOS stands for “Good OS” though it does contain a lot of links to Google Web apps, Google Gadgets, and the option to add [...]

Last week we looked at VirtualBSD, this week we’re moving back to Linux and to a more convential kind of distribution. Sabayon Linux is based on Gentoo. Gentoo as you might already know is somewhat famous for being the “roll your own” kind of distribution. It’s an extremely powerful and customizable version of Linux but [...]

If you read Superman comics as a kid or an adult then you’re probably already familiar with Kandor, the Kryptonian capital city that was miniaturized by the evil Braniac and trapped in a bottle. Well how ironic then that I managed to stumble across an operating system in a very similar situation. The only difference [...]

I recently looked at the latest beta of Ubuntu: Jaunty Jackalope. Ubuntu has proven to be such a popular distribution that there are even other distributions based off of it. One such distro is Linux Mint which seeks to take the ease-of-use provided by Ubuntu to a new level and, for the most part, succeeds. [...]

The last time I looked at PC-BSD was way back in 2007. PC-BSD is another option for those who want an alternative to Windows but who might not be interested in Linux or Mac OS X. PC-BSD is an operating system that is based on FreeBSD and uses the KDE desktop. My last experience with [...]

It’s been quite a while since the last update to PCLinuxOS back in 2007. While Ubuntu and other distros come out every 6 months, PCLinuxOS is considered a “rolling release distribution” that gets updated regularly as new stuff appears in the PCLinuxOS repository. So was it worth the wait? I’m happy to say…yes it was! [...]

It’s been quite a while since I last took a look at Ubuntu and it’s come a long way. Canonical has just released a beta version of Ubuntu Linux 9.04. In keeping with past traditions, the new version has a cute animal nickname: Jaunty Jackalope. If you aren’t familiar with the Jackalope, it’s a fictitious [...]

iTunes has always been a mixed bag for me. On one hand it’s a convenient way of managing music, movies, iPhone apps, TV shows, etc., and on the other hand it’s been a fat, bloated pig of an application. If you buy content from the iTunes store it’s been a necessary evil for years and [...]

In my last column I talked about what made me buy a Kindle 2. This week I want to share my impressions of the Kindle 2 after finally buying one. My overall feelings about the Kindle 2 are positive but there are some problems and drawbacks with it that I couldn’t help but notice. Before [...]

In my review of the Kindle 2 I mentioned that rumors were swirling about Amazon possibly releasing a Kindle app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Well those rumors turned out to be true as I found this morning when I looked in the app store and found the Kindle for iPhone app! Yep, now [...]

It’s been quite a while since I’ve played with openSUSE. Back in the day it was pretty much my favorite Linux distribution. Oh sure I flirted with other distros and I enjoyed using them, but openSUSE always had its own special appeal. As a result, I couldn’t resist downloading openSUSE 11.1 and giving it a [...]

Flatulence is a universal thing. We all pass gas because we’re human and when we’re not doing it then we’re getting ready to do it by consuming more food and having that food do its thing in our digestive system. So it’s no surprise that flatulence has arrived with a vengeance on the iPhone, iPhone [...]

Some things transcend time and space and truly last forever. Pac Man—the ancient and venerable game from the first days of video gaming—and his female counterpart Ms. Pac Man are two such games. No matter which platform you prefer to play your games on, you’ve probably played a version of Pac Man. The iPhone 3G [...]

I listed 25 free apps and 8 free games in earlier iPhone app articles. But what about other utilities? Surely there has to be some additional cool freebies available in the app store? You bet there is and here they are for your downloading enjoyment! #10 Alarm Free Alarm is billed as being a “self-defense” [...]

Since Apple has released its app store, there are quite a few games available for purchase, but why pay for games when you can get some for free instead? Here’s a list of my favorite 8 free games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. #8 Jirbo Match How’s your memory? Think you have what it [...]