Practical Technology

knew e-books would be big. What I didn’t know would be that they would get so big, so fast. On July 28th, Amazon announced that Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoohas become the first e-book to sell a million copies.

It won’t be the last. Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson are quickly closing in on what Amazon is calling the “Kindle Million Club” for authors who have sold over a million Amazon Kindle e-books. Charlaine Harris and Nora Roberts with more than 500,000 Kindle book sales each, will soon join them.

I doubt, however, that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the first e-book to cross the million copy downloaded barrier. Amazon after all isn’t the only company to sell e-books. Barnes & Noble was also selling copies of the novel for its Nook e-book reader.

Long before either of those showed up though and started the current tidal wave of e-book popularity, there was Project Gutenberg with its over 33,000 free and public domain e-books. Project Gutenberg , and e-books, dates back to 1971 long before there were even PCs, never mind dedicated e-readers or popular entertainment tablets like the Apple iPad.

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I get that Apple’s iPad is hotter than hot with over 3-million sold so far, but, please, to say “Apple has won the battle for tablet computing already” is really over-reaching. I mean, come on, the Android Linux-based tablets, or if you insist, the iPad killers, were only supposed to start showing up in mid-summer.

Guess what? They’re finally starting to show up. The Dell Streak, a cross between a smartphone and a tablet, will be out later this summer. It will first show up with Android 1.6 under the hood, but it will be user upgradeable to Android 2.2, Froyo, the latest Android release.

At the same time, Kmart, of all places, is advertising the Augen 7-inch tablet, the GENTOUCH78, on sale for just $150 through July 31. Don’t rush out to your local Kmart though. The demand has already, sight unseen, been so high for this tablet that most Kmart retail stores are handing out rain-checks.

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One important piece of a multilevel security defense for companies of almost any size is network access control (NAC), which lets you enforce policies for end-user machines.

The basic idea behind NAC — which can include hardware, software or a combination — is deceptively simple. Before any end user’s computer — an endpoint — is allowed on the corporate network, a NAC makes the computer prove that it complies with the company’s security policies. For example, you could set up a NAC to refuse to let a user’s PC on the company LAN until the PC reports that it has all the latest patches for its operating system and office software and that it has the latest updates for the corporate antivirus program. If it doesn’t have the goods, the device is not getting on the network.

Although the theory behind NAC is deceptively simple, the marketplace reality is anything but. It requires that network administrators piece together hardware and software from multiple vendors, unless you’re willing to go with an all-in-one solution and risk vendor lock-in. And, with NAC, whatever you decide to do, there are usually multiple ways to do it.

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The latest panic in desktop Linux lad was that Dell would no longer be selling Ubuntu pre-installed on laptops and netbooks. Alas, for those who love drama, it wasn’t true. In fact, Dell is expanding its Ubuntu desktop Linux offerings.

Gerry Carr the marketing manager for Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, told me that the stories that Dell will no longer be offering Ubuntu pre-installed on its hardware were “NOT true .” Now, Anne Camden, a Dell PR manager, tells me that far from moving away from Ubuntu Linux, Dell is offering more Ubuntu choices than ever.

Camden said, “Ironically, we JUST added the Ubuntu desktop today [July 27th]. While the original plan a few months ago was to transition to the current generation Inspiron desktop, we changed direction. The Linux team decided that there might be more applications/better appreciation for a more powerful option, so we just released the Studio XPS 7100 desktop with Ubuntu Desktop 10.04 installed.”

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People seem to love bad news. This last weekend, the ‘bad’ news was that Dell has stopped offering Ubuntu Linux pre-installed on laptops and netbooks. There was only one problem with the story: It’s not true.

While Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, won’t be making their official statement on the situation until tomorrow, July 28th, Gerry Carr Canonical’s marketing manager, told me today that the stories that Dell will no longer be offering Ubuntu pre-installed on its hardware “is NOT true.” In addition, a Dell representative said that “Dell has no plans to discontinue its Ubuntu offerings.”

So, calm down already with the headlines like “Get This Damned Ubuntu Out Of Dell’s Internets!” Or, it’s Digg variant, “WTF? Dell Drops All Ubuntu-Loaded Machines From Online Store.” Chill already.

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