This week is the final installment in my four-week series on open source software alternatives. My goal has been to provide you with a list of software applications that duplicate what is commercially available and just maybe save you a few bucks. I encourage you to always seek out open source alternatives before you plunk down your hard-earned dollars. You can find them by simply googling your software...read more

This week we are continuing our discussion of open source software that aims to replace or eliminate the need to pay outlandish prices for commercial software. Previously we discussed biggies like replacing Microsoft Office with Open Office, Photoshop with GIMP/Paint.NET, and tools for protecting your computer from viruses, spyware, and for working with PDFs. The focus this week will be on audio/video...read more

This week I'm going to continue with my list of Open Source software alternatives to save you a few bucks. Last week I talked about some of the biggies, Open Office to replace Microsoft Office, GIMP and Paint.NET to replace Photoshop, and some great music tools.

Let's turn to desktop email/calendar clients.

•Thunderbird, http://www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/, is an excellent...read more

A regular theme in my columns has been Open Source versus corporate-driven software. This week, I'm going to provide you with a list of excellent free software that can replace common software that people pay good money for. I'll still assume you're paying for the operating system (Windows or OSX), unless you're a die hard Linux fan, in which case this is old hat to you.

Let's...read more

During high school, I interned and volunteered at a planetarium and had my own 6 inch telescope. In college my major was Astrophysics, the result of a childhood dream of understanding the stars, the galaxies, and the universe. I have always been fascinated by space and it's wonderful to now have at my fingertips more information and better images than even the telescopes at UCLA displayed. Now...read more

A few years ago I read a book called "Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz. The book delves into our modern life and explores how the staggering number of choices we have available to us can actually cause us to freeze up. Just think what happens in your mind while you're standing in front of the toothpaste aisle.

I think it's time for a revise on the book, this time dealing with...read more

As a kid, I was fascinated by science, going through dinosaurs, my Radio Shack 160-in-1 electronics kit, starter microscope kit, and then my first telescope. Man, was I missing out! Kids today have at their fingertips more knowledge than was known at any prior point in history. It's just up to their imagination and a little help from Mom and Dad to begin the exploration.

I started putting together...read more

I was sitting at a restaurant this past weekend, reading a book on my Kindle when my phone beeped to tell me that I'd just received an email at my Google account. Popping open my phone, I noticed that it had connected to the restaurants WiFi network for me, enabling faster browsing. I opened up the Gmail app and started to read the email. It was from a friend of mine who recommended a book that...read more

I'm a gadget guy; I love anything with bells and whistles, or more appropriately, circuits and buttons. I also like building things. So you can imagine my delight in discovering a company called RepRap. They've been around for awhile, and I've checked in every so often to see how they are progressing, and they've finally reached the point where I want one.

RepRap is a company that...read more

Since I spent the past few columns talking about world-altering technologies, I felt that this week, I'd just kick back and talk about a bunch of cool little things.

First up is something I haven't had a chance to personally check out yet, but will as soon as things slow down a bit. I'm talking about a cool new storefront that's opened in Boise. It's called the Gamers Cave. Located...read more

The computer is arguably the most important tool that has been developed in our history. Most of us interact with one on a daily basis and we are all faced with the same challenge of getting information in and out of these pesky devices. We've even had to coin new terms for the impact it's had on our health. From carpal tunnel and gamer thumb, to qwerty-itis (the impressions on your face when...read more

A team of UCLA scientists have found that Myelin (the fatty layer of insulation coating neural wiring in the brain) plays a critical role in determining intelligence. The amount of Myelin is largely genetically determined. And as you remember from one of my past columns, we're getting close to being able to genetically engineer humans to spec. Read the full article from Technology Review.

Recently...read more

I saw this the other day as I was Stumbling. Has to be one of the coolest gadgets ever! Tell me you don't want it!

H+ magazine, the first magazine devoted to the transhumanist crowd is out with a new edition. You can download it for free. And guess what's on page 3, a nice follow up to my last article. A company called Knome that provides personal, encrypted gene sequences, delivered to you on a memory stick. They even keep you updated with new anaylsis, letting you know what's happening on the forefront...read more

This week is part three in my future technology series and this week I'm going to talk a little bit about one of the scarier new technologies that is coming to maturity. That technology is 'GM' - genetic manipulation

The Human Genome Project was funded by Congress and launched in October 1990 and was completed on April 14, 2003. The goal was to completely sequence the human genome, and...read more