I'm not generally a privacy nut when it comes to my digital life. That's not really a good thing, as I think privacy is important, but it often can be very inconvenient. For example, if you strolled into my home office, you'd find I don't password-protect my screensaver.

Recently I wrote a review for the Linux Journal Web site on the Purism Librem 15 laptop. The goal of this laptop is to provide a piece of modern hardware that can run 100% free software not just for the OS, but also all device drivers and firmware up to and including the BIOS.

One of the things that makes Python so powerful is that you can find a module for almost anything. In this article, I cover Astropy, which was originally developed by the Space Telescope Science Institute for doing astronomy calculations like image processing and observatory calculations.

In last month's issue, I talked about Linux permissions (see "It's Better to Ask Forgiveness..." in the May 2015 UpFront section). I could have covered SUID, GUID and sticky bit in the same article, but it seemed like a lot to cover in one sitting.

Because you're a reader of Linux Journal, you probably already know that Linux has a rich virtualization ecosystem. KVM is the de facto standard, and VirtualBox is widely used for desktop virtualization. Veterans should remember Xen (it's still in a good shape, by the way), and there is also VMware (which isn't free but runs on Linux as well).

The first time I used vi was in a college programming course. It was the default editor on the computer lab's UNIX systems we used to compile our assignments. I remember when our professor first introduced vi and explained that you used the hjkl keys to move your cursor around instead of the arrow keys.

I love my latest Android device (see the March 2015 issue's Open-Source Classroom column for details), but for some reason, it won't automatically connect to my Bluetooth headset. When I turn on my headset, I want it to connect to my Android device so I can start using it right away.

I've always been a fan of putting aftermarket firmware on consumer-grade routers. Whether it's DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT or whatever your favorite flavor of "better than stock" firmware might be, it just makes economic sense. Unfortunately, my routing needs have surpassed my trusty Linksys router.

I work at a university, and one of our faculty members often repeats to me, "Software needs to be like a rock; it needs to be that easy to use." And, she's right. Because if software is too hard to use, no one will want to use it.