So about 6 months ago I decided to finally to go Mac. I had been driven to the edge by Outlook on Windows - possibly the worst piece of code ever crafted. I had just suffered too much at its mercy and I would try anything to escape. So after years of sh*t-talking about Mac - I swallowed my pride and jumped in with both feet. Because at the time we were running Microsoft Exchange I couldn’t go with Linux on the laptop (no usable exchange client) and I’d always have my linux desktops nearby should I need to get any work done; so there was little risk to swapping the Windows laptop for a shiny new Macbook Pro.
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Written by Dirk Morris

I recently enjoyed reading SpiceWorks’ recent blog on why they chose to target the small business market. They clearly understand the S in SMBs and their buying behavior, which is crucial if you’re planning on attacking the small business market. I thought I’d follow up with a similar post explaining why Untangle targets small business.
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Written by Dirk Morris

Andrew Morton will be speaking at the Bay Area Linux Users Group (BALUG) on June 24th. Andrew is a lead Linux kernel developer and a key kernel maintainer. We’re glad to have helped BALUG recruit such an outstanding speaker and thank our friends at the Linux Foundation for their help with introductions to Mr. Morton. The meeting is free (dinner = $13) and open to the public, so we hope to see you there!

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Written by Andrew Fife

Yikes! It’s happened to me….

Well, OK, I thankfully didn’t have my ID stolen (at least I don’t think so). But I did have a credit card number pilfered, along with it’s Zip Code. That led to my street address (EZ). And the chain appeared to have stopped there.How did I find out? How was it stolen? What actions did I take? How worried am I?

Read on….

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Written by Bob Walters

Sourceforge’s 2008 Community Choice awards are open for nomination. Voting will begin after the nomination period concludes on June 20th and the award winners will be announced at OSCON on July 24th. If you’re planning on participating, here’s a reminder of some of the the amazing projects that Untangle leverages:

• SpamAssassin
• Vipul’s Razor
• FuzzyOCR
• Snort
• ClamAV
• iptables
• OpenVPN
• L7-Filter

…and if you want to nominate Untangle, you can do so here.

Written by Andrew Fife

One of the “mega” trends happening in small business IT today is the transition of traditional hardware focused VARs into managed service providers (MSPs). Yet, for all the prognostication and predictions, no clear industry best practices have emerged about what exactly delivering managed services means. What are the core services that every MSP should aspire to deliver to their customers? What should they cost? What does a typical MSP customer look like… Are they big, small or clustered in particular geographies or verticals?

In order to add clarity to these questions, Untangle is launching an MSP Benchmark Study in partnership with the Pacifica Group. The study will provide an objective set of business metrics with insight into the range of MSP business models and performance. We hope that the study will serve as a resource for existing MSPs to see how they compare with their peers and offer guidance to traditional VARs, consultants and systems integrators considering making the transition.

If you’re an MSP or VAR considering making the transition we’d love to include your experiences into the study! The survey takes about 15 minutes and can be found here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=fz9rscXI52F3PNQoFuyCRA_3d_3d\

Written by Andrew Fife

The results are in! Congrats to Fortinet - today’s top performer. Fortinet blocked about 98% of porn sites in the test site. Others blocked about 94-98% of porn sites, so the competition was pretty close.
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Written by Dirk Morris

On April 9th @ 12:15 at the Thirsty Bear Brewing company (near the RSA conference) we’ll be hosting our second Fightclub, the Deep Throat Fightclub! Similar to our previous Fightclub (here, here), we’ll be doing a live test of several products - this time focused on porn filtering.
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Written by Dirk Morris

…That aint workin thats the way you do it
Money for nothin and chicks for free….

- Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms

Great band, and a rallying song for many (teenage boys) in the late ’80’s.

How does this apply to commercial open source software companies?

Well, we are expected to make money for nothing, i.e., money from software that is free by definition.

Let’s take a look at how this may be done - and at how Untangle does it…

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Written by Bob Walters

Is software development a science or an art?

The software industry treats it as a science. It uses processes like MRDs, PRDs, and functional specs to convert customer needs into software that solves their problems. Various roles like product managers, engineering managers, project managers, architects, and programmers work together to drive the process like an efficient machine. Programmers are usually referred to as software engineers, but unlike mechanical, civil, and other kinds of engineers, software engineers don’t have any certification process or formal requirements. In fact, technically, software engineers aren’t engineers at all.

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Written by Dirk Morris