OK, up until now I am talking about broad principles and governments. The reason I went off in that direction is to make the point that most reasonable people in free countries do understand, accept and support reasonable limitations on free speech. By the strictest definition of the word these examples are all forms of censorship. Censorship, in and of itself, is not evil.

No, this isn't another rant about how you should convert to Linux because it's free, although it is free. Free is a four-letter word among those who scoff at the mere mention of Linux. Yes, Linux is free, but that doesn't give it an unfair advantage on the desktop because most computers arrive preloaded with Windows — so to the buyer it appears Windows is also free.

There are several reasons why one should prefer LATEX to a WYSIWYG word processor like Microsoft Word: portability, lightness, security are just a few of them (not to mention that LATEX is free).

The Kubuntu desktop is clean and familiar, with lots of bells and whistles. Now that I'm back doing freelance work again, tweaking the very cool resident desktop features, all the time, is beginning to distract me from pursuing fame and fortune as a humble word-smith.

In discussing the motivation behind its newly launched Windows Server 2008 Foudation product, there’s one word the folks from Microsoft were loathe to mention: Linux.

AbiWord is a free opensource word processing program like Microsoft Word or Openoffice. Abiword is a light weight multi-platform word processor and is rapidly becoming a state of the art Word Processor, with lots of features useful for your daily work, personal needs, or for just some good old typing fun.

Ken Starks is one of my favorite people. He is the prime mover behind Komputers 4 Kids, Tux500, and Lindependence 2008. He makes his living selling and supporting Linux systems to businesses and home users.

Sometimes, no matter how much you try to protect your computer, you need to get down and dirty with the hardware. Sometimes it's the obvious. I never cease to be amazed at how many PC problems turn out to be loose cables or -- the shame of it all! -- an unplugged electrical cord. But, other times, it will be you vs. your PC's internal workings in a battle for system superiority.

Sometimes you need a word processing application but not an entire office suite. Today we take a look at AbiWord which is a free word processor for all three major OS platforms.