The Curious Engineer

All blogs / Computing history

Jason Eckert's Website and Blog

jasoneckert.github.io

My personal website and blog

Computing historyTech news / industryLinux / UnixEssays / personal

’05’10’15’20’25
Posts
262 from 18 Aug 2004 to 1 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (15 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://jasoneckert.github.io/index.xml

2026 12

  1. Microsoft Keeps Trying to Name the Future
  2. The Terminal Before the Terminal
  3. Another Special Family Vacation
  4. A Brief History of Computing
  5. How Nature Benefits Us
  6. Open Source Gatherings Still Rock in 2026
  7. The Return of the UNIX Workstation (Now With AI)
  8. Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM
  9. The Rise of Local AI (and Why It Won’t Replace Cloud AI)
  10. What I Learned Running Two College Video Game Programs (2011-2018)
  11. I Used Em Dashes Before AI Made Them Popular
  12. How Microsoft (Probably) Killed My Snapdragon Dev Kit

2025 15

  1. 2025 in Review
  2. Grace Blackwell Desktop Supercomputer: First Impressions
  3. Sick of cables? Switch to 5G Home Internet!
  4. Windows on ARM: One Year Later
  5. Introduction to Hugo
  6. Win10 Is Nearing End-of-Life: What Should You Do Next?
  7. Demonstrating the Power of Apple Silicon using Actuated CI
  8. Janet Jackson's Denial of Service (DoS) Attack
  9. Happy Canada Day!
  10. How an Ancient PowerBook Captured a Summer Vacation
  11. It’s Still Your Call: Ethics in the Age of AI
  12. The Story Behind the Mac vs PC Rivalry — And Where Linux Quietly Took Over
  13. Canada: The Unsung Hero of AI Innovation
  14. Leveraging WSL2 for Systems & Cloud Administration, Cybersecurity, and Software Development
  15. Tips to Evolve Your Tech Career in the Age of AI

2024 15

  1. 2024 in Review
  2. Running an LLM locally using Ollama
  3. Installing a Fedora Linux ARM VM from a Raw Image
  4. Copilot+ PC Review: Windows on ARM is finally here
  5. Maximizing Your Hiking Experience
  6. Practical Cybersafety for Everyone
  7. Configuring GitHub Discussions to provide Blog Comments
  8. 7 Tips for a Healthy Digital Lifestyle
  9. Demystifying Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  10. How I Keep my Linux Textbook Updated for New Versions
  11. The Rise of RISC-V and Open Hardware
  12. Tips for Maintaining a Growth Mindset
  13. Remembering Pepper
  14. 40 years of Macintosh
  15. Extending the life of an Intel-based Mac using Windows 11

2023 15

  1. 2023 in Review
  2. Setting up a Raspberry Pi Home Server
  3. Essential keyboard shortcuts (Windows/macOS/Linux/UNIX)
  4. Linux Distro Hopping is a Bad Idea
  5. Bob Gunderson Tribute
  6. An Extra Special Family Vacation
  7. Running a Mainstream Linux Distro Natively on Apple Silicon: Fedora Asahi Remix First Impressions
  8. How to Leverage Music for Maximum Tech Productivity
  9. So, you’re curious about software development?
  10. My first textbook is now in its sixth edition
  11. I've now been teaching tech for 25 years!
  12. Linux is making Apple Great Again
  13. The Ultimate Linux ARM64 Workstation
  14. Fun Facts About Linux
  15. The Time I Yoga-Balled an Apple Store Employee

2022 15

  1. 2022 in Review
  2. Reboot your mind once a day
  3. RISCy business: The long and convoluted rise of today's dominant computing platform
  4. How modern open source projects work
  5. How Linux Certification Has Evolved Over The Years
  6. Dual-booting Asahi Linux on your Apple Silicon Mac
  7. The Power of Swag in the Tech Industry
  8. macOS for Linux admins (2022 refresh)
  9. Ontario's Computer Part 2: The LEXICON Server
  10. Ontario's Computer: The Burroughs ICON
  11. Configuring the i3 Window Manager
  12. Brewing the Best Coffee
  13. The Power of RISC architecture
  14. SPARCbook teardown
  15. Understanding the Cult of Mac

2021 15

  1. 2021 in Review
  2. Kubernetes Quickstart
  3. Installing a fast Linux server on an M1-based Mac
  4. ARM on the desktop is here to stay
  5. An overview of cloud buzz words
  6. Work-from-home is the new BlackBerry
  7. Copyleft is dying
  8. It's a great time to be a developer
  9. UNIX/Linux is now a core skill for anyone working in tech
  10. Cybersecurity in a Nutshell
  11. The future looks a lot like mainframe computing
  12. Relating Silicon Valley to the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor
  13. Mastering the Zen of TrackPoint
  14. The computer that saved Apple
  15. An introduction to WireGuard VPN

2020 19

  1. 2020 in review
  2. Seldom discussed tips for working in the tech industry
  3. 5 Z shell features that will encourage you to switch from Bash
  4. Why I love teaching online
  5. A brief history of technology
  6. Cybersecurity in the early 1990's
  7. Most people don't want a computer
  8. Open does not always mean Open Source
  9. Tracing difficult shell scripts
  10. So, you think online conferencing is new?
  11. Fundamental computer science concepts every software developer should know
  12. The old Web was fun
  13. Customizing macOS for development
  14. FreeBSD UNIX for Linux sysadmins
  15. Microsoft turns 45
  16. Getting the most out of your online course
  17. Tips to survive teaching an online course
  18. How to write an academic technical textbook
  19. I finally beat Tetris!

2019 18

  1. 2019 in review
  2. Reviving an ancient BSD UNIX workstation
  3. Why you should use technology less
  4. What it's like a year after quitting Facebook
  5. How to learn vi (vim)
  6. What Nokia tells us about the Internet in 2008
  7. The different faces of open source software
  8. Apple is regressing to their 1990s disposition
  9. Rest in Peace, MAD Magazine
  10. The UNIX Philosophy in 2019
  11. The Dark Side of GNU
  12. How ricing shifted from cars to computers
  13. SPARCbook 3000ST: The coolest 90s laptop
  14. Pop!_OS: The first real Linux desktop
  15. The Power of Open Source Software
  16. Cult of Mac Book
  17. 35th Anniversary of the Macintosh Computer
  18. Using the Windows Subsystem for Linux

2018 12

  1. 2018 in review
  2. SSH Foo
  3. Three reasons why incubators breed failure
  4. How the cloud grew up around Linux
  5. A simple guide to git
  6. Devops Demystified
  7. Blockchain for IT pros
  8. Halt and Catch Fire
  9. Lessons I've learned from teaching 20 years of IT
  10. Ultimate UNIX timeline
  11. RIP PowerBook
  12. The history of IT certification

2017 9

  1. 2017 in review
  2. RIP Solaris
  3. Windows and macOS could move to Linux
  4. Get ready for the chip wars!
  5. Why you should buy an old arcade machine
  6. Finding Idylwild Park
  7. 50 shades of Cray
  8. Futuretech '92
  9. The future of smartphones

2016 9

  1. 2016 in review
  2. 10 years of Facebook humour
  3. An evening with The Woz
  4. The Linux operating system turns 25 years old today
  5. The World Wide Web turns 25 years old today
  6. The dawn of personal computing
  7. Some NeXT level stuff
  8. Video Game Reflections
  9. PowerShell Essentials for SysAdmins

2015 4

  1. 2015 in review
  2. World of Commodore conference
  3. Video game transcendental meditation
  4. Breathe new life into an old PowerBook G4 using Linux

2014 8

  1. 2014 in review
  2. GMOs explained
  3. The fastest computer I have ever owned!
  4. The evolution of BYOD
  5. 100 silly facts about ME
  6. George H. Jenner
  7. Microsoft ReFS vs Oracle ZFS - FIGHT!
  8. Great Canadian Appathon 4

2013 8

  1. Impressed by a 10 year old desktop computer
  2. Why BlackBerry failed
  3. A look back at the dotcom bubble
  4. GAME ON 2.0 wraps up!
  5. The evolution of Information Technology
  6. Reddit took down my website!
  7. Marshall McLuhan was right
  8. GAME ON 2.0 and triOS College

2012 13

  1. Driving educational change
  2. The best keynote presentation of all time!
  3. The Galaga no fire cheat mystery
  4. Mocap in action
  5. A successful hackathon at our Kitchener campus!
  6. Arcade game CPUs
  7. How the term 'cloud' was invented
  8. How to properly pronounce Galaga
  9. Guide to buying old arcade games
  10. How our video games evolved over time
  11. QNX on a moon rover
  12. SOPA and PIPA
  13. Using Google like a pro

2011 9

  1. 2011 in review
  2. Perspective on RIM
  3. RIM is dead. Long live RIM.
  4. Hard drives are dead
  5. How I threw my back out playing Angry Birds
  6. The transputer
  7. The rise and fall of DEC
  8. All about DEC
  9. Atari 2600 deep dive

2010 8

  1. The Gospel of Tux v1.0
  2. BCE, CE, and the new IE
  3. Funny Internet Shakespeare typo
  4. eBook pilot
  5. NeXTSTEP is cool
  6. Jaron Lanier on technology
  7. BlackBerry 950 teardown
  8. Copyright in Canada

2009 7

  1. The Amazon Kindle ROCKS!
  2. The famous Pentium FDIV bug
  3. Anatomy of an AS/400
  4. The death of SGI
  5. 10 years of UserFriendly.org
  6. Happy Epoch Day!
  7. BlackBerry then and now

2008 13

  1. I created the Internet
  2. CrackBerry Book
  3. War Games shell scripting fun
  4. How to please your IT department
  5. How to do an out-of-office auto reply
  6. Bill Gates steps down today
  7. IBM hard drive from 1981
  8. The Nostradamus of UNIX
  9. The UNIX way
  10. Are you a Mac or a PC?
  11. Linuxtopia
  12. Netscape RIP 1994-2008
  13. History of game consoles

2007 16

  1. The end of 2007
  2. The Amazon Kindle: Friend or foe?
  3. Anniversary of the World Wide Web
  4. Thank you, Apple
  5. Ontario Linux Fest
  6. More about Open Source Software and Linux
  7. The wicked witch is dead
  8. Server closet Buddha shrine
  9. Richard Stallman talk at UW
  10. When Marketing chooses the cover
  11. eMac family photo frame
  12. Roughing it on vacation
  13. iPhone first impressions
  14. Microsoft Energize IT conference
  15. Linux thin clients
  16. Big fish

2006 4

  1. iThink therefore iMac
  2. Summer is here. Finally.
  3. Computer evolution
  4. New Years security resolutions for 2006

2004 1

  1. Old Macs never die

Undated 17

  1. 1. Operating Systems
  2. 1. What do I do?
  3. 2. My published books
  4. 2. Retro Computers
  5. 3. Arcade Games
  6. 3. Personal Interests
  7. 4. Tech Flicks
  8. 5. Tech T-Shirt Slogans
  9. 6. Tech Humour and Puns
  10. 7. Three Unconventional Tips for Career Success
  11. City Trails
  12. Cyberpunk, Sci-Fi & General Fiction
  13. Destination Trails
  14. Non-Fiction & Biographies
  15. This website contains zero AI-generated text
  16. Trails in and around Algonquin Provincial Park
  17. Video Game Books