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I Want a Better Mac, so I’m Cheering for a Better Linux

By Timothy R. Butler | Apr 02, 2025 at 11:04 PM

My recent column on Apple’s declining software quality hit a nerve. So why do any of us put up with software that grows increasingly buggy? One word: hardware.

Apple Needs a Snow Sequoia

By Timothy R. Butler | Mar 19, 2025 at 5:35 PM

The same year Apple launched the iPhone, it unveiled a massive upgrade to Mac OS X known as Leopard, sporting “300 New Features.” Two years later, it did something almost unheard of: it released Snow Leopard, an upgrade all about how little it added and how much it took away. Apple needs to make it snow again.

Chasing the Unified Messaging Dream

By Timothy R. Butler | Feb 26, 2025 at 10:51 PM

Microsoft gave it a try in 1999 and failed. The same tantalizing possibility returns every few years: a single place to communicate rather than an ever-expanding cacophony of apps, each with its own quirks. Are we any closer to this hope a quarter century later?

Tech Shouldn’t Die Young, But Increasingly Does

By Timothy R. Butler | Feb 19, 2025 at 11:29 PM

The Humane Pin has died and HP has killed it. The burial of last year’s tech darling, DOA as its concept was from the get-go, isn’t that important in itself, but continues the troubling trend of things we buy dying unnatural deaths.

KiiBoom Phantom 81: The Loudly Quiet Keyboard

By Timothy R. Butler | Jan 29, 2025 at 10:39 PM

KiiBoom isn’t exactly a name that rolls off the tongue. The company’s Phantom 81 is what their name is not: smooth, with glossy acrylic keys and custom lubricated switches.

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OFB's Timothy R. Butler has been being putting gadgets, serious tech and useful bits for around the home to the test for almost two decades. He's testy so you know it passed the test.

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