When we’re kids, we learn stories of the past from our grandparents, often involving their parents and grandparents. How many of you remember those stories? What about the names of the people involved? Those of you with your hands up, are you into genealogy? I’ve been working on it for a couple of years now, and I just love this program, GRAMPS.

Lakin Hospital, a long-term nursing facility operated by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, has adopted an open source electronic health record.

It was time for a new computer for my Grandparents. Their ancient Windows 98 PC had become so slow that it was unusable. The replacement, an inexpensive Acer PC, came with Windows Vista preinstalled. It was up to me to set up the new computer and support it. So I decided to wipe out Vista with a Debian 4 base install and set up an easy to use environment for my Grandparents.

We've just implemented a new feature that allows you to save stories for future reference. This makes it easier to find those stories you really wanted to bookmark for later while still allowing you to vote up stories you want to support or draw attention to. More details in the full story...

Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder and CEO, is the genius behind some of the most innovative and influential tech products in history.

The lack of new jobs continues to be an issue even for San Francisco Bay Area tech companies. So, how are unemployed developers and technologists supposed to find work? One solution: learn new skills.

I use some common Linux tools to remotely support my Grandparents’ PC. These tools are SSH and X11vnc. X11vnc lets me take over the display, and the VNC traffic is tunneled with SSH.

What tech skills are in demand? One measure comes from eLance, a global online workplace of contract jobs. The company's monthly Top 100 Online Work Index for August, set for official release Tuesday, shows a big jump in several tech-related positions.

With the global economy in a depression, most people cannot currently afford to buy a new computer. But, you don't have to.