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Having an open mind and admitting when you are wrong is a noble quality. Those that are stubborn and continue with bad ideas just to save face are very foolish. With all of that said, sometimes you have to stick with your decisions despite negative feedback because you know they are right. After all, detractors can often be very loud, but not necessarily large in numbers. Not to mention, you can't please everyone, so being indecisive or "wishy-washy" in an effort to quash negativity can make you look weak. And Canonical looks very weak today.

When the company announced it was planning to essentially stop supporting 32-bit packages beginning with the upcoming Ubuntu 19.10, I was quite impressed. Look, folks, it is 2019 -- 64-bit processors have been commonplace for a long time. It's time to pull the damn 32-bit band-aid off and get on with things. Of course, there was some negativity surrounding the decision -- as is common with everything in the world today. In particular, developers of WINE were upset, since their Windows compatibility layer depends on 32-bit, apparently. True Linux users would never bother with WINE, but I digress.

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With technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT and advanced analytics hitting a critical mass, it’s no surprise that the big data market continues to grow rapidly. According to a forecast by Statista, the big data market reached $42 billion dollars in 2018 and is expected to reach $64 billion by 2021.

Big data presents major opportunities for organizations to gain new insights, deliver better products and improve operations, but the traditional storage approach to big data is fraught with many challenges. It’s time for another way.

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Windows 10 was released on July 29, 2015. Anxious to deploy its enhanced security features, some organizations completed migration to the new OS well in advance of the January 14, 2020 deadline for end of support of Windows 7. As such, their IT teams have worked through the inevitable issues that come with the massive deployment. But, despite all of the discussions around management and updates, these enterprise teams are in a significant minority.

According to a recent survey, only 15 percent of enterprises have completed migration, and approximately a quarter of respondents anticipate that they will not fully convert before Windows 7 support ends. There are numerous reasons for this -- lack of time, lack of resources, and fears about greater management responsibilities are among the biggest culprits. With so many organizations unprepared for a migration deadline that is only a few short months away and Microsoft showing no signs of shifting the end-of-support timeline, companies are asking what they should do. Here are some options.

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According to the results of a new survey 54 percent of enterprises think their organization's security is not mature enough to keep up with the rapid expansion of cloud apps.

The study from Symantec of over 1,200 security decision makers around the world shows that 53 percent of all enterprise computing workload has now been migrated to the cloud, but 93 percent of respondents report issues with keeping tabs on all their cloud workloads.

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We know that phishing attacks are gaining in sophistication and are one of the most popular ways of hackers and cybercriminals gaining access to an organization's systems.

But this type of attack is notoriously difficult to guard against using technology and employee awareness is a big part of any business' defense strategy. This is underlined by a new report from awareness training company KnowBe4 which looks at the level of risk and finds that 29.6 percent of organizations are 'phish-prone'.

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Starting with Firefox 68, Mozilla's web browser began to use Microsoft BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) to deliver updates -- the same technique that is used by Windows Update.

With the arrival of Firefox 70, BITS will be utilized with a dedicated update agent in place as a proxy rather than simply being part of the browser itself, allowing updates to be more easily installed.

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The Raspberry Pi was originally designed to provide an ultra-cheap way to encourage kids to code, but the uncased credit card sized computer has found an appreciative audience well outside of the education system, going on to sell over a million Pis in its first year alone. Each new iteration of the Pi has added something new, including a 64-bit processor, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and Power over Ethernet (PoE) via a HAT.

Today, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announces the Raspberry Pi 4, and it’s a game changer, offering three times the processing power and four times the multimedia performance of its predecessor, the Raspberry Pi 3+. And that’s not all.

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If you want a computer with a Linux-based operating system pre-installed, you can never go wrong with System76 or Dell. Of course, those two companies are hardly the only ones selling Linux-powered computers. For instance, the UK-based Star Labs also sells machines with Ubuntu and Linux Mint -- two very good operating systems.

Well, Star Labs has seemingly gotten the memo on how great Zorin OS is, as the computer seller is now offering laptops with that operating system pre-installed. Zorin OS is an operating system that is ideal for those that want to switch from Windows, so having it pre-installed gives a new option for those not prepared to install a Linux-based OS on their own.

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It is only a few days since Canonical announced that it was dropping support for 32-bit packages as of Ubuntu 19.10. The fall out from this is now being felt.

While there were many developers who were not happy with the decision, Linux-based gamers are now likely to be more than slightly annoyed. Steam has announced that "Ubuntu 19.10 and future releases will not be officially supported by Steam or recommended to our users".

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When is a monitor not just a monitor? When it doubles as a Thunderbolt 3 docking station. The latest 27-inch 4K display from BenQ is called "PD2720U," and yes, it essentially has an integrated TB3 dock. In fact, with a single cable, this monitor can charge your laptop, display video, and provide USB ports (USB 3.1 gen 2) for things like mice, keyboards, and more.

Taking things even further, the PD2720U has a second Thunderbolt 3 port for connecting a TB3 device. In other words, you can daisy chain an external GPU, TB3 SSD, or even another display to the computer -- still having just one wire connected to it.

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At its Build 2019 developer conference earlier this year, Microsoft revealed the Linux-inspired Windows Terminal, which gives access to the Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) in one place.

The code has been available to download and compile for a little while, but now Microsoft has released a ready-made Windows Terminal app for anyone to try out.

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A leaked document has shed light on what it is like to work at Microsoft. It reveals the software and online services that Microsoft either prohibits or discourages employees from using, and there are some big names on the list.

One of the most well-known tools to be slapped with a ban is Slack, with others including the grammar checker Grammarly and security software from Kaspersky. The cloud-version of Microsoft-owned GitHub features on a list of "discouraged" tools and services.

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Privacy-focused ProtonMail has lashed out at Google, saying the "confidential mode" available in Gmail is "misleading" and "little more than a marketing strategy". It says that people "don't need to settle for fake privacy"

Pointing out that Gmail's confidential mode lack end-to-end encryption, ProtonMail says that the email service is "not secure or private". The company says that Gmail can still read your emails, and that expiring emails are not as secure as Google would have users believe.

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Sharing files using the cloud is very convenient, but understandably, some people are hesitant to do so with sensitive or private information. These privacy-conscious folks may be looked at as "paranoid" by some, but you know what? As more and more breaches occur, it is becoming harder to trust the cloud with files. And so, the "tinfoil hat" wearers start to look quite sensible.

As an example, popular cloud-based file-sharing service WeTransfer has failed in epic fashion. You see, the company not only shared files with the intended recipients, but with random strangers too! Yes, that private information you didn't want seen by anyone other than your intended audience may have been viewed by the wrong person. Good lord.

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As of version 19.10, Ubuntu will no longer support i386. With the arrival of Eoan Ermine, Ubuntu is severing 32-bit ties, and some developers are concerned.

The move is not entirely unexpected. The Ubuntu developers had previously said it would make an i386 decision in the middle of 2019. That time having rolled around, the Ubuntu engineering team says that it "has reviewed the facts before us and concluded that we should not continue to carry i386 forward as an architecture". WINE developers are among those unhappy with the decision.

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