Open source: Comfortable in his new digs and actually starting to enjoy himself, Randall Kennedy begins The Ubuntu Plunge Day 3 with, “a funny thing happened to me on the way to the Web this morning.” That would be an alert coming from Windows Defender that led to, well, panic, and then time spent scanning until he earned a clean bill of health. “Then it hit me: I had just wasted over an hour of my life chasing down a phantom malware infection. It was a disturbing sensation, more so since I hadn’t experienced anything like it in several days — ever since I started my odyssey into Linux-land.” Now, to be fair, Kennedy points out Windows is the target it is because it’s everywhere. Even still, “I can’t help but think of all the things I’m missing since booting back into my ‘Gutsy Gibbon’ install: spyware; viruses; and (most importantly) fear.” Columnist’s corner: What with its new mobile device platform, otherwise known as Android, Google is hoping to tap into untold creativity and innovation that has thus far been stifled by the wireless carriers. “This news should be like ringtones to your ears — except that Google is so wrong on this one, so wrong,” David Margulius asserts in My Google phone hangup. “Google didn’t give the people what they wanted — a gPhone would turn out to be a true iPhone competitor. But instead, what we got was an idealistic press release and a vision of a messy cornucopia of software (and ads) competing for pixels on everyone’s mobile screen. I think I’ll stick with my current mobile setup for now.” Related: Microsoft CEO Ballmer says Android is just words on paper. Tech’s bottom line: Dell’s bid to acquire EqualLogic marks not only Dell’s biggest takeover but also a radical shift. “It’s a smart move. The acquisition has dinged both EMC and its daughter company, VMware, as well as Network Appliance,” Bill Snyder writes in Dell reinvents itself. There’s the rub: Dell “doesn’t invent much, other than a once-great business model.” The real value of the deal, according to one analyst at least, is that EqualLogic figured out iSCSI and virtualization are two great tastes that taste great together. The news beat: Red Hat teams with Amazon to deliver Linux on demand, with a private beta available now and a public one due by year’s end. Processor maker ARM’s CEO Warren East talks of iPhone, Android and Acorns in an interview with the IDG News Service. IBM touts new datacenter management tools it claims can reduce costs. And AMD brings GPU technologies to high-performance computing with a new chip package, the FireStream 9170. Software Development