Analysis: Why Apple Picked Intel Over AMD

  Submitted by kellym Apple 47 Comments
Why didn’t Jobs, ever the maverick, opt for the scrappy challenger, Advanced Micro Devices, instead of the old-money establishment, Intel? The reason, industry analysts say, is that Jobs has a clear goal in mind: innovative designs. And such designs require the lowest-voltage chips, which IBM and Freescale were not going to make with the PowerPC chip core - and which AMD has not yet perfected.
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Office 12 Beta 1 in a ‘Couple Months’; Dev Toolbar for IE

Windows 26 Comments
Again, more news from the PDC. Microsoft senior vice president Steven Sinofsky took the stage Wednesday to discuss Office 12, which he said would hit Beta 1 within a "couple months." Betas of the Open Office XML format schemes are available starting today. Also, more screenshots of Vista build 5219 can be found here, shots of IE7 here. MS also announced a developer's toolbar for IE 6 and 7. The toolbar would allow the developer to see how pages would look in various screen resolutions, validate HTML and CSS code, and perform numerous other functions that Web designers would find useful. You can read transcripts of the various keynotes here.
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Getting Serious About the Linux Desktop

Linux 116 Comments
In his latest column,, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols argues that Microsoft Vista is going to be so expensive that it's going to make users think hard about switching to Linux instead. "Desktop Linux is never going to have a better chance than it will in the next eighteen months," he says. My take: He forgets two important factors: Vista can run with all the flashy graphics turned off, and seven editions of Vista? How many Linux distributions are there to choose from?
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Announcing: The Dapper Drake

  Submitted by William Gordon Ubuntu 80 Comments
With Breezy Badger on its way its time for the announcement of what the next +1 release will be called, and the Ubuntu team has decided that the next +1 release (6.04) will be called The Dapper Drake. This release of Ubuntu will be supported for 3 years after release, and the Ubuntu developers are going to work as hard and as long as possible on Dapper Drake, as it's what they're going to release in response to MS's release of Windows Vista.
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Microsoft Unveils Expression Studio, Details on Gadgets

Microsoft 77 Comments
Again, a lot of news from the PDC. Microsoft unveiled its Expression Studio, which contains Acrylic, a vector and bitmap graphic editing and creation tool; Sparkle, a 2D and 3D animation tool; and Quartz, a design tool for page layouts and web sites. About Quartz: it does not require IE. In other news from the PDC: while at first look Microsoft Gadgets may appear a lot like Apple/Konfabulator Widgets, Microsoft has bigger plans for the technology.
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Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice Shootout

  Submitted by andrewg Office 133 Comments
"As nice as Open Office Excel is for a free application, it doesn't even come close to the performance and usability of Microsoft Office Excel. There is no shame in losing to a commercially funded application, but no one should make false statements that Microsoft Office is bloated and inferior. The only remaining question for businesses and homes is whether Excel is worth the money and most have apparently decided yes." Update: OOo 1.1.5 has been released.
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Interview: Bill Gates on Google

  Submitted by Blackhouse Microsoft 31 Comments
Google has emerged as the poster child for a new wave of applications assembled from the piece-parts of several Web sites. No Windows necessary. Microsoft has its own ideas, of course. Gates sat down with CNET to talk about competitors old and new, why software hasn't fulfilled promises and the mixed blessing of controlling 90 percent of the world's PCs.
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Interview with Rickford Grant, Author of “Linux Made Easy”

  Submitted by Swank1 Linux 17 Comments
An interview was recently done with Rickford Grant, the author of "Linux for Non-Geeks" and the new "Linux Made Easy". Grant is outspoken in his opinions and offers a number of unique views on topics as diverse as Windows Vista, desktop Linux, GNOME vs. KDE, and lots more. Part of the interview is spent talking about his new book but the bulk of the interview is a discussion of his views on pertinent topics and news.
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The ATX Case and Power Supply

Hardware 12 Comments
The recent Blade.org announcement heralds that IBM and Intel are looking to standardize blade hardware designs, allowing blade systems from multiple vendors to work together. It's no surprise that Intel is interested in this -- its own ATX standard has been a massive success. This article looks at the history of ATX and some of the lessons learned about power supply and chassis standardization.
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SkyOS Gets System-Wide Mouse Gestures

SkyOS 33 Comments
Support for mouse gesture recognition has been implemented. By using the System Manager "Gesture" plugin you can add, remove and configure your own mouse gestures. Whenever SkyOS recognizes a conigured mouse gesture, the desired action is performed. You can select from many pre-configured actions like: maximize/minimize window, close application, launch application, etc. The entire gesture recognition is fully intergrated into SkyOS/SkyGI as a service application which can easily be enabled/disabled. The obligatory screenshot.
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