Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

When you’ve walked a mile in worn out shoes, it only makes sense that you pass on a few tips for the next guy. It’s nice to see the guys from Canonical helping out with the new Chrome OS, under contract of course. If you’re going to help you may as well get some new shoes while you’re at it. I wonder if those shoes will be Naot?

Google has an important ally in its newly revealed Chrome OS. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu–one of the more user-friendly versions of Linux around–has agreed to contribute engineering to the project, under contract.

I can’t believe it took this long for this to play out. It only makes sense that it would end this way. It makes you wonder if the executives at Psystar could have looked better if they had tried to burn fat rather than provoke Apple.

Psystar can’t catch a break. After spending more than a year in a legal battle with Apple for selling Intel based systems pre-loaded with Mac OS X, the company lost its battle on Friday when a federal judge ruled in favor of Apple.

Apparently the federal government doesn’t support companies violating copyright law, EULA restrictions, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — too bad for Psystar.

I was sitting here working tonight, wishing I could get a new receipt printer to use with my billing software, and I saw this come across my reader.

As an avid iPhone user, and someone who runs several WordPress blogs, I am happy to see this latest release from Automattic.

WordPress 2 for iPhone is now available for downloads in the App Store. The new app is packed with lots of features

…

Please note: The WordPress for iPhone 2 is a completely new application. If you are using a older version of WordPress app for iPhone, you will not be able to upgrade it, you will have to download the new application instead. You can safely remove the older version of the app, once you have installed version 2.0.

Awesome stuff man.

I use Firefox for everything. On my PC and my Mac, Firefox is my browser of choice. I use it for everything from ordering pizza to looking at truck accessories.

Mozilla developers have blocked a Firefox plugin that was quietly pushed out by Microsoft, saying that it presents a security risk.

It makes you wonder how bad the plugin has to be in order for Firefox to pull it without warning.

What will happen to the browser wars when Microsoft has to open it up to choice?

Microsoft Corp. will offer computer users a choice of Web browsers to ward off new European Union antitrust fines, EU regulators said Friday.

The European Commission has charged the company with monopoly abuse for tying the Internet Explorer browser to the Windows operating system installed on most of the world’s desktop computers.

Only time will tell, but I bet Internet Explorer won’t be on the top of the heap much longer.

If Intuit makes PayCycle as fun to use as QuickBooks (cough) people are sure to love it.

Intuit has agreed to buy online payroll provider PayCycle for US$170 million in a move to expand its software-as-a-service offerings for smaller businesses, Intuit said Tuesday.

PayCycle is based in Palo Alto, California, and provides online payroll services to about 85,000 small businesses in the U.S. It was founded in 1999 by two former Intuit employees and says its mission is to “make paper-based payroll obsolete.”

PayCycle already integrates with Intuit’s QuickBooks software. It is also offered as an option with Microsoft’s competing Money software, and it was unclear Tuesday if that will still be the case after Intuit completes its acquisition.

Do they really think they will continue to offer support to Money much longer? Come on…

There’s talk about a new feature in Firefox…

Firefox has had a feature that lets you re-open recently closed tabs for a while. But what if you accidentally close a whole Firefox window with several running tabs. Now you can restore that too… as long as you’ve got the latest nightly build of Firefox 3.5 installed.

I fell for this once before, when I was told that a couple newcell towers were installed in my area to give me better coverage. Well, they did install them, but my service didn’t get any better. I guess this is nothing like that then, is it?

I don’t know about them, but with the help of the Tab Mix Plus plugin, I have had this feature for a very, very, long time.

Tweetie, the Twitter client for the Mac, has been released. I downloaded it yesterday morning and have been testing it since. I actually find it easier to use (and much more efficient) than having TweetDeck open with all those groups.

I am still testing it, but so far it seems pretty good. As a programmer I may have done some things different, but it’ a sharp application that doesn’t use nearly as many resources as TweetDeck does.

A couple people have reviewed it already, including David Chartier and Christina Warren.

Twitter clients are a dime a dozen these days, so it all boils down to what floats your boat. Will I shell out the $14.95 (introductory price) for the full version without ads? Maybe so. Time will tell, but so far I really enjoy using it.

I am looking forward to seeing the new Firefox. I’m a little worried about their “changes to the way tabs are handled” but we’ll see what they have planned.

Mozilla is inching closer to the release of Firefox 3.5, which includes a faster Javascript engine, a private browsing mode, faster page rendering, and changes to the way tabs are handled. Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is due to be released within the next week or so.

I’m not so sure I want any of this software on my MacBook. What about you?

Microsoft’s MacBU on Tuesday posted a trial version of its Office suite of applications for Mac users.

Office for Mac 2008 includes Entourage, Excel, Messenger, PowerPoint and Word, allowing users to everything from email to writing a document. The functionality of the trial edition is the same as the Standard Edition if you purchased that.