May 25th, 2008

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn

Matt Asay links to a blog post saying open source developers love the Mac.

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Will this lead to a flood of open source software for OS X?

Don’t hold your breath.

Open source is big on Linux because Linux has significant server market share. People running server software gladly pay for support.

The speed with which Linux serves files and handles back-end tasks is superior, and its overhead is modest, so you have motivated buyers and a working business model.

In the PC world, there’s enormous desktop market share and an important motive to develop open source tools — namely to deny Microsoft incremental revenue. Besides, PCs have always been friendly to shareware and start-ups.

The Mac lacks these advantages. Ivan Krstic has made a MacBook his main laptop because it works, and he can afford the cost. It comes with most of what he needs, so “Hang me for treason.”

But note that Krstic isn’t rushing out to create open source software for the Mac. The installed base remains too small to deliver the support revenues necessary for success. And the Mac’s own software bundle leaves few basic niches.

The only thing wrong with all this, of course, is that it might give Microsoft what I like to call a Clue. If Microsoft had shipped enough free software to make its machines useful, maybe open source would never have come to Windows in the first place.

But it’s too late now.

Boost security by disabling these 10 Windows XP services

canadian pharmacy propecia 0px 0px 15px”>You might be surprised by what services are running without your knowledge, possibly putting your system at risk. Here are some services you may want to shut down.

buy propecia online color=”#001073″>Sysinternals Suite

The Sysinternals Troubleshooting Utilities have been rolled up into a single Suite of tools. This file contains the individual troubleshooting tools and help files. It does not contain non-troubleshooting tools like the BSOD Screen Saver or NotMyFault.

Here's another oldie, but goodie for you. (Plus, I've gotten buy propecia generic a lot of requests for this one and it'll be a really good refresher course for some of you!)

Are you tired of the desktop picture you currently have? If you are, why don't you spice it up a little?! It's really not hard to do at all. Just read this tip through and you'll be a desktop changin' pro in no time. I bet you'll be changing your desktop image every week now!

The fastest and easiest way I've found to do this is to right click on your desktop and select Properties. From the resulting window, click on the Display tab.

You can go ahead and scroll through the list of images that the Windows XP people kindly provided and you can also preview them in the top window.

Feel free to change the Position mode from Stretch (one big picture) to Tile (many little pictures) to Center (one small picture in the center of your desktop with a hand picked color filling in the background).

Now, if you want to use a picture that you have saved on your computer, simply click the Browse button and an Open window will appear. It will default to your My Documents/My Pictures folder, but you can browse through other folders via the Look in: box at the top.

Once you've found the picture you want, click on it and then click the Open button. This will take you back to the Display Properties window and you should see a preview of your brand new desktop. When you have things looking just the way you want them, click Apply, OK and just like that, you'll have have an all new desktop to love and enjoy. It doesn't get any better than that!

Have fun creating the desktop of your dreams!

That's a very good question and it's probably a smart idea to check and see what kind of modem you do have installed on your computer. That is, if you don't already know. It's buy generic propecia good to know in case something ever goes wrong with it. If you have to call tech support, you'll be able to tell them right away what type you have, etc. They will be impressed when you whip that information right out!

It's fairly easy to look up the type of modem you have in your computer. You just have to follow a few steps. Note: These steps are for Windows 98, 2000 and XP only.

Okay, let's get started! Go to Start, All Programs, Accessories. Under that section, look for the System Information folder. XP users will have to click on System Tools and then System Information.

Once you're there, click on the + (plus sign) next to the item called Components and then click on Modem. A whole page of information will come up on the right hand side telling you things like the name of your modem, a description, the provider name, different compressions and controls, speaker modes, tones, memory address, ports, channels and more. It's amazing how much information you can get about your modem by following just a few simple steps!

You can also get information about your modem by actually looking at it. You should be able to find items like the name, manufacturer, model number, speeds, etc.

If you ever have to call tech support about your modem, that sort of information is good to know ahead of time. That way, you don't have to take time to look for it while you're on the phone. Know the manufacturer, the type, the model and the speed of your modem if possible. It will read something like this: PCI 3COM 96k modem. And now you know all about your computer's modem. Yes!