mac

Have you seen the new PC vs. Mac ads?  No, I'm not talking about those ads by Apple, but Microsoft's latest commercials.  Without taking sides in this war, I have to admit that Microsoft is finally doing a good a better job in their marketing. Of course, just the fact that Microsoft is no longer mentioning Vista by name can be enough to improve sales on PCs.

Not long ago I wrote that KDE 4 might produce enough changes to its look and feel to help Linux become more Mac-like.  At the time, Windows Vista seemed to be trying to move in the same direction.  Interestingly, someone has noted that Windows 7 now appears to be moving towards Linux's direction with the Windows desktop looking more like KDE 3.5.

The review features screenshots and I must say, even though it has not convinced me, Windows 7 is a step forward from Vista, at least as far as the GUI is concerned.  Aside from the removal of some annoying Vista bells and whistles and the new Peek and Snap window-management enhancements, it is difficult not to notice the resemblance between Microsoft’s much-touted revamped Aero and the excellent, now 3-years old, KDE 3.5.x.

Personally, I think Microsoft, Apple, and the Linux desktop developers have run out of ideas.  Any new innovation for these desktops seem to be ideas borrowed and improved from each other's desktops.  This is one of the reasons why I have lost my "wow" when it comes to operating systems.  In 2007, I wrote:

Ironic how the world can change so quickly.  Yesterday, the CIO of my organization began enforcing the use of anti-virus software on all of our Linux clients and servers.  Today, I read that Apple is telling its Mac users to purchase anti-virus software.  Something nasty is brewing out there.

Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.

Initial reports by Brian Krebbs, Security Fix and The Register.

My apologies for writing so much about hardware and not content management this week. I suppose though, if Dean Barker at Gadgetopia can talk about content management, I can occasionally discuss gadgets here at CMS Report. Sometimes it helps to take a look at the devices we use to view our content just as much as it helps looking at the software we use to run our Web content management systems. Well, at least this is my excuse for not being fixated so much on content management.

In Thursday morning's Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg did a review of the Asus Eee PC. The article, Asus Offers Travelers Small, Mobile Eee PC, but It’s Too Cramped, can be found in his column archive (a Wordpress site). I had been waiting for someone of his stature do a review on this product, but I was a little disappointed to see yet another review of a non-Apple device (this one is Linux based) be so negative.