Last Tuesday evening, I upgraded my Windows Vista desktop to Service Pack 1. If you regularly visit my blog, you know that I'm a long-time user of both Windows and Linux. You also know, that I've been deeply disappointed in Windows Vista.

The install of Vista SP1 went smoothly and I haven't discovered any of the driver issues other Windows users are having. This shouldn't be a surprise since I did have good luck running my box on the SP1 RC1 Refresh. Performance has been slightly improved since the original version of Vista. More importantly, I don't have to reboot my PC once a day just so I can get my LAN connectivity back. In short, Vista users will want to upgrade to SP1, but I still recommend those happy with their Windows XP, Linux, or Mac desktops to stay exactly right where they are.

"At day's end, what I found was that Vista SP1 really has not improved that much from Vista. The Linux desktop, on the other hand, has improved since I first compared MEPIS 6 to Vista. It's not so much Linux has improved its performance as it has increased its ease of use and hardware compatibility. The Linux desktop of early 2008 is clearly better than the Linux desktop of early 2007. The same cannot be said of Vista."

- Steven J. Vaughan-Nicholas, "Vista SP1: Still lagging behind the Linux desktop", DesktopLinux.com, March 4, 2008

"Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. and the American Cancer Society Inc. are looking to Adobe Integrated Runtime technology to take some of their rich Internet applications to the desktop.

The new AIR technology from San Jose-based Adobe Systems Inc. is among several emerging products that promise to let companies run Web applications built using various AJAX tools on desktop systems. AIR is slated to ship next month, according to Adobe."

Complete Story from ComputerWorld

A few weeks ago, I seriously thought about buying either Apple's latest MacBook or a Windows laptop where I could dual boot between the laptops native operating systems and Linux. In the end, I chose to install Linux on a three year old laptop. This old laptop isn't just any laptop but one of the first sub-$1000 laptops that hit the United States market. The laptop is the Averatec 3220 and over time I've found it just too sluggish for running Windows XP.

This old Averatec 3220 had a lot of negatives going its way for installing Linux. The laptop is from a company that almost no one knows so support was limited. Even Google had a tough time helping me find "best practices" for installing Linux on this particular laptop model. This particular laptop includes an AMD Athlon XP-M 2000+ processor, 512 MB RAM (upgraded from the original 256 MB), a 12.1 inch screen, and both Ethernet and wireless networking capabilities. The laptop could barely be considered "up to date" with regards to hardware, although its exterior is designed well and doesn't look dated like other laptops of the same age.

Before I discuss my troubles with installing Linux on this laptop, let me first talk about the positives. During the past two weeks, using Linux on this laptop has been pure joy.

PC World recently released their list of the 15 biggest disappointments of 2007. Two of the items on that list didn't surprise me, but two other items were shocking to see on the list but in reflection absolutely true.

I wasn't surprised to see that both Apple's "Leopard" OS 10.5 (#8) and Microsoft's Windows Vista (#1) on the list. I've been talking about my disappointment on the state of the computer desktip for sometime now. I'm just glad to see others have noticed the problem so I don't look like Mr. Glum to everyone.

However, I was surprised to see two content management system related items that made the list.

"Opinion: Michael Robertson, founder of MP3.com and Linspire, a Linux distributor, thinks the world is ready for a 'virtual' desktop on the Web. Is he right?"

Complete Story

Desktop Linux has an interesting story for Linux users, Google Desktop arrives on Linux.

Google has finally released a long-awaited native Linux application: Google Desktop for Linux. As with the already shipping OS X and Windows versions, Google Desktop enables Linux users to search for text inside documents, local email messages, their Web history, and their Gmail accounts.

Now what I'm not certain is whether this is a good thing or bad thing.  Call me paranoid but I'm just not comfortable inviting an online service to search my desktop whether the OS is either Linux or Windows.  If you prefer to have convenience over security then please feel free to download it at Google.

"Just one day after a security researcher showed how Google's Firefox toolbar could be exploited in an online attack, a similar flaw has been discovered in the Google Desktop."

Complete Story

Those that have followed my writings (even from the WebCMSForum days) know I've spent about the past year or two dealing with an aging  PC.  Even the wife, who doesn't always appreciate the geek part of her husband, says it is time for a computer upgrade.  When she says it's time, you know the deadline is near to order up a new computer.

For the past several years I've configured my home PCs with a dual-boot of Windows/Linux.  While there are some things I don't like about Apple's propriety hardware for it's OS, the need for something different has me considering purchasing a Mac.  However, as I posted at the Open Source Community, I've started to wonder if over time the desktops for Linux and the Mac won't be that much different from one another.

KDE 4.0: Why I likely won't get a Mac -

Desktop Linux has an article and shapshots out on the first alpha version of KDE 4.0. The article is titled, KDE 4.0 alpha arrives!.

Features in this alpha version of KDE include:

• A new visual appearance through Oxygen (think Aqua)