Since this story is well known to everyone, I'll cut it down to only a few sentences, because I don't want to keep you waiting the good news. The idea is that, despite the fact that Microsoft said Windows XP will be discontinued this summer, and probably they won't consider the petition to save it and go on with the initial plan, they will also keep Windows XP alive until 2010! How is that possible? Well, I'm not talking about technical support...


Here's the story - while Windows XP Home and Professional will stop being sold by retailers on June 30, and system builders won't be able to use it anymore since 31st of January, 2009, Windows XP Starter Edition, the less known scaled-down version of Microsoft's operating system, built especially for emerging markets and old computers, will remain on the market until the end of June, 2010!

At last, the interesting part is that users that got Vista Business or Ultimate at retail or through enterprise agreements with Microsoft have indefinite downgrade (or upgrade, depends how we look at it) rights to XP as part of their license agreements. Interesting, don't you think? To get Vista, just so you can install Windows XP in the years to come, if things go wrong with Microsoft latest OS...

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The Internet is crawling with viruses, Trojans, Worms, and others of their kind, so the fact that some computers got attacked is nothing out of ordinary. The problem appears when we are talking about servers of a supermarket chain, and the attack lead to a massive data breach...


Hannaford Bros. Co. is the supermarket chain I mentioned, and according to them, unauthorized software that ended up on their servers somehow (they don't know "how", yet) lead to a data breach, compromising up to 4.2 million credit and debit cards!

According to Hannaford, the data theft occured between the 7th of December and the 10th of March, as shoppers swiped their cards at checkout line machines, and while the data was sent to banks for approving the payments, that information also ended up somewhere else. Where, that's what I would also like to know...

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Ehem...Photoshop online? Yeah, although it's only a Beta, despite the fact it arrived later than expected, the "online Photoshop" version looks and feels great, and I am sure a lot of people will appreciate it. The only thing I hope is to see a free version available also after the Beta stage finishes. Anyway, let's talk a little about Adobe Photoshop Express Beta, shall we?


Photoshop Express is...is...amazing! No, I am not paid by Adobe, and I am not an Adobe fan boy either, but I said it before, and I say it again - the future of software is online! Of course it's only a matter of time, and standalone applications won't cease to exist anytime soon, but we have social networking sites, we have online office suites, so why not online graphics applications?


Photoshop Express was built using the Flash technology, and requires Adobe Flash 9 to run. As you can see above, its interface is well done, much easier to use than Adobe Photoshop, and with a whole lot less options, obviously.

I know - this is not something new, since Photobucket and Picassa already have their own image editing features, but let's not forget that Photoshop Express is only in Beta stage, and Adobe has the power to push it much further than any other company. Just as a side note, it is very nice to know that Adobe has Flash in its portofolio, so they are not using a platform from other company, and this may only bring benefits in the future.

At last, you should go on and create your account here, because I won't tell you about those 2GB of space for your images or the editing features included - it would be a pity to spoil all the fun of discovering them yourselves!

...one more thing - don't worry if you're not located in the United States! When I signed up, I was a bit worried when I saw that this service is currently available for US residents only, but I completed my registration, verified my email address, and now I enjoy a basic Photoshop experience in my browser!

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Despite the name of this article, I won't give you a race head to head with these 3 major operating systems, because Linux vs Mac OS vs Windows is a very long story that usually ends when fan boys get into the game and start throwing flames at each other. I don't want to say, I don't even want to think about which one is better, because today there are two big things to talk about - Red Hat's earnings, and the capability of Apple an Microsoft to patch flaws in their products.


Red Hat Inc. said on Thursday that its revenue in the fourth quarter got up with 7 percent, reaching $22 million, compared to $20.5 million, one year earlier. Their CEO, James Whitehurst, said "The momentum of open source solutions is strong and growing, and we believe there is a significant opportunity to expand our presence with existing customers and the many companies and industries that have only just begun to adopt open source solutions in a meaningful way," but I guess they have to do much more to really challenge Microsoft or Oracle, but it's always good to see the open source movement doin' all right.

While Apple is teasing Microsoft's ability to provide excellent security to its customers, it seems none of these two companies is able to patch vulnerabilities in the same day it becomes public. The interesting part is that, according to a recent study, the number of unpatched vulnerabilities at Apple is higher than the one at Microsoft, especially since 2005.

Well, what can I say...first, let's see Apple having at least 20% of Microsoft's user base, and then let's compare things. For now, I think Apple is still outside the line of fire of many hackers, while Windows is assaulted all the time, but things are slowly changing. If this change is going to end up well for us, the users...remains to be seen.

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Two decades ago, computers and multimedia were two completely different realms, but as computing power available to unleash grew, music and image became a part of any home computer, and I don't want to mention games here, because I have something completely different in mind...


Today, it's absolutely normal to watch movies and listen to your favorite music on your computer, but how many of you still remember those old days when there were only a few media players available, those days before even Windows 95 kicked in, when MP3 files were encoded in very low quality, just so the most powerful processors of the time could be able to decode them? Anyway, this is not going to be a history lesson, because the present is extremely interesting, and that's where I want to arrive - today's best multimedia applications!

Basically, we're going to talk about audio and video players, but if you're going to ask it, I'll test a few CD ripping tools, although some players offer CD ripping features, such as Winamp, Windows Media Player or Jet-Audio, to name the most notorious ones.

While a lot of things come for free in life, software is no exception, but I won't leave aside the commercial applications, if they prove to be worth the price. After all, that's what we all need - best multimedia experience on our computers, and we have soo many choices these days, that organizing them into a top requires a lot of work and research, so please take your time to help, by answering the following questions:

- What's your favorite music/video player?
- When talking about "multimedia software for home" these days, what other categories, apart from audio and video players, would you like to see revealed here? Image viewing and editing, maybe? Internet streaming/TV tools, such as Joost?
- Which features you look for first in a media player/multimedia software? Do you think functionality can overcome a bad user interface?

This is it for now, please drop us your wishes below, and we'll do our best to please you. Let's write some great articles together, shall we?

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