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.

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?

Remember Windows XP SP3? You don't? Well, basically there's nothing to remember, but I guess we all heard someone talking about "Windows XP SP3" but, in most cases, they had some illegal Windows version patched with the latest updates(see the screenshot below), and simply entitled "SP3". Today, the time has finally come to talk about the real thing!


According to unofficial reports, Microsoft should release Windows XP SP3 in the second half of April, so this should be considered just a rumor, but the interesting part is that TechARP.com, the Malaysian website that managed to predict Vista's SP1 RTM date last month, is the news source once again, so chances to see this happening are pretty solid.

As TechARP says, Windows XP SP3 should arrive first in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish, while versions in the remaining supported languages should become available about 3 weeks later.

For now, Microsoft didn't confirm these dates, their only answer being "We are targeting 1H [first half] 2008 for the release of XP SP3 RTM, though our timing will always be based on customer feedback as a first priority," so we should wait for the official confirmation.

Anyway, the 3rd service pack of Windows XP should be the last one before the system's demise, scheduled for June 30, when Windows XP will disappear from resellers and the retail list, while on the 31st of January, 2009, our goold, old OS will be pulled back from all distribution channels, including system builders.