Stories by: Scot Finnie

When I switched from a Windows PC to a Mac in 2006, I was very disappointed in my choice of Web browsers. As a confirmed Firefox user, I expected Mozilla's Mac browser to be a no-brainer. But after trying Firefox 1.5 and 2.0 for the Mac, I adopted Apple's Safari -- and haven't looked back. Now that Firefox 3.0 is out, though, is it finally the better choice for Mac OS X?

When Apple recently sent along one of its new iMacs -- a sweet 24-inch model with a 2.8GHz Penryn processor -- I agreed to take it home and give it a dose of family testing at the Finnie household. And with three kids aged 3, 6, and 16, that's saying something.

For those of you who take joy in such things (and I would if I were you), it looks like I'm going to have eat a good many of the words from my initial analysis of the MacBook Air back in January.

This story caps off a truly comprehensive wave of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard coverage from Computerworld. Our readers have asked for more operating system coverage, and we're delivering.

Should Microsoft fear Apple's Macintosh? Maybe not quaking-in-your-boots scared, mind you, but Redmond should certainly be concerned.

Windows Vista is in most ways an excellent operating system. But I've found myself increasingly disturbed by the many ways Microsoft is willing to erode the overall user experience, in most cases in the name of boosting its bottom line.

The people who live and breathe the Internet will all tell you the same thing: Firefox is the best Web browser for Windows and the Mac. Even after Microsoft played catch-up patty-cake with the release of IE7 earlier this year, Windows users who truly know the Web are continuing to choose Firefox.

Like a lot of people, when Microsoft's latest browser was released, I installed it right away. In fact, I installed it on about half a dozen machines. As the days have turned into weeks (soon to be months) since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7, what has become clear to me and many others is that some Web sites and many Web applications just aren't ready for this new version of the browser. On my computers, that has meant a return to IE6, until the Web and Web-based applications catch up with IE7.

One aspect of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system that has raised users' hackles is its new anti-piracy system, called Software Protection Platform (SPP). To understand SPP, it's necessary to take a few steps back. Microsoft began its aggressive campaign against software piracy in Office XP and Windows XP with functionality called Office product activation (OPA) and Windows product activation (WPA).

On Tuesday Mozilla officially released Firefox 2.0. Truth be told, the final code is no different from last week's Release Candidate 3 code, so I've had time to play with it.

Last Friday, Microsoft pushed Windows Vista Release Candidate 2 (RC2), Build 5744, out the door. There's no laundry list of new features and functions associated with this build of Vista, but there is something significant about it.