Stories by: Randall C. Kennedy

Now that I know for certain I'll be receiving a pre-beta build of Windows 7 at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in November, it's time to start thinking about some of the performance-related characteristics I'll be looking for in the new OS.

It was a decision heralded by industry media types and praised by blogging heads around the Internet. Steve Sinofsky, the legendary show-runner for Microsoft Office, would take over the Windows reins from the departing Jim Allchin.

A two-horse race. That's how the market for general purpose desktop virtualization packages is shaping up, at least for the foreseeable future. With Microsoft all but abandoning Virtual PC, and with everyone else focusing on the datacenter, the field now consists of just VMware Workstation and Sun Microsystems' xVM VirtualBox.

It started small. A faint grumble here. A clenched-teeth comment there. Then came the accusations. Google is abandoning Firefox! Google is unfairly exploiting its position! Google is ... acting like Microsoft!

They're back! Just when you thought the "browser wars" were over, with the two camps -- Microsoft and Mozilla.org -- settling in for a kind of intransigent détente, along comes Google to stir things up all over again. Clearly Google is unhappy with the current state of browser geopolitics and feels it needs to roll its own in order to ensure a robust base for its myriad hosted applications (e.g. Gmail, Google Docs, etc.)

We all have them. Those favorite tools and utilities that help make our Windows environment just a little bit more comfortable. For me, the following eight utilities aren't so much conveniences as they are life preservers for my sanity. Each one has become an integral part of my day to day, Windows Workstation 2008 experience, to the point where the thought of life without them leaves me contemplating a nice stroll out an 18th story window. Simply put, they're must-haves -- for me and, frankly, for any sane IT professional dealing with Windows on a daily basis.

For the IT worker, the phrase "desktop mobility" has many meanings. It can mean having a laptop computer. It can mean keeping all your data in the cloud so that you can access it at any time and from anywhere. It can even mean downsizing your work environment to fit on a PDA or a smartphone.

It seems like a straightforward question. However, in the aftermath of the Vista debacle, where many systems that were certified as "Vista Capable" proved to be anything but, the process of vetting new Windows-compatible hardware has taken on new complexity.

I love lampooning the FOSS community. These self-righteous cyber-hippies are almost always good for a blog entry or two per month. And because many of them can't resist airing their own community's dirty laundry, I have no shortage of story ideas to choose from.

Last week, I took Microsoft to task for floating yet another batch of unrealistic tidbits about Windows "Midori," the rumored future version that will encompass a complete rewrite of the core OS plus a new, distributed application development model for linking together disparate devices of varying form factors (a.k.a Windows "Mouthful"). I objected to this vision for a couple of reasons:

A wallflower: That's how I used to describe Thinstall when discussing the movers and shakers of the application virtualization party scene. With its chief competitors already paired off and dancing up a storm, Thinstall looked more and more like the lonesome loser, dateless and stag at the junior prom.