Dan Lyons of Newsweek asks, “Remember how AOL used to be cool, but then became the service used only by people who didn’t know any better? Microsoft is heading down that path.”
He quotes a Microsoft exec who says, “You fly business class today, and it’s nothing but Macs.” Astonishingly, one of those Mac users is the Microsoft exec himself.
If it is true that Microsoft has lost its “cool” factor, and that it is used because of IT department preference, then lots of users are with Windows because they …

Utahcon, aka Adam Barrett, has reviewed the Learning FreeNAS book by Hi-Tech Squad’s own Gary Sims and he was impressed!!!
He says, “Gary wastes no time after the first chapters digging in and configuring FreeNAS. He walks you through adding a disk, mounting it, and then connecting to it from a remote PC.”
“Overall I was really impressed with the amount of FreeNAS (and consiquently FreeBSD) they covered in only 200+ pages, but it was well laid out knowledge, and easy to understand.”
You can read the full review here.
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Google have launched Toolbar 5 for Firegox. The new toolbar which was only previsouly availbale for IE can be download here. This new version is the first Toolbar launched out of their St. Petersburg, Russia office. It includes all the Toolbar features you know and love, such as Search, Bookmarks and Translate. When you install it, you can try out some of our newest features.
Read more here: Google Toolbar 5 now available in Firefox
(Via The Official Google Blog.)
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Google have launched a new web site to deal with the questions about their advertising agreement with Yahoo! and some of misconceptions about it.
Facts about the deal can be found at a new website which aims to provide more information on the agreement and why it is good for consumers, advertisers and publishers.
From the start they want to emphasize that:

This is a non-exclusive deal that will strengthen Yahoo!.
Ad prices will continue to be set by competitive auction.
The deal is win-win for consumers, advertisers and publishers: more and better ads.

Of course …

A spoof of Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” advert has been posted on YoubTube… This ad starts like the regular Microsoft ad with lots of people saying “I’m a PC” and then cuts to the Apple advert where Mac says “and I’m a PC too”. It then goes on to remind us that Macs can run Windows too. The is a great shot of Bill Gates at the end.

Read more here: Just For Fun: A YouTube Spoof of Microsoft’s “I’m a PC Ad”
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Why are a record number of small businesses throwing our their PCs and switching to Macs? The author, Jason R. Rich, has investigated this question in his book, Mac Migration: The Small Business Guide to Switching to the Mac.
The compatibility between the Mac and PC as well as business-friendly applications are two important reasons that small to mid-sized businesses are looking more favorably to the Mac lineup of computers. Rich identifies five more reasons that small business owners are parting company with the PC.

Apple Offers …

Canonical Ltd., the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, is asking users of Ubuntu Server edition just exactly how they are using it and in what kind of organisations.
The Ubuntu Server community wants to ask a broad set of users to share their experiences. A previous shorter survey from Canonical was completed (public bvresults at: www.canonical.com/campaign/server) by those requesting free server CDs, but this is the first time the Ubuntu server team is requesting information from the community worldwide.
Co-sponsored by RedMonk Research, the survey [http://survey.ubuntu.com/] will gather more detailed knowledge in order …

Parallels have launched their Green Bundle. You can get Parallels Desktop for Mac plus

MacScan
PasswordWallet
Macintosh Explorer
Macaroni
Drive-In
PageSender
Default Folder X
docXConverter

The normal price is $299.81 but until September 30th, 2008 you can get it for $49.99.
Read more here: Parallels Green Computing Bundle
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Google has just released a free service called Google Moderator. This is a port to Google App Engine of an existing tool we use all the time at Google. Internally it was called Dory (after the fish who asked questions all the time in Finding Nemo).
What does Google Moderator do? When we have tech talks or company-wide meetings, it lets anyone ask a question and then people can vote up the questions that they’d like answered.
Read more here: Google Moderator launches
(Via Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO.)
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