There's nothing like a good Vista / OS X showdown to get the fan-boys all riled up. Our pals at Engadget have pieced together a pretty comprehensive table comparing the features, strengths, and weaknesses of these two operating systems behemoths for PCs and Macs, respectively. (The latest Mac update to OS X, Leopard, launched late last week). We have our own opinions, which we'll detail here.

Like your average frat boy, most users only care about how easy and pretty a computer is. While Engadget hasn't declared a victor in the field of aesthetics, we're not so humble. As you may have noticed from previous postings, we're no Apple cultists, but Leopard certainly has the one-up on VIsta in the design department. Compared to the sleek, clean and consistent (if a little flashy) look of OS X, 10.5 Vista is like a mangy alley cat is costume jewelry. The tacky implementation of transparency, patches of XP throwbacks, wanna-be desktop widgets (called "gadgets),and pseudo-modern design make Vista a train wreck in the user interface (UI) department... but that's just our subjective opinion.

Otherwise Vista shines in many respects, compared to OS X. The upgraded version and powerful version of Windows Explorer exposes Mac's Finder for what it is, a bare-bones file manager with some gaudy tricks of debatable usefulness thrown in. And while Front Row -- the Mac's Tivo-esque media interface -- is sleek and simple, it's simply no match for the full blown Media Center packed into every Vista box. Redmond also has a leg up when it comes to wireless networking, giving you far more information in a glance than OS X, which doesn't even tell you the strength of Wi-Fi signals it picks up. As for entertainment, unless your idea of gaming is getting together with the girls to play Bridge every week, there is simply no option other than Vista. Sure, Macs work with iTunes, if that's your cup of tea, but you can still get more music (for just $12 a month for subscription services), movies and TV shows (at places like Amazon Unbox and Netflix), and games (all Mac gaming titles are afterthoughts or conversions from PCs).

This is not to say that Leopard is all looks and no brains. OS X's virtual desktops, called Spaces, keep you from being overwhelmed by Windows, while Expose proves to be a much more efficient way of switching between applications than the standard Windows tasks switcher, or the completely useless Flip 3D. It also goes with out saying that OS X is more secure than Windows. The smaller market share and Unix underpinnings make it more secure both by default and by design. Leopard's true strong suit though is making tasks, that under Windows can be difficult if not impossible, so simple that Jerry Seinfeld could never write a grating, over-rated bit about how confusing it is. Time Machine makes backing up and restoring not only amazingly simple, but fun, while Boot Camp allows those with out computer science degrees to dual boot OS X and Vista in case you're indecisive.

The coup de grace though is a 1-2 punch, iLife and price. iLife gives every Mac user hobbyist level photo, music, and video editing applications. Microsoft puts it's own nail in its coffin though. Leopard is $129. One edition. One price. No matter what. Vista? Well there's the Ultimate Edition, Home Premium, Home Basic, and Business, amongst more niche versions. All have different prices for a full install and an upgrade. An upgrade from XP to Home Basic will run only $99, but then you miss out on many of the features that are supposed to make Vista so special, including the eye candy. If you want to buy Ultimate outright... well you might want to remortgage your house. 4 versions, 8 prices, the whole ordeal is so dizzying we're shocked people aren't jumping off the roofs of Best Buys across the nation.

In the end Engadget has Apple edging out Windows taking 46 head to head match ups while Vista garners 41 victories. We pretty much agree. OS X is clearly a more solid operating system, but it's not without its blemishes. Your final decision should be base on your needs and personal preference. Oh, and there's always Linux... but that's a story for another day.

From Engadget

Related links:

• Apple's New Leopard Hits Illegal Download Sites
• Mac Leopard Out Tomorrow and the Reviews are Positive
• Next Version of Windows Detailed
• Microsoft Caves to Consumer Pressure, Extends Windows XP's Lifespan

Xerox is getting ready to burst on to the search engine scene with FactSpotter.
Of course by 'burst' I mean quietly slip the feature into an enterprise software package aimed at legal and regulatory professionals, with no plans for wider distribution.

But that's ok, someone else will pick up on the innovative work here and make millions (or billions) off of it. Just like a little guy called Steve Jobs and his visit with Xerox's Alto in 1979.

FactSpotter is a document search engine that, to use the quote from Xerox that every other media outlet is glomming on to, "goes beyond conventional 'keyword' search." FactSpotter is a text mining engine that understands categorization and context surrounding a search term. Searching for Jon Stewart won't just return instances of the exact words 'Jon Stewart', but also instances of 'he' or 'him' where it would be referring to Jon Stewart.

The engine not only returns results by pointing you to a document with what you were searching for, but takes you to and highlights the exact portion of the document where the results are located. According to Xerox FactSpotter is not restricted by language, location or file format, and due to its plain language linguistic search engine can "take advantage of the way humans think, speak and ask questions."

From TechCrunch

Related links:
Microsoft Unveils Surface Table Top Computer
Coverflow to Come to Mac OS X 10.5

Everyone was Google to simply launch another social network in the coming days. Google's own services (YouTube, Google Maps) have added a host of new social networking features over the last year. Then there are it's traditional social networking holdings: DodgeBall, a pre-Twitter text message based social network, and Okurt, a Facebook-esque site that never caught on here in the US. Just tying all these services together would have made for a powerful social platform (with the help of the Google juggernaut of course). Instead Google has bucked expectations and tomorrow will officially announce OpenSocial, a service which may one day lead to the unification of Google services anyway.

OpenSocial is a set of API's for developers to build social networking applications and widgets around, similar to the the Facebook applications that sprung up in the wake of the site opening its own platform. The difference between OpenSocial and the Facebook API however is that Facebook apps will work only on Facebook. They use a special language that developers must learn and cannot be adopted for another web site. OpenSocial on the other hand is cross platform, meaning any web service that wants to can have OpenSocial applications running on it.

The unofficial list of partner sites and developers is impressive, even if it is missing social heavyweights Facebook and MySpace. Currently the list of host sites includes:

• Hi5, a social network popular in Central America
• LinkedIn, the professional networking site that lets middle-aged cubicle dwellers get down with the social networking fad, and make useful career connections in the process
• Friendster, the granddaddy of MySpace and Facebook that fell out of favor mighty fast
• Ning, which lets users, of limited technical background, create their own small scale social networks
• Plaxo, originally an online contact management service that recently went through a major overhaul and added many social networking features
• Okurt, It would be sort of strange if Google's own social network didn't take advantage of its own platform

The list of developers is currently fairly small, but is sure to grow. Flikster, Rock You, Slide, and iLike who have created some of the most popular applications on Facebook have all signed up so far.

The question is whether Google and its partners can mount a real challenge to either MySpace or Facebook. In all likelihood this coalition won't be able to topple the twin Goliaths, but with any luck they can pressure them to join the OpenSocial platform. This will not only make developers' lives easier, but will give users more options and access to more powerful and more full-featured widgets for whatever social network they prefer.

From TechCrunch

Engadget has tracked down some supposed photos and specs of the upcoming Dell Inspiron Laptop refresh.

The specs are impressive, but nothing surprising. Everything is moving to the new Santa Rosa update of the Centrino platform from Intel. The 1720 and 1721 are Intel and AMD powered 17 inch laptops respectively. Similarly the 1520 and 1521 are 15 inch machines, again the '1' at the end signifying an AMD CPU. Both the 15 and 17 series can be similarly configured, up to a 2.2 Ghz Core 2 Duo T7500, 256 Megabyte GeForce 8600M Nvidia graphics card, Blu-ray disc drive,and 802.11n Wi-Fi for greatly increased speed. The 17 series can also be equipped with dual hard drives in a RAID array for faster performance or data redundancy.

There is also a new 14 incher, the 1420, an Intel only affair that weighs in at 5.5 pounds.

All three laptops will supposedly have a hybrid hard drive option, that will speed performance and save battery life by using a large cache of flash memory to store data that is in use. This means the hard drive will have to spin less often, and keeping the hard drive spinning is one of the top power consumers in a laptop.

From Engadget

Related links:
Dell Shakes Itself Up
Dell Confirms Tablet PC
Dell Selling Linux Based PCs

If there is someone on your list with a lot of rooms, but most of his or her music on just one PC, consider looking into the Sonos $999 bundle. Sonos's audio system lets you stream music from your PC to up to 32 different rooms!

The starter Sonos 130 bundle gives you everything you need in one package, the Zone Player 80 (ZP80), which plugs in to your stereo, home theater, etc. the Zone Player 100 (ZP100), which wirelessly streams the audio from the ZP80, and the Sonos Controller, which with the aide of a 3.5 inch LCD and scroll wheel lets you control everything from volume to music selection on your Sonos Players.