Lyle

OpenOffice.org Office Productivity Suite

OpenOffice.org 2.0 was released in October 2005 and is proving to be a formidable contender in the office productivity suite arena. The fully featured open-source suite is freely distributed and is a direct competitor of Microsoft Office. The suite contains word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, graphic and database modules. It can read and write most of the of the file formats found in Microsoft Office and many other applications.

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70% of PC’s are not Vista Ready

Microsoft has released their recommended hardware requirements for their new operating system called Vista.

PC Pitstop compares those RAM, CPU and Hard Drive requirements against the hardware found in systems being processed through our on-line tests to determine the percentage of PC’s that do not meet Microsoft’s recommended requirements. Also shown is a historical look at the percentages of PC’s that did not meet the recommended requirements for Microsoft’s XP operating system for the months prior to it’s launch.

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Hard Drive Fragmentation Trends

Analysis of PC Pitstop users show average hard drive fragmentation has experience a modest decline during the past years, while average free hard drive space has shown significant increases. A larger hard drive with more available space doesn’t necessarily reduce the need to defragment your hard drive, but it does help to reduce the amount of fragmentation that occurs “naturally” over time. PC Pitstop still recommends that you defragment your drive at least once a week.

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Digital Rights Management

Extended Copy Protection (XCP aka Sony Rootkit)

In November of 2005, Sony BMG Music Entertainment was in the headlines because of the dangerous consequences of their decision to place First 4 Internet Ltd’s XCP technology on selected audio CD’s. (See Rob’s December 12 Sony’s Rootkit article). The software would load onto a person’s hard drive when an XCP protected audio CD was inserted into their PC. The purpose of the software was to limit the number of copies that CD owners could make. The technology used rootkit hiding techniques that could be used by other hackers to enter a PC without the owner’s permission. As a result of the pressure from the media and consumers, Sony has stopped distributing and using the XCP technology.

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Wide Screen Display Trends

Wide screen displays are becoming more popular. Portable PCs are rapidly leading the trend. Whether your need is to view wide spread sheets, watch a wide screen DVD movie or multitask using multiple screen windows, wide screen displays, which are replacing the traditional personal computing 4:3 and 5:4 aspect ratio displays, may be the answer.

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