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Over the last two years, Intel commissioned a study on how companies were delivering virtualization to end users. It's one of the few indicators of where this confused segment is headed. Several approaches are still on the table, but the fastest growing one is where the virtual machine resides on the end user's PC.

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The Open Document Format was adopted today by the British government as a basis for making future software purchases based on open standards. In general, Britain is requiring government agencies to use as much software based on standards as possible, based on its 10-point program to encourage open standards and open source. If Britain can do it, why can't we?

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Desktop virtualization is not like what it sounds. It does not start with a one-by-one conversion of each user's desktop from a straightforward piece of hardware to one that runs only a virtual machine.

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Even as the hype machine turns to Windows 7, many businesses are still conflicted about whether to embrace Windows Vista. Well, I took the plunge a while ago, and here's what I learned.

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How is Citrix's upcoming desktop hypervisor different from its XenDesktop already on the table? Mainly, end users gain the ability to leave the network that connects their client to a host server and still operate their personal virtualized desktop. XenDesktop, on the other hand, is tethered, not free roaming.

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The savings that flow from server virtualization are well known and accepted. The potential savings on the client side, I believe, are even greater. But that premise is much less widely accepted, and even less frequently implemented. Perhaps virtualizing end users one application at a time is the way to go.

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The first annual bMighty.com Innovation Awards recognize a dozen products released this year that hold special appeal for growing businesses -- and for everyone else, too.

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Apple released a QuickTime update that allows standard-definition iTunes movies to play over new MacBooks' DisplayPort to older displays, according to reports on Apple blogs. However, high-def movies are still blocked, which is unfair to owners of MacBooks and other systems by other vendors that use the same technology.

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Best Buy is getting ready to slash prices on new Macs and other Apple products, and Apple has authorized employees of its own retail stores to match the price cuts, according to reports on Apple blogs. That's bad news for store margins, but good news for Apple fans hoping for some fruity goodness under the tree.

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Is it possible to be very happy and very disappointed with a service at the same time? That's the way I've felt about the GrandCentral phone service since Google bought it last year. I'm happy because GrandCentral does the job that I wanted it to do: Callers dial one number, and it rings my cell phone, office phone, and home phone, in any combination I desire.

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As early reviews of Windows 7 come in, it appears that Microsoft is getting a start at putting Vista behind it, the way the Coca-Cola Company did with New Coke. That's good news for Windows users -- and bad news for Apple, which has leveraged Microsoft's weakness to drive market gains.

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It's hard to know whether there's more than meets the eye with Red Hat's acquisition of Qumranet. Yes, it gets expertise in the open source KVM hypervisor, and KVM is the alternative preferred by open source developers. But what can Red Hat actually do with a desktop virtualization product? How's it going to make headway against Citrix XenServer and VMware's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure? There's potential in KVM, but is there traction in desktop virtualization for Red Hat?

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If you want to take a closer look at Google's Chrome browser, check out my video tour of the software. I'll take you around the user interface, features such as application windows and incognito mode -- aka "porn mode" -- and more.

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I just found a solution to a problem that was driving me crazy for months, and I'm passing it along now for my fellow sufferers. Firefox was blocking popups in Google Reader, even though I explicitly told Reader to allow popups for the entire domain Google.com. Turns out this isn't a bug (as the programmer joke goes), it's a feature. Read on for the fix.

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Firefox 3 has only been out the door for a couple of weeks, but Mozilla.org, which develops the browser, is already looking ahead to the next versions. I talked with Mozilla.org about what users can expect in future 'foxes, and when we can expect them. Bad news for you haters of the smart location bar: It's not going away, Mozilla is committed to it, although they're thinking of ways to modify it to make it more palatable.

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The most useful new feature in Firefox 3 is that it lets you zoom whole Web pages, making them bigger and smaller to enhance usability. Previously, you could only resize the text, which made the overall page look lopsided and funny. We'll show you how to use this new feature -- it's pretty simple, which makes this a pretty short video.

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We're kicking off a series of videos showing off the top features of Firefox 3. This time, we're taking a peek at the AwesomeBar, an updated version of the good old browser location bar, designed to make it easier for you to return to your favorite Web pages again and again. The Awesome Bar is controversial -- many people love it (including me). But others hate it, and for those people, we've got tips for how to disable the AwesomeBar.

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Desktop virtualization has its dominant vendors, namely VMware and Citrix Systems. But in an embryonic field, consider the alternatives. I'd like to cite Neocleus, an Israeli firm, which is focused on running the virtual machine at the desktop, not on a central server, under a desktop hypervisor.

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Users are drumming up petitions, blog posts, and Web sites aimed at trying to convince Microsoft to continue support for Windows XP, which Microsoft plans to discontinue on new computers beginning June 30.

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The User Account Control is one of the most hated features of Vista, constantly throwing up pop-ups asking if you really want to do what you just asked to do. In an intriguing defense, Microsoft says they know it's annoying -- they did it on purpose.

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Apple plans big changes to its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks, with new versions that use more powerful, recent Intel processors, eco-friendly materials, and that borrow design elements from the new, thin MacBook Air and aluminum iMacs.

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Windows still nearly monopolized enterprise desktops in 2007, even though it lost some market share at the expense of Apple, according to a report by Forrester Research. Enterprise Windows market share dropped nearly 4%, but 95% of business users run Windows. And Apple market share tripled, but it's still just 4.2%, limited to enthusiasts and small workgroups.

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I’m not an Outlook user, but most e-mail clients I have tried -- and even Outlook back when I used it -- seem pretty self-explanatory, so I'm a little unclear about the need for ClearContext. This product aims to make Outlook e-mail more manageable, more efficient, more automated. Maybe this is just one of those things where you don't know you're missing. Since our company is moving to Outlook in the next few months, maybe I'll have to see for myself.

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What's the main improvement in the three-day-old Mac OS X 10.5.2? Increased stability. With previous versions of Leopard, I had to force-quit a frozen application once or twice a day, but with 10.5.2, I haven't had to do it even once. "It just works" is once again a description of the Mac, not just wishful thinking, as it has been since Leopard shipped in October.

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Here's a nifty workaround for accessing menu items in Mac applications without taking your fingers off the keyboard. The Unofficial Apple Weblog:

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I was going to post this blog about why Apple is the most hated company on the Internet first thing yesterday. But my Mac crashed and ate the post, so I spent most of the day re-doing my work. I think that might be a sign.

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Put away your varsity jackets and cheerleader outfits -- you don't have to lie about being a student anymore to get access to Microsoft Office for the Mac for the lowest price. With Office 2008 for Mac, being introduced Tuesday, Microsoft is replacing the student and teacher edition of Office, priced at $149, with a home and student edition, priced at $149.95.

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NewsGator is going to stop charging money for the popular -- and terrific -- NetNewsWire RSS reader for the Mac and FeedDemon for Windows, as well as its other services, including the Web-based RSS reader, and NewsGator Go for Windows Mobile and the BlackBerry. Greg Reinacker, founder and CTO of NewsGator Technologies, says the company is freeing its consumer services to build demand for its enterprise products.

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Wouldn't you know it? I installed the new Firefox beta, and took two days to explore it and write a review. During those two days, Firefox crashed three or four times on my Mac, so I dutifully reported that Firefox beta 2 was less stable than beta 1. We posted the review a couple of days ago -- and Firefox hasn't crashed on me since.

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For Mac users traveling without a laptop, it's a cold and lonely world out there. You're forced to rely on the kindness of others for access to computers, and those others -- hotel business centers, family members -- are usually running Windows. Wouldn't it be great if you could run a cut-down version of Mac OS X on a USB drive? Then you could have access to your favorite Mac programs wherever you go.

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LAS VEGAS -- At CES, scouting for new products, 0ne of the names you definitely don’t expect to hear is Amiga. Surely that's ancient history, a footnote in the family tree of the PC. Yeah but don't say that around Bill McEwen. He's president of Amiga and he's announcing a new write-once-run-anywhere development platform, AmigaAnywhere 2. And even better -- or more bizarre – he says he's got new Amiga hardware coming, too.

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My keyboard is pretty nasty. It just accumulates dirt. About a year ago, I made a new rule for myself: No eating at my desk. That helped a little, but my keyboard still looks like a fraternity house after homecoming weekend. So I was excited to see this news on the Internet: Most keyboards are dishwasher safe.

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The I'm-a-Mac/I'm-a-PC ads have lost their entertainment value, but nobody's told Apple, which just introduced three new commercials in the threadbare series. Not only are the ads tired, they target issues are no longer relevant to the current PC market.

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Going through some Web pages from the beginning of the year, I came across this excellent Lifehacker guide for switching from Windows to the Mac. The guide focuses on the two biggest headaches for switchers: Different keyboard shortcuts, and different ways of launching and shutting down programs and documents.

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Maybe Apple is coming out with a tablet PC, but it seems unlikely. It's not a product that makes sense. Tablet computers have been available for Windows a couple of years now; they're not selling like gangbusters and there's no reason to assume that a Mac version will do better, no matter how much magic pixie dust Steve Jobs shovels onto the product.

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Apple is distributing test versions of a bug-fix upgrade of its new Leopard Mac OS. 10.5.1 fixes bugs in the firewall, data lost problems, and bugs in Mail, Spotlight, iCal, and more, according to Engadget, which lists a couple of dozen bugs that the update fixes.

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One of the perennial rumors of the Apple community is coming around again. This time, it's a CNET blog reporting that Apple is developing a tablet PC Really. Not kidding this time.

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While the young people nowadays are all about their "instant messaging," and "social networks," e-mail is still the switchboard through which most of my business communication flows. Apple Mail 3, the upgraded mail client included in Mac OS X Leopard, is a very good mail client and a significant improvement over previous versions. It has a few features I love, some I hate, and some that are frustrating because they're good but could be so much better.

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Steve Jobs got a suggestion the other day from an old friend and business partner -- a guy named Steve Wozniak. Unlock the iPhone, Woz said: "I am really for the unlockers, the rebels trying to make it free. I'd really like it to be open to new applications."

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When I heard last week that Gmail is getting IMAP support, I was excited. My life was going to get a little easier. And how hard could it be to set up? Change a couple of settings in Apple Mail and I'd be good to go, right?

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When upgrading your operating system, expect the worst. Expect that your system won't boot. Expect your favorite applications won't run. Expect that your essential documents will be deleted or inaccessible. Also, your dog will get pregnant, the milk in your fridge will go sour, and you'll wake up with a big zit on your nose and run into your high-school sweetheart later that day.

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While Leopard is a significant improvement over previous Mac OS X releases, it has some notable shortcomings. IPhone users, database developers, people still running Classic Mac apps, and folks who are obsessive about backing up will find some disappointments. Read on for a roundup of six Leopard problems.

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The Apple community is giving Leopard the lite version of the hype orgy that the iPhone received four months ago. All this for a mere software dot-release. It's easy for a sensible person to dismiss the whole thing as flummery, but in fact there are some meaty new benefits to Leopard that are worth looking forward to.

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National Semiconductor is struggling with a problem with its Intel-based laptops. Processors in the laptops slow down into power-saving mode when the computers are disconnected from external power. That's how they're supposed to behave -- but they don't return to full power even when reconnected to external power. That means NSC is getting much less performance than it paid for.

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Microsoft, which obviously didn't learn any lessons at all from the failures of the "buzz marketing" that sank its Origami "ultra mobile PC" gizmo, has unleashed a strange (as in odd . . . very, very odd) Web site that may sink Zune, the media player it confirmed it will unleash on a breathlessly awaiting world later this . . . uh, should I say "year" here, or the way things have been going with Microsoft lately, would "decade" be safer?

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I have installed a lot of PC software. A LOT of software. Back in the day it was a piece of cake: copy the EXE file, add it to your path statement, maybe edit a little parameters file, and you were good to go.

Windows, of course, changed all that. The typical Windows installation has become a production worthy of Cecil B. DeMille, with the blessings and curses of the license agreement, the shriek of your hard drive as temp files are copied, directories initialize, cab files spring into being, registry entries are set, and DLLs are sprinkled across your hard disk like seed across a field. Thermometer graphics rise and fall, progress meters progress, desktop icons are created, and registration information is extracted from you like molars.

But for a truly epic installation, I have to give the Oscar for Best Drama to Symantec's Norton Internet Security upgrade. I just went through it not once, but twice. It is longer than the death scene from "Camille," and more emotionally draining. Is it going to start? Do I have enough disk space? What is it doing now? Will it ever, ever, ever end?

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Microsoft cut off support for Windows 98 and Windows Millenium Edition (ME) last week. It was not a very responsible decision. There are still plenty of PCs running 98 and ME out there, and denying them the protection of security updates will make them vectors of infection for PCs running supported Windows versions in the long run.

Microsoft might like to pooh-pooh the issue, but its own actions tell you something about the size of the problem: It felt it had to announce a solution for its corporate customers -- small-business and home users need not apply.

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The San Francisco Chronicle reports this morning that Apple won't continue to bully bloggers for the name of the internal source who leaked secret company information to them last year. An appeals court ruled May 26 that Apple could not force the bloggers to reveal the identity of the person. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which had challenged the Apple lawsuit, told The Chronicle the decision means that bloggers and other online journalists have the same right to protect their sources as traditional reporters. I extend my sympathy to Steve Jobs, who must be struggling with the news that he's only human, for the damage this vendetta must have done to Apple's once-vaunted corporate culture.

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I wrote about Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program in my e-mail newsletter (here's an online version) this week, and mentioned that once you click "Install" it can't be uninstalled. But that turns out to be not quite the case.

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I am just enough of a rebel to think FON has a really cool idea with its plan to sell a million WiFi routers for $5 and turn home DSL and broadband connections into a worldwide wireless network. But I'm not quite rebel enough to commit to being a Fonero myself. I'm bothered only a little bit by the criminality. But I'm bothered a lot more by the privacy problems.

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