A little article on Slashdot points out that worldwide Firefox usage has reached 13%. Within the USA, 16% of us use Firefox. Germany leads the pack, with 39% of web surfers using Firefox.

ExtremeTech.com has a great article delving into Windows Vista and explaining, in plain English, how it will improve your experience with your computer. Why Windows Vista Won’t Suck is long but well worth skimming. We’re here to pull it all together and tell you why we’re excited about Vista. Here’s a list of what’s new […]

If you are considering starting your own blog, WordPress is excellent software with which to do it. Installation is trivial. Once installed, WordPress pretty much gets out of your way and simply allows you to write. The software handles the grungy details of making your web site look nice without distracting you from your creative […]

Yesterday, I upgraded the software which runs the Cheerful Curmudgeon site to the latest version, WordPress 2.0. Unfortunately, this seems to have made some articles reappear as new for some of you. My apologies if you are seeing the same articles again. Other than that hitch, the upgrade to WordPress 2.0 seems to have gone […]

In case you are not aware, Sony BMG recently released over 50 music titles with some anti-piracy software on the CDs. The software, dubbed XCP, silently installs a "root kit" on a Windows computer, opening up some nasty security risks. The only difference between XCP and the stuff the you buy McAfee VirusScan or Norton […]

eWeek writes, MySQL 5 Arrives Three years in the making, MySQL 5.0 was finally released on Monday. MySQL AB delivers new, and long-awaited, ANSI SQL features in this latest version of the popular open-source DBMS. These new features include both read-only and updated views, stored procedures row-level triggers, both read-only and non-scrolling server-side cursors, and […]

The long anticipated version 2.0 of OpenOffice.org (the $free Microsoft Office "replacement") was released yesterday. OpenOffice.org 2.0 is the equivalent of Microsoft Office Professional: Access, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint plus a drawing program which Office does not have. Additionally, OOo can create Adobe Acrobat files, which Office cannot. Did I mention that OOo costs nothing? […]

MySQL 5.0  Database software, such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server, can be tremendously expensive, often costing more than the rest of the entire computing system (hardware, operating system, and application software). It looks like this equation may be changing. The Register reports in, MySQL destined for ‘majority’ market share MySQL is fast approaching majority […]

We have all heard of open source software. Many of us have even seen it in action (e.g., the Firefox web browser or the Thunderbird email program). One nagging concern still blocks many people from actually using open source software: how do you get technical support? Certainly paid support is the easy-to-find option for many […]

Linux Journal recently published a nice article which introduces OpenOffice.org. If you have heard me (or someone else) rave about how great OOo is but have been hesitating to try to out, give OOo Off the Wall: What New Users Need to Know About OpenOffice.org a quick read. Then download and try OpenOffice.org (it’s free).

NewsForge has an article about University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy’s conversion from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org. Unlike previous articles, this one looks back with two years of perspective. From the NewsForge article: The cost analysis was compelling — the Linux option could be implemented for around $21,000, more than $100,000 less than […]

Forever Geek has a great tidbit on how to make Acrobat load faster on Windows. This made a world of difference for me: Find the Acrobat Reader folder. On my system, with Acrobat 6 installed, this is C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader Open the plug_ins folder. Move all of the files and folders to the Optional folder […]