John Lamansky

According to this PCWorld article, EBay recently bought out internet telephony company Skype for $2.6 billion. eBay said that they hope their acquisition of Skype will improve communication by allowing auction buyers and sellers to talk to each other. It’s also likely that users of Skype’s premium services will be able to make payments using eBay’s Paypal.

The first beta for the next major version of Mozilla’s popular Firefox browser (which currently holds a John’s Choice award, meaning I use the product) has been recently released. Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 can be downloaded at the Firefox project page on the Mozilla site.

Just a reminder: “Beta” means that the product is for testing purposes only, and could have bugs or stability/compatibility problems. Unless you really want to try out test versions of Firefox, you should use the current stable version, Firefox 1.0.6, instead.

The Supersite for Windows has managed to obtain information about the different editions of Windows Vista (previously known as “Longhorn”) that is due next year. The tentative list of editions and features is:

• Windows Vista Starter Edition - Aimed at developing countries, Starter Edition is a bare-bones version of Windows that only allows 3 programs to run at a time. Analogous to Windows XP Starter Edition.
• Windows Vista Home Basic Edition - Basic version of Vista upon which other editions will build on. Will not include new Aero interface. Roughly analogous to Windows XP Home Edition.
• Windows Vista Home N Edition - In order to comply with antitrust rulings in Europe, Microsoft has released the “N” versions of Windows. Vista Home N Edition will basically be Vista Home Basic Edition but without Windows Media Player and other media features. Like the Windows XP N Editions, the Vista N Editions will only be available in Europe.
• Windows Vista Home Premium Edition - Adds Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition functionality, plus numerous other features, to Home Basic Edition.
• Windows Vista Professional Edition - Business operating system which will include encryption, remote desktop, and other business features. Also includes Tablet PC functionality. Roughly analogous to Windows XP Professional Edition + Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.
• Windows Vista Professional N Edition - Vista Professional Edition without Windows Media Player, etc.
• Windows Vista Small Business Edition - Aimed at small businesses. Based on Professional Edition and adds small business features: fax, more backup features, and possibly a security suite based on Microsoft’s OneCare. Not analogous to any XP version.
• Windows Vista Enterprise Edition - Adds enterprise features to Professional Edition such as Virtual PC and advanced security and encryption technologies. Not analogous to any XP version.
• Windows Vista Ultimate Edition - “Has everything.” Includes features of both the Vista Home and Professional lines. Also adds features like a game performance tweaker. Microsoft is also considering adding Ultimate Edition features and benefits such as a podcast creation utility, deluxe games, custom themes, preferred customer support, Microsoft OneCare subscriptions, free music and movie downloads, and more. Not analogous to any XP version.

Although all of these editions could cause confusion for the average consumer, the choices could benefit more knowledgeable computer users by giving them more control over what features they want in their operating system. Personally, I’d go for Windows Vista Ultimate Edition (assuming it isn’t outrageously expensive), especially if it includes a good-quality podcast creation tool ;-).

For more information on this milestone Windows Vista development, visit this Supersite for Windows article, which includes a detailed description of each edition, plus a table showing which features will be included in each edition.

One of the programs I’ve always had my eye on is Konfabulator, a program that delivers news and information from the Internet to your desktop in the form of “widgets.” Anyway, a change recently happened that makes me want to say “yahoo!”

Yahoo! recently acquired the company that creates Konfabulator, and have now made Konfabulator a free release. To download the program, visit www.konfabulator.com and then click “Download” on the menu bar. Be sure to also check out the widget gallery to browse the directory of the thousands of widgets you can download.

Here’s a list of widgets I’m currently using:

• Werewolf Monitor (bundled with Konfabulator) - a widget that shows the current phase of the moon.
• Firefox Downloads Counter - displays the number of times Firefox has been downloaded.
• mini Weather - small widget showing current weather conditions for the given zip code.
• Radar Widget - downloads scaled radar map from The Weather Channel website for a given area.
• Binary Clock - helps me practice my binary translation skills.