Safari - trying to fool the world ?

Mark Wilton-Jones has researched a bit more to show Safari isn't as fast as it claims to be

"At the release of Safari 3 beta for Windows, there were several claims about Safari's page load performance. It was giving results that showed it was clearly faster than other browsers. Since I generally like to check things for myself instead of trusting what companies say, I gave the new Safari a whirl. Sure enough it was very fast. Its CSS was quick, its page loading was quick, its JavaScript was quick. Perhaps quick, but certainly not as fast as they seemed to claim it was.

I have a variety of machines that I tested it on, and all showed the same thing; it was fast, but not really faster than the competition (Opera, for example, but other browsers were also faster in some cases). But when tests used JavaScript to check the page loading speed, Safari produced numbers far smaller than other browsers, even though the actual page load was not faster when tested with a stopwatch. Simple CSS float tests would produce times of less than 100ms, while the actual page load (from disk, so no network lag is involved) could take as much as 5 seconds."

Read more

Safari - no, its not the best browser

Ars Technica reviews Safari for Windows and yes they are absolutely right, Safari is no way close to being the best browser - I find it painful to use Safari - just too many things to get used to - Stick to Firefox

Read the review here

Try Ubuntu through Wubi

If you always wanted to try Ubuntu and didn't want to install it fiddling with partitions on your hard disk - you should really try Wubi.

Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application and it does this by installing Ubuntu into a single file as opposed to installing on a partition

Download the installer

Via Wubi

Ubuntu Alternatives for Windows Programs

Word Processing

Windows: Word

Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org Writer

Alternatives: Abiword

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

sudo apt-get install abiword

Spreadsheet

Windows: Excel

Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org Calc

Alternatives: Gnumeric

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

sudo apt-get install gnumeric

Presentation

Windows: PowerPoint

Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org Impress

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

Database

Windows: Access

Ubuntu: OpenOffice.org Base

Alternatives: Glom

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

sudo apt-get install glom

Web Browser

Windows: Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox

Ubuntu: Mozilla Firefox

Alternatives: Epiphany, Mozilla

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install mozilla-firefox

sudo apt-get install epiphany

sudo apt-get install mozilla-browser

E-Mail

Windows: Outlook Express, Outlook, or Mozilla Thunderbird

Ubuntu: Evolution

Alternatives: Mozilla Thunderbird

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install evolution

sudo apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird


Media Players

Windows: Windows Media Player, iTunes, Winamp, VLC

Ubuntu: Rhythmbox, Totem Movie Player

Alternatives: Banshee, Muine, Beep Media Player, Mplayer, VLC

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install rhythmbox

sudo apt-get install totem

sudo apt-get install banshee

sudo apt-get install muine

sudo apt-get install beep-media-player

sudo apt-get install mplayer

sudo apt-get install vlc

Photo Editor

Windows: Adobe Photoshop or the GIMP

Ubuntu: The GIMP

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install gimp

Instant Messaging

Windows: AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, or Gaim

Ubuntu: Gaim

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install gaim

Voice Over IP

Windows: Skype or GizmoProject

Ubuntu: Ekiga Softphone or Skype

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install ekiga

sudo apt-get install skype
(Requires download or addition to apt sources)
Office and Finance

Personal Accounting

Windows: Quicken, Microsoft Money

Ubuntu: Grisbi, Gnucash

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install grisbi

sudo apt-get install gnucash

Desktop Publishing

Windows: Microsoft Publisher

Ubuntu: Scribus

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install scribus

Project Management

Windows: Microsoft Project

Ubuntu: Planner

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install planner

Drawing and Modeling

Vector Drawing

Windows: Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape

Ubuntu: Inkscape

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install inkscape

3D Modeler

Windows: Alias Maya, Blender

Ubuntu: Blender

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install blender

Diagram Editing

Windows: Microsoft Visio

Ubuntu : Dia

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install dia

Games and Edutainment

Planetarium

Windows: Starry Night, Voyager III

Ubuntu: Stellarium

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install stellarium

Space Simulator

Windows: Orbiter

Ubuntu: Celestia

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install celestia

Flight Simulator

Windows: Microsoft Flight Simulator, FlightGear

Ubuntu: FlightGear

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install flightgear

Typing Tutor

Windows: Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing

Ubuntu: Tux Typing, Ktouch

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install tuxtype

sudo apt-get install ktouch

Windows 95 Commercial

Windows Vista Wallpapers

Brajeshwar has collected the set of wallpapers apparently made for Vista.

Get them

What Vista should have been in 2003

Source: Digg/anog

The Zune Site

Zune is launching on Nov 14. Microsoft has launched the Zune site

You get to see the Zune photo gallery and the technical specifications, the accessories available for it and even a Zune Windows XP theme

Let's wait for Nov 14 to do some reality check

Blue Screen of Death Top 10

The now infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) has been around since Windows 3.1. However, by chance, this screen made an appearance back in Windows 1.0! Have we finally discovered the original origins of this beast! There are many causes for this error: Bad DLL's, incorrect device drivers, bad memory, damaged registry, etc. This error has become less predominant in later years. Receiving such an error now, is much more serious than it used to be in the Windows 3.1/95/98 days. Below are some of the Top 10 Blue Screen of Death images! Some of these might be fake images, unless I was to take them myself how could I be sure obviously. Enjoy!

Via Real World

Install Mac & Win Fonts on Ubuntu

Installing TrueType fonts is very easy on Ubuntu. On your desktop or in a file-browser window, just type Ctrl-L to access the Open Location window; then type fonts:/// and click Open. You will then see a list of all the fonts you currently have access to on your system. Drag your new TrueType font from your desktop or file manager into the font-list window, and it will be automatically installed and made available to applications through Defoma the next time they start up.

It's actually not quite that simple if the fonts come from a Macintosh system, because Mac OS embeds extra font information using a special format that Linux can't read directly. Before you drag Mac OS fonts into your fonts:/// folder, you need to convert them with a utility called fondu, which you can install with the following command:

sudo apt-get install fondu

Then copy your Mac OS font directory to your Linux machine and run:

fondu *

Source: Ubuntu Hacks

Windows Vista RC2 Review

Information Week has come out with review of Vista RC2. Apparently, if you don't activate, Vista will stop working.

If you don't want to read the full review - here is the conclusion!

Performance-wise, RC2 looks and feels good and marks a continued progression from RC1. (I had only one unexplained reboot!)

The bottom line is that, with RC2, Vista is increasingly looking like a smart combination of heavy duty functionality sure to be welcomed by corporate users and an increasingly good-looking presentation that'll appeal to consumers.

Unlocking the mysteries of svchost.exe

If you happened to check your Windows Task Manager, I am sure you would have noticed a strange looking process called svchost.exe. Ever wondered what it really did ?

Fred Langa - the author of Langalist newsletter has an article on svchost.exe explaining what it really does.

Read it here