Stories about: Quicken

For many users, getting started with Linux is surprisingly easy. New, friendlier versions of the free operating system, such as Fedora and Ubuntu, feature straightforward menus and automated installations that make switching from Windows to Linux a relatively simple process.

Web database vendors claim they aren't worried by Microsoft's just-announced SQL Server Data Services offering, saying their services are sufficiently established, different, and/or better than Redmond's to enable them to thrive when SSDS is released -- according to the current schedule, in the first half of next year.

According to Webster's Online Dictionary semantic means "the relationships between symbols and what they represent." Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web in 1989 at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, has used the term to christen the Internet of the future.

A small New Zealand IT consultancy is working on an open source accounting and payroll application that can be customized to suit the requirements of the country it is being used in.

Lack of a business-grade accounting system tailored for Australia's onerous taxation system has long kept even the most die-hard Linux fans tied to Windows, but all that is set to change with the open source SYMBOL Accounting.

As the speakers at this week's fourth annual Linux Desktop Summit in San Diego looked out onto their audiences, they couldn't help but notice that the number of attendees sporting t-shirts, sandals and bushy facial hair -- the stereotypical Linux movement diehards -- was much reduced from previous conferences.

Many self-avowed Microsoft haters have stopped short of switching to Linux when they realized the pain involved with abandoning all of their favorite Windows software.

Following a path laid by open source developers, eBay may open up some of its source code in order to quicken the pace of application development and open up new business opportunities.

In the previous column, I mentioned the new Novell Linux Desktop, which began shipping recently, so maybe we should take a closer look at it.

Changing your operating system from Windows to Linux can be a traumatic process. Not only is Linux a completely new system to learn, but many mainstream applications won't run on it. A solution to this is Codeweavers' Crossover Office, a tool that allows you to run many major Windows applications, such as Microsoft Office, on the Linux OS. Based on WINE (www.winehq.com), Crossover Office uses the WINE compatibility layer to run Windows applications natively - rather than in an emulation mode - so you don't need Windows installed. A 30-day trial version is available for download from www.codeweavers.com.

For those wanting to run Windows under Linux, CodeWeavers, Inc. has zeroed in on thirty popular apps like Lotus Notes 6.51 and MS Project. This, hopes CodeWeavers' CEO Jeremy White, will help make his company's Windows-to-Linux software even more attractive.