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1. 
   Review - Real Alternative Regular

   1.45 (Nov 11, 2005)

   This may work well, but it is warez or at the least a license violation. It distributes the realplayer dlls without permission (they didn't rewrite them, they just stole them). It may also violate patents.

2. 
   Review - XnView for Windows

   1.82 Alpha (Nov 2, 2005)

   I dumped ACDSee for Compupic years ago, and then went looking for a freebie that was most similar to Compupic. I've settled on XnView and I love it. It is fast, caches thumbnails quickly, has lots of options, and for me it works a lot like Compupic. (Caching thumbs is an essential which most other programs miss).
   
   I was very concerned when Pierre released a deluxe version that cost money, fearing that free XnView would die or be badly crippled. Thankfully so far that hasn't happened. If it was open source and the author tried to cripple it and release a pay version, others could take the last open source version and fork it and save the program. Unfortunately I haven't found an open source one that is as great as XnView- maybe someday.

3. 
   Review - OpenOffice.org for Windows

   2.0 RC3 (Oct 16, 2005)

   This isn't slow or bloated at all for me- if you use the quickstarter it opens fast and in usage I have never found myself waiting for it. And my computer (1.6ghz) is much slower than a $300 Dell.
   
   I've switched to using only OOo (the 2.0 devline). I've had perfect compatibility with importing and exporting the Word and Excel documents I needed.
   Writer and calc meet all of my needs for those programs. Hopefully in a few months and if I find some more tutorials eventually I will be able to use Base (so far I haven't been able to figure it out).
   
   One other area that is not perfect is copying a page from IE to the clipboard and then pasting into writer, they come out looking nothing like the page and having weird fields that make them hard to edit (maybe saving as html and deleting the non-needed stuff would work better).
   
   If you are a normal Word or Excel user, it's time to switch, before they bust you for pirating Office. Hopefully by version 3 Access users will be able to switch too.

4. 
   Review - ratDVD

   0.6.1119 (Jun 21, 2005)

   The video quality is horrible, but the idea is great. Make the files twice as big please if that's what it takes to make decent quality. I just hope this format doesn't catch on until it is ready for prime time.

5. Comment - Adobe, Macromedia Almost Together

   0.6.1119 (Dec 5, 2005 - 11:28 AM)

   Hardly anybody would consider changing from PDF which is familiar and somewhat allowed to be supported by 3rd party applications, to Metro- a unproven proprietary format by a company known for poising other companies use of standards (see the efforts of Microsoft Java to destroy real Java). The only possible successor to PDF can be from the open source community, but as long as Adobe is reasonable in its allowing of 3rd party use and creating of PDF that may not be necessary, PDF may be the way forever.

6. Comment - MIT's $100 Laptop to be Demoed

   0.6.1119 (Nov 16, 2005 - 12:53 AM)

   Actually he didn't work for it. Maximal value a human can produce per hour = ~$200. ~80 working hours per week X 50 work weeks in a year X ~35 years (of work) X $200 = $28 million dollars. Anyone who has more than that has been exploiting their employees or their customers.

7. Comment - MIT's $100 Laptop to be Demoed

   0.6.1119 (Nov 15, 2005 - 6:35 PM)

   They would have sold a lot more of these and had a lot better chance of them being accepted by beginners if they had accepted the offer for Mac OS. Big mistake. An excellent example of politics triumphing over common sense.

8. Comment - Real Patches Two Serious Player Flaws

   0.6.1119 (Nov 11, 2005 - 9:23 PM)

   Sadly, real alternative is little more than a pirated (or at least license violating) copy of enough of the realplayer dlls for other media players to be able to play real files. It is not rewritten, or legal. Is it safe to play realplayer files in another media player, with an older version of the dlls? Perhaps, but no guarantees.

9. Comment - Sony to Help Remove its DRM Rootkit

   0.6.1119 (Nov 2, 2005 - 9:12 PM)

   Agreed- seeing this smoking gun is enough to kill any interest any knowledgeable user would have in Sony's blu-ray. I'm sure it will prove to be just as consumer unfriendly as everyone says it is. Just like Beta vs VHS, their own greed will destroy them.