Open Media Boston

metro news from the ground up

Home / Tech

Open Source

Run Windows (and DOS and Linux and OS/2 and BSD) on your Mac with VirtualBox

2 November 2008 - 10:57pm | Jesse K-S
by Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia

No longer are PC and Mac users stuck with only the operating system that shipped with their hardware. Users have several choices of virtualization software that allows them to concurrently run a virtual guest machine with the same or a different operating system from their host machine. A relatively new and popular use for virtualization is to allow Intel Mac users to run a virtual Windows machine without having within OS X, providing users access to Windows only applications.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 vs NeoOffice: Mac App Melee

17 October 2008 - 8:11pm | Jesse K-S
by Jesse K-S

OpenOffice.org 3.0 was recently released with a host of new features like MS Office 2007 file format support, spreadsheet collaboration and an improved word processor comments system. Good news for anyone running Windows or Linux who wants a stable, high quality and free office suite. Great news for Mac users, since OpenOffice.org 3 is now a native Intel OS X application. But do its new features justify a switch away from NeoOffice for Mac users?

Social Media Opportunities for Social Movements

19 September 2008 - 4:13pm | Jesse K-S
by Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia

Traditional mass media forums provide few opportunities for weak social movement organizations to advance their frames. As a result, organizations without sufficient resources are largely absent from public discourse in the mass media forum. Fortunately, social media sites that rely on user-generated content create forums for more democratic public discourse, and the high visibility of user-generated content and conversation promotes a sense of collective identity and power.

Why Are You Still Wasting Money on MS Office?

12 September 2008 - 3:47pm | Jesse K-S
by Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia

Microsoft Office has become the standard office application suite for most businesses, government offices, public schools and universities, and even nonprofits. With eight versions of MS Office available to consumers, ranging from $150 to $680 for full versions (not upgrades), and seven bulk licensing options available for organizations, it's a costly and confusing standard to maintain. Free, open source alternatives such as OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice and KOffice can open and edit MS Office files, and offer similar or additional software features without the hefty price tag and confusion.

Control Everything on Your Mac with Your Keyboard Using Quicksilver

11 August 2013 - 7:31pm | Jesse K-S
by Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia

OS X's Spotlight feature is a great search tool, and is fast enough to use as a keyboard-based application launcher, but that's about where its usefulness ends. Quicksilver picks up the slack by allowing users to control nearly every aspect of their computer without ever touching their mouse. Once you use it, you'll wonder what you did without it. Read the review and tips after the jump.

Copyright? What Copyright? Your Guide to Bittorrent Software Security and Services

3 July 2008 - 6:07pm | Jesse K-S
by Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia

In this guide, I will briefly discuss the philosophy of peer-to-peer technologies, and review my favorite bittorrent clients and trackers, as well as a network security application called Peer Guardian. Read on if you're curious about bittorrent but have never tried it, or if you already use bittorrent but are concerned about privacy and security.

Firefox 3 Launch Sets New World Record: 8 Million Downloads in 24 Hours

19 June 2008 - 3:04pm | Jesse K-S
by Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia

This past Tuesday, Mozilla set a new world record with more than 8 million downloads in just 24 hours. Firefox 3, Mozilla's open source web browser, offers improvements to memory management, a new bookmarks system, enhanced security features, and better operating system integration for Mac users.

Pages

User login