Despite the “Home” OS, this is actually a business-minded desktop. It includes a 160GB hard drive, a 19-inch widescreen LCD, and integrated Intel GMA 3100 graphics (no Call of Duty 4 for you). It doesn’t come with a modem, speakers, or any preinstalled software. But you do get a 1-year warranty that includes next-business-day on-site service.

(Credit:
Dell)

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

Most $399 desktops (particularly those from Dell) saddle you with a crappy processor and insufficient RAM. Not so the Dell Vostro 200, which features a dual-core Pentium E2160 and 1GB of RAM. Granted, that wouldn’t be enough memory to keep
Windows Vista running smoothly, but this system comes with Windows XP Home (bonus!).

Yahoo said on Saturday that it is evaluating the unsolicited bid.

A Microsoft-Yahoo merger could threaten the openness on which the Internet is based, a Google executive says.

“Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies–and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets,” he writes. “Could the acquisition of Yahoo allow Microsoft–despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses–to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?”

Microsoft and Yahoo together have a large share of the e-mail and instant messaging accounts, as well as two of the most popular Web portals. Drummond wonders about the possibility that Microsoft could use its dominance in the PC software market to unfairly limit access to competitors’ Web services.

Through this partnership, ComScore will also be working with Adobe Systems, which last week signed an agreement to acquire Omniture for $1.8 billion.

Teasing out online traffic figures has been a constant challenge for both advertisers and publishers. The two companies’ goal is better analyze online audiences by teaming Omniture’s reliance on Web site analytics with ComScore’s approach of following patterns of Internet users.

Omniture and ComScore, two Web-tracking powerhouses, are combining forces to launch a new system for measuring online audiences, the companies said Monday.

“Since the rise of digital advertising, advertisers and publishers alike have sought ways to reconcile their Web analytics and panel-based measurement data to establish a unified measure of online audiences,” Omniture CEO Josh James said in a statement. “With this relationship, Omniture and ComScore will enable publishers who have rich, highly targeted audience segments to reliably demonstrate their value to advertisers and also help advertisers find these attractive consumer segments.”

ComScore’s new Media Metrix 360 system will play a leading role in the service. Launched in June, Media Metrix 360 already uses a hybrid approach, supplementing audience measurement with Web site analytics. The company had been criticized in the past for relying on too small a segment of the online audience to provide accurate data on traffic patterns.

Sales of Office 2007 are doing even better, up 100 percent compared with sales of Office 2003 in its initial months. That led Office to account for 17 percent (by dollar volume) of all software sold at retail stores last year.

Swenson also noted that NPD is not seeing significant sales of boxed copies of Windows XP, suggesting to him that the downgrade phenomenon is overblown.
“I don’t think people can do it in droves, even if they want to,” Swenson said, noting that fewer retailers are even carrying the older Windows XP these days.

“It’s a huge hit,” Swenson said.

Although boxed copy sales of Vista have been down over XP’s first year, they were nonetheless up 40 percent from last year’s Windows sales.

Overall, the U.S. non-game PC software market at retail stores totaled $3.3 billion in 2007, a 15 percent increase over the $2.9 billion generated in 2006. The rise is even more notable, as sales had been essentially flat from 2000 through 2006.

Spurred by sales of Microsoft’s Office 2007, the software market hit its highest level since 1999, according to a report released Wednesday by the NPD Group.

One of my biggest peeves? OpenOffice for Mac used to lack embedded video support. Not anymore. I was easily able to drop my favorite video clips into a presentation I had just converted from PowerPoint.

The bigger issue for now is stability, as the program kept crashing when I tried to import Word documents with heavy redlines (using the Track Changes feature). But it’s still a beta, so crashes are to be expected.

The conversion? Perfect. While I doubt OO.org will be able to perfectly convert all of my files, I don’t really expect it to do so: Ever tried converting your files between different versions of
Microsoft Office? Good luck on finding perfection.

Much as I like the idea behind OpenOffice, I’ve never particularly liked the reality. Until now.

So, while not perfect by any stretch, it’s a big step forward in making the Mac a first-class citizen for OpenOffice, which has always worked best with Windows and Linux. I’m now getting the features I want with the operating system and clean UI that I’ve wanted. And, and if you want launcher icons…it has those, too.

commentary (Credit:
OpenOffice.org)

My TweetCloud.

Judging by my Tweet Cloud, it looks like I most frequently Twitter about hopping around the grid of Manhattan. My most-Twittered word is “going,” followed by words like “getting,” “home,” “time,” and um, “party.” After that, it looks like I Twitter about my job: words like “office,” “work,” “writing,” “coffee,” and “facebook” (the company I spend the most time writing about) are on there, too, as is “boston,” a city I like to make fun of a lot.

Another new application of note is TweetStats, a more quantitative Twitter application that crunches numbers on how often you Twitter, to whom you send the most “reply” tweets, and when you’re Twittering the most (3 a.m. anyone?). CenterNetworks’ Allen Stern suggests it as a way to spy on other Twitter users. He’s probably got the right idea there.

Now if there were a way to mash up TweetClouds and TweetStats, well, that would be creepy.

Also in the cloud are some of my favorite things, like “running,” “reading,” and “pizza,” and a display of my propensity for words like “dude,” “awesome,” “omg,” and “pumped.”

This morning, it seems like everyone on my Twitter contacts list is talking about TweetClouds. It’s an application that uses the microblogging service’s API to create a “cloud” of the most frequently used words used in a given Twitter member’s feed of “tweets.”

(Credit:
TweetClouds.com)

Besides individual pricing, the service is a hive-mind for tagged sale items. Each Pricepinx item that’s added to your list also goes public, and the biggest droppers and most added items are served up in individual lists you can browse and use to hunt for deals.

I’ve looked at a handful of price watching services, but this one has got to be the coolest. It’s called Pricepinx, and it’s been designed to work on any site–not just some of the big retailers.

All you have to do to get going is add a small bookmarklet to your browser, highlight the price of the item and click on the bookmarklet. If there are any changes in price, you’ll be notified by e-mail. As an added bonus for those who register with the service, added items are pooled together in a list. You can also sign on as a guest user and get any updates to whichever e-mail address you specify.

Say you want to track this price–now you can with Pricepinx, just by highlighting the digits you want to track and clicking on the bookmarklet that's been added to your browser's toolbar.

[via Lifehacker via The Red Ferret Journal]

Related:
Use the Web to watch for price drops

The one major snag I can foresee with this tool is companies changing page designs, or not picking up on potentially important limited time rebate information that’s not reflected in the total cost. The example I’ve picked below is Newegg, which frequently offers product rebates that might not always be reflected in the list price, but that can potentially save you a lot of cash. Pricepinx also doesn’t work with some sites that dynamically generate pricing based on location, or any of the Gap Web sites.

commentary

Our database now contains over 2,000 projects that are using the GPL v3. At this rate the GPL v3 is being adopted by 1,000 projects every 4-5 months, and if the trend continues, the license will be used by 5,000 projects by the end of the year.

In the meantime, Palamida, a request: Could we get a count on the number of projects using the Affero GPL (AGPL)? It will be miniscule today but I’d be interested in following its growth.

In my estimation, the GPL is by far the world’s best open-source license for business. If Palamida’s recent count of GPLv3-licensed projects is any indication, business in open source is very, very good:

Listening is good. Gratuitous speech is bad. Silence means consent. Don’t chime in just to hear your own voice.

So here they are in two parts: The three rules of meeting etiquette and the five rules of engagement for effective meetings.

Attack the problem or issue, not the person you disagree with. “I don’t agree with you” is okay, but “I think you’re an idiot” isn’t.

Key decisions that are reached during the meeting regarding strategies, plans or objectives should be published by whoever ran the meeting within one day. That also goes for follow-up or action required and an owner for each item.

Don’t just follow these rules yourself; teach them to others. Present them at meetings you conduct. Make work life easier and less frustrating for all your fellow employees and help to make your company more successful. It’ll pay off big-time in the long run.

Three rules of meeting etiquette

Every meeting has a start time and an end time. That means it starts on time and ends on time. If someone is chronically late to meetings, the others must bring peer pressure to bear on that individual. If most of a company’s executives exhibit this trait, then find another company. It’s a sign of immaturity and disrespect for others.

Presenting new ideas or brainstorming is good. Knocking down another’s idea is bad. There’s a time for reaching consensus.

In any case, 15 years ago, a consultant taught me his version of the rules for effective meetings. I’ve adapted those rules to my own style and used them to help management teams work together effectively ever since. And let me tell you, they really work.

Every meeting is run by someone who is responsible for every aspect of the meeting including agenda, attendance, punctuality, and documentation. That person keeps everyone on topic and moves the meeting along using the methods described below.

Happy meetings.

All I do know is, for companies to operate effectively, executives, managers, and key employees need to know how to run effective meetings. Meetings are how conflicts are resolved and plans are agreed upon. They are how critical strategic and operating processes are developed, managed, and to some extent, executed.

Stay on topic, but don’t beat a dead horse. Save other subjects for other meetings. Use a “parking lot” for important issues that may need to be revisited at a later date.

In my experience technology managers and executives are so inept at conducting effective meetings you’d think it’s rocket science or a rare genetic trait. I have no idea why that is.

Be open, honest, and forthcoming. Don’t hold back, bullshit, or sugar-coat issues. This is especially critical in meetings where key decisions are based on the information presented.

Conversely, ineffective meetings result in lost productivity and frustration. They can also be a sign of a dysfunctional workplace, which can result in operating failure.

What is it about meetings that brings out the worst in otherwise reasonable and intelligent people? Is it an opportunity to childishly engage and disrupt others? Or perhaps it’s a chance to demonstrate animalistic dominance. Who knows.

Scott Ard
Editor in Chief, CNET Reviews

Product ratings are the core of what CNET Reviews does, so any tinkering with a familiar and successful format is guaranteed to be viewed skeptically by some longtime users. To those users, rest assured that
nothing has changed in terms of how we rate products, only in how we display the outcome.

As for the other improvements to the site, the infrastructure work will allow editors to update category home pages and various other pages much more rapidly, ensuring that users are always viewing up-to-date
content. This back-end improvement also will allow us to rapidly build new features. Indeed, several are included with the “new” CNET:

The most visible change is to our look and feel. Everything from our logo to our color scheme to site navigation was reviewed, tested, and reworked. The result is a site that many users who were able to view the pages in a beta stage described as “sleek” and “professional.” There is one aspect to the changes, however, that has proved to be a bit more controversial: the shift to stars to represent editorial ratings.

•  We now provide in-line buying advice on our product filter lists
(view an example). This information comes directly from our editors’ buying guides, so
you know you can trust it. This information is also being served on
pages for products that we have not reviewed.

CNET Community,

There are numerous other improvements to the site (such as the treatment of photos on product review pages). Please spend some time clicking around and send me e-mail me your feedback. We are not finished improving the site and your opinions are an important part of the process. For example, maybe you’d like to choose between the old ratings and the stars, or see both, or …

For many long months, CNET’s engineers, editors, and designers have been hard at work rebuilding CNET from the ground up. This week, those changes are being unveiled for all our users. Behind the scenes, our publishing
infrastructure has been overhauled to provide many benefits, two of which will be most obvious: our page-load times are dramatically improved and our publishing tools have been streamlined to permit faster roll-out of content and new features (more on those below).

•  Reviews from competing publications are now presented in the right-side column of our product pages. While we are confident that CNET provides expert reviews that can make or a break someone’s decision to buy a product, we also know that some people want verification that there is agreement among reviews before pulling out their credit cards. No longer do those users have to scour the Web for these reviews, since we are now showing excerpts alongside our own reviews. See an example here (but note we are working on improvements to the presentation.)

•  CNET is making its archive of reviews available to the public. Previously, we’ve hidden reviews after a product was discontinued to avoid any confusion with currently available items. But we recognize
that these old reviews could be useful to users interested in buying or selling old devices, so they’re back online and clearly identified as being discontinued. View an example.

The bottom line is that the only thing we’ve changed is the display of our editors’ ratings. In fact, we’ve gone one step further to highlight the hard work that goes into a CNET review: we are now displaying on
product pages the subratings and overall score in a mouseover that hovers over the star ratings. Previously, this information was almost impossible to locate because it resided on a page describing our rating process that only a handful of our users were able to find. (Eventually, we hope to allow users to sort for products based on these subratings. For example, adding a sort option that would display all cameras that received a subrating
of 8 or above for image quality.)