Desktop News & Articles

Microsoft will unveil (and likely make available) the consumer preview version of Windows 8 at an event being held at Mobile World Congress, presumably to signify the move from desktop to mobile.

Microsoft is working hard on its upcoming Windows 8 operating system, and will be sharing pre-release builds in time for its BUILD conference. In a bit to strike up more public interest, the Windows 8 development team has given some sneak peeks into the latest Windows Explorer interface. The main highlight: ribbons.

It doesn't matter how much we love the Internet and working in the cloud, we are still often tied to our desktops. But it doesn't have to be one or the other -- emerging Enterprise 2.0 tools like Box.net's (news, site) new Box Sync are helping us kick the old habits.

Yet another creature has crawled out of the muck that is the mad scientist home of Google Labs (news, site). This one's intent on helping you visualize and explore publicly-available data.

Ektron (news, site) released some of its 2009 financials and announced sales growth of over 38%. That’s about the only number released by the privately-held Web CMS vendor, so now onto the end-of-year highlights, of course.

As we told you last year, some of the biggest achievements for Ektron were the release of version 8 of CMS400.NET along with some known in the industry geometrical magic.

Also in 2009, Ektron decided to take Professional Services even more into its own hands and gathered about 50 people together for the job. Without, however, leaving the partners hanging. “Ektron’s professional services organization helps AKQA ensure the successful delivery of web solutions to our clients, and is more evidence of Ektron’s commitment to its partners’ success,” said Douglas Smith, technical director at digital agency AKQA.

The company also reported expansion in the U.K. (where the camp was set up in 2007) and APAC markets with a goal to acquire more customers in those regions in 2010.

As usual, we're all over anything and everything WordPress. Now, thanks to their gang of upcoming sessions of WordCamp, you can be too. 

WordPress weekend conferences are organized by local communities to talk about all things WordPress. They are informal, informative, and invite everyone from casual users to core developers to attend. Users of both WordPress.com and WordPress.org are encouraged to get together, share their ideas, and get to know each other.

Network, give your feedback, influence future versions of WordPress and maybe--just maybe--bulk up your t-shirt collection.

There's a list of upcoming WordCamps over at WordCamp Central, or, you can keep up with them (as well as several other events) by following our events list here. It's posted once a week as a reminder, but is always available for you to check out and add to if you know of something we've missed.

You know MindTouch (news, site) for its enterprise class wiki and collaboration portal. They consistently bring out new solutions to help you collaborate faster and smarter in the MindTouch environment. Now the open source collaboration vendor brings you a new suite of productivity tools for your desktop.

Bridgeline Software has announced the release of its iAPPS® Content Manager, which is the premiere product in a set of four solutions on the iAPPS® Framework.

iAPPS® Content Manager is also the first web CMS product intended specifically to address analytics, ecommerce and emarketing needs surrounding web applications.

The solution marries a straightforward “desktop” interface to SaaS flexibility, meaning it can be as personal or as remote as you want it to be. Indeed, the Framework can even be licensed for use in dedicated locations, according to CNN Money.

No fresh offering is really an offering without AJAX: Content Manager’s controls make generous use of it, making the interface robust and easy to use. Desktop-esque conventions also make the solution fully customizable and as personal as each user’s needs and skill-set.

In an effort we’ve decided to dub the free code revolution (IBM joined recently), Sun Microsystems has announced it will be licensing a handful of the key components of Java ME and Java SE under the open source GPL (general public license).

Java ME and Java SE are its mobile and desktop platforms, respectively.

The company has also built an online repository for open source Java products, dubbed the Mobile and Embedded Community.