Reader reb wanted something festive to dress up her Windows desktop this December, so she used a combination of visual tweaks and strategic customizations to add both holiday cheer and productivity...

div class="image"a href="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/big_show.php?/avaxhome/e8/fb/0009fbe8.jpeg" target="_blank"img src="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/e8/fb/0009fbe8_medium.jpeg" id="external_img_654312"//a/divbr/ bdiv class="center"FranklinCovey PlanPlus For Windows v5.1 | 27 MB/div/bbr/ Get Organized. Focus on Priorities. Accelerate Productivity. Ideal for Windows®-based planning for those in small office and home office settings.

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"IBM and Canonical Thursday announced a virtualized software bundle combining Lotus desktop applications running on top of a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Ubuntu"Ubuntu Linux/a that they say is far cheaper than running Microsoft#39;s Office suite on conventional Windows PCs./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"It#39;s the latest salvo in IBM#39;s ongoing battle to break Microsoft#39;s stranglehold on the desktop./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"b[ Stay up to date on the latest virtualization developments with InfoWorld#39;s a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/virtualization/?source=fssr"Virtualization Report blog/a and a href="http://www.infoworld.com/newsletter/subscribe.html?source=fssr"newsletter/a. ]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"According to IBM, the a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;taxonomyId=18amp;articleId=9058900"virtual Linux desktop suite/a could cost, for large companies, as little as $59 per worker. That would include a minimal configuration of $49 for the VERDE desktop virtualization software from a third vendor, Virtual Bridges, $10 for Ubuntu Linux support, and no cost for the Lotus Symphony productivity software./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"A a target="_blank" href="http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/occs-pt5/"full-fledged Linux desktop solution/a that includes Lotus Notes e-mail, Sametime instant messaging, and other collaboration tools would cost $258 per user, according to IBM./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Customers would also save on labor costs due to reduced maintenance from moving to a server-side solution, said Inna Kuznetsova, director of Linux strategy for IBM, as well as lower hardware costs by extending the lifespan of desktop PCs./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;This is hopefully the first step in multiple announcements to come from us,quot; she said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"In August, IBM said it had a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;taxonomyName=Small_Enterpriseamp;articleId=9111804"reconfigured its Lotus productivity and collaboration software/a to make it easier to bundle with Linux distributions such as Red Hat, Ubuntu and Novell Inc.#39;s SUSE Linux./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"IBM and its partners plan to sell the bundle directly as well as through reseller partners. Asked if IBM planned to host and deliver the software itself as a service, a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;articleId=9118258"as Microsoft plans to do with Office Web,/a Kuznetsova said, quot;we have no announcements at this time, though we will certainly look at this.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Kuznetsova admitted that IBM#39;s calculations do not factor in the potentially expensive cost of migrating users from a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Microsoft+Office"Microsoft Office/a and Windows over to the Linux virtual desktop environment, nor the cost of extra server and networking hardware to host the software./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Nor has IBM calculated how the Linux virtual desktop stacks up cost-wise versus the virtual Windows desktop route, using a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;articleId=9092798"desktop virtualization from VMware,/a Citrix Systems, or Microsoft, Kuznetsova said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;We are certainly cheaper than migrating to Office 2007 on a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Microsoft+Windows+Vista"Vista/a ,quot; she said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/index.jsp"emComputerworld/em/a emis an InfoWorld affiliate./em/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=365c41ebd0591dbe9baab5b6add78694p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=365c41ebd0591dbe9baab5b6add78694p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=365c41ebd0591dbe9baab5b6add78694 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"IT vendors may be growing increasingly desperate amid the global economic downturn, but customers must employ a range of tactics -- not just bullying -- to extract cost savings from them, a group of Forrester Research analysts said during a client teleconference Wednesday./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Companies simply can#39;t use a shotgun-style approach and expect to succeed, said software licensing analyst Duncan Jones: quot;Anything that is undifferentiated, like a general letter that goes out [to vendors] saying we#39;ve got to cut everyone#39;s maintenance by 10 percent? That#39;s not going anywhere.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"b[#160;For more on how to deal with the recession, check out#160;a href="http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=samp;V=113008amp;source=fssr"InfoWorld#39;s special report: IT and the financial crisis/a.#160;]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Analyst Paul Roehrig, who focuses on outsourcing and IT services, said it is difficult and awkward to extract price concessions on a signed contract./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;Either you#39;re begging or threatening.... Those [tactics] tend to work, but only for a short time,quot; he said, adding, quot;unless you#39;re really overpaying, there#39;s really not that much room in the provider#39;s margin where they can lower the price point without changing the service level.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"And if a customer does succeed in lowering its services costs, quot;the vendor is going to immediately substitute junior people,quot; said analyst John McCarthy, whose coverage areas include offshoring./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Instead of begging for a rate cut, customers could instead ask their vendors to assign more seasoned workers to their projects, resulting in productivity gains and cost savings, McCarthy said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Meanwhile, the tactics are different for software licenses and maintenance agreements, according to Jones./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;One of the problems is, you#39;re dealing with a software rep who has different goals than you. He needs to sell new licenses and has no interest in helping you cut costs,quot; he said. quot;But if you get up higher in the organization, there are going to be people who care more about the long-term relationship, and there#39;s flexibility there.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"That said, now is the time to push for bigger discounts on new licenses, as sales representatives quot;are desperate to meet their number by end of the year,quot; Jones added./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Companies could even indicate they#39;d be happy to let any outstanding deals float over into 2009, he said: quot;That will probably be too late for the rep, so try it as a tactic and see how much flexibility you#39;ve got.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Also, customers could use money they#39;re prepared to spend on new software as leverage, Jones said: quot;Anything you#39;re trying to get, like cutting maintenance on products you#39;re not using, you might be able to get that as a quid pro quo for spending in another area.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Beyond maximizing their buying power, companies should save money by determining which software assets no longer need a maintenance contract, Jones said: quot;You save costs with minimal impact on the business, but you put pressure on other vendors because it shows you#39;re seriously looking at everything.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"A similar approach should be taken to IT services contracts, Roehrig said. quot;If you#39;re asking for the highest levels of service, you#39;re going to be paying top dollar, when the reality is that the enterprise can function just fine with not everyone having gold-plated service.quot;/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Companies should also try to get more value out of outsourcing in general through strategic hiring, he said. quot;If I had money as a client to invest in one thing ... I would get someone who really knows how to manage a service provider. Some of the best outsourcing deals I#39;ve come up against have really good people who know how to get a service provider to do what you want.quot;/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Customers should also seek to lower the total number of service providers they contract with, leading the way to bigger volume discounts, Roehrig said. But he noted that this can be difficult for heavily federated organizations to accomplish./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"It#39;s also possible to save money by actually helping one#39;s vendor cut costs, according to Jones./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"If four divisions within a company are negotiating separately with a vendor, they should consider consolidating those relationships, he said: quot;I would go to the vendor and say, how can I earn cost reductions by dealing with you in a centralized fashion?quot;/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=d2af144ea36d92b98b864852471867f8 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

One part social network, one part video archive, and one part office productivity drain, Comedy Centrals Jokes.com is designed as a hub for all things stand-up comedy.

One part social network, one part video archive, and one part office productivity drain, Comedy Centrals Jokes.com is designed as a hub for all things stand-up comedy.

One part social network, one part video archive, and one part office productivity drain, Comedy Centrals Jokes.com is designed as a hub for all things stand-up comedy.

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"a target="_blank" href="http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/?tnav=_l5001_t13_s"Microsoft/a on Wednesday unveiled a free plug-in for Firefox to translate Open XML documents, an update to its document translator, and a toolkit for Java developers that was built under the umbrella of its Document Interoperability Initiative./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"The group released the a target="_blank" href="http://www.codeplex.com/OpenXMLViewer"OpenXML Document Viewer/a as an open source project on its Codeplex Web site. The viewer translates documents in the Open XML format, which became an ISO standard in April after much contentious a target="_blank" href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/011608-microsoft-defends-open-xml.html"debate/a , to HTML so they can be viewed on a browser. The viewer, which is still in the preview stage, eliminates the need for a user to install Microsoft Office or any other productivity tool set./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"b[ Discover the top-rated IT products as rated by the a href="http://www.infoworld.com/testcenter/?source=fssr"InfoWorld Test Center/a. ]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"The first implementation developed by MindTree and Microsoft works with Firefox 3.0 running on Windows or Linux and translates font types, images, text styles, diagrams, tables, and hyperlinks. In early to mid-2009, the project will add support for Opera and add server-side features./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"The software was released during a Document Interoperability Initiative (DII) meeting this week in Belgium./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Microsoft created DII in March with the help of Novell, Mark Logic, Quickoffice, DataViz, and Nuance Communications. The goal was to foster interoperability between document formats, most notably Open XML and the Open Document Format (ODF)./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;Basically this is Microsoft sincerely going out and following up with what they did with OpenXML,quot; said Peter O#39;Kelly, principal analyst with O#39;Kelly Consulting./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"As part of that follow-up, Microsoft plans to support ODF in Office 2007 SP2, which is slated to ship next year./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"On top of the Firefox plug-in, DII released a target="_blank" href="http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/"Version 2.5/a of the a target="_blank" href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/020207-open-xml-translator-for-microsoft.html"Open XML/ODF Translator/a , which supports Office 2003, 2007 and XP. The new version includes a set of ODF 1.1 compatible templates and chart enhancements for spreadsheet programs./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"The templates provide preformatted documents, such as a business letter or fax sheet, that are based on either ODF or Open XML and allow predetermined conversions between formats./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"DII also introduced an software developer kit for Java developers that aids in working with Open XML documents. The project aligns with the a target="_blank" href="http://poi.apache.org/"Apache POI/a project, which provides Java libraries for reading and writing in Microsoft Office formats./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"All the DII software was released as open source projects./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;We have been seeing that a lot of people now understand that what is most important is the end user,quot; said Jean Paoli, general manager of interoperability strategy for Microsoft. quot;Since for maybe a year now, we are seeing far less passion about the format issue and more rationality.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"ema target="_blank" href="http://www.networkworld.com"Network World/a/em emis an InfoWorld affiliate/em/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=13a81f127b350a33975bc075fa7eb6b9p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=13a81f127b350a33975bc075fa7eb6b9p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=13a81f127b350a33975bc075fa7eb6b9 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/oslo/default.aspx"Oslo Developer Center/aBRBRBOslo/B is the code name for our platform for model-driven applications. The goal of "Oslo" is to provide a 10x productivity gain by making model-driven applications mainstream with domain-specific models, languages, and tools.img src="http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/aggbug.aspx?PostID=557238" width="1" height="1"

a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/oslo/default.aspx"Oslo Developer Center/aBRBRBOslo/B is the code name for our platform for model-driven applications. The goal of "Oslo" is to provide a 10x productivity gain by making model-driven applications mainstream with domain-specific models, languages, and tools.img src="http://www.dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/aggbug.aspx?PostID=557238" width="1" height="1"

!-- [DocumentBodyStart:c0af1b8e-6859-4a24-af63-882a70b6e76a] --div class='jive-rendered-content'pI am really pleased about the Flex support in the latest official IDEA release, my coding productivity improved greatly. There are still a few quirks here and there, but I noticed quite some activity from the developer(s) - which is welcome for further improvements -  and I just keep filing JIRA requests :-) Good bye, Flex Builder./pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppThanks,/ppPeter/p/div!-- [DocumentBodyEnd:c0af1b8e-6859-4a24-af63-882a70b6e76a] --

!-- [DocumentBodyStart:c0af1b8e-6859-4a24-af63-882a70b6e76a] --div class='jive-rendered-content'pI am really pleased about the Flex support in the latest official IDEA release, my coding productivity improved greatly. There are still a few quirks here and there, but I noticed quite some activity from the developer(s) - which is welcome for further improvements -  and I just keep filing JIRA requests :-) Good bye, Flex Builder./pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppThanks,/ppPeter/p/div!-- [DocumentBodyEnd:c0af1b8e-6859-4a24-af63-882a70b6e76a] --

Read full story for latest details.img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~4/QWECkoDJHOo" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/bestof2008_01.png" width="494" height="290" Mobile phone operating systems and a reheated web browser war: that's how we'll recall the year 2008 when it comes to software. From brand new to revamped browsers and mobile platforms and apps, 2008's been good to technophiles who like their data in the cloud and accessible wherever they are. Let's take a look back at this year in software, and some of the best new and improved applications, web services, and mobile platforms that were born in 2008. Looking back at the last 12 months, these are the apps that get a gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin from us this year. iPhoto by a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/1947414336/"Gaetan Lee/a./i/p pbr clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Firefox 3/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/firefox3-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Not only did you swoon over the release of Firefox 3 because of a href="http://lifehacker.com/392160/top-10-firefox-3-features"the "AwesomeBar" and the rest of the "Had no idea I needed this but now I love it!" features/a it offers, but because the launch itself was a grass-roots community-driven effort towards making software history. Indeed, on June 17th of this year, the makers of Firefox a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2008-07-02.html"set a new Guinness World Record for most software downloads in a given day/a, at more than eight million downloads of the new browser iteration in 24 hours. If you haven't dug into the advanced functionality Firefox has to offer, check out our a href="http://lifehacker.com/396312/power-users-guide-to-firefox-3"power user's guide to Firefox 3/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Chrome/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_gchrome.png" width="135" height="135"While Mozillians and Firefox users celebrated across the globe over the summer, no one knew that search powerhouse Google was in the software development lab cooking up their own lean, mean browsing machine that would forsake all of the fox's bells and whistles (and extensibility) to run Javascript-based applications lightening-fast. On September 2nd, Google released the first beta of a href="http://google.com/chrome/"Chrome/a, their new web browser which they hope you'll make your window to the web and all its apps. Our own in-house a href="http://lifehacker.com/5055406/browser-speed-tests-the-compiled-up+to+date-results"browser speed tests show that Chrome is indeed speedy/a, and we're seeing a significant uptake on Chrome usage by Lifehacker readers. (Last month's browser breakdown for Lifehacker readers was 62% Firefox, 22% IE, 8% Safari, and 6% Chrome. Not bad for a browser that's been out only a few months.) For more Chrome goodness, see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5045904/the-power-users-guide-to-google-chrome"power user's guide to Google Chrome/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 and the App Store/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/iphone20-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Yeah, yeah, the iPhone launched in 2007, but this year the iPhone 2.0 software and the new iPhone 3G model with a faster data plan and GPS came out to hype almost as big as the original iPhone launch. The combination of an operating system that finally ran third-party apps officially plus pinpointy GPS goodness set the bar for what users can expect to get from the next generation of smartphone with a fast internet connection, full-on browser, and spot-on location-awareness. Plus, dozens of the apps available for the phone are free. At first, we were a href="http://lifehacker.com/395171/how-your-location+aware-iphone-will-change-your-life"in/a a href="http://lifehacker.com/398338/iphone-20-gets-you-laid-and-more"love/a. Later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/398658/why-youre-better-off-avoiding-the-iphone"we had our doubts/a. The iPhone 2.0 launch did start to show some of the cracks in the Apple armormdash;several of the earliest versions of the software were crash and freeze-prone, requiring many users to uninstall apps and reset their phone software to fix maddening keyboard delays and application crashes. Meanwhile, Apple's approval-only App Store left a few applications out in the cold. Still, the iPhone 2.0 software created a compelling mobile platform and app marketing campaign that made Aunt Bertha really want to try that Neil Diamond song out on Shazam.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak Utilities and Apps/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/cydia-thumb.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" What with the App Store limitations and Apple's insistence on ruling over what you can and cannot do on your phone, it's not surprising the enthusiastic "jailbreak" community soldiered on this year, continuing to offer installers and non-Apple-approved applications for your iPhone even in the face of the mainstream iTunes App Store. We take our hats off to these intrepid hackers, who offer such lovely functionality as the ability to SSH into, theme, and download video clips to your phone; if you haven't jailbroken your iPhone or iPod touch, here are a few of our picks of best a href="http://lifehacker.com/400148/iphone-20-jailbreak-apps-you-cant-find-in-the-itunes-store"iPhone 2.0 jailbreak apps you can't find in the iTunes Store/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Android/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/android-logo-sq.png" width="135" height="135" Google's answer to Apple's proprietary iPhone hardware and software came in the form of their very own touch mobile phone operating system, Android, which launched this past October. Unlike the iPhone, this new mobile platform is open source and will run on various handsets going forward. Right now Android's first release is only available on the HTC G1 handset; you can see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5064117/a-hands+on-first-look-at-google-android"hands-on first look at Google Android running on the G1 here/a. As an iPhone user frustrated by limited apps, crashiness, and lack of copy and paste, Android is like a breath of fresh air. Even though the mobile OS is still very new, its open-source nature has led to hundreds of new apps. See our pick of a href="http://lifehacker.com/5075332/best-android-apps-to-boost-your-mobile-productivity-so-far"best Android apps to boost your mobile productivity/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Digsby/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/digsby-logo_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" One of the few software apps on this list that's not open source or made by a ginormous company, new instant messenger client Digsby took chatters by storm with its ability to a href="http://lifehacker.com/354345/consolidate-im-email-and-social-networking-with-digsby"consolidate your IM, email, and social networking in one place/a. Even though the Digsby beta only went public in February, by April it was already a href="http://lifehacker.com/375391/five-best-instant-messengers"one of our readers' top five favorite instant messaging tools/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"XBMC and Forks/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/xbmc-logo-sq_01.png" width="135" height="135" We were really late to the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) party when we showed up last year and a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/transform-your-classic-xbox-into-a-killer-media-center-299809.php"installed it on our old classic Xbox/a, but since then we've been hooked on this rich, open-source media center. Luckily, just because those old black boxes are becoming obselete doesn't mean the XBMC software project has died off. Just the opposite: XBMC has forked into several neat branches that run on various hardware platforms so you can enjoy the same media center goodness without hacking an old Xbox. Check out a few launches from various factions of XBMC developers this past year that have warmed our hearts:/p ul lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5051874/xbmc-atlantis-beta-1-released-for-all-platforms"XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 Released for All Platforms/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5095241/plex-7-adds-itunes-and-iphoto-support-and-more"Plex 7 for Mac Adds iTunes and iPhoto Support and More/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/396382/boxee-is-xbmc-with-newer-look-and-social-flair"Boxee Is XBMC with Newer Look and Social Flair/a/li /ul br clear="all" h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Ubuntu Hardy Heron/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/hardyheron-logo.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Another year, another Ubuntu release, and they just keep getting better. Seriously, you have to love the free, open source operating system that manages a new major release on a yearly basismdash;something Apple and Microsoft, companies you pay hundreds of dollars to for the privilege of using their software, don't pull off. If you've tried Linux on your desktop before and killed the partition in frustration, only to slink back to Windows, it's time to give it another go. This year's flavor, a href="http://lifehacker.com/383769/hardy-heron-makes-linux-worth-another-look"version 8.04 Hardy Heron makes Linux worth another look/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Gmail Labs, Gadgets, and Themes/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_smallish_smallish_smallish_smallish_gmailenvelope.png" width="135" height="135" Our favorite web application on the internet, Gmail, continues to burn down barns and rip up the competition with continual iteration and feature adds. This year, Gmail added a "Labs" section to your account, a safe way for power users to enable "experimental" power features to their email while keeping everyone else's safe from harm. Truthfully, when I a href="http://lifehacker.com/395211/gmail-gets-13-experimental-new-features"attended the Google press event announcing Gmail Labs/a back in June, I had my doubts about whether or not the featureset would ever expand beyond the initial 13, and if it would go beyond eye-candy games like Snakey to, you know, actually useful stuff. Turns out it did. Six months later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/5052060/what-gmail-labs-features-do-you-have-enabled"ten more Gmail Labs features/a are available in your account, including a super-useful Gadgets feature that lets third parties embed their apps into your inbox. (Like a href="http://lifehacker.com/5101139/bitly-offers-in+gmail-url-shortening-gadget"Bit.ly/a or a href="http://lifehacker.com/5084502/add-your-basecamp-projects-to-gmail"Basecamp/a.) Later, Gmail launched a href="http://lifehacker.com/5093536/gmail-updates-its-look-adds-themes"themes/a as well as a href="http://lifehacker.com/5100649/gmail-google-desktop-gadget-now-available"a Google Desktop gadget/a. In the midst of all this, the Gmail security team took the time a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2008/11/gmail-security-and-recent-phishing.html"to respond to a breach/a that several users had experienced and blogged about online. Clearly there's someone home at Gmail; this is a rapidly-evolving product that any webapp developer should use as an example on how to iterate quickly.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Honorable Mentions/h3 pMaking best-of-year lists is always difficult because you risk leaving off really deserving items. At least two that go in our honorable mentions bin are the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5042312/ubiquity-prototype-offers-a-natural-language-web-command-line"Firefox keyboard interface prototype Ubiquity/a, and photo-sharing site a href="http://lifehacker.com/377598/flickr-adds-video"Flickr's launch of short video clips/a in April./p pNow, you tell us which one of these apps impressed you the most in the year two thousand and eight./p pscript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/1160637.js" /scriptnoscripta href="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1160637/"Which new or improved app impressed you the most in 2008?/abr span style="font-size:9px;"( a href="http://www.polldaddy.com"polls/a)/span/noscript/p pIf you can't get enough of best-of lists, hop into the time machine and see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-new-and-improved-apps-of-2007-332617.php"top 10 new and improved apps of 2007/a, and our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/best-of-2006/geek-to-live--the-best-apps-of-2006-221920.php"best apps of 2006/a and of a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-best-apps-of-2005-144388.php"2005/a./p pAnything you would have included on this list that we left out? Tell us about it in the comments./p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=cDx19c1S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=ZTEOZvTR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=6Kfin5AZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=6Kfin5AZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Sg3nuEAr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=Sg3nuEAr" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/TRlejqKX0-0" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/bestof2008_01.png" width="494" height="290" style="display:block;" / iframe src="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.php?u=http://digg.com/software/Lifehacker_Best_New_and_Improved_Software_of_2008" align="right" frameborder="0" height="82" scrolling="no" width="55"/iframe Mobile phone operating systems and a reheated web browser war: that's how we'll recall the year 2008 when it comes to software. From brand new to revamped browsers and mobile platforms and apps, 2008's been good to technophiles who like their data in the cloud and accessible wherever they are. Let's take a look back at this year in software, and some of the best new and improved applications, web services, and mobile platforms that were born in 2008. Looking back at the last 12 months, these are the apps that get a gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin from us this year. iPhoto by a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/1947414336/"Gaetan Lee/a./i/p pbr clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Firefox 3/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/firefox3-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Not only did you swoon over the release of Firefox 3 because of a href="http://lifehacker.com/392160/top-10-firefox-3-features"the "AwesomeBar" and the rest of the "Had no idea I needed this but now I love it!" features/a it offers, but because the launch itself was a grass-roots community-driven effort towards making software history. Indeed, on June 17th of this year, the makers of Firefox a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2008-07-02.html"set a new Guinness World Record for most software downloads in a given day/a, at more than eight million downloads of the new browser iteration in 24 hours. If you haven't dug into the advanced functionality Firefox has to offer, check out our a href="http://lifehacker.com/396312/power-users-guide-to-firefox-3"power user's guide to Firefox 3/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Chrome/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_gchrome.png" width="135" height="135"While Mozillians and Firefox users celebrated across the globe over the summer, no one knew that search powerhouse Google was in the software development lab cooking up their own lean, mean browsing machine that would forsake all of the fox's bells and whistles (and extensibility) to run Javascript-based applications lightening-fast. On September 2nd, Google released the first beta of a href="http://google.com/chrome/"Chrome/a, their new web browser which they hope you'll make your window to the web and all its apps. Our own in-house a href="http://lifehacker.com/5055406/browser-speed-tests-the-compiled-up+to+date-results"browser speed tests show that Chrome is indeed speedy/a, and we're seeing a significant uptake on Chrome usage by Lifehacker readers. (Last month's browser breakdown for Lifehacker readers was 62% Firefox, 22% IE, 8% Safari, and 6% Chrome. Not bad for a browser that's been out only a few months.) For more Chrome goodness, see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5045904/the-power-users-guide-to-google-chrome"power user's guide to Google Chrome/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 and the App Store/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/iphone20-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Yeah, yeah, the iPhone launched in 2007, but this year the iPhone 2.0 software and the new iPhone 3G model with a faster data plan and GPS came out to hype almost as big as the original iPhone launch. The combination of an operating system that finally ran third-party apps officially plus pinpointy GPS goodness set the bar for what users can expect to get from the next generation of smartphone with a fast internet connection, full-on browser, and spot-on location-awareness. Plus, dozens of the apps available for the phone are free. At first, we were a href="http://lifehacker.com/395171/how-your-location+aware-iphone-will-change-your-life"in/a a href="http://lifehacker.com/398338/iphone-20-gets-you-laid-and-more"love/a. Later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/398658/why-youre-better-off-avoiding-the-iphone"we had our doubts/a. The iPhone 2.0 launch did start to show some of the cracks in the Apple armormdash;several of the earliest versions of the software were crash and freeze-prone, requiring many users to uninstall apps and reset their phone software to fix maddening keyboard delays and application crashes. Meanwhile, Apple's approval-only App Store left a few applications out in the cold. Still, the iPhone 2.0 software created a compelling mobile platform and app marketing campaign that made Aunt Bertha really want to try that Neil Diamond song out on Shazam.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak Utilities and Apps/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/cydia-thumb.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" What with the App Store limitations and Apple's insistence on ruling over what you can and cannot do on your phone, it's not surprising the enthusiastic "jailbreak" community soldiered on this year, continuing to offer installers and non-Apple-approved applications for your iPhone even in the face of the mainstream iTunes App Store. We take our hats off to these intrepid hackers, who offer such lovely functionality as the ability to SSH into, theme, and download video clips to your phone; if you haven't jailbroken your iPhone or iPod touch, here are a few of our picks of best a href="http://lifehacker.com/400148/iphone-20-jailbreak-apps-you-cant-find-in-the-itunes-store"iPhone 2.0 jailbreak apps you can't find in the iTunes Store/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Android/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/android-logo-sq.png" width="135" height="135" Google's answer to Apple's proprietary iPhone hardware and software came in the form of their very own touch mobile phone operating system, Android, which launched this past October. Unlike the iPhone, this new mobile platform is open source and will run on various handsets going forward. Right now Android's first release is only available on the HTC G1 handset; you can see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5064117/a-hands+on-first-look-at-google-android"hands-on first look at Google Android running on the G1 here/a. As an iPhone user frustrated by limited apps, crashiness, and lack of copy and paste, Android is like a breath of fresh air. Even though the mobile OS is still very new, its open-source nature has led to hundreds of new apps. See our pick of a href="http://lifehacker.com/5075332/best-android-apps-to-boost-your-mobile-productivity-so-far"best Android apps to boost your mobile productivity/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Digsby/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/digsby-logo_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" One of the few software apps on this list that's not open source or made by a ginormous company, new instant messenger client Digsby took chatters by storm with its ability to a href="http://lifehacker.com/354345/consolidate-im-email-and-social-networking-with-digsby"consolidate your IM, email, and social networking in one place/a. Even though the Digsby beta only went public in February, by April it was already a href="http://lifehacker.com/375391/five-best-instant-messengers"one of our readers' top five favorite instant messaging tools/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"XBMC and Forks/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/xbmc-logo-sq_01.png" width="135" height="135" We were really late to the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) party when we showed up last year and a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/transform-your-classic-xbox-into-a-killer-media-center-299809.php"installed it on our old classic Xbox/a, but since then we've been hooked on this rich, open-source media center. Luckily, just because those old black boxes are becoming obselete doesn't mean the XBMC software project has died off. Just the opposite: XBMC has forked into several neat branches that run on various hardware platforms so you can enjoy the same media center goodness without hacking an old Xbox. Check out a few launches from various factions of XBMC developers this past year that have warmed our hearts:/p ul lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5051874/xbmc-atlantis-beta-1-released-for-all-platforms"XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 Released for All Platforms/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5095241/plex-7-adds-itunes-and-iphoto-support-and-more"Plex 7 for Mac Adds iTunes and iPhoto Support and More/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/396382/boxee-is-xbmc-with-newer-look-and-social-flair"Boxee Is XBMC with Newer Look and Social Flair/a/li /ul br clear="all" h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Ubuntu Hardy Heron/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/hardyheron-logo.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Another year, another Ubuntu release, and they just keep getting better. Seriously, you have to love the free, open source operating system that manages a new major release on a yearly basismdash;something Apple and Microsoft, companies you pay hundreds of dollars to for the privilege of using their software, don't pull off. If you've tried Linux on your desktop before and killed the partition in frustration, only to slink back to Windows, it's time to give it another go. This year's flavor, a href="http://lifehacker.com/383769/hardy-heron-makes-linux-worth-another-look"version 8.04 Hardy Heron makes Linux worth another look/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Gmail Labs, Gadgets, and Themes/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_smallish_smallish_smallish_smallish_gmailenvelope.png" width="135" height="135" Our favorite web application on the internet, Gmail, continues to burn down barns and rip up the competition with continual iteration and feature adds. This year, Gmail added a "Labs" section to your account, a safe way for power users to enable "experimental" power features to their email while keeping everyone else's safe from harm. Truthfully, when I a href="http://lifehacker.com/395211/gmail-gets-13-experimental-new-features"attended the Google press event announcing Gmail Labs/a back in June, I had my doubts about whether or not the featureset would ever expand beyond the initial 13, and if it would go beyond eye-candy games like Snakey to, you know, actually useful stuff. Turns out it did. Six months later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/5052060/what-gmail-labs-features-do-you-have-enabled"ten more Gmail Labs features/a are available in your account, including a super-useful Gadgets feature that lets third parties embed their apps into your inbox. (Like a href="http://lifehacker.com/5101139/bitly-offers-in+gmail-url-shortening-gadget"Bit.ly/a or a href="http://lifehacker.com/5084502/add-your-basecamp-projects-to-gmail"Basecamp/a.) Later, Gmail launched a href="http://lifehacker.com/5093536/gmail-updates-its-look-adds-themes"themes/a as well as a href="http://lifehacker.com/5100649/gmail-google-desktop-gadget-now-available"a Google Desktop gadget/a. In the midst of all this, the Gmail security team took the time a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2008/11/gmail-security-and-recent-phishing.html"to respond to a breach/a that several users had experienced and blogged about online. Clearly there's someone home at Gmail; this is a rapidly-evolving product that any webapp developer should use as an example on how to iterate quickly.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Honorable Mentions/h3 pMaking best-of-year lists is always difficult because you risk leaving off really deserving items. At least two that go in our honorable mentions bin are the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5042312/ubiquity-prototype-offers-a-natural-language-web-command-line"Firefox keyboard interface prototype Ubiquity/a, and photo-sharing site a href="http://lifehacker.com/377598/flickr-adds-video"Flickr's launch of short video clips/a in April./p pNow, you tell us which one of these apps impressed you the most in the year two thousand and eight./p pscript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/1160637.js" /scriptnoscripta href="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1160637/"Which new or improved app impressed you the most in 2008?/abr span style="font-size:9px;"( a href="http://www.polldaddy.com"polls/a)/span/noscript/p pIf you can't get enough of best-of lists, hop into the time machine and see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-new-and-improved-apps-of-2007-332617.php"top 10 new and improved apps of 2007/a, and our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/best-of-2006/geek-to-live--the-best-apps-of-2006-221920.php"best apps of 2006/a and of a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-best-apps-of-2005-144388.php"2005/a./p pAnything you would have included on this list that we left out? Tell us about it in the comments./p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=cDx19c1S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=ZTEOZvTR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=6Kfin5AZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=6Kfin5AZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Sg3nuEAr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=Sg3nuEAr" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/TRlejqKX0-0" height="1" width="1"/