I thought I would start off the month with a collection of "power user" tips I have collected over the years. Some of these are real gems, some of them are just "been there, done that". But all of them are useful.

Technology is wonderful, until it stops working as expected. Computers have a nasty habit of developing glitches or just going belly up altogether at the worst possible times. There's nothing that can prevent that, but a couple of open source tools can help mitigate disaster and maybe even save the day altogether. With Clonezilla you can create a perfect copy of your system.

Now, let's explore the 7 Bible software at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, providing a screenshot of the software in action, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

Element is a lightweight Linux distribution for use on a home theater PC (HTPC). It comes with most of the same video-playback applications one would find in a modern desktop distribution, but the development team has put considerable effort into wrapping the applications in an environment that is easy to navigate from across the room...

The MeeGo community has "opened the repositories" on early code for the netbook-oriented Linux platform, which combines Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo. Images are available for the MeeGo distribution infrastructure and OS base "from the Linux kernel to the OS infrastructure up to the middleware layer."

If you've ever tried your hand at The GIMP, you know that, at first, The GIMP can be a bit challenging to learn. That is coming from an adult. Imagine a younger user attempting to use The GIMP.

Alex thinks that Microsoft has failed to fulfill crucial promises upon which the approval of OOXML was based. He concludes that unless Microsoft reverses course promptly, "the entire OOXML project is now surely heading for failure."