Digital Musings

Make your Windows XP look like MAC OS X

I have often admired the looks of a Macintosh Computer. The sleek and minimalist looks of a Mac are a treat for your eyes. But no one can beat good old Windows. They say Mac is more stable and secure, but I believe, its is because its not as popular as the Windows OS. If it was as popular as Windows, people would have found out ways to mess with it and create viruses and spywares, targeted at a Mac.

There are several emulators that can make a Macintosh OS work and look like Windows, but I never found a good software that can act as a MAC emulator on my Windows OS.There are various ways by which you can make Windows look like MAC by changing one feature at a time, but I didnt know any software that did it all at one go. Yesterday I came across a software called as FlyakiteOSX, that can make a Windows XP computer look like MAC OS X. If you like the looks of Mac but prefer to stay with Windows, then you can install the software and combine the the looks and functionality together. It almost works like Windows-Blinds, which is a Theme changing software for Windows OS.

To harness the complete functionality, this software makes several changes on the computer, ranging from replacing the cursors to creating relevant system related files. At the beginning of the installation it prompts you to create a restore point so that if something goes wrong you can just restore your computer to pre- installation state and wouldn’t even know something went wrong. The installation takes up 191.8MB of space. However, you can also customize the installation yourself by ticking off the check boxes.

FlyakiteOSX is compatible with following versions of Windows:

- Windows XP (Home, Pro, RTM, SP1, SP2, Corporate)
- Windows 2003 (Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, RTM, SP1)
- Windows Media Center Edition (2003, 2004, 2005)
- All Language Versions.(Available in 42 languages)
- Does NOT work with 64 bit versions of Windows!

Once you have installed the software and restarted the computer, you see the a new Mac look alike startup screen.

Even the Control Panel of Windows is converted into the System Preferences of MAC OS X. It looks just like a MAC, however you have all your regular Windows options like the Control Panel, Date and Times, Sounds, Printer etc.

One disadvantage is once installed this program would change the look for all the users on the computer. It cant be applied for just one user. But is you like the MAC interface, but are used to Windows OS, you can use this program.

The latest version can be downloaded from FlyaKiteOSX 3.5 from osx-e.com.

The author’s site has a list of mirrors for download.

Have you used any software like this in the past? Do you like the idea of combining the looks of MAC and the functionality of Windows on your computer? Let us know in the comments below.
[via:How To Geek]

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Posted in Innovation, Software, Tips and Tricks | 11 Comments »

Get AVG 7.5 Pro Version for free -Also the AVG Free and Pro versions compared.

Looking to get the AVG Professional 7.5 anti virus for free?…Read on…

Computer-Active along with Girsoft,the company behind the highly popular Anti-Virus AVG, is giving away free copy of AVG Anti- Virus 7.5 version, for free. AVG is one of the most popular and successful Anti-Virus softwares on the internet, largely because the free version of the AVG Anti-Virus has a very good track record of PC security.

The AVG Pro version costs $29.95 for a yearly subscription. This news got out on the internet quite soon and a lot of guys started the download. This has slowed down their servers almost to a stand still. The file size is 37 MB, so might take a bit of time as the servers have slowed down, due to multiple simultaneous downloads. Our friends at Ghacks, recommend using a download manager to download it, as if the download breaks in between, you would need to start all over again. They have also mentioned, if you are having a hard time downloading the file, some mirrors have been posted at Cybernet news which is a respected site. These download links however point to RapidShare and MegaUpload, so download it from these links if you are comfortable with these file sharing websites.

I have used AVG pro edition before and currently have the Free version, after the License expired. So now, I can move back to full version, hopefully for one full year or two, but they haven’t mentioned this in the promotion. However when I compared these two editions, I found the Free version quite competitive to the Full version.

A complete comparison between the Professional and Free edition is given below.

AVG Professional VS AVG Free Anti Virus:

When you look at these features carefully, you can see, there isn’t much missing in the Free version and hence its so popular.

Few features that can be deemed as missing are:

1)Technical Support: Free version doesn’t get tech support, but there is enough help in the Forums.

2)Update Servers: Updates for Pro version are though High speed servers, and Free version are left out to non-priority servers. But hey, thats not much of a problem huh!

3)Language Support: Language support for Free version is only in English, again not much of a problem!

4)Windows 64 Support: Support for Windows 64 bit isnt available - Well if you have Windows 64 bit, its better to get the Pro version, especially now that its free!

5)Intrusion detection: Detection of potentially unwanted Programs isn’t there…If we get AVG to do that too, What would the Anti Spyware and Firewalls do…again not much of a disadvantage.

6)Schedules: Scheduled Update and Scanning isnt flexible in free as its in Professional version. Not a big concern.

7) User Defined Tests: Well If you are good enough to understand User defined testing, you would go for the Pro version any way!

8)Resident Shields: AVG Resident shields absence is a bit of concern, but things can be managed, if you don’t frequently visit Warez and Crack sites.

9)Alternate update server: Well we can always update later in Free version. In Pro however, you have alternate download servers. useful in a Virus attack situation. Kinda rare though.

10)Tests results analysis: Professional gives advanced analysis, Free version just gives Basic reports.

I think after comparing and analyzing these features,one can say AVG Free Version is up to the task. The professional version, is for guys who are more in the favor of complete peace of mind.

So would you go for the Professional version, now that its free. Or stick to Good old AVG Free edition?

Posted in Internet, News, Popular, Software | 13 Comments »