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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Bordeaux 50% off recession busting sale

The Bordeaux Technology Group is proud to announce a 50% off recession busting sale on Bordeaux for Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, PCBSD and OpenIndiana. With the current US unemployment rate hovering near 10% and rumors of the possibility of a double dip recession. We want to do our part to help save individuals and small business as much money as we can on their Wine related software needs. With Bordeaux you can run many of todays most popular Windows based office applications and games on your operating system of choice.

Over the past two years their has been a large multitude of changes that have taken place in Wine. And with Wine 1.2.1 being recently released users can run more of their favorite Applications and Games on their unix operating system of choice.

Bordeaux for Linux and BSD will be marked down to only $10.00 and Bordeaux for Mac and OpenIndiana will cost only $12.50 during this sale.

This sale will last until the US unemployment rate falls below 7% or as long as we can feasibly run this half off sale. So, If you have ever wanted to try Wine or Bordeaux and have put off your purchase in the past this is the perfect time to try Bordeaux and save 50% off the normal selling price.

Supported Applications/Games:
  • Microsoft Office 2007
  • Microsoft Office 2003
  • Microsoft Office 2000
  • Microsoft Office 97
  • Microsoft Office Visio 2003
  • Microsoft Office Project 2003
  • Adobe Photoshop 6
  • Adobe Image Ready 3
  • Adobe Photoshop 7
  • Adobe Image Ready 7
  • Adobe Photoshop CS
  • Adobe Photoshop CS2
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 7
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6
  • FireFox 3.6.8 and multimedia plug ins
  • Apple Safari 5.0 Web Browser
  • Steam and Steam based Games
  • Google SketchUp 7.1
  • VLC 1.1.0
  • Apple QuickTime 6.5.2 Player
  • IrfanView 4.27 (Image files only)
  • Winetricks support

Bordeaux 2.2.0 will be our next release and will have a large number of new features and bug fixes over our previous release. Anyone who purchases Bordeaux during this sale can freely upgrade to our next release and any further updates for the next six months.

New Features Planned for Bordeaux 2.2.0:
  • Sync to Wine 1.2.1
  • Sync to the latest WineTricks Release
  • More fixes to the Bordeaux UI and Cellar Manager
  • The 2.2.0 release will have a new GTK based backend

New Features Planned for Bordeaux 3.0.0:
  • Sync to Wine 1.2.x or 1.3.x if all supported programs run stable.
  • Sync to the latest WineTricks Release
  • More fixes to the Bordeaux UI and Cellar Manager
  • The 3.0.0 release will have a new and improved UI
  • A new Bordeaux Application Database

About BordeauxGroup, Inc.:
Founded in 2008, The Bordeaux Group focuses on the development of Free Software solutions enabling legacy Windows applications to run on Unix systems and other non-Windows operating systems. Bordeaux is designed to aide in the transition and migration to non-Windows platforms by bringing Windows software to Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, PCBSD and OpenSolaris. The company is privately held. For more information about the Bordeaux Group please visit http://www.bordeauxgroup.com

Bordeaux for Linux is a trademark of the Bordeaux Group, Incorporated. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Windows is a registered trademark, and Office is a trademark, of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Photoshop is a trademark of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are owned by their respective companies.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac


Mac OSX running Counter Strike 1.6 and Call of Duty 4 Natively

Thanks to Cider, Mac users can run windows applications/games WITHOUT running a virtual OS. Now that I think about it… I'm not sure if this COD4 was actually made for mac or if it was a port running through cider. This works for many other things as well. The Codeweavers CrossOver also does the same type of thing using wine instead of cider. Somewhere on their site they have a compatibility list. I successfully use CrossOver to run Steam games like DOD:S and other stuff. With virtualization through Parallels or VMWare Fusion, you still need a copy of the windows OS. With cider/wine, you dont. Long Live Mac! The ONLY reason I ever used windows was because I wanted to play games.


Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac


Tuesday, November 23, 2010

CrossOver Linux Review

by Mike Mansell

For about four months now, I have been using the Ubuntu Linux operating system full-time on both my desktop and notebook computer. A few weeks into this experience, I wrote an article sharing some of my findings about the Windows to Linux migration process. One of the main concepts that I addressed in this article was the concept of finding Linux-based alternatives to one’s current Windows software. However, I also covered the fact that there are some software applications that simply do not have worthy alternatives, and for this reason suggested that Linux newcomers look into the WINE package to run Windows software on Linux. However, there is no denying that WINE is “at best a bit sketchy” (as said by a commentator).

When I first started using Linux, I had heard about the CodeWeavers CrossOver software package that worked to run Windows applications in a Linux environment. However, I could not justify purchasing it (retail pricing starting at $40) because in my eyes, it did not offer any value. After all, it was based on the WINE project, and I saw it pointless to purchase something that was simply a re-branded version of something that was freely available. More recently, though, a few people have been telling me about the wonders of CrossOver and how it was so much more than the branded WINE package that I thought it was. For this reason, I decided to take the plunge and purchase CrossOver Linux Standard in order to run a few Windows applications in Linux.

Upon installing the pre-compiled package, I was intrigued by the “bottle” concept that was employed in CrossOver. You see, in order to maximize comparability and isolate instabilities, CrossOver allows you to create separate ”bottles” that have individualized WINE settings. For example, I currently have a “bottle” that contains the mIRC IRC client. When I install additional software packages down the road, I will install them in separate bottles. Then, if any Windows-based software opts to go haywire down the road, any errors or damage will be isolated to that bottle and will not effect other software. Simply put, this leads to optimum stability. Additionally, by allowing individual applications to reside within their own bottles, CrossOver allows for the best possible comparability by eliminating any software conflicts and allowing for optimal operating system environments to be used.

More importantly, however, is the level of control that the end-user has over the bottles. I say this because the bottle manager allows for bottles to be forced to shut-down in the event of error, and allows for applications and runtime to be installed and uninstalled. Moreover, the implementation of a task manager extends the end-users level of control.

In retrospect to installing software in WINE, installing Windows-based applications in CrossOver is amazingly simple. The easy-to-use installation wizard allows you to create a new bottle with the recommended settings for your applications and to go about the installation process. These pre-configured settings for supported (and non-officially community-supported) software reduces the need for “trial and error” when installing software.

One of the best things about CrossOver is the fact that it instantaneously updates the “Applications” menu under Gnome, giving the end-user easy access to their applications. While this seems somewhat basic of a feature, it is definitely something that I have yet to see implemented in WINE.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Test-driving Bordeaux 2.0.8

We, as computer users, run applications -- all sorts of them. We browse the web with an program, send e-mail via another, write up reports, crunch numbers, listen to music, transfer files and store contacts using a long list of different applications. There are thousands upon thousands of programs floating around the digital world and there's one problem: they don't all run on your operating system. Almost all of us, at one time or another, will come to a point where we have an operating system and matching programs that do almost everything we want and, on the other hand, a program which doesn't run natively on our OS of choice. Fortunately there are ways of dealing with this. Some people dual-boot their systems and deal with the awkward transition between platforms. Others use virtual machines and work with the overhead involved with running two systems at the same time. A third option is to build compatibility into one OS so that it can run programs designed for a different OS and that's where Bordeaux comes in.

The Bordeaux Technology Group is a company specializing in compatibility software. Specifically, they work at making it as easy as possible to run Windows programs on the UNIX family of operating systems. Their Bordeaux tool is built to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, OpenIndiana and Mac OS X. Bordeaux is, at its heart, a customized build of Wine. They take a recent version of Wine, add some special tools and test their build for compatibility against a group of popular Windows software. They then sell this bundle (along with support) for about US$20 - 25, much less than the typical cost of a Windows license. A few weeks ago I had a chance to chat with Tom, a member of the Bordeaux Technology Group, and he was kind enough to give me a copy of Bordeaux (PC-BSD edition) to test-drive.

The provided PBI package was about 44 MB and it installed without any problems. With the install completed, two icons were added to my desktop and application menu. These new icons were labelled "Bordeaux" and "Cellar Manager". I launched Bordeaux first and was presented with a new window featuring three tabs along the top. These three tabs are called "Install Applications", "Manage Wine" and "Unsupported Packages". At the bottom of the window, regardless of which tab is selected, are two buttons called "Help" and "Install". Clicking the Help button always opens a browser window to the Bordeaux documentation website. The Install button actually performs different functions depending on which tab is selected.

Let's start with the Manage Wine tab. It provides us with a list of basic Windows software, such as Notepad, Minesweeper and the Registry Editor. Clicking on one of these items and clicking the Install button launches the program. It's pretty straightforward and I didn't have any problem using these built-in items.

The Install Applications tab is a bit more interesting. This tab provides us with a list of Windows software which is supported by Bordeaux. Highlighting one of the items and clicking the Install button will perform one of two actions. In cases where the highlighted software is freely available online, Bordeaux will download and install the application. I tried this with Internet Explorer 7, Safari, QuickTime Player and Google's SketchUp. Each of them downloaded and installed without and problems and the first three ran smoothly. The SketchUp program installed on my machine, but I ran into problems running it and experienced frequent crashes. I haven't used SketchUp before, so I'm uncertain as to how much of this is a problem with the application itself, with Bordeaux, or with my hardware. There are several other programs available in the support list, many of them Microsoft Office products. Picking one of these options and clicking the Install button would kick off work in the background and install some components. Bordeaux didn't provide much information as to what was going on, but I suspect it was configuring my environment to work with the highlighted software.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac