Chuck is the embodiment of the dreams of thousands of DeviantArt users—he started out in screenprinting just after high school, worked for t-shirt maker Threadless by day and began creating a name for himself in the online art community by night. Under the pseudonym NoPattern (now the name of his design shop), he achieved incredible success at a startlingly young age: You've seen his work before on projects with Pepsi, Urban Outfitters, Reebok, and many more. My personal favorite has to be the cover art for Lupe Fiasco's fantastic debut album, Food & Liquor:

Today, at only 24, he's achieved a new level of stardom: His designs for Windows 7 will literally be seen by hundreds of millions of people over the lifespan of the OS. Microsoft hunted him down, and it was definitely a good call; Windows 7 is the best-looking Windows OS ever, and its style is reflected in the cool screens designed by Chuck. Check out some of his previous work in the below gallery (including a great graffiti-inspired piece for Zune) to get a sense of his style.

Since he's such an independent guy, I was curious to hear how he managed to collaborate with Microsoft, the tech corporation most likely to have the word "monolithic" as an epithet. Chuck says the actual design team he worked with was quite small and surprisingly open to his ideas. The first thing they showed him back in December 2008 were those glorious Dr.-Seuss-as-read-by-Hunter-S.-Thompson wallpapers, so it was clear right off the bat that censorship wouldn't really be a problem.

The two pieces took about four months, start to finish. Chuck started with a pencil and paper, and moved on to Photoshop for the Windows 7 sheen, but the two pieces retain that sketchy feel—in fact, all the individual threads on the login screen were hand-drawn with a Wacom tablet.

This first gallery shows the stages of the default login screen, the first image to be completed. Later came the default desktop wallpaper and Windows 7's physical packaging, which both have the login screen as their aesthetic jumping-off point. This is where it begins—click on the first thumbnail to read Chuck's own words about how his vision evolved.

The Login Screen

As it turns out, there are a few repetitions of the number seven in the login screen, but weirdly enough, that little Easter egg started out as an accident. Once Chuck and Microsoft noticed that there were seven white strands on the bottom left, they started repeating the number: There are also seven leaves, seven branches, and seven flower petals in the yellow quadrant of the Windows logo.

The default Windows 7 desktop is one of my favorites; usually the very first thing I do with a new computer is replace whatever wallpaper comes with it (Apple is a particular offender here—I hate that cheeseball space motif) and yet I happily left this one on my latest computer.

The Default Desktop

Microsoft sought out this young, independent, mixed media digital artist rather than going through traditional channels, and it resulted in a fresh new look that couldn't have come from another source. It's credit to them, as is the walkthrough itself. You'd never see Apple showing, say, the pieces that mysteriously got tossed aside in favor of that clip-art snow leopard on their latest OS X packaging, would you?

Thanks to Chuck and to Microsoft for showing us their rejects. [NoPattern, Chuck's Twitter]

Note: Speaking of rejects, you might notice that all the screens are capped at 700 pixels in width. It's because Microsoft isn't dumb: They don't want shots they took a pass on becoming the wallpaper of netbooks and PCs all over. Sorry guys, we tried.

All three computers in the package will be preloaded with Windows 7, the full contents of which include:

* Space-saving HP Slimline desktop (s5212y)
* Thin-profile 18.5" LCD monitor (w1858)
* Media-savvy HP laptop (G60-535DX)
* Compact HP Mini netbook (110-1125NR)
* Speedy NETGEAR Wireless-G router (WGR614)
* Seamless in-home setup of the PCs and router by Geek Squad (4000954811)

The desktop features a dual-core 2.5GHz Pentium, 3GB memory, 320GB hard drive and double-layer DVD burner, while the laptop is your standard-fare 15.6-inch HP (320GB HDD, 3GB memory, HDMI-out). The netbook is the HP Mini 110, one of our favorite netbooks. Individually, none of these are really thrilling items, but selling them together for $1200 is a ridiculously great deal. That package would run you over $2000 normally, so if your entire household is in need of an upgrade, this looks like a real winner—certainly one of the best ways to save money with Windows 7 promotions. [Best Buy]

This video examines the benefits and limitations inherent in current mouse-based and window-oriented interfaces, the problems facing other potential solutions, and visualizes my proposal for a completely new way of interacting with desktop computers.

I recommend you watch the whole thing, because he makes some very good usability points—discussing the pros and cons of different UI approaches—before getting into his proposal—which looks beautiful and, more importantly, useful.

I like a lot of the things I see here. I like the way the applications are organized and accessed, combined a modal approach with a stream. I love how he solved the general menu vs application menu dilemma. What I don't like is the idea of having a control surface below the keyboard. I guess we are all used to it, through laptops and trackpads. And he is right that it may be a great way to transition to touch-interfaces for most users—because of that familiarity. However, I would like to see this implemented in a different form factor Both on the go—in the tablet—and in the desktop—in whatever new format the hardware manufacturers can come up with. [10/GUI via Unplggd]

Come by Giz Gallery to see it in person, just be careful, it might eat your head.

As you might expect, the A10 is not powerful enough to be used for anything beyond the basics, but the Atom processor, 1GB RAM and 160GB hard drive put it neatly in that "first PC" sort of range. Pricing has not been announced, but rest assured the obnoxious Hello Kitty branding will probably make what would otherwise be a cheap PC rather pricey. [Akihabara via Ubergizmo]

Like any other alarm clock with dock—compatible with iPod touch 2nd generation, iPod nano 1st to 4th generation, iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod with video and iPod 4th generation—the iLuv iMM153 has built-in speakers and FM radio. Unlike other alarm clocks, however, the iMM153 comes with a small unit that will vibrate to wake you up. At $59.99, it doesn't look bad, but I will need to daisy-chain a few of those if I really want them to wake me up. [iLuv]

• Dongle
• Cookie
• WAP
• Phone jack
• (Nokia) Navi Key
• Time shifting
• Digital TV
• Ethernet
• (Nokia/Others) PC Suite
• Desktop

It's an odd list. Even though the UK loves its Nokias, the inclusion of two proprietary Nokia terms seems innately disproportionate. "Time shifting" was an awkward term to begin with that's specific but antiquated now that "DVR" has taken over. And as for "phone jack" and "desktop," yes, it's disconcerting that laymen don't understand this "jargon," but I can't remember the last time that I used either of these technologies.

So that pretty much leaves "cookie," "dongle," "ethernet," "digital TV" and "WAP" as the terms people need to learn. Please call your grandmothers and inform them as to the proper definitions immediately. [BBC and image]

NASA also released a new image to commemorate the space telescope's 19 birthday. This is Arp 194, a system containing several interacting galaxies with a "cosmic fountain" of stars, gas, dust, and milk shakes that stretches 100,000 light-years.

I don't know about you, but I can't have enough of these. Actually, I think I'm going to sneak into NY's Hayden Planetarium this weekend. [NASA]

The Hub is a landline slayer launched in a wireless world, where the landline is almost dead. It's a fertile garden behind a red-painted wall—red 'cause it's Verizon, har har—found when most people are trying to break down those walls. It's a Verizon Wireless VoIP phone coming about at a time when AT&T is killing their VoIP service entirely. It's the phone we imagined before the iPhone, tethered to our home broadband connection for instant-pizza-ordering awesomeness. In other words, it's a lot of interesting things, appearing in the wrong place and at the wrong time.

That's not to say it's bad. It's just unfortunate. The Hub makes sense in a very specific context: If you're a lock, stock and barrel Verizon customer, from wireless to TV to internet to, obviously, landline phone service. That's where the "Hub" name comes in—it brings a bunch of different Verizon services together in one spot: You can monitor cellphone locations using Verizon's Chaperone, send maps and directions from the Hub to phones running VZ Navigator, and manage a central calendar that your entire family's phones sync to. Eventually, you'll be able to do more, like manage your Verizon FiOS TV DVR. While a minor point, in a sense it's a very sore point with the Hub, since you can already do that from many Verizon cellphones this very second. Why do I need a Hub again?

The garden walls reach their greatest heights when you try to text or picture message to a non-Verizon phone—you can't. The calendar isn't open, using a standard like CalDAV for easy export—it's squarely in Verizonland. A surprising amount of managing the Hub actually takes place on Verizon's website, like uploading contacts (via CSV files) and photos. Thankfully, the Hub's pages are better designed than the rest of Verizon's website—there's legit eye candy in the photo gallery, for instance. And nearly anything you can do on the Hub itself, you can do from the website remotely, like manage voicemail or check your call history. But it's odd you can't do something very simple like upload photos via the Hub's USB port.

It doesn't really matter if there are walls around the garden if you're never tempted to leave. Unfortunately, the Hub isn't enough of an attraction. Pretty much anything you can do on it—buy movie tickets, send text messages, check traffic or watch videos, you can do faster or better on your computer or cellphone. The virtually useless selection of VCAST videos make the average YouTube video feel like HD in comparison, and the "traffic report" isn't a map with live traffic info, but a canned audio briefing from Traffic.com that you have to sit through an ad to hear.

The Linux OS itself isn't particularly a joy. God knows, Verizon's committed some horrible user interface atrocities over the last few years, but at least the Hub's is alright—usable, not mind-blowing. I wish it moved faster. The keyboard is annoying to type on, but it'll get better in the next software update, which adjusts the spacing and adds pop-up letters. A persistent set of buttons on the left gives you constant, instant access to the two main menus: The phone and the uh, menu, where you get to your apps. In the top right corner is the home button, which takes you to the desktop, where your widgets, like for weather, time, voicemail, etc. hang out. Applications tend to have a two-pane layout that's framed by buttons on three sides, which doesn't sound like a problem, but it becomes one since the touchscreen is not so responsive around the edges. I've accidentally called two people at 3 in the morning while trying to press the menu button. Not cool.

Actually, that's one of my more concrete frustrations with this phone: The hardware feels cheap and shitty. The handset, which costs $80 a pop, is a plastic piece of garbage with a shoddy build quality and terrible screen. (It doesn't help that you can't do much from the handset either, like send text messages.) The touchscreen isn't as responsive as it should be, and it distorts with even the slightest bit of pressure, adding to the whole crappy feeling. A screen designed to be touched shouldn't freak out when you touch it. The speakers really harsh, crappy and tinny too. I couldn't stand using it for loudspeaker calls.

There are a few bright points. While the directory isn't as precise as say, MenuPages, it is fairly painless to find a nearby pizza place and call them in a single stroke. The synergistic—I know, that word provokes a gag reflex—stuff works well. Directions quickly went to the Samsung Sway test phone I got with it, which promptly fired up VZ Navigator and pointed to wherever I pointed it. (Too bad VZ Navigator is slow and sucky, but that's somewhat besides the point.) And the call quality itself is pretty good—or at least I sounded "loud and clear" to the people I called.

The brightest light may end up being the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel—the promise that developers will be able to create their own apps for this thing in the future. The included ones, for the most part, just aren't that hot, and some of the newer ones in the pipeline are definitely more head-turning. But it's hard to see how this product can sustain itself long enough to engender a solid third-party developer community. More likely, it'll get slightly better, then go extinct.

It's pretty ballsy to charge $200 for a landline phone with $35/month VoIP service right now, one that does the same thing you can do on an iPhone or G1, but is tied to your desk. Which is a lot of the reason I like it. But it's just as ridiculous to ask that much for a phone that's built with subpar hardware and doesn't live up to its full potential in a world where it's already horribly outmoded. Time was up two years ago. [Verizon]

More specifically, it includes GeekTool (system stats), icalbuddy (calendar), Bowtie (iTunes), and Lynx (weather). Impressive work. [Flickr via Lifehacker]

It's a 24-incher with a 1080p resolution (the only real size for all-in-ones anymore), with a built-in TV tuner and Blu-ray recorder. Beside the Windows 7 ready multitouchness, not a whole lot of specs yet (like what specific processor and graphics), just that it'll hold up to 2TB of storage. It's nice looking though! And, uh, Windows 7 Windows 7 Windows 7 Windows 7.

If you can peer past the completely uninspired case, the actual specs are far more likely to induce some sweaty palms: Nehalem quad-core Xeon 5500 processors, two Nvidia Quadro 5800 graphics cards, and room for 196GB of RAM. A beast. So why can't it look more like one, or even the Z4 that it's supposedly inspired by? [DVICE]

Yes, I do believe all cheap consumer electronics should signify their cheapness with tons of color, but you know, nice-looking color. Pay more, get less (color). It makes sense, right?

FASHION MEETS FUNCTION WITH NEW INSPIRON FAMILY, DELL MAKES IT EASY TO CUSTOMIZE LIFESTYLE AND DÉCOR

· People Have Complete Control of Power, Color and Size

· Fresh ID and vibrant colors express personal style and complement any environment

· Custom configurations to meet performance and budget

ROUND ROCK, Texas, March 30, 2009 – Style-minded families, students and teens want to personalize their PCs to meet their performance and lifestyle needs – blogging, chatting, sending photos or running a media center. Highly-stylized products, like Dell's new Inspiron slim and mini-tower desktops, deliver on design and customization, transforming the brand from the "built- for-me" model, into "made-for-me."

Dell's new Inspiron slim and mini-towers expand the design and personalization possibilities for consumers. Available in eight vibrant colors, Dell is the only major consumer desktop manufacturer to offer such extensive personalization options to reflect individuals' personal style or to complement their bedroom or study.

Inspiron slim and mini-tower desktops debut today in China and are available for purchase through Dell.com, distributor Digital China or retailers Suning and Gome. Starting at $299, the systems will be available worldwide later this spring.

The News:

· Dell's new Inspiron desktop lets people express themselves through choices of color (eight options), size (slim or mini-tower) and configuration.

· Vivid color palette to express your personal style: Piano Black, Pure White, True Blue, Formula Red, Tangerine Orange, Spring Green, Plum Purple and Promise Pink.

· Dell becomes the only major consumer desktop manufacturer to offer color options for the entire front of the machine.

· Customizable options to meet individual's budget, lifestyle and usage needs.

· Ideal for common tasks including email, Internet, blogging, entertainment (movies, music and casual gaming) and productivity.

· Features available on the new Inspiron desktops include:

o Intel® Celeron®, Intel Core™ 2 Duo and Intel Core 2 Quad options or AMD Sempron™, Athlon™ X2 and Phenom™ X4 processor options

o Integrated Intel or ATI Radeon™ graphics* on select systems with discrete graphics options available

o Up to 8GB* memory on select systems

o Up to 750GB* storage (slim tower) or up to 1TB* storage (mini-tower)

o Optional 19-in-1 media card reader and optional HDMI connectivity

o 6 USB ports (2 front, 4 back)

o Dual optical options (mini-tower only) including Blu-ray Disc™ drive

o Small form factor with its versatile horizontal or vertical placement is designed to easily fit into your home media center (slim tower only)

[Dell]

Mandolux, which we've highlighted before, has a ton of amazing wallpapers, many of them designed for multiple monitors. It's not the most intuitive site to browse through, unfortunately, but 20 minutes wandering around there is pretty rewarding.

While we're at, where else do guys get favorite wallpapers? [Mandolux]

Gaming:
• Rock Band 2 on Xbox 360 for $29.99 (normally $59.99 - valid until 1/29. Use coupon code " SHP47HTL88M9CC").
• Disney Sing It on Xbox 360 with microphone for $19.99 (normally $39.99 - valid until 1/29. Use coupon code "ZHSFSX$LLVGJ40").
• Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360 for $29.99 plus free shipping (normally $59.99).
• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for $32.99 plus free shipping (normally $49.99).

Personal Portables and Peripherals:
• Polaroid HD Digital Camcorder for $129.99 (normally $249.99 - valid today only).
• Canon PowerShot A470 7.1MP for $79.95 plus free shipping (normally $99.99).
• Unlocked Motorola MOTOFONE F3 for $24.99 plus free shipping (normally $49.99 - use coupon code "DNEWSF3").
• Plantronics Discovery Bluetooth headset for $19.99 plus free shipping (normally $59.99).

MP3 Players and Peripherals:
• iPod Touch 32GB for $329.99 (normally $399).
• Philips 4GB Go Gear MP3 Player for $44 plus free shipping (normally $99.99).
• SanDisk Sansa 1GB MP3 Player with Expandable Memory (recertified) for $12.99 plus free shipping (normally $54.99).
• Centon 2GB MP3 Player for $14.99 plus free shipping (normally $29.99).
• iPod Nano 3rd Generation Hard Case for $0.99 (normally $9.99).

Computing Peripherals:
• Iomega eGo 1TB Desktop Hard Drive for $103.99 plus free shipping (normally $149.99 - use coupon code "C2$F7S4W96J$T1").
• Epson Stylus All-In-One Printer (refurbished) for $32 plus free shipping (normally $44).
• Epson Stylus Multifunction Color Printer (refurbished) for $29 plus free shipping (normally $42).

Movies:
• Extra - The Complete Series on DVD for $14.99 (normally $39.98).
• Monty Python's Collector Set for $79.95 (normally $159.95).
• Buy 1 TV on DVD Box Set get one free (all with free shipping).

Miscellaneous:
• Inflating Pump for $2.20 plus free shipping (normally $9.95).

Hobomodo:
• MultiSet 6.3 Software for $0 (normally $99.95).
• 6 Personalized Valentine's Day cards for $0 (normally $5.34 - use coupon code "valentine").
• Crest White Strips Sample for $0.

Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

Amen.

Beyond the form factor—which borrows liberally from the new Star Trek and the iMac (the frameless black bezel looks like it was copy and pasted)—it's actually a disappointingly standard all-in-one affair, with a smallish 21.5-inch screen and nothing you can't get on the new Vaio LV. And it's missing, at least from the spec sheet, one of the Vaio's killer features—HDMI in, which would let it be a total bedroom TV replacement. Still, it does have an awesome Swiss Army knife of a remote—it's an air mouse, accelerometer controller for games and Skype VOIP handset (it acts like a cordless phone).

It starts at $999, but all the cool stuff (like Blu-ray) is add-ons, so it'll probably get pricey pretty fast.

IdeaCentre A600 All-in-One Desktop

Lenovo brings consumers the next generation of desktop computing with the IdeaCentre A600 – Lenovo’s first all-in-one desktop. The new, sleek IdeaCentre A600 all-in-one features a 21.5-inch frameless screen, and provides discerning space-conscious and style-conscious users a modern design that measures only one inch at its slimmest point, making it the slimmest all-in-one in the industry2.

For the entertainment enthusiast, the all-in-one offers a true Hi-Def experience featuring a 16:9 aspect ratio screen for cinema-like viewing and support for 1920x1080 full HD resolution delivering outstanding image quality. The integrated speaker system includes a bass sub-woofer and Dolby® Home Theatre™ audio certification, while the optional Blu-ray player completes the home cinema experience. Users can also take advantage of a digital TV tuner for watching and recording their favorite TV programs. Users can opt to include the Microsoft Vista Media Center for easy recording of TV programs and interactive navigation between videos, music and TV programs.

For gaming enthusiasts, Lenovo developed the first-of-its-kind 4-in-1 optional remote controller. It is the first to bring PC users the ability to play games using the remote control’s ‘motion drive’ feature, which controls on-screen objects according to the movement of the remote.

Unlike competitor’s remotes, the Lenovo 4-in-1 remote controller can also be used as a VOIP handset3 to make and receive phone calls over the Internet, similar to a typical cordless telephone. The remote also serves as a media center/TV remote, and with Microsoft Vista Media Center users can use the controller to operate DVDs, movies and TV. Additionally, the remote also functions as an “air mouse” so it can be used to operate the cursor on the screen, eliminating the inconvenience of using a wired mouse.

At the core of the all-in-one is a powerful desktop computer with choices of Intel® Core™2 Duo processors, optional ATI Radeon™ graphics card technology with DirectX10 support, up to 4GB of fast DDR3 memory for improved multitasking, and up to 1TB (1000GB) of hard drive space for storing hundreds of videos, music and other documents. Equipped with the latest high-performance mobile processor technology, the all-in-one runs whisper-quiet even when performing intensive tasks.

The IdeaCentre A600 all-in-one offers several connectivity options including high-speed WiFi, a 6-in-1 media card reader, side-mounted USB and FireWire ports with additional USB ports on the rear of the panel. The all-in-one also features VeriFace™ facial recognition technology which allows users to use his/her facial image as the logon password.

IdeaCentre A600

21.5-inch frameless screen, full HD resolution 1920 X 1080 resolution

Intel Pentium Dual Core & Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processors

Intel G45M Chipset

DDR3 1066MHz, 1GB-4GB and up to 1 TB (1,000 GB) of HD space

Integrated graphics with support for DirectX10 , Optional DX10 256M OR 512M OR ATI graphics

Connectivity – Intel a/b/g Optional a/b/g/n, Ethernet

VeriFace 3.5 facial recognition

Dolby Home Theatre

Optional Blu-Ray DVD player

Optional hybrid analogue/digital TV tuner

Touch sensitive controls

Optional 4-in-1 remote control

6-in-1 card reader

6 USB 2.0 ports and 1 firewire (1394)

1.3 or 2 megapixel camera

Vista Premium, Vista Basic

WinDVD （for Blu-ray ODD), Motion drive games, Veri-face 3.5, PC Care 1.1, Rescue System 2.0 (OKR5.7), Live tool bar, Power2Go, Windows Home Premium SP1 32 , Home Basic SP 1 32bit

[Lenovo]

Lifehacker has an awesome reader-fueled roundup of the best places to grab wallpaper specially designed to fit your glowing triptych (or wall) of unhealthy productivity. Mandolux snagged the top spot overwhelmingly, followed by InterfaceLIFT and that old-school favorite, DeviantART. There's more eye-exploding background heaven where that came from over at Lifehacker, which makes me kind of sad I only play on one monitor. If you've got your own tips, let us know about 'em, too. [Lifehacker, Images: last scionz/DeviantART, Mandolux]

The P3's form factor is relatively unchanged from the P2: it's now made of aluminum (with an unseemly black bezel around the screen, unfortunately) and the dedicated volume buttons are moved to the top. The major exterior hardware upgrades are the addition of a small speaker and haptic feedback on the (capacitive) touchscreen, so it'll vibrate when you tap it. The GUI, however, is a real step up for Samsung.

The P3's home screen is almost a desktop environment, with movable, interactive widgets and icons and multiple screens a la the iPhone and T-Mobile G1. Icons can be dragged from a disappearing bar onto the desktop and back. I'm really liking the little lightbulb that changes the amount of backlighting when tapped. The P3 shares the P2's excellent 480x272 screen and hopefully its stellar sound quality as well. Below is a video comparing the P3 to its predecessor.

Samsung's PMPs have been pretty solid lately, so I'm definitely looking forward to this one. But the touchscreen still doesn't look as responsive as the iPod touch, and that desktop interface looks like it could get awfully cluttered. Still, it's been an unexciting year for PMPs, so here's hoping the P3 lives up to its potential. [PMP Today]

Mac OS X, mythically immune to common computer plagues, has actually always welcomed antivirus software. Or, uh, maybe not. Confused? No worries—here's how OS X and Windows differ on resisting viruses and other nasties.

It's not a matter of opinion: OS X is less susceptible to catching a cold than Windows. So is Linux, for that matter. There are two major reasons (and Steve Jobs' pee actually isn't one of them). First, Windows is on 89.6 percent of the world's personal computers, while OS X is on just 8.9 percent of them. Second, the Unix architecture that OS X and Linux are based on is inherently more secure than Windows, particularly pre-Vista versions. (If these reasons are familiar to you, you may not know the subtler side-effects of each reason that strengthen the case even more, so read on.)

There are a few different ways that Microsoft's mammoth market share actually hurts Windows and helps OS X. For one, writing nastiness that the vast majority of the world's personal computers are susceptible to is a more efficient use of resources than writing the same evil for a sliver of the population. In biology, a more homogeneous population is more susceptible to a genocidal plague. Same principle applies to the vast, Windows-powered ecosystem. I don't mean someone could write a virus that wipes everybody out. Just that if everybody's running Windows, the population is a much easier target.

The flipside of this—which you might not have considered—is that most malware writers obviously use Windows. They're going to whip up code for the OS they're familiar with and know best. And more to that point, most of the tools and scripts used to wreak havoc on computers are written for Windows. The same ecosystem that provides the biggest, most susceptible audience also provides the most fertile breeding ground for the nasty executables.

But suppose this was some bizarro world where OS X was king. Would Microsoft run ads about how virus-plagued OS X was? Well, it would still be more prudent to run anti-virus software, since there'd be a lot more crap thrown at the Mac OS, but if malware acted mostly like it does today, it likely wouldn't have the same impact as it did on Windows pre-Vista.

A lot of that is because of the way permissions work in OS X vs. Windows. Basically, Unix-based systems are architected so that they require administrator privileges to modify the OS and are traditionally more strict in enforcing them. Critical areas are walled off from normal users—you see this when OS X asks for a password to install updates or change a system setting. A standard non-admin user account is restricted; bad software can't wreak much havoc at all without that password.

This is precisely what Vista's somewhat-maligned User Account Control attempts to replicate, limiting points of intrusion and requiring explicit user permission to get anywhere deep. On Windows, historically, the enforcement of these restrictions has been lax in the name of convenience.

This is not to say that OS X is invulnerable, by any means. The main applications folder is relatively unprotected, and any running app can write to it and most of what's inside. Coupled with OS X's app-bundling architecture, this makes it easier to replace program executables or sneak in a piggybacking one. Even then, however, the malware would need to elicit elevated permissions to do any hardcore damage to the core OS; it could, unfortunately, nuke your relatively unprotected Home folder though. Another point of vulnerability, or at least a pain point, according to Mac Forensics Lab, is OS X's centralized address book, which also has weak defenses. If the Home folder book did require the same level of permissions, it would be kinda unusable, because you'd have to elevate permissions to make any and every change.

This brings us to OS X's biggest security hole, the one that it actually shares with every operating system: you. It doesn't matter how good baked-in security is if a user throws out the welcome mat for whatever crap comes their way. On the flip side, you're also the first, and best, line of protection. Don't do anything stupid, and you'll be fine, anti-virus software or not—whatever OS you're running.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about viruses, VD or the 1995 Dustin Hoffman film Outbreak to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

• Intel Atom N270 CPU
• 1GB of RAM
• 160GB HD.
• Three USB ports.
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Wi-Fi b/g
• Windows XP

It weighs 1.1 pounds and measures 300 mm x 240 mm x 65 mm. It has been announced in France for for $254. [Journal du Geek via Pocket Lint]

The Eee Top will definitely not please gamers, Photoshop pros or their ilk, but the simplified custom interface (made for touching!) and clean design make it a decent option for more casual, social PC users. As for pricing, the desktop is going for about $565 in Taiwan, but I'm willing to bet it'll be closer to the $400 to $500 price point when it comes to the U.S. [Engadget Chinese]

Cnet says that the Falcon Northwest Mach V has the latest and bestest combination of components there is, which is what makes it the fastest thing on chips:

• 3.79GHz Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition.
• An Intel X58 chipset.
• 12GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM.
• 2 x 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2
• 1TB 7,200RPM Hitachi hard drive.
• 80GB Intel X-25M solid-state drive.

All this comes at a pretty hefty $8,028 price tag, including the Ferrari red paint job, which is a $500 option. Unfortunately, the automotive-class red paint job reportedly helps you get at least three extra frames per second in Crysis. Fortunately, there's a potential DIY fix to save those $500: Apply a few adhesive flames to the chassis, and Bob's your uncle. [Cnet]

The Medallion was laser cut in separate layers and pieces, then glued together. Red LEDs were added behind the bird inset to illuminate the dvd drive and provide a nice backlit effect.

The specs

• EVGA nForce 590 SLI motherboard
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ CPU
• Two EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS graphics cards in SLI
• 4GB (2x2GB) Crucial Ballistix Tracer Red DDR2 800MHz
• Cooler Master 850W modular PSU
• Pioneer slimline slot loading DVD drive
• Logitech G15 keyboard and G9 mouse
• IZ3D 22" 3D monitor
• Western Digital RaptorX 150GB HD (x2)
• Swiftech pump, blocks
• Black Ice Stealth 360 radiator
• PC Ice clear fluid
• Primoflex red tubing
• 10" LCD
• 2.5" LCD (x3)

Yeah, it's really horrible, but I really miss Starbuck. Hit the link for a detailed report and gallery. [Bit-Tech]

The answer: just about everything. PC Mag was miffed at the resolution configuration settings, the legal tie-ups involved with calling it a "Google PC," an app launcher they described as "a cheap copy" of Mac OSX, as well as some frustrating web-surfing issues that may not be grasped by a novice user.

Still, this review is probably a little harsh and should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, "legal wrangling" is not a concern of the average user, and for $200 one should expect a few shortcomings here and there. They do concede that it is a fairly "green PC" with regard to power consumption, and it is powerful enough to run Ubuntu Linux, just don't expect it to be fast. In all likelihood, the true verdict on the gPC lies somewhere in-between the two reviews. [PC Mag]