ComputerJy World

Microsoft is looking to make its Bluetooth notebook mouse more Mac friendly.

The emphasis in that sentence is on the word "looking."

The software maker hasn't made any software or hardware changes to the Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000. It has however, created a new retail packaging for the product, dubbing it Microsoft Notebook Mouse for Mac.

The new Microsoft Notebook Mouse for Mac is really a repackaged version of the company's existing Bluetooth muse.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Gone is the red packaging and the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo. In its place is a Mac logo and white packaging. Of course, the same mouse is inside, meaning the Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 works perfectly well on a Mac, while the Microsoft Notebook Mouse for Mac has no problem working with Vista, or XP for that matter.

It will be interesting to see if Mac users take to the new packaging. The company has a mixed track record in the Mac space. Its Office for Mac is a huge seller and many people site its availability as a key factor in their being willing to switch to a Mac.

But it has pulled back on other efforts, including killing its ill-fated MSN for Mac service, Internet Explorer and Virtual PC for Mac.

Microsoft's current packaging apparently wasn't drawing too many Mac users, even with its inviting "Certified for Windows Vista" logo.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The .NET Framework source is being released under a read-only reference license. When we announced that we were releasing the source back in October, some people had concerns about the potential impact of their viewing the source. To help clarify

.NET Framework Library Source Code now available - ScottGu's Blog

Open source projects are usually free, and more stable than small commercial software. But that's not always true. Anyway if you're looking for open source software to use on Windows you can check out the list below

• Web browsers: FireFox: one of the best browsers out there.
• Video players: Miro: Plays almost all video types, supports RSS and torrent downloads.
• Instant Messengers: Pidgin: Can use it to connect to multiple IM accounts including MSN, IM, AOL and Jabber simultaneously.
• Email: Thunderbird: Another Mozilla great product with many features from FireFox (Themes and extensions).
• P2P: Cabos: Simple, easy to use based on GNUtella network file sharing program.
• DVD ripping/Video conversion: Media Coder: Great for ripping CDs, DVDs and converting to many file formats.
• Office suites: OpenOffice: The world famous Microsoft Office replacement for the open source community.
• Graphics/Photo editing: GIMP: Can do almost anything Adobe Photoshop is capable of.
• FTP: FileZilla: Just flat out excellent.
• IRC: X-Chat 2: The famous GNome IRC client.
• Chat clients: AMSN: MSN Messenger replacement for the Linux community.
• Mapping tools: Nasa World Wind: Very similar to Google Earth, it requires the Microsoft .NET framework to run.