Posted 09/02/09 at 04:30:53 PM by David Murphy

Why do open-source programs win awards? Or, rather, what is it about open-source that makes us so prone to dishing out accolades--as if the very nature of a program being open-source somehow makes it indistinguishable from any other common application you can use.

And, for that matter, why do we keep giving the same programs the same awards?

I'm talking, of course, about Infoworld's recently announced "Best of Open Software Awards 2009." As a frequent downloader, user, and recommender of open-source software, I just don't get it. And neither do my colleagues, who have already weighed in on the strange circumstances surrounding some of Infoworld's picks for best business process management tool, amongst others.

But this isn't some Grandpa Simpson-like complaining about who should have won this, and why Pidgin didn't win that. No, the fault is not the presence of the awards banquet; it's the menu. Awards that focus on the open-source world invariably highlight the wrong aspects of the movement at the expense of areas that should rightfully be noted. While I can't speak to many of Infoworld's enterprise-themed selections--in fact, that's all the site elects to highlight--I think there's something to be said for calling out important software triumphs in the open-source world. We, in the media, are just prone to pointing the spotlight the wrong way.

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Posted 05/09/09 at 04:25:14 PM by Justin Kerr

The 2009 Webby awards have come and gone, and sadly, Maximum PC was mysteriously overlooked. We didn’t notice a category for “world’s most amazing technology website / magazine”, but that’s no excuse! For those of you who haven’t heard of them before today, the Webby’s are an international award honoring excellence on the Internet.  They focus on everything from YouTube skits to innovative advertising, but one look at the list and you’ll wonder if they just snagged the first million URL’s from Google and ran with it.

The 2009 results are listed below:

• Best Websites
• Interactive Advertising
• Online Film & Video
• Mobile

Special Achievement Awards

• Webby Artist of the Year: Trent Reznor
• Webby Person of the Year: Jimmy Fallon
• Webby Breakout of the Year: Twitter
• Best Actress: Sarah Silverman
• Outstanding Comedic Performance: Lisa Kudrow
• Film & Video Person of the Year: Seth MacFarlane
• Agency of the Year: R/GA

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Posted 01/13/09 at 02:50:10 PM by Paul Lilly

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and when the beholders are judges from Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), Acer's Aspire Predator G7000 series gaming PC has all the right curves. The rig's menacing aesthetics earned Acer WinHEC 2008's Industrial Design award, with one judge saying one look is all that's needed to know that the Predator G7000 is intended for gamers. The judge also noted the PC likely won't win favor among female consumers, but said that wasn't a bad thing, given that Acer's design nails its target audience.

From a hardware standpoint, the Predator G7000 comes with the option of either an overclocked AMD Phenom X4 or Intel Core 2 Quad processor, up to 8GB of DDR2-1066 RAM, and support for either ATI's CrossFire X or Nvidia's SLI dual-videocard technology. But it's the funky orange chassis with a mechanical bezel for easy access to four 3.5-inch HDD bays that ultimately won Acer the award.

Acer also won a Media & Entertainment award for its Aspire 8920G notebook with Blu-ray and full HD, and an Internet award for it's Aspire one Netbook.

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