Apple is on track to capture 12 percent of the U.S. personal computer market by 2011, more than double the share the company currently has, according to Gartner.

Gartner says some of Apple’s success is due the PC business lacking compelling, consumer innovation. It says Apple is capitalizing on the biggest trends, such as digital entertainment and photography.

The report says,” “Apple is challenging its competitors with software integration that provides ease of use and flexibility, continuous and more frequent innovation in hardware and software, and an ecosystem that focuses on interoperability across multiple devices (such as iPod and iMac cross-selling.)”

A Microsoftie turned blogger Nathan Weinberg on to something funny:

Check out this link: WindowsServer2008.com. You’d expect it to take you to Microsoft’s website for Windows Server 2008, but instead it forwards to apple.com’s page showing off the Macbook Air. Looks like some Apple fan, possibly working for Symmetry Technical Consultants Inc. in Florida, bought the domain in October 2006 and is now using it to embarrass Microsoft. Wonder how they beat Microsoft to registering it.

That’s a good question. I wonder if Microsoft has any Apple related domains.

Matrox Graphics is now offering a new software utility for Graphics eXpansion Modules (GXMs) for Macs.

“Mac users will be thrilled with the new possibilities available with the GXM Control Panel,” says business development manager Caroline Injoyan. “The new utility not only opens up dual-display modes in TripleHead2Go Digital Edition, but combined with this GXM’s dual-link DVI connectivity, it creates the ideal platform for MacBook Pro users looking for a purely digital-to-digital connection from system to displays.”

According to Matrox:

The GXM Control Panel is a free download available for DualHead2Go Digital Edition and TripleHead2Go Digital Edition, and is compatible with systems running Mac OS X v10.4 or later. Digital Edition GXMs connect either standard or widescreen resolution displays and support a maximum resolution of up to 1920×1200 per display in dual-display mode and 1280×1024 per display in triple-display mode*.

GXMs are small black boxes that connect externally to a system’s monitor output to achieve an ultra-wide desktop across two or three displays. With a multi-display set-up, desktop management improves significantly as multiple programs can be run full-screen, or side-by-side to view more information.

The GXM Control Panel is available for download at the Matrox site.

Tony Lawrence is running a good article on trying to convince the common man to purchase a Mac. He shares an anecdote about his neighbor who is looking into buying a new computer, but wants to make sure he can use the Internet and Microsoft Excel.

“He may actually think that Microsoft Excel is required for him to produce a spreadsheet. I needed to get back to work, so I didn’t want to get into a long explanation of available options for “Office-like” apps, so I just quickly said something to the effect that yes, he could do spreadsheets with a Mac and left it at that,” writes Lawrence.

The interesting thing, however is that Lawrence makes it abundantly clear that his neighbor is a very smart man. He’s not talking about just some completely naive person. That’s kind of the point of the whole story. Many people tend to feel that they’ll be losing some capabilities by using a Mac rather than a Windows-based PC.

How do you convince the average joe that they should by a Mac over a PC?

If you are interested in Mac Pro benchmarks, you’ll want to check out the Geekbench results posted at Primate labs Blog.

Six versions of the Mac Pro are compared in terms of

- Overall performance

- Integer performance

- Floating point performanec

- Memory performance

- Stream performance

Check the charts at Primate Labs.

(Via Apple Insider)

The next Leopard patch is said to include about 100 fixes. Details here.

In the meantime, here’s a few nuggets of Leopard-related wisdom for you to digest:

Procata has a nice walkthrough to get you started working with PHP 5 on Leopard. Judging by the relatively large list of comments, many of have found the article to be quite useful.

LeopardTricks posted a simple but helpful little tip on fine-tuning your volume control using volume keys, which you may or may not have known.

If you’ve got other non-mac computers and use Thunderbird for email, you may enjoy this Leopard Mail skin from REO at DeviantArt.