Thanksgiving is next Thursday and some of you out there are inevitably faced with the challenge of producing the most celebrated meal of the (U.S.) year.

Fortunately, there are a number of cooking apps in the iTunes App Store to choose from that can help you pull the meal together if you have an iOS device. While your pristine touch screen might get a little smudged in the process--or not--I think you'll appreciate the easy navigation and added tools in each of this week's cooking apps.

This week's iOS app collection is all about cooking. The first app helps you year-round with ideas for cooking, but also has great holiday-themed recipes. The second is a more advanced app for those who spend a lot of time trying recipes in the kitchen. The third comes from New York Times columnist Mark Bittman's bestselling cookbook "How to Cook Everything," and might be the best of the bunch for those new to the kitchen.

A quick search of this cooking-ideas app turns up several ways to cook your turkey dinner.

Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner Pro ($2.99) gives you fun and easy a... [Read more]

When it comes to virtualization on OS X there are three basic solutions: Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, and VirtualBox from Oracle. While VirtualBox is developed more as a free hobby and experiment package by Oracle, the other two are commercial packages that have been neck-and-neck in competition in the areas of speed, stability, and compatibility.

In its past few versions, Parallels Desktop has been significantly faster than VMware Fusion for a few tasks, which Parallels has regularly blogged about.

Today VMware released a new version of its Fusion virtualization software (available through its built-in updater) that in part offers a number of speed improvements that may reduce the performance lead that Parallels has developed.

For one, VMware is claiming that version 4.1 of its software can improve graphics by up to six times when running Internet Explorer and other programs like SolidWorks, especially when running on OS X 10.7.2. In addition, animations and graphics in full-screen mode should be smoother and snappier, and the loading time of Windows 7 virtual machines and transitions into and out of full screen are quicker.

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Chris DiBona

Google's open-source software leader has lashed out at companies selling antivirus software for mobile devices including Google's Android operating system, calling them "charlatans and scammers."

Chris DiBona, Google's open-source programs manager, unleashed his tirade after seeing a press report about "inherent" insecurity of open-source software, which is used not just in Android but also Apple's iOS. He argued that Android, iOS, and Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS don't need antivirus software.

"Virus companies are playing on your fears to try to sell you BS protection software for Android, RIM, and, iOS," DiBona said on Google+. "They are charlatans and scammers. If you work for a company selling virus protection for Android, RIM or iOS, you should be ashamed of yourself."

He didn't mention any companies by name, but there are plenty of examples. Symantec, Intel's McAfee subsidiary, F-Secure, and ... [Read more]

The ThemeRoller for jQuery Mobile lets developers create a particular look for Web-based user interfaces that span multiple mobile browsers.

In recent years, a software project called jQuery has spread far and wide across the Web, bringing sophisticated user interface features and easing the difficulties of working with multiple browsers.

Now the first version of the software has arrived for the mobile Web, with the release of jQuery Mobile 1.0. The software is prebuilt code to help programmers create Web sites--and even packaged Web apps--using standards such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

The software, whose premier sponsor is Adobe Systems, smooths over differences among many mobile browsers it supports, including those of iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry, as well as standalone mobile versions of Opera and Firefox.

"We've been working hard at bringing jQuery support to all mobile browsers that are sufficiently capable and have at least a nominal amount of market share. In this way, we're treating mobile Web browsers exactly how we treat desktop Web browsers," the jQuery Mobile documentation states.... [Read more]