A: Windows programs cannot be “converted” to run directly in the Mac operating system, which is called Snow Leopard. But, if you use virtualization software like Parallels or VMware fusion, and install Windows, then a Windows program like Microsoft Outlook can run simultaneously with your Mac programs. Technically, you are running it in Windows, but the two operating systems are active at the same time. With both of these virtualization products, you can even hide the entire Windows desktop, so that the Windows program you are running simply occupies a window on your Mac like any Mac program does. You don’t even notice that Windows is running.

In the case of files you created in Windows, the situation is even simpler. Most of the common types of files consumers use—including Microsoft Office documents, MP3 music files, MP4 video files, JPG picture files, text files, Adobe PDF files, and others—can be run in native Macintosh programs without conversion and without the need to run Windows programs. So you can just copy them to the Mac side and use them in Mac programs like iPhoto, iTunes, or the native Mac version of Microsoft Office, which uses the same file formats as the Windows version.

If you have an unusual or proprietary Windows file for which there isn’t an equivalent program on the Mac, you would run it in a Windows program, as described above.

If I am planning to upgrade a Windows XP machine to Windows 7, can I buy the upgrade copy of 7 or must I buy the full version?

A: According to Microsoft’s Web site, XP is one of the older versions of Windows upon which you can indeed indeed use the less expensive upgrade versions of Windows 7. The company’s online store says: “All editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista qualify you to upgrade. So, if you’re running either on your PC today, buy a package labeled ‘Upgrade’.”

I’ve been holding out (for what feels like forever) on purchasing a Netbook because I read that Apple was coming out with one. Can you tell me anything about when they might really begin selling them?

A: Apple executives have said repeatedly and emphatically that they don’t plan to offer a netbook, which is essentially a cheap, small laptop. Instead, Apple is widely believed to be working on a small slate or tablet device that would be controlled via a fingertip touch screen. This would be sort of like a larger iPhone or iPod Touch. The company hasn’t confirmed that such a product is in the works, but many analysts and Apple bloggers predict it will debut early next year.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Wal-Mart is adding three outsiders to its sales mix, which it says will add an additional one million items to its inventory, and the company plans to add more in the future. Is this a problem for either Amazon (AMZN), which features some third-party sales, or eBay (EBAY), which offers nothing but?

Maybe one day, but not in the near future. That’s primarily because Wal-Mart is so far behind the big guys. The $1.7 billion Wal-Mart did in Web sales last year makes it the 13th biggest online store in the U.S. Chart via JP Morgan’s Imran Khan:

And even if Wal-Mart’s new partners do boost sales significantly, the ecommerce market is likely to grow even faster. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay expects U.S. online retail to grow by $13 billion in 2010 and another $19 billion in 2011. So don’t expect to see Wal-Mart’s Web foes wiping their brows just yet.

[Image credit: PinkMoose]

There are lots of reliable online sellers of laptops, and online buying is fine, provided you have somehow handled the machine and are familiar enough with it to be sure it’s the one you (or, in this case, your lucky wife) will be happy owning. In the case of Apple, a company whose products are rarely deeply discounted by third-party sellers, it often makes sense for online buyers to use the company’s own online store, at store.apple.com. I have found Apple’s online store to be easy to use, secure and reliable. And you get some minor benefits at the physical Apple stores if you buy directly from Apple.

However, other major online sellers with equally good reputations also carry Macs, and some do shave the prices. One good example I have used happily is amazon.com, which carries the latest MacBook Pros at discounts ranging from $5 to over $100, depending on model.

How can I set parental controls in Firefox?

The Firefox Web browser doesn’t have built-in parental controls. Its maker, Mozilla, notes that version 3.0 or later of the browser does support some of the parental-control features included in Windows Vista. But if you don’t have Vista, or want different controls, there are some add-ons for Firefox that provide these.

Among the ones Mozilla suggests using are Glubble for Families, and ProCon Latte. More information is at: support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Parental+controls.

Unveiled in China this morning, Dell’s (DELL) new handset, reportedly known as the mini3i, runs on China’s Open Mobile System variant of Google’s (GOOG) Android OS and sports a 3.5-inch, 640×360 capacitive touchscreen and a three-megapixel camera. It also features an iPhone-esque GUI and will support applications from China Mobile’s online store, which peddles music and videos as well as games and other apps.

But sadly, the mini3i lacks WiFi and 3G support. It’s strictly a 2G device. Odd, considering China Mobile does offer TD-SCDMA, China’s locally developed 3G standard.

That said, China’s smartphone market is wide open. With mobile phone sales in the country predicted to hit 192 million units, up from 180 million this year, according to Gartner (IT), a cheap smartphone like this could find quite a niche in the lower end of the market, assuming it’s well-priced.

News of the mini3i’s debut comes as Apple works to bring the iPhone to China via China Unicom.

On Friday, China Unicom denied a report by China Business News that the company had inked a three-year exclusive iPhone deal and agreed to purchase five million of the devices. “The report is not true,” a spokesperson said. “Talks between us and Apple have been going on for some time, but no agreement has been reached yet. There are all kinds of possibilities. There is no particular timetable for the talks.”

UPDATE: Dell claims the device displayed in China is a “proof of concept.”

“The only thing that we’re confirming is that we’re in product development with China Mobile,” he told PCMag. “We haven’t named any products, and we’re not confirming anything. We were there showing a proof of concept.

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Notifier’s home screen condenses quick snapshots of data from various sources into: “New,” “My Update” and “My Stream.”

For the past week, I’ve been testing an application called Notifier by iSkoot Inc. (iSkoot.com), which is designed to give basic cellphones a smart-phone-like shot in the arm. Notifier aggregates updates from various sources and social communities — including email, Facebook, Twitter, news feeds and instant messaging — into one application made for no-frills phones.

I tried Notifier on a Samsung Propel that costs $50 with a two-year contract and rebate. I appreciated the app’s way of keeping so much content in one spot, which saved me from checking various places for information. And Notifier is designed so you should need to sign into an account only once. But I found serious drawbacks in the experience.

Unlike on a BlackBerry or an iPhone, on which you can place programs you use frequently on the very first screen, Notifier is buried on the phone in a section called “My Stuff,” under a section called “Games and Apps,” which takes 10 clicks to reach. That’s a tremendous pain when you just want to quickly check Facebook. There aren’t any shortcuts or hard keys on phones that will open Notifier more quickly.

Second, Notifier’s user interface can be awkward. Posting updates to my social networks through Notifier was a clumsy process that was riddled with extra steps. My phone even had a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, but I preferred to use Notifier for its namesake purpose: It “notified” me of news like friends’ status updates, new messages (tweets) on Twitter and RSS news feeds.

Notifier costs $3 monthly and is exclusively available on roughly 30 AT&T (T) phones, 21 of which don’t have QWERTY keyboards. AT&T advises people who use it to do so with a data plan; these start at $15 monthly for unlimited data without text messaging. You must buy Notifier in AT&T’s online store, MEdia Mall.

Smart phones are flush with apps that aggregate content from several social networks into one spot, including Xumii for the BlackBerry or iPhone and a feature called Pulse in Yahoo’s (YHOO) oneConnect for the iPhone. There’s even a fun — though not too functional — iPhone app called Ziibii that floats social-network tidbits down an on-screen river.

Whether they’re on smart phones or basic cellphones, apps that display a lot of data in one condensed place need to do so clearly. Notifier does this by displaying a ribbon of icons at the top of the phone’s screen that it calls the carousel, and you can move the phone’s directional arrows left or right to switch from one program to the next. Whatever icon is highlighted in the carousel is the program that appears on the rest of the screen.

A tiny house icon represents the home screen, where three categories of boxes show quick snapshots of data: “New,” “My Update” and “My Stream.” The top box, labeled New, shows names of programs with numbers to show how many new items, or updates, were submitted to that program. For example, “Inbox: 3″ means that three new emails were received; “Feeds: 54″ represents 54 newly received snippets of news from an easy-to-use RSS reader built into Notifier.

Below this data are the My Update and My Stream sections, with left and right arrows to let you scan through various subcategories within each section. My Update shows your status on the various social networking sites.

I found My Stream to be a little confusing. It lets you arrow left or right to see what’s going on in your social network — if you received a new email, for instance, or someone sent you an instant message. But because you’re arrowing left or right, not up and down in a list, it’s hard to find the beginning of this stream. And Facebook notifications are a little too vague; one might say, “Barbie Roberts updated her Facebook profile,” without telling you what she did to update it.

Another Facebook glitch that I ran into was that I had to sign in more than once. This could be a hassle if you’re on the road and nowhere near a computer. In one instance, I was signed in and typed out a status update, but had to sign into Facebook yet again to post my new status. ISkoot says this and other Facebook navigation issues will be fixed within a week.

I flicked through My Stream while standing in line to board a plane and minimized the Notifier screen to get back to the phone’s functionality. Notifier can alert you of new messages even when it’s minimized. This works because the app stays connected to the network, so when you get a new message on Facebook, an email or an instant message, an indicator pops up asking if you’d like to open up the Notifier screen.

The trouble with this indicator is that it doesn’t specify what kind of message you received. I care a lot more about email and instant messages than I do about Facebook messages and would rather not be notified about Facebook. And messages received in the Facebook inbox won’t display in Notifier’s “New” inbox; instead users must take an extra step out to the browser. The company says it’s working on fixing this.

I liked the Notifier news feeds, which were easy to set up. A technology category offered content from 11 sources, and the entertainment category’s seven sources ranged from Rolling Stone to the Onion to Perez Hilton. These feeds are mixed into My Stream, like email or any other news from your network.

Instant messaging, however, required too many steps. It took a while for buddy lists to load. When I selected a person’s name to start an IM conversation, a white screen appeared that looked like a place where I could type my message, but I had to select a “Write” option to skip to another screen and start composing. Likewise, emails couldn’t be typed on the screen of the message itself; rather, you have to open a separate screen for text entry. You might get used to this after a while, but it felt clumsy to me.

Notifier’s extra $18 monthly cost (not including a voice plan) might be worthwhile if you just need a way to stay plugged in and notified of the latest goings-on with friends and email. And compared with the cost of a smart phone, it might be an economical alternative. But its awkward interface and poor placement on the cellphone leave a lot of room for improvement.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

In the short run, it’s not likely to help, as the inventory from the company’s 567 remaining stores is sold off in a giant going-out-of-business sale that could pressure pricing in the already soft consumer electronics sector. But Khan also estimates that the company did $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion in online sales in its most recent fiscal year; he notes that, according to ComScore (SCOR), CircuitCity.com was the 11th largest Internet retailer by unique users through November. The company will stop operating the site as of Jan. 18, it said today. Khan thinks Amazon could inherit as much as half of Circuit City’s online business.

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Is there a way to transfer a Windows Media music file to iTunes?

If the Windows Media file is copy-protected, typically because you bought it from an online store that copy-protects its music, iTunes cannot import or play it. However, if it is unprotected, which is typical for files you created from your own CDs using Windows Media Player, iTunes can import the file and automatically convert it into a format it can use.

I would like to purchase an iPhone, but run it on the Verizon network. I realize that AT&T has an exclusive at this time, but is there a way to do this on the secondary market?

No. The radio inside the iPhone is incompatible with the network technology used by Verizon and Sprint. That cannot be changed by hacking the software, or replacing the SIM card in the phone.

I need to buy a new laptop computer and am wondering if you think Vista is wise at this point or should I still stick with Windows XP if I can find it? I only do emails, browsing the net and some downloading of music and photos. I am retired and don’t know much about computers.

Vista easily handles the tasks you want to do, but it will require heftier hardware to work at acceptable speeds, and, assuming you are used to working with XP, Vista will require you to learn some new things. If you buy XP, you can get away with a more modestly equipped computer, and you will be working with a more familiar interface. So, in your particular situation, I would suggest an XP machine. But I urge you to make sure it gets upgraded to the latest revision, called SP3, which bolsters the security of XP, so it is closer to that of Vista. Depending on your setup, this upgrade may be delivered automatically by Microsoft, but you may have to agree to accept it.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.