shadekh

Except for capture, these tools fails to impress. irfanview does everything much better, including teh batch conversion, resizing and renaming. It is also an excellent viewer.

But capture can help, as printscrn dosent capture vid layers and all usually.That said, i havent yet tested it with video.

However, being freeware, this set of tools is excellent.

Congrats. I am a regular reader too, and find it one of the most informative blogs out there.

Its a pity there isnt a LiveCD like preview, i am not really interested in partitioning and installing a RC1 release on my main machine, seeing that i do not have a secondary one.

A liveCd would have allwed me to judge Vista without any significant risk. I would love it if Msoft released such cd's, maybe with reduced functionalty, to "demo" their products. Unfortunately, we all know that 2-3 yesars from now, the whole world will have been switched to Vista, whether they like it or not.

Its the small things which make google great. Take the "voicemail" feature in google talk. You can send a snippet of audio which can be rather long, to anyone (no need for the recepient having google talk) and all he has to do is click on the "Play" in his mail to play the mail. No attachments, files or downloads and other crap...its as effortless to use as writing an actual mail, especially for the recipient. It helps that web chatting is availiable without a seperate program using gmail.

Or take google scholar, an invaluable resource for anyone engaged in uni projects and the like. I frankly do not know what i would have done without it.

Google maps is great, though its mainly curiosity value in my part of the world, and google search is still rather good...i have not yet found a more satisfactory search.

By contrast, Yahoo has some neat services as well. Its Yahoo photos service (thanks dsquad!) is fantastic, especially with teh firefox extension. Unfortunately, that is all i like about Yahoo...

well, considering that it tells where your ipod was built as well, it is quite a pitry it dosent work in windows, so yes, that last sentence is quite useful for non mac converts who have ipods.

Though, thanks to recent news, i can pretty much guess where my ipod was made

Joystiq has become just a haven of Xbox lovers, it seems.

Niether my ps2 or my xbox came with the s-video cable. Most equipment generally comes with the basic set of cables. As of those people who are penny pinching to buy a ps3, can i ask just how will they get a 1080p hdtv? Will they lose sleep over a hdmi cable (which costs anything between $10 to $20, please check before flaming, jstiq)? My x360 did not come with the cable required for connecting to my monitor as well.

I am angry at the ps3 not for its price, but the delay and the nonexistant next gen japanese-style rpg's at launch, the primary reason i am taking it.

Indeed, the new word is a quantum leap. It was well worth the $1.5 download fee, what with the new snappy interface. Word is easily the most used program, and this new version is a godsend.

One particular feature which totally blew me away is the newly added support for "math" and "equation" features (in the insert tab, on the right. For the true stuff, click on "insert new equation" in the equation drop down list). Being a college student, I use such equations extensively in my stuff, and while previously i had to resort to various hijinks to insert equations, this time, the readymade equations, the handy "symbols" tab and the equation designer make it a snap. I would have paid much more than $1.5 just for this addition.

and just yesterday i was wishing this be made free to download. Probably one of the most comprehensive resources for any programmer out there, and absolutely wonderful with visual studio!

I remember when i was a virtual newbie to coding, and i absolutely loved VS.net which was released, to the death. With msdn installed, i have yet to see any app as powerful and as user friendly as VS. I don't use MS products often, but it does not shame me to say that VS2005 is one program i cannot live without.

VStudio is fantastic for newbies, with its graphical interface and easy to use Vbasic as a default language. For pros, its about as powerful as they come. MSdn, if installed, gives a whole new dimension to this stuff. And sql server is extremely convenient during the learning phase and all, specially the easy to use express edition.

Its a pity its not being included. Having them would provide a great resource for even caual users, especially with some form of msdn.

I would most certainly prefer buying Vista preloaded, as I have been burned quite often by these coupon deals. As vista's reqs are still not properly known, its risky to bet on it.

However, a free coupon, as planned, would not be such a bad idea. Seeing as how Vista's currently not compelling enough to make the switch from xp, such a scheme could provide a strong impetus.