No, Windows won't ever compete with Linux on price. However, even though Microsoft isn't giving away their RTM operating systems for free, they do offer a lot of great software and services at no charge. Here are my six favorites -- feel free to share yours with us in the comments!

1. Windows Live Writer - If you don't blog, Live Writer probably isn't that useful to you. If you do, though, it's hard to find a Windows application that can compete with WLW. It's got loads of great features including plugin support so I can add things like Twitter integration.

2. SysInternals - There are so many useful apps under the SysInternals umbrella - Autoruns, Process Explorer, Desktops, RegMon - the list goes on and on. There's also live.sysinternals.com to provide easy access to them all when I forget my usb flash drive. Awesome.

Creating playlists can be tedious, and every bit of information can help. While some people maintain the ID3 tags in their MP3 files in excruciating detail, others (like me) can't seem to find the time. But when it comes to finding the tempo, no amount of manual ID3 tag maintenance will help.

If you're trying to put together a playlist that contains songs that are a similar speed, knowing the beats-per-minute of each song is immensely helpful. Luckily, there is a free download called BPM Analyzer from MixMeister that will analyze all of your MP3 tracks, and update the ID3 tags in them with exact BPM information. With that done, it's a simple matter of sorting your music library by the beats-per-minute field.

Now you can put together an upbeat energy-boosting playlist full of fast songs, a mellow playlist with slower songs, or pretty much anything you desire. And for the nerds like me, it's just another piece of information to sort and group your music by.

BPM Analyzer is available on both the Windows and Mac operating system.

[via Lifehacker]

If you're running Windows and you like to use several apps and windows at once, but also frequently need to access files stored on your desktop, the developers of Desk Topmost feel your pain. Even keyboard shortcuts that get you to the desktop collapse what you're working on to the taskbar and make you dig it out again. Desk Topmost doesn't -- it just puts the desktop on top.

Floating the desktop on top of everything else gives you easy access to whatever icons you need there, while leaving your Windows in place. It's sort of like a different take on the Mac's Exposé feature. Just like Exposé, Desk Topmost is most effective if you assign a hotkey to it for easy opening. If you open it up and then realize you don't need anything from the desktop, you can just right-click to close. Desk Topmost is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7.

[via Lifehacker]

If someone were to ask you what Microsoft's biggest competition is on the operating system front is, what would your guess be?

OSX? No. Linux? Sorry, but no. Truth is, it's unlicensed Windows.

So when you're developing a new operating system with a wide array of modern features, it's probably best to take a hard line against piracy, right? Maybe not.

Paul Cooke, Microsoft's director of Windows Client Enterprise Security, has told Maximum PC that all Windows 7 users - even those running pirate copies - will receive security updates. Why would Microsoft want to do that?

Regardless of the financial losses associated with Windows piracy, Microsoft wants to protect their reputation. That can be tough, especially when things like the Conficker outbreak get blamed on them. Don't forget, there was a Windows Update patch for that as far back as October 2008 - but millions of pirate XP installs may not have had the patch installed.

And even though it may be the end user's fault for not keeping their OS up to date, running quality antivirus software, or just paying attention to what's going on, the blame often winds up being shipped directly to Redmond. A more secure global Windows install base would also be good news for the computing world as a whole, and maybe Microsoft will get a little credit (and publicity) for that.

Of course, this doesn't mean Microsoft is going to ignore rogue Windows 7 installs.

Just because they want your system fully patched doesn't mean they won't flip the Starter switch and limit your unlicensed system to three programs at once...

[ via Maximum PC]

At last, Microsoft has released the much-anticipated SP2 update for Office 2007, and it's currently available from the Microsoft Download Center.

The 290Mb download includes more than 600 fixes and improvements. Two key additions include support for the Open Document formats in Word (.odt), Excel (.ods), and Powerpoint (.odp) and the option to save as PDF in all applications. In my limited testing, PDF output was very true to the Word and Excel originals.

Excel's charting mechanism has been been retooled, as has chart integration with other Office applications. Digital Inspiration notes several improvements to Outlook, including better IMAP and RSS support and faster startup, searching, and synchronization. Microsoft also touts general performance gains and better quality print output across the entire suite.

For a detailed look at what Office 2007 SP2 is all about, check the Office Sustained Engineering blog post. There's also a good roundup on Microsoft Support.

[via PC World]

My beloved Firefox seems to have gotten kind of bloated and slow lately, particularly when starting it up. If you've experienced a similar decrease in Firefox's startup performance, check out this quick tip from Mac Tricks and Tips. One of Firefox's default settings is to remember 90 days of history. This means that Firefox is maintaining a list of every site you've visited along with the date and time of the visit for every day from the last three months. If you're anything like me, this can be a pretty huge list.

The tip is to simply go into the Privacy tab of your Firefox preferences and lower the history setting from 90 days to something much smaller, like 5 days. To realize immediate gains, ensure your Clear Private Data settings are set to clear history, then have at it. It may take a few moments, but once your history is cleared, Firefox should start to feel like its sprightly self again.

While the tip originated at a site focusing on Macs, there's no reason to think it wouldn't also help when running Firefox on Windows or Linux.

[via Lifehacker]

Do you ever have to design or have input into software user interfaces? If not, you might want to skip this post, but if so, Balsamiq Mockups might be of interest to you. The concept of the program is quite simple: create a bare-bones version of the user interface in question. So bare bones, in fact, that it almost looks like it was sketched.

The hand-drawn style might seem a little funny at first, but it serves a couple of very real purposes. Firstly, it makes it extremely clear that what you create with it is nothing but a mockup; nobody you show it to is actually going to expect that it be able to do anything. Second, it strips away all of the more subjective elements of design like color and shading, so you can focus on the usability of the layout of your user interface.

Balsamiq Mockups is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux, but unfortunately that flexibility comes with a price, in more ways than one. The first price is that it's a Flash application, so to run it on your machine as a desktop app requires Adobe Air. The second price is, well, the price: $79 US to be exact. Well, that's not entirely true. Yes, it is $79US for the full desktop version, but if you're not worried about being able to save your mockups or export them as PNG files, you can install a feature-limited desktop version for free.

[via John Watson]

We're now less than a week away from the scheduled activation of the latest variant of the Conficker worm and experts are still unsure if this is all a hoax or a set-up for security disaster.

The worm, which targets an exploit in all versions of Windows from Windows 2000 forward, including Windows 7, started spreading last fall and several variations have subsequently appeared. Although Microsoft released a security patch in October, unpatched machines can still be infected and newer variants make removing the worm more difficult.

To add insult to injury, the worm attaches itself to USB devices like thumb drives, making it that much easier to infect machines on a large scale.

But it's not all doom and gloom. If you or someone you love has a machine infected with the Conficker worm, there are plenty of resources out there to get things back under control.

BitDefender has a tool that can remove the latest Conficker variant from both single PCs and a Windows network. From what I've read, the BitDefender tool is the best at getting the latest variant, and it would be my go-to pick. Symantec, Kaspersky and ESET also have removal tools and McAfee and AVG can grab the virus from on-demand scans.

To help stop the spread of worms, you can also disable AutoRun so that worms and other malicious code can't spread through external media.

And of course, it's crucial to stay on top of the latest security updates and to run an anti-virus program, if you are a Windows user. You don't even have to buy a program, as Lee pointed out last month, there are lots of great free options available.

Have you had to clean-up a Conficker infected PC? What are your tips and tricks?

I had the mothership send me a Dell Latitude so I can finally quit angering Parallels on my Mac (which is down to about 2GB of HD space anyway), and it's about as clean an install as any "corporate" computer will get. For example, since our parent company is publicly traded, the rules insist AV software be included. I'm running GuardianEdge for disk encryption (so those Yahoos don't steal my sekrits), McAfee for AV, PowerDVD and Office 2003. The machine came pre-installed with the latest AOL client (naturally -- and it's really quite useful if you work here) but also with Firefox, which is nice. I had to manually install Flash, which shows how stripped-down the machine is.

So now I'm staring at a pretty clean machine, all things considered. What are the top 3 things you readers would suggest I install next?

We've all heard the anti-trust tirades before, but the EU just doesn't want to let up on Microsoft. They're not happy with claims that OEMs are "free to include other web browsers." Nope. That just won't cut it.

The answer: more bloat for the end user! Yes, the European Commission is considering forcing OEMs to distribute alternative browsers with their systems. As someone who works in the retail computer business, I cringe at this news.

Don't get me wrong - I load Firefox on every system I build, if for nothing else but backup when a customer overloads IE with toolbars and rogue ActiveX controls. But that doesn't mean I'd want a government body forcing me to install software that I might not otherwise.

Let's think about this for a minute, EU guys.

Windows also includes some other things that have competitors: Wordpad, Paint, Media Player, Defender, and Remote Desktop Connection, to name a few. Does that mean that a new PC will have to include Jarte, AbiWord, Gimp, Paint.Net, WinAmp, VLC, GOM Player, Media Monkey, AdAware, SpyBot, MalwareBytes AntiMalware, Kerio, Comodo, ZoneAlarm, PC Anywhere, VNC, TeamViewer, and a slew of other apps whose functionality Microsoft has built in to Windows?

Where does it end?

And why do I get the feeling that, ultimately, the consumer is going to get the short end of the stick?

Just because it's relatively quiet on Patch Tuesday doesn't mean the one bulletin that was released should be ignored.

Microsoft today issued MS09-001 to address a critical vulnerability in the SMB protocol that could allow an attacker free reign to cause havoc via the NetBIOS ports (139 and 445). According to Microsoft, "an attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights."

Though it would be difficult for an attacker to successfully exploit the weakness, Microsoft advises that users of all versions of Windows from 2000 up download the appropriate patch immediately. It's worth noting that Windows 7 does not appear in the affected software list - whether we should be concerned about that fact remains to be seen.

Just what Linux and Mac users needed: another reason to deride SMB.

During his keynote address at CES tonight, Steve Ballmer made it official. The Windows 7 public beta will be made available for download on Friday, January 9th, 2009.

If you've been leery of downloading the version that's been all over the torrent trackers since last week, get your download manager ready and keep your browser tuned to Microsoft's Windows 7 page for the genuine article. Technet, MSDN, and TechBeta members have already been given access.

I've had my share of problems with the leaked version and am hoping that the official release is either a slightly newer build or at least free of the issues that I've had so far. Internet Eplorer 8 hasn't been working 100%, and Explorer itself has stopped responding repeatedly when I've tried to extract large zip archive or move multiple large files onto my flash drive.

If you gauged the market share of various operating systems by counting the number of Macs vs PCs you see in the typical urban coffee shop, you'd probably believe that Apple and Microsoft were duking it out like Republicans and Democrats in a close US presidential election.

But the truth of the matter is that Microsoft is the dominant company when it comes to consumer oriented computers. In fact, according to Net Applications, a company that tracks these things, Microsoft had more than 90% of the market share. Until last month, anyway.

In November, 2008, Microsoft's market share dipped to 89.62%. Which is to say, Microsoft's Windows operating systems still dwarf the nearest competitors, Mac OS X and Linux. But a slightly smaller percentage of people who visited web sites tracked by Net Applications in November were using the operating system.

Net Applications reports that OS X has also seen a slight jump in usage, and that Windows Vista use is up while Windows XP use is down. More than 20% of computer users were running Windows Vista for the first time in November.

[via Computer World and Slashdot]