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Windows 7 Professional $99.99 and Home Premium $49.99 Discounts Now Live

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:12:36 -0500

Pre-orders get the green light

On the same day that it announced officially the pricing of Windows 7, Microsoft also revealed that customers would have the opportunity to buy the two main editions of the next iteration of Windows at discounted prices. The discounts went live on June 26, 2009, and Windows 7 Professional is available for $99.99, while Windows 7 Home Premium can be bought for just $49.99.

One good place to start is the Microsoft Store. The Redmond-based company not only sells the two Windows SKUs at the discounted prices but also offers a list of its partners that do so across North America and Japan. As a reminder, the special offer is only available in the US, Canada and Japan.

Windows 7: Home Premium vs. Professional vs. Ultimate

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:11:25 -0500

Microsoft publishes its own comparisons

It was bound that with Microsoft having made public the pricing details on the next iteration of the Windows client, the company would also introduce initiatives designed to help consumers decide on the Windows 7 edition best suited for them. And what better way than an operating system editions measuring contest? The software giant and partners have already started accepting pre-orders for Windows 7, which is scheduled to launch officially on October 22, 2009.

Microsoft is, of course, offering a Compare editions page set up as an overall guide highlighting the differences between Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. But don't expect an in-depth, feature by feature, painfully exhaustive comparison. Instead, the software giant is offering a general perspective over what it considers the main two editions of Windows 7 and the high-end SKU of the operating system.

Download Opera 10 Beta Build 1606 � Close to Finalization

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:08:59 -0500

The second snapshot of the browser this week

Opera made available no less than two development milestones of Opera 10 this week, the last one today, June 26, claiming that it was close to releasing the final build of the browser to web. Just a couple of days ago, the browser maker was offering Opera 10.0 Build 1601 Beta. On June 24, a member of the Opera team revealed that “We are quickly approaching the final release of Opera 10.0, so we have been working on fixing bugs and stabilizing the program.”

Essentially, it sounded like Opera was putting the finishing touches on the next iteration of its browser. The changelog covers a consistent volume of items spanning across all the flavors of Opera 10 for Windows, Mac and Linux, and covering the UI, the core of the browser, and even Opera Unite. In this regard, although the Norwegian company claimed that the final stage of Opera 10 was close, fact is that the browser still has to go into the Release Candidate phase before it hits RTM.

Orbit Downloader 2.8.13

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:02:51 -0500

Orbit Downloader, is a download manager specifically designed for the new generation Web (Web 2.0). You can use Orbit to download video/music/files from Myspace, YouTube, Imeem, Pandora, and Rapidshare, or on any site to make general downloading easier and faster.

Main Orbit Downloader Features:

Download social music, social video and streaming media
Extreme download acceleration.
Super Light: micro-sized and resource-friendly
Supports RapidShare download.
Supports IE, Firefox, Maxthon, and Opera.
Supports Metalink download.
Supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS, RTSP and RTMP protocols.
Supports Proxy server configuration.
Supports download, pause and resume.
Provides general download management.

uTorrent 1.8.3 Build 15728

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:01:32 -0500

�Torrent is a small and incredibly popular BitTorrent client.

Micro-Sized Yet Feature Filled

Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in �Torrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet). Additionally, �Torrent supports the Protocol Encryption joint specification (compatible with Azureus 2.4.0.0 and above, BitComet 0.63 and above) and peer exchange.

Resource-Friendly

�Torrent was written with efficiency in mind. Unlike many torrent clients, it does not hog valuable system resources - typically using less than 6MB of memory, allowing you to use the computer as if it weren't there at all. Additionally, the program itself is contained within a single executable less than 220 KB in size.

Skinnable and Localized

Various icon, toolbar graphic and status icon replacements are available, and creating your own is very simple. �Torrent also has support for localization, and with a language file present, will automatically switch to your system language. If your language isn't available, you can easily add your own, or edit other existing translations to improve them!

Actively Developed and Improved

The developer puts in a lot of time working on features and making things more user-friendly. Releases only come out when they're ready, with no schedule pressures, so the few bugs that appear are quickly addressed and fixed.

CCleaner 2.21.940

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:00:17 -0500

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)

Cleans the following:

Internet Explorer
Firefox
Google Chrome
Opera
Safari
Windows - Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
Registry cleaner
Third-party applications
100% Spyware FREE

TeraCopy 2.0

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:58:49 -0500

TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user a lot of features:

Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
Full Unicode support.

SuperAntiSpyware 4.26.1006

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:57:57 -0500

SUPERAntiSpyware Professional features our highly advanced Real-Time Protection to ensure protection from installation or re-installation of potential threats as you surf the Internet. Used in conjunction with our First Chance Prevention and Registry Protection, your computer is protected from thousands of threats that attempt to infect and infiltrate your system at startup or while shutting down your system.

Advanced Detection and Removal

Detect and Remove Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, HiJackers, Parasites, Rootkits, Rogue Security Products and many other types of threats.
Light on System Resources and won't slow down your computer like many other anti-spyware products. Won't conflict with your existing anti-spyware or anti-virus solution!

Real-Time Protection

Real-Time Blocking of threats! Prevent potentially harmful software from installing or re-installing!
First Chance Prevention examines over 50 critical points of your system each time your system starts up and shuts down to eliminate threats before they have a chance to infect and infiltrate your system.
Schedule either Quick, Complete or Custom Scans Daily or Weekly to ensure your computer is free from harmful software.

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 4.95

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:56:45 -0500

The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of DirectShow filters, VFW/ACM codecs, and tools. Codecs and DirectShow filters are needed for encoding and decoding audio and video formats. The K-Lite Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your audio and movie files.

With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play all the popular audio and video formats and even several less common formats.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs:

It is updated frequently. So it is always up-to-date with the newest and/or best components.
All components have been carefully selected for specific purposes. It is not just a random bunch of stuff thrown together.
It is very user-friendly and easy to use.
The installation is fully customizable, meaning that you are able to install just those components that you really want.
The customization abilities even go beyond the component level. Some components are able to handle multiple formats. You can specify exactly which components should handle which formats. The pack can thus be fully tweaked to your own specific needs and preferences.
Uninstallation removes everything that was installed by the pack. Including all registry keys.
It is extremely easy to make a fully customized unattended installation with the integrated wizard.
It does not contain any bad, buggy or unstable codecs.

Google Chrome 3.0.190.1 Beta

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:55:23 -0500

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. Google Chrome combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

One box for everything

Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.

Thumbnails of your top sites

Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.

Incognito mode

Don't want pages you visit to show up in your web history? Choose incognito mode for private browsing.

Safe browsing

Google Chrome warns you if you're about to visit a suspected phishing, malware or otherwise unsafe website.

For information about alpha and developer builds, check out the Chrome dev channel here.

NVIDIA Forceware 186.18 WHQL Vista

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:53:28 -0500

NVIDIA ForceWare software unleashes the full power and features in NVIDIA's desktop, gaming, platform, workstation, laptop, multimedia, and mobile products. Delivering a proven record of compatibility, reliability, and stability with the widest range of games and applications, ForceWare software ensures the best experience with your NVIDIA hardware.

Incredible 3D and video performance for all of your applications.
Rock-solid system stability, greater compatibility, and reliability with NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA).
Industry-leading features for graphics, audio, video, communications, storage, and security.
Robust product support for over ten unique operating systems.
Continual product performance and feature updates for the life of your NVIDIA hardware.

This software requires Windows Vista.

AVG Free Edition 8.5.374

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:52:09 -0500

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is trusted antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows available to download for free. In addition, the new included LinkScanner� Active Surf-Shield checks web pages for threats at the only time that matters – when you're about to click that link.

AVG Anti-Virus Free has these following features:

Award-winning antivirus and antispyware
Real-time safe internet surfing and searching
Quality proven by 80 million of users
Easy to download, install and use
Protection against viruses and spyware
Compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is only available for single computer use for home and non commercial use.

Shockwave Player 11.5.0.600

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:50:17 -0500

Shockwave Player is the web standard for powerful multimedia playback. The Shockwave Player allows you to view interactive web content like games, business presentations, entertainment, and advertisements from your web browser.

Install the Adobe Shockwave Player and you'll have access to some of the best content the web has to offer including dazzling 3D games and entertainment, interactive product demonstrations, and online learning applications. The Shockwave Player displays web content that has been created by Adobe Director, including content made with previous versions and Director MX 2004.

Unlike Adobe Flash, Shockwave Player displays destination web content such as interactive multimedia product demos and training, e-merchandising applications, and rich-media multi-user games.

This version enables Shockwave support in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Firefox 3.5 RC3

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:48:04 -0500

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

User Experience. The enhancements to Firefox provide the best possible browsing experience on the Web. The new Firefox smart location bar, affectionately known as the "Awesome Bar," learns as people use it, adapting to user preferences and offering better fitting matches over time.

Performance. Firefox is built on top of the powerful new Gecko platform, resulting in a safer, easier to use and more personal product.

Security. Firefox raises the bar for security. The new malware and phishing protection helps protect from viruses, worms, trojans and spyware to keep people safe on the Web.

Customization. Everyone uses the Web differently, and Firefox lets users customize their browser with more than 5,000 add-ons.

NOD32 AntiVirus 4.0.437

Gwolf2u — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:46:46 -0500

ESET NOD32 Antivirus is the most effective protection you can find to combat today's huge volumes of Internet and email threats. It provides comprehensive antivirus and antispyware protection without affecting your computer's performance.

Using advanced ThreatSense� technology, ESET NOD32 Antivirus proactively protects you from new attacks, even during the critical first hours when other vendors' products aren't aware the attack even exists. ESET NOD32 Antivirus detects and disables both known and unknown viruses, trojans, worms, adware, spyware, rootkits and other Internet threats.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus is also one of the fastest antivirus solutions, so fast you won't even notice it running. And it's both incredibly easy to use yet simple to tailor for your specific needs.

Key Benefits:

Protection from the Unknown
Finds Malware Other AV Companies Missed
Built for Speed
Easy on Your System
Easy on You

Fedora 11 Is Here

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:46:58 -0500

Codename Leonidas

After a two-week delay, the Fedora Project team finally announced, two minutes ago, the release of Fedora 11, also known as Leonidas. The multitude of new features and improvements in this new version made the waiting time seem even longer, especially for dedicated fans. Well, at least the buzz from Ubuntu and Mandriva is slowly fading away, so Linux users can concentrate better on Fedora 11.

Coming on a single Live CD, Leonidas can be downloaded either with the GNOME desktop environment or the KDE one. Moreover, spins are available for the Xfce lightweight alternative and other specific purposes such as education or lab work.

Google Chrome for Linux Is Officially Available

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:45:49 -0500

Still in an Alpha state

Though Linux users could test the popular browser for a couple of months through unofficial Chromium builds, yesterday, June 4th, Google announced the first official release of Google Chrome for Linux. The version 3.0.183.1 is still very unstable and lacks a lot of features that are otherwise present in the Windows package.

One of Chrome's main advantages over other web browsers is the way it handles tabs as separate processes. Why is this important? Well, if a web page crashes, it doesn't take the whole browser with it, but only the tab it was opened in, significantly increasing overall stability.

OpenSolaris 2009.06 Is Here

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:44:13 -0500

Sun Microsystems announced today a new release of its OpenSolaris distribution. "Today marks the release of OpenSolaris 2009.06, the third release of the OpenSolaris Operating System. We've shifted gear, bringing you a new set of features right to your door, from the desktop to the data center." said Glynn Foster in the official release announcement. OpenSolaris 2009.06 is available for both 32 and 64 bit platforms, from a single 677 MB ISO.

Server administrators will benefit from the new "Project Crossbow" implementation, bringing network virtualization and management of resources in OpenSolaris. There is now support for setting VLAN IDs, IP observability has been greatly improved, IPMP (IP Multipathing) has been introduced and an iSCSI Port Provider for COMSTAR has been added. Also, interoperability with Windows has been enhanced through the OpenSolaris CIFS service with features like host-based access control, access control lists for shares, offline files client-side caching and better synchronization. Moreover, cluster capabilities have been added by featuring the Open HA Clusters solution, and the socket implementation has been improved.

Windows 7 Build 7227 Leaked and Available for Download

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:39:52 -0500

As a .VHD

The leaked builds of Windows 7 are succeeding one another rapidly as the operating system advances from Release Candidate to RTM (mid-July 2009). With the development process already long moved past the 7200 mark, the next iteration of the Windows client is now all the way up to Build 7227. Unofficial confirmation is delivered by Build 7227 itself, the latest development milestone of Windows 7 that has made it out of Redmond, and subsequently was leaked and made available for download through various illegal third-party websites, including torrent trackers.

As I reported in the past, there is more than one branch associated with the Windows 7 building process. In this context winmain is the main development branch. The vast majority of previous Windows 7 leaks could be traced back to winmain, the development effort that will end up producing the plain vanilla gold variant of Windows 7. I say plain vanilla because there is also the winmain_sp branch. In winmain_sp builds of Windows 7 come bundled with Service Pack 1. This is the case of Windows 7 Build 7227.

FileZilla 3.2.5 RC1

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:36:01 -0500

FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface.

Among others, the features of FileZilla include the following:

Easy to use
Supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
IPv6 support
Available in many languages
Supports resume and transfer of large files greater than 4GB
Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
Bookmarks
Drag & drop support
Configurable transfer speed limits
Filename filters
Network configuration wizard
Remote file editing
Keep-alive
HTTP/1.1, SOCKS5 and FTP-Proxy support
Logging to file

Outpost Firewall Free 6.51

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:34:33 -0500

Outpost Firewall gives peace of mind from any virtually every Internet danger. Unlike other personal firewalls, Outpost starts protecting against all kinds of internal and external attacks as soon as it's installed.

This is the first firewall with an open architecture and support for plug-ins, so its capabilities can easily be extended by thousands of developers worldwide.

Key Benefits:

Basic Firewall Protection - Standard packet and application filtering safeguard your computer from unwanted communications.
Connections Monitoring - Lets you see network activity in real time, to help define inappropriate connections and close them right away.
Surfing Protection - Maintains your privacy on the Internet, keeps browser protected from Internet dangers.

AntiVir Personal 9.0.0.403

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:33:28 -0500

Avira AntiVir Personal - FREE Antivirus is a reliable free antivirus solution, that constantly and rapidly scans your computer for malicious programs such as viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers etc. Monitors every action executed by the user or the operating system and reacts promptly when a malicious program is detected.

Detects and removes more than 150,000 viruses
Always among the winners of comparison test featured in computer journals
The resident Virus Guard serves to monitor file movements automatically, e.g. downloading of data from the internet
Scanning and repair of macro viruses
Protection against previously unknown macro viruses
Protection against trojaner, worms, backdoors, jokes and other harmful programs
AntiVir protection against viruses, worms and Trojans
AntiDialer protection against expensive dialers
AntiRootkit protection against hidden rootkits
AntiVir protection against viruses, worms and Trojans
AntiPhishing protection against phishing
AntiSpyware protection against spyware and adware
NetbookSupport for laptops with low resolution
QuickRemoval eliminates viruses at the push of a button
Easy operation
Internet-Update Wizard for easy updating
Protection against previously unknown boot record viruses and master boot record viruses

AVG Free Edition 8.5.364

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:31:34 -0500

AVG Anti-Virus Free has these following features:

Award-winning antivirus and antispyware
Real-time safe internet surfing and searching
Quality proven by 80 million of users
Easy to download, install and use
Protection against viruses and spyware
Compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is only available for single computer use for home and non commercial use.

Safari 4.0

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:30:26 -0500

At one time, web browsers simply got you to the Internet. But from the day it was released, Safari set the bar higher for web browsers. It introduced sophisticated design elements that made browsing a joy. Easy to use, Safari stayed out of your way and let you effortlessly navigate from site to site.

More browsing space: Safari is designed to emphasize the browsing, not the browser. The browser frame is a single pixel wide. You see a scroll bar only when needed. By default, there's no status bar. Instead, a progress indicator turns as your page loads. You'll find tabs at the very top of the browser, opening an even wider window for viewing websites. A great browser, Safari lets you simply enjoy the web.

Find the sites you need: Looking for a site you visited in the past but can't quite remember? Use Full History Search to quickly find sites using even the sketchiest search terms. And when you click a web page in Cover Flow, it's because you've already recognized it as the site you were looking for. No more guessing. Innovative features like these show you how good browsing can be.

Satisfy your need for speed: The world's fastest browser, Safari has speed to burn. Why should you wait for pages to load? You want to see those search results, get the latest news, check current stock prices, right now.

Orbit Downloader 2.8.12

Gwolf2u — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:28:54 -0500

Main Orbit Downloader Features:

Download social music, social video and streaming media
Extreme download acceleration.
Super Light: micro-sized and resource-friendly
Supports RapidShare download.
Supports IE, Firefox, Maxthon, and Opera.
Supports Metalink download.
Supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS, RTSP and RTMP protocols.
Supports Proxy server configuration.
Supports download, pause and resume.
Provides general download management.