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Adobe Media Player software provides control and flexibility to view what you want, when you want — whether online or offline. You can queue up and download your favorite Internet TV content, track and download new episodes automatically, and manage your personal video library for viewing at your convenience

Adobe Media Player

Animated gif files are a great way to get your profile pic or avatar to really stand out from the rest of the crowd. I’ve seen software that will make gifs for you but Noah has figured out a method to create animated gifs from a video clip using two of the most popular open source programs, Mplayer and Gimp. Noah’s method is primarily written for the Linux user but it works fine on Windows as well.

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Windows Live OneCare 2.5 is now available on Microsoft Connect for folks to start testing.So what’s new with Windows Live OneCare 2.5? After installing the Beta myself, I didn’t notice anything different over the non-Beta version. I decided to ping the Windows Live OneCare team to see what we can expect with Windows Live OneCare 2.5. They tell me that the Windows Live OneCare 2.5 release is mainly what they call an "under-the-hood" release. That means that we won’t see any big  new features like the great OneCare Circle introduced in 2.0.  Going forward with the Windows Live OneCare 2.5 Beta - continue to expect the improvements and changes to remain "under-the-hood" and not very noticeable in the UI.

Download from liveside | Via windowsvistablog.org

The total number of viruses will reach one million by year’s end, according to security experts.

Malware writers have been forced to create new types of viruses and exploits more regularly as businesses and individuals improve security practices, the experts said.

Sophos chief technology officer Paul Ducklin said about 25 percent of unique malware has been created in the last six months of its 20 year history.

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Buttons make it easy! Use the button builder below to create a button that fits your personal style or even just your mood. Add the button to your Windows Live Hotmail, Outlook and other email signatures, Windows Live Space, or blog, and your friends and family can simply click your button to add you to their contact list.

Web site gowindowslive.com

This application is designed to assess the strength of password strings. The instantaneous visual feedback provides the user a means to improve the strength of their passwords, with a hard focus on breaking the typical bad habits of faulty password formulation. Since no official weighting system exists, we created our own formulas to assess the overall strength of a given password. Please note, that this application does not utilize the typical "days-to-crack" approach for strength determination. We have found that particular system to be severely lacking and unreliable for real-world scenarios. This application is neither perfect nor foolproof, and should only be utilized as a loose guide in determining methods for improving the password creation process.

Website | http://www.passwordmeter.com

Designing for an email is still quite far off from designing for a browser. In fact, email reader standards are pretty historic in the sense that (a) it requires designers to degrade their modern coding practices and (b) there really are no true standards.

Fortunately, there are bodies in place that are working on standardizing the way emails are being rendered. But something tells me that we shouldn’t hold our breath (after all, we haven’t even fully standardized the experience within browsers yet). So in the mean time, here are some basic best practices to follow when designing for emails that will ensure your work displays as intended.

Read them all here

When we began rolling out a new Gmail code architecture a few weeks ago, we also launched some new features to help improve the speed and convenience of managing email. I’ve been using several of these new additions over the last few weeks, and while they might seem small on their own, they really can add up to save you a lot of time and hassle. That’s why I decided to list my five favorite new features that are so new, you may not have noticed them. We are still rolling them out to IE6, international and Google Apps users, but for those of you who noticed a new contact manager among other recent improvements in our latest version, here they are:

5. "Archive and next" shortcut
We added a bunch of new shortcuts to Gmail, but one that I’ve found to be a true time-saver is what I call the "archive and next" shortcut. When I have a lot of mail, it can be really annoying to have to open a message, click "Back to Inbox" and then select the next email I want to read. So once you enable shortcuts in Settings, you can simply press the left bracket key "[" while viewing a message to archive it, and then immediately open the next oldest one. When I see a long list of unread messages, I like to open the first one and then just hit "[" to swiftly move through my mail and archive as I go. (P.S. By clicking the right bracket "]" you can also move the other way if you want to open newer messages after you archive).

4. Share mail searches with friends
How many times do your friends tell you, "I can’t find that email you sent me." Now you can prove that you did indeed send that message, despite the accusations. All you have to do is search for the message using your expert mail searching skills, and when you find it listed in the results, just copy and paste the URL and email it to your friend. When he or she goes to that link while in Gmail, your friend’s Gmail will run the same search you ran and will be able to locate that "lost" email instantly. For example, if you wanted to share a search for "pick me up at airport," so flight information can be located, you would send over this URL: http://mail.google.com/mail/#search/pick+me+up+at+airport.

3. Browser navigation and history
Your web browser is now a great way to navigate Gmail. Instead of having to find the right links on the page to move from inbox to messages to other Gmail views, you can use the browser navigation buttons (back and forward) to jump back and forth between emails. You can also open your browser history and click on specific emails that you’ve read to go right back to them. This allows you to quickly access certain emails without having to re-read your inbox. Browser history is something that often doesn’t work well on complex web apps like Gmail, but we’ve gone to great lengths to make it work right.

2. Bookmark emails
I frequently need to save a single email for a period of time, such as a message that includes an important phone number. But I don’t want to create a separate label for one message, and I also don’t want to archive all the email that comes in after that message just to keep that thread near the top of my inbox–and hopefully the top of my mind. This problem is now easily solved by a new ability to bookmark specific emails. All emails now have dedicated URLs, so just by adding a browser bookmark while viewing a message, you can return to it whenever you want, just like a regular web page–although you will still have to log in to Gmail if you’ve signed out.

1. "Filter messages like this"
I find filters to be one of the most useful features in Gmail, but sometimes it can be hard to set them up quickly. So we added a new capability that makes a filter based on the message you are reading, so you can keep track of future similar emails. By clicking on the dropdown menu in the upper right-hand corner of every email (the upside-down triangle), you can now see the option to "Filter messages like this." Not only can you easily create a filter based on the sender, but this is especially handy if you are trying to filter emails sent to mailing lists. We automatically set up a filter for you based on the "list ID" header, which does a better job of finding emails sent to mailing lists.

{via GmailBlog}

You can optionally install a firewall to protect your computer against unauthorized access by people on the Internet or your network. Firewalls block connections to your computer from unknown sources, which helps to prevent security breaches.

1. Install the firestarter package from the “Universe” repository (see Add Applications).

2. To start Firestarter, choose System → Administration → Firestarter, and enter your administrator password when prompted.

3. The Firewall Wizard should run. If it does not, press Firewall → Run Wizard.

4. Follow the steps in the Firewall Wizard. After completing all of the steps, the firewall should be configured and running.

5. To check that your firewall is working correctly, make use of an online firewall testing service such as ShieldsUP.

For help and advice on the advanced configuration of Firestarter, see the Firestarter Online Manual.

1) Adium
One of the best IM clients ever made. It supports nearly every client ever made, only skype isn’t supported. Video and voice chat are in development. It is one of the best applications I have ever tried. For a blogger it is great as you can connect on any protocol and be chatting in minutes.
2) Backdrop
A lot of the time you will be taking pictures of windows within your OS, especially for tutorials or designers. The problem is, not every one wants to see your wallpaper or your icons. As well as this I use my desktop for storing some personal information. Backdrop provides you a very simple way to hide your desktop through the use of a solid background or a chosen picture of you choice. It hides everything behind the current active application. A great app.

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