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Microsoft today announced that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 have hit the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone. The software giant still has a lot of work to do, but the bigger responsibility now falls to OEMs that must get PCs ready, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) that are testing their new apps, and Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs) that are preparing their new hardware. The RTM build is 7600, but it is not the same one that leaked less than two weeks ago (7600.16384). We speculated that Microsoft may end up recompiling build 7600 until it is satisfied, but it only took the company one more shot to get it right: 7600.16385 is the final build number.…

An update for Blackberry users in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could allow unauthorised access to private information and e-mails. The update was prompted by a text from UAE telecoms firm Etisalat, suggesting it would improve performance. Instead, the update resulted in crashes or drastically reduced battery life. Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) said in a statement the update was not authorised, developed, or tested by RIM. The update has now been identified as an application developed by American firm SS8. The California-based company describes itself as a provider of "lawful electronic intercept and surveillance solutions", which we translate as 'maker of…

Europeans will not be able to directly upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7. Microsoft yesterday detailed upgrade paths from old Windows editions to its upcoming Windows 7 OS, and confirmed that UK Vista users will need to do a clean install of Windows 7. Microsoft is expected to ship special versions of Windows 7 to European customers, but the versions will need a clean install on PCs, according to a blog entry on Microsoft's website. The software giant has released special editions of Windows 7 in Europe including Windows 7 E, which lacks a browser, and Windows 7 N, which lacks a browser and media player technologies. Windows 7 is scheduled for a worldwide launch …

Microsoft took the wraps off a new Web service dedicated to managing energy use. Called "Hohm" (presumably, a play on the combination of "home and "Ohm"), the product will take advantage of smart grid data on energy use when it's available. Even when it's not, however, Hohm will allow users to input their own details and share the results of their efficiency efforts, adding a bit of a Web 2.0 sheen to matters. The move comes after a number of other major IT powers, including Google and Cisco, have announced their own efforts in the area, suggesting that a lot of people think this market is about to take off. The Hohm service itself is a bit of a hybrid of a number of s…

Firefox (referred to as Fx) is a web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite, managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox is a highly customizable browser that allows you to enhance it using Add-ons. Some examples of Add-ons that you can use to customize Firefox are AdBlock Plus, CuteMenus - Crystal SVG, DownThemAll!, TabMixPlus and many more. Tabbed browsing is one of the many features that helps to make Firefox more secure than most browser. Firefox does not use ActiveX. Firefox does make use of many plugins to enhance your web experience. From Shockwave, Flash, Quicktime and more; your browsing experience reaches new levels with the Firefox browser. Dow…

JavaRa allows you to update your Sun Java Runtime Environment to the latest version. You can also uninstall all old versions of Sun Java along with leftover files that are not uninstalled. Options allow you to choose how to update and also allows you to remove the automatic Java Update Checker from starting with your computer. JavaRa helps to ensure your computer stays secure with the latest Java updates. Changes: [Fixed] JavaRa commandline issue. [Fixed] Small bug causing JavaRa to crash if no Java executable was found. Download: JavaRa 1.15 Link: Digg This! Link: Lunarsoft

No, Windows 7 did not release to manufacturing yesterday, a fact that was once again repeated by Microsoft to Betanews late yesterday. As blogger Ed Bott accurately pointed out, those who drew conclusions about the multitude of zeroes in the build number were not taking into account the more esoteric meanings such numbers have historically held within Microsoft. So yesterday's news of volume licensing discounts for Windows 7 beginning September 1 was not a delay. In fact, as a Microsoft spokesperson outlined for Betanews late yesterday, business customers are already eligible for upgrades to Windows 7 under their existing Software Assurance program, which will expire s…

Developers on the "Shiretoko" track for Mozilla's new open source Firefox 3.5 Web browser now have very good reason to expect a ship date for the first round of bug fixes and vulnerabilities. A very big vulnerability has turned up in just the wrong place: a public site for posting exploits. The problem is a new permutation of an old exploit technique that, ironically, was first brought to prominence in 2006 by a package called "Internet Exploiter." It's called a heap spray, comprised of shellcode that's set to be distributed into an area in blocks, a bit like spraying bricks into a wall. The resulting pattern may contain executable code that can be triggered through an…

Notepad++ is a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment. This project, based on the Scintilla edit component, written in C++ with pure win32 api and STL that ensures the higher execution speed and smaller size of the program. Notepad++ supports the following languages: C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, javascript, RC resource file, makefile, ASCII art file, doxygen, ini file, batch file, ASP, VB/VBS source files, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python and Lua. Download: Notepad++ 5.4.5 Homepage: Notepad++ Link: Lunarsoft

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is a full-blown anti-malware program that has recently left the labs and can be considered the next step in the detection and removal of malware. Malwarebytes Team put together a host of new technologies that were specially designed to quickly detect, deter and destroy any malware that could reside in your computer. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware monitors every process and actually stops malicious processes before they even start. It uses an impressive technology that is in fact a completely novel way of heuristic scanning and it is the teams response to the increasingly complex malware threats. And, as they did with Malwarebytes' RogueRemover …

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction. Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux and Macintosh hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD. Download: VirtualBox 3.0.2 View: …

VLC (VideoLAN) is a multi-platform multimedia player. It can read DVDs, VCDs, MPEG, and DivX files and from a satellite card. It can also read a stream from a network sent by the VideoLAN Server or another source. The stream can be MPEG 2 TS in UDP or HTTP packets unicasted or multicasted on an IPv4 or IPv6 network. Download: VLC media player 1.0.0 | Other Versions Changes: Changes Homepage: VideoLAN Link: Lunarsoft

Notepad++ is a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment. This project, based on the Scintilla edit component, written in C++ with pure win32 api and STL that ensures the higher execution speed and smaller size of the program. Notepad++ supports the following languages: C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, javascript, RC resource file, makefile, ASCII art file, doxygen, ini file, batch file, ASP, VB/VBS source files, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python and Lua. Download: Notepad++ 5.4.4 Homepage: Notepad++ Link: Lunarsoft

For a good part of Tuesday, the Web Standards Project's Acid3 testing server was offline. With it went 25% of our browser performance testing capacity, which kept us from being able to publish our initial Mozilla Firefox 3.5 performance index as originally planned. As Acid3 started coming back, browsers were posting curiously low scores (for instance, Opera 10 Beta below 100%) that led us to dispute the test more than the browser. Today, however, with the server back online, we're able to give a reliable performance estimate for the first fully stable edition of Firefox 3.5. Earlier this week, some of our readers advised us that 3.5 RC3 would be bit-for-bit identical w…

The first of the month always brings a bountiful harvest from Google's blogging troops, and two posts yesterday pointed us to some nifty changes to Gmail's labels features and passed along some cheerful numbers concerning spam levels as measured by the company's Postini group. With one notable exception, those who rely even moderately on Gmail's labels ought to like where things are going. The section is finally positioned above the chat area, for starters, and your labels can be easily grouped and rearranged for your convenience rather than only in alpha order. (Gmail attempts to help you out by picking a few to put at the top of the list, hiding the rest, but we foun…

IE7Pro is a must have add-on for Internet Explorer, which includes a lot of features and tweaks to make your IE friendlier, more useful, secure and customizable. IE7Pro includes Tabbed Browsing Management, Spell Check, Inline Search, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Web Accelerator, User Agent Switcher, Webpage Capturer, AD Blocker, Flash Block, Greasemonkey like User Scripts platform, User Plug-ins and many more power packed features. You can customize not just Internet Explorer, but even your favorite website according to your need and taste using IE7Pro. Download: IE7Pro 2.4.6 View: Changes Homepage: IE7Pro Li…

FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) client with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface. Some of the useful features include drag and drop support, filename filters, network configuration wizard, powerful site manager, transfer queue, and it even supports resume and transfer of files larger than 4GB. When FileZilla v3 was released a built in updater was introduced. This allowed users to update their FileZilla Client faster and easier. Included are options to check for nightly and beta builds of the FileZilla Client. Download: FileZilla 3.2.6.1 Homepage: FileZilla on Sou…

FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) client with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface. Some of the useful features include drag and drop support, filename filters, network configuration wizard, powerful site manager, transfer queue, and it even supports resume and transfer of files larger than 4GB. When FileZilla v3 was released a built in updater was introduced. This allowed users to update their FileZilla Client faster and easier. Included are options to check for nightly and beta builds of the FileZilla Client. Download: FileZilla 3.2.6 Homepage: FileZilla on SourceF…

Firefox (referred to as Fx) is a web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite, managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox is a highly customizable browser that allows you to enhance it using Add-ons. Some examples of Add-ons that you can use to customize Firefox are AdBlock Plus, CuteMenus - Crystal SVG, DownThemAll!, TabMixPlus and many more. Tabbed browsing is one of the many features that helps to make Firefox more secure than most browser. Firefox does not use ActiveX. Firefox does make use of many plugins to enhance your web experience. From Shockwave, Flash, Quicktime and more; your browsing experience reaches new levels with the Firefox browser. Dow…

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction. Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux and Macintosh hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD. Download: VirtualBox 3.0.0 View: …

Pidgin is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, and Zephyr networks. Gaim users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger, and sitting in an IRC channel all at the same time. Pidgin supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer, away messages, and typing notification. It also goes beyond that and provides many u…

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization and privacy 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. CCleaner can also clean very quickly, usually taking about ten seconds to run. Changes: Added U3 smart drive support. (Separate installer) Added support for: Adobe Reader 9.0, Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Adobe Illustrator CS4, Nero Burning ROM 9, OpenOffice 3.1, AVG AntiVirus 8.0, AntiVir Desktop and Vuze Added Installed date and size to Uninstall Tool Added support for multiple ite…

Fedora Linux 11 Operating System: Linux File Size: 692MB License: Open Source HomePage: http://fedoraproject.org/ Screenshots: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_11_Screenshot_Tour Wiki: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview Release Notes: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f11/ Downloads: http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora The Fedora Project is an openly-developed project designed by Red Hat, open for general participation, led by a meritocracy, following a set of project objectives. The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software…

Moovida Media Center 1.0.2 File SIze: 33.7MB ( Windows ) License: Open Source Operating Systems:Windows, Linux ( Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu Hardy, Foresight, Mandriva, Suse, Fedora Core, Gentoo and ArchLinux. See our wiki page, http://www.moovida.com/wiki/Distribution/LinuxPackages Please note, Moovida 1.0.2 is not yet officially packaged in Ubuntu but we maintain Ubuntu packages of the latest release of Moovida in our PPA. HomePage: http://www.moovida.com/ Screenshots: http://www.moovida.com/screenshots/ Downloads: http://www.moovida.com/download/ Features Search Search your favorite artists, songs, movies, TV shows or your own pic…

I visited CnCMaps today and on the CnCMaps Administrator"s Blog ( thomasalan's Blog ) there is this free offer,Iolo System Shield 3 1 Year Free License giveaway this link gives screenshots of the actual steps taken in getting the offer at http://www.cncmaps.com/index.php?automodul...p;blogid=1& I'm not familiar with this program or the company other then they developed System Mechanic but it"s a complete Security Suite for more details on the features regarding this Application go to the developer"s HomePage here, http://www.iolo.com/ss/3/