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Today marks my third time installing Ubuntu alongside Windows Vista (the first was an ill-fated attempt on my desktop, the second resulted in a successful triple-boot system with XP, Vista and Ubuntu on said machine); this time on my new laptop.

Being familiar with the pitfalls of such a configuration, I’ve come to appreciate the value EasyBCD holds. The BCD (boot configuration data) is new to Windows Vista, and by most measurable tests is far, far superior to the NT Loader of old.

Unfortunately it’s crap to configure; the only verbose way of editing it is with an archaic command-line tool.

This is where EasyBCD from Neosmart comes in. It’s small, feature rich and an absolute joy to use. It comes with presets for all major Operating Systems and wraps the whole BCD in a really nice GUI.

If you’re considering installing another OS alongside Vista, this is truly a must have tool. Download the latest version here.

Windows Vista has many puzzling error messages, but this just takes the biscuit. This was originally posted on Reddit.

The most important programs in the World are those you install the moment you get a new computer, and continue to use regularly.

I just got a new Acer Aspire 5920 laptop (which I may review some time, although that may not be necessary), and so recently had the pleasure of rediscovering what are the most important programs in the World to me. Here they are in no particular order:

Firefox

The first thing I installed, and I suspect the same to be true for many others, was Firefox.  It needs no introduction; the best browser in the World. This was necessary almost immediately to start gathering other essential software from the Internet.

7-Zip

My favourite archiving utility, 7-Zip is fast, lightweight, supports everything and is open-source (my favourite kind). This was used right away, as many of the applications I would be downloading were archived (99% were zip-files, so I could have gotten by with Windows built in extractor, but man that gets slow when the archives get big…).

VLC Media Player

It’s very easy to love VLC; it’s really small and really fast, and can play almost anything you throw at it. It has loads of other features too, like network streaming and encoding/transcoding, but they’re not worth delving into right now. Sufficed to say, this is the quickest way to get up and running if you need to play anything.

Daemon Tools

Daemon Tools is a CD/DVD-ROM drive emulation tool, in which you can mount and run ISO images (it also supports other image files such as cue files Nero images). It sounds simple, but this is a genuinely great piece of software, and my favourite of it’s kind.

Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft Office being an essential piece of software is pretty much a given in any circumstance, but I thought it was worth mentioning the latest edition, 2007, in particular. I’m a huge fan of the visual refresh the Office Team has developed in the form of the Ribbon Bar; and as a persistent user of Office I can testify to its usefulness. This is good stuff.

Notepad++

One for the developers, this is my preferred source-code editor. It has a nice extendible architecture, with a variety of plugins available as single DLL files.

FileZilla

I didn’t get very far without an FTP client; FileZilla is the best.

CCleaner

CCleaner is quite simple; it cleans all the crap of your computer. Really, really useful. Don’t take my word for it, witness it’s universal acclaim.

Last.fm

Last.fm is one of my favourite sites at the moment, and I consistently have the software running for hours on end. If you don’t have an account, I strongly recommend signing up for one. In fact, get a premium account, it’s €2.50 a month.

iTunes

I actually hate iTunes, but I love my iPod so I put with it. You can download the latest version here.

Adobe Reader 8 and Foxit Reader

Adobe Reader is a well-documented performance nightmare, whereas the also free Foxit Reader is lightening fast. I have them both installed because Adobe Reader will create nice-thumbnails of the PDF files; and Foxit Reader will open them in seconds.

Google Earth

Simply because I love Google Earth.

Visual Studio 2005

Although I haven’t actually used Visual Studio in a while, most of my coding lately has been web-based, I know I’ll have to load it up sooner or later.

I guess that’s it; I’m sure I’ve missed a few, and this is merely a snapshot of the many, many programs people use day in and day out. It’s a small sample of the most important programs in the World.

The iPhone is a good thing.

In a stagnant and decadent market, it has injected a much needed revival in innovation; something the mobile telecommunications industry desperately needed. The problem is, despite all it’s goodness, it is still lacking so very much.

I have never owned a smart-phone, for a few simple reasons; the high cost has never justified the feature-set, especially when the said feature-sets are so doggedly inconsistent. Windows Mobile handsets have Mobile Office, which I really want, but they don’t have the hard-drive the iPhone sports (not to mention the style, have you seen Windows Mobile handsets?). The iPhone has Wi-Fi, but no 3G. And no tactile keyboard (stupid, stupid, stupid). The Nokia E65 has Wi-Fi and document viewing, but a micro-sized screen. The recently announced Nokia N810 has everything I want, but no goddamn phone!

I’m going to single out the N810 in this article, rather than bash the iPhone (it’s been done).

Nokia make good machines. I’ve always liked their handset build quality and the Symbian Operating System. They pack in good features with an attractive price. Unfortunately they seem doomed to remain hopeless at tackling the high-end smart-phone arena (for the life of me I still don’t know why they don’t release a Windows Mobile handset, Symbian is great and all, but it’s not suitable for the high-end market). The Nokia N810 is the closest I’ve seen to an appealing smart-phone from the Nokia.

The problem is it’s not a smart-phone. It’s an ‘Internet Tablet’, whatever the hell that is. Why can’t they release a model with an antena? The ‘Internet Tablet Phone Edition’? Why can’t they release a phone with Linux, Wi-Fi, 3G and the super web browser they’ve developed (no, I’m not talking about the Communicator)? They can keep the ‘Internet Tablet’ as a separate product line, but give me the smart-phone I want! Doing so would strongly challenge the iPhone, something the mobile handset makers seem to be struggling at. Please, Nokia, please; do the right thing.

Months have passed since the retail launch and, aside from Hold’Em and a few utilities, the Ultimate Extras have been nothing short of a no-show. Let’s call them what they are: a total disappointment. In fact, it gets worse when Microsoft starts calling language packs “Ultimate Extras,” as if I’m supposed to do flips.

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