Maybe you’ve been putting off upgrading to Vista, but quite like the look of the operating system? Well, we’ve already shown you how to upgrade XP to look and feel like Vista, but one thing has been missing, the Sidebar, which hosts the famous’ Gadgets’. These are small desktop applications and utilities that have proved to be one of Vista’s most popular features. Now they’re yours, for free, with the Windows Sidebar Real One Pack. It’s not just a copy but the original Sidebar, rescripted for XO, so it looks and behaves just like the real thing, you can download gadgets, funky clocks and so on from Microsoft and all of the other goodies developed for the original.
It’s hard to get too upset with AVG, after all they have been providing us with top-notch virus protection for free these last few years, but the release of AVG version 8 has annoyed a lot of otherwise loyal users. Over the last few weeks popups have been appearing that appear to suggest that AVG was no longer free and to stay protected you had to upgrade to a paid-for version. The fact is AVG 8 is still free for personal use, but of course AVG would rather you purchased the better-specified commercial version – well, you can’t blame them for trying. For the record the free version can be downloaded from http://free.avg.com
The latest problem is a component in AVG 8, called Link Scanner, which has been driving some website owners potty. The idea is when you do a web search it pre-checks all of the links, looking for malicious sites. The trouble is websites get bombarded with fake hits from PCs running AVG 8, clogging up the web with pointless and wasteful traffic. Some users also suggest that the Link Scanners slows their PC down, which could well be the case on older machines. Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft raised a few eyebrows late last week with an announcement that it is planning significant price cuts for some versions of the Vista operating system. So far we only have details of the US changes, which apply to the upgrade versions of Ultimate (down from $299 to $219) and Home Premium (drops from $159 down to $129), but according to a CNET News report the company also has plans to reduce prices in other ‘developed’ markets which presumably means Europe and Japan. There will also be changes too for emerging markets, where the distinction between full and upgrade versions will be eliminated. Read the rest of this entry »
Maybe you’ve been putting off upgrading to Vista, but quite like the look of the operating system? Well, we’ve already shown you how to upgrade XP to look and feel like Vista, but one thing has been missing, the Sidebar, which hosts the famous’ Gadgets’. These are small desktop applications and utilities that have proved to be one of Vista’s most popular features. Now they’re yours, for free, with the Windows Sidebar Real One Pack. It’s not just a copy but the original Sidebar, rescripted for XO, so it looks and behaves just like the real thing, you can download gadgets, funky clocks and so on from Microsoft and all of the other goodies developed for the original.
