How to know whether your Windows XP PC can run Vista?

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is a small software Tool that helps Windows XP users identify which edition of Windows Vista meets their needs, whether their PCs are ready for an upgrade to Windows Vista, and which features of Windows Vista will be able to run on their PCs. This small software tool will scan your computer and create a report of all known system, device, and program compatibility issues, and recommend ways to resolve them.

To install and run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, you will need .NET2.0 (at least .NET 1.1), MSXML6 (at least MSXML4) and an internet connection. Before you run the Upgrade Advisor, plug in devices such as printers, external hard drives, or scanners that are regularly used with the PC you are evaluating.

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor supports 32 bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista, except Windows Vista Enterprise edition.

Download Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor

WordWeb - The free off-line English dictionary for Windows

WordWeb is a quick and powerful international English dictionary for Windows. This off-line dictionary can be used to look up words from almost any program, showing definitions, synonyms and related words. It includes pronunciations and usage examples.

The free version includes Definitions and synonyms, Proper nouns, Related words, Pronunciations, 150000 root words, 120000 synonym sets, and Fixed web reference tabs. WordWeb supports Windows 98/2000/Me/XP/Vista.

Download WordWeb

How to convert .docx files to .doc files in Windows and Mac?

M.S Windows
Microsoft has added a new file format called the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format (.docx) to Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 and Microsoft Office Excel 2007. But this format is not compatible with earlier versions of Microsoft Office. With the help of Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, you can convert .docx files to .doc files very easily and you can open and save Office Open XML Formats in earlier versions of Microsoft Office.

By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. Before installing compatibility pack, users of Microsoft Office XP and 2003 must install all High-Priority updates from Microsoft Update.

This Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack supports Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 1, and Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Download Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack

Mac
For Mac beta version of Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter is available. This beta version expires on December 31, 2008. This Open XML Converter can convert Open XML files to a format that is compatible with Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac and Microsoft Office v. X for Mac.

With this converter you can convert Open XML file formats like .docx, .docm, .pptx, .ppsx, .potx to a format that is compatible with Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac and Microsoft Office v. X for Mac. But remember, You must use Office 2004 11.3.4 or later, or Office v. X 10.1.9 or later to open these converted documents. Also this version of converter is not compatible with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.

Download Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac

FireFox 3 second Beta version now available

Firefox 3 is based on Gecko 1.9 Web rendering Engine. FireFox 3 includes nearly 2 million lines of code changes, fixing more than 11,000 issues. This latest Firefox 3 Beta 2 version includes nearly 900 improvements over the previous beta, including fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements. This beta version is intended for testing purposes only. So this is recommended for developers and testers.

Firefox 3 Beta 2 is available in more than 25 languages for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux users.

Download FireFox Beta 2

CrystalMark - an excellent BenchMark software

CrystaMark is an excellent benchmark software, with which you can test your CPU (ALU/FPU), Memory, HDD, and Graphics (GDI/DirecDraw/OpenGL). You can know about your BIOS/Mother Board Information, CPU (Clock, Cache, Multiplier, System Clock), Chipset, Video (Driver Information/ Video RAM), Netwark Information, PCI Device, IDE HDD Information, and DLL Information.

No need to install CrystalMark software. Just download and unzip it. Now just run the application CrystalMark core system. Then you will get all details about your Bios/Motherboard, CPU, HDD, DLL information etc. For further information you can run the other applications like CrystalMark OpenGL test, Windows GDI BenchMark, DirectDraw benchmark.

CrystalMark 2004R2 supports 32bit Windows Vista/2003/XP/2000 and 64bit Windows Vista/2003/XP.

Download CrystaMark

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate

Microsoft has released Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate. Users can Install Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate through Windows Update. Windows Vista SP1 RC is pre-release software and will undergo so many changes before the final release. Windows Vista SP1 RC is for individuals, organizations, and technical enthusiasts and is provided for testing purposes only.

You must uninstall any previous versions of Windows Vista SP1 before installing Windows Vista SP1 RC. Windows Vista SP1 RC is time-limited software. Windows Vista SP1 RC will no longer operate after June 30, 2008 and should be uninstalled prior to that date. If you install Windows Vista SP1 RC it is strongly recommended that you install the final version of Windows Vista SP1 when it is released. To do this, you will be required to uninstall this RC version of Windows Vista SP1.

Download Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC

IE ACA Update to disable “Click To Activate”

Previously web pages are required to manually activate ActiveX controls, by clicking the control or confirming a “click to activate” message, before interacting with controls loaded by websites. At present Microsoft has released an Internet Explorer Automatic Component Activation (IE ACA) update that will disable the “Click to activate” behavior of the Internet Explorer ActiveX update. So web pages that previously required activation will no longer require controls to be activated. The update that removes this behavior is called the Internet Explorer Automatic Component Activation update (IE ACA). This activation behavior will be permanently removed from Internet Explorer in April 2008 by Microsoft.

This IE ACA Update (945007) disables the “Click to activate” behavior of the Internet Explorer ActiveX update that is contained in update KB942615. This update should only be applied after installing KB942615 to ensure that the security updates contained in update KB942615 are still present and functional.

Download IE ACA Update

Update KB942615 for IE7 in Windows XP Service Pack 2

Update KB942615 for IE7 in Windows XP 64 bit

Update KB942615 for IE7 in Windows Vista 32 bit

Update KB942615 for IE7 in Windows Vista 64 bit

2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1

Microsoft has released service pack 1 for the 2007 Microsoft Office suites. The 2007 Microsoft Office suites SP1 combines the previously released fixes into one update. The 2007 Microsoft Office suites Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains significant security improvements, stability improvements, and performance improvements.

To successfully install SP1, you must have Microsoft Installer 3.1 (MSI 3.1) or higher. You cannot use the Add or Remove Programs item in Control Panel to remove this service pack. To remove the 2007 Microsoft Office suites SP1 from your computer, you must remove the 2007 Office suite. Then, reinstall the 2007 Office suite by using your original 2007 Office suite CD.

This SP 1 supports Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2

Download Microsoft Installer 3.1

Download 2007 Microsoft Office suite SP1

Windows XP SP 3 Release Candidate

Microsoft has recently released Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate. Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 includes all previously released updates for Windows XP, including security updates, out-of-band releases, and hotfixes. It contains a small number of new updates, but should not significantly change the Windows XP experience.

Windows XP SP3 does not include Windows Internet Explorer 7, although Windows XP SP3 does include updates to both Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7, and it will update whichever version is installed on the computer.

Download Windows XP SP 3 Release Candidate

Convert Text, HTML, PDF, and LIT based eBooks into images

eBook to Images is a freeware software which converts Text, HTML, PDF, and LIT based eBooks into images. It supports Windows 2000/2003/9x/XP/Vista. This software requires the Microsoft .Net Framework v2.0.

This software is for people without MP3 players with text or eBook support, but can view photos. It will convert a book into a series of images. Supports multiple subdirectories for easier sorting, rotating images, inversing colors, anti-aliasing.

Download eBook to Images

InfraRecorder - The Free CD/DVD burning software

InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning software for Windows. It supports Windows 2000/XP/Vista. InfraRecorder has modern customizable Windows Explorer like interface.

Features:

Create and record disc images

Create direct disc copies, on the fly or by using a temporary disc image

Supports recording to dual-layer DVDs

Erase (blank) rewritable discs

Import session data from multi-session discs and add more sessions to them

Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from beeing added to the disc)

Scan the SCSI/IDE bus for devices and collect detailed information about their capabilities

Display detailed disc information

Read and save audio and data tracks to files (.wav and .iso)

Scan selected tracks for errors

Download InfraRecorder

Grow your Blog's traffic by joining BlogRush network

BlogRush is a free service which help the bloggers to increase their blog traffic by adding the BlogRush Widget to their blog. By adding BlogRush widget, a blogger can get instant distribution for their latest blog post titles across a network of similar blogs.

Each time when the widget is loaded it will display 5 headlines which are the blog post titles to other user's posts. Clicking on any of these links will open a new browser window and load the blog and full post. In a similar way Your blog post titles will be displayed on the widget's of a network of similar blogs. So your blog will be automatically exposed to more users. So this will instantly drive more readers to your blog.

BlogRush will work on almost all WordPress software (except WordPress.com hosted service), MovableType, TypePad, and Blogger blogs etc. BlogRush supports English blogs only.

Join BlogRush network now.

VLC - The cross platform media player

The VideoLAN Team released VLC media player 0.8.6d. This version is aimed at fixing security vulnerabilities in the Active X plugin and the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) library which affect VLC media player 0.8.6c and lower.

VLC media player supports various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg etc) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols with excellent sound quality. VLC media player supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BeOS.

VLC media player supports skinned interface. More than 25 skins are available on VideoLAN site. Windows users have to put the skins in C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\skins.

Download VLC media player