Windows Vista RTM was recently released in November by Microsoft, but what kind of protection against viruses and spyware does it provide? According to research institutes, the main reason why most businesses and corporations won’t switch to Vista immediately is because of the lack of protection it offers. Out of the main security programs: Norton, McAfee, ZoneAlarm, etc. only McAfee has created a Windows Vista compatible release of its software, “McAfee AntiSpyware Enterprise 8.5”

Another security problem that has been seen with Vista is its brand new programming. Unlike XP, Windows Vista was programmed from scratch, so it doesn’t have all of the same bug fixes that have been added to XP over the years. This leaves Vista vulnerable to spyware. So, you may want to reconsider updating to Windows Vista just yet. But not all hope is lost. Symantec has said that they will release a version of their software compatible with Vista in late December. And Microsoft has said that they hope the new programming of Vista and its included security features will actually make it more difficult for spyware to penetrate the brand new OS. Microsoft still backs its new product 100%, saying, “We wouldn’t release it if it wasn’t ready.”

Notepad2 is a nifty little open source text editor with a small memory footprint. It is licensed under the GNU GPL and is intended as a replacement to the Notepad included with Microsoft Windows.

For a program slightly over 540KB, Notepad2 comes packaged with a lot of handy features that programmers and web developers alike will appreciate. Notepad2 supports syntax highlighting for a number of languages including C++, Assembly, Java, JavaScript, PHP and HTML. Its find-replace tool also supports regular expressions as well as encoding conversion over different platforms. As a no-frills text editor and development environment, Notepad2 gets the job done.

MP3 Trimer is a neat little tool for quickly editing MP3 files.

Do you have a song with annoying clapping at the beginning or end? Is there a hidden track that makes your player go through a few minutes of silence? MP3 Trimmer is a great help for this. It is a Mac OS X application that comes with a Carbon installation for PPC or a Universal Binary for the Intel-based processors. Installation is quick and easy. It’s shareware, so you have to wait through a countdown timer when starting and saving. Registration is $10.95. Once it’s running, open an MP3. You can see it in the timeline and set a start and end point. You also have options to fade in or fade out. Once those points are set you can test the trimmed file to see how it sounds and adjust as necessary. After it’s perfect, save and you’re done. The new MP3 is ready to play. MP3 Trimmer also has features for joining, splitting, and repairing songs. I have used it to successfully repair a song before. I don’t know how it did it, but it worked. This is one of the few shareware programs I’ve gladly paid to register. It’s saved me lots of frustration caused by annoying song bits, and it was not at all frustrating to use.

Active State Komodo is easy to download, and free to use for a 30-day period; installation was easy and fast. I’m pleased that I’ve found this tool as I struggle to learn Perl. I’m teaching myself Perl, for the fourth or fifth time. Things have not worked out well before because I didn’t concentrate, or I didn’t do the homework, or for various other reasons. However, the single most important reason I have failed in previous attempts is because I was unable to spot all my errors such as missing semicolons or brackets, etc.

Now I’m using Active State Komodo. I’m a novice coder and I understand Komodo is useful for PHP, Python, and Ruby as well; however, I know nothing about those applications. I do know a little about Perl and want to be able to construct simple scripts to parse spreadsheets or HTML text. Or, perhaps I’d like to use off-the-shelf scripts and link them together to help me understand text patterns in my own writing. So far, Komodo has been a wonderful find. I’m not sure if debug is the correct term for an uncompiled language, but that is how I think of the help that Komodo provides. I can run scripts and a little window shows me where errors might be in my script. Komodo even tries to guess what type of error I have made and alerts me with a note suggesting syntax, or improperly defined variables, etc.

I have been using Komodo for free. I’m not sure what I will do now that my 30-day trial period is coming to an end. I need to look over the fine print of the Komodo agreement and see if I can continue to use Komodo for free for personal use, or if I need to register. I have limited funds and, if possible, hope to continue using Komodo for a few months as I learn Perl. If I can gain a bit more ability in Perl, I will be happy to pay the $29.95 fee for the Komodo personal edition because, I’ll always need a little as I manipulate Perl scripts. Active State Komodo

Take your Applications on the Road! Are your family and friends hesitant to let you borrow their computer or use certain applications when you visit? Do you prefer to carry your own bookmarks and files? On the road but have an inspiration that needs to become data? Then a USB Key and PortableApps are for you. My 512MB USB key contains a copy of Mozilla Firefox, Abiword, and 7-Zip. It will soon be joined by VLC Player, newly released at PortableApps.com.

Those with flash memory with fast data rates (example: Sandisk Cruzer) can run the whole OpenOffice.org suite. Users on the go can also take advantage of email, instant messaging, FTP, and more options available on the site. I encourage you to visit and evaluate how the site can meet your needs for software on the go.

CutePDF Writer – Once upon a time our laboratory provided only paper reports to our researchers. We went through reams of paper a week and at least a couple of printers a year. The documents were black and white and often of poor quality. Images were not easily ported into documents for publication. Over time, we have found that provided all of our researchers with data in a Portable Document Format (PDF) was the best solution. We save trees and printers, they get their data in full color and in a form fairly easy to publish.

Unfortunately, we found Adobe Acrobat Professional to be incompatible with the software on some of our equipment. This problem was solved with the CutePDF Writer program. Not only is it free, but we have had no compatibility issues with the software program. The software is easy to use and consistently produces high quality documents. We have used CutePDF writer for over a year without a single error. Documents created by the CutePDF writer are easily edited with Adobe’s product as well.