Microsoft is offering a new edition of Windows Embedded Standard 2009 as a free download, in a move designed to address the needs of hobbyist and academic users. The Windows Embedded Standard 2009 Academic SKU went gold the past week, with the Redmond company announcing that the bits would become available through the MSDN Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) program. MSDNAA is, at this point in time, the sole distributing channel for the Academic edition of Windows Embedded Standard 2009, which comes with an expiration date of no less than a year.
“I am very pleased to share the news – the Academic SKU of Windows Embedded Standard 2009 is RTM’ed! With the exception of the changes required to adjust the timebomb, this version is binary identical to the rest of the Windows Embedded Standard 2009 Evaluation version, the database has all the same components and the tools are the same too. They will soon be available on MSDNAA for download,” Weijuan Shi, program manager of the Embedded Windows Customer Strike Team, revealed.
Microsoft released Windows Embedded Standard 2009 to manufacturing in October 2008, and subsequently started serving a 120-day trial version of the operating system as a free download. The successor of Windows XP Embedded, Windows Embedded Standard 2009 continues to be based on the XP codebase, an aspect that will change only with the next iteration of Windows Embedded, which will have Windows 7 at its foundation.
Weijuan Shi explained that time and resource constraints meant that Microsoft was unable to synchronize the releases of the Standard and Academic SKUs of Windows Embedded Standard 2009. This is why the company opted to push the RTM and availability dates of the Academic edition into 2009.
‘Quantum of Solace‘ continues the high octane adventures of James Bond from ‘Casino Royale’. Picking up literally days where the previous film left off, after being betrayed by Vesper, the woman he loved, 007 fights the urge to make his latest mission personal. Having captured Mr. White, and in pursuing his determination to uncover the truth, Bond and ‘M’ interrogate Mr. White who reveals the organisation which blackmailed Vesper to steal Bond’s casino winnings is far more complex and dangerous than anyone had imagined.
Forensic intelligence links an MI6 traitor to a bank account in Haiti where a case of mistaken identity introduces Bond to the beautiful but feisty Camille, a woman who has her own vendetta. Camille leads Bond straight to Dominic Greene, a ruthless business man and major force within the mysterious criminal organisation known only as ‘Quantum’.
On a mission that leads him to Austria, Italy and South America, Bond discovers that Greene, conspiring to take total control of one of the worlds most important natural resources, is forging a deal with the exiled General Medrano. Using his associates in the organisation, and manipulating his powerful contacts within the CIA and the British government, Greene promises to overthrow the existing regime in a nameless Latin American country, giving General Medrano control of the country in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of land which is, however, a main source of the South American water supply. In a minefield of treachery, murder and deceit, Bond allies with old friends in a battle to uncover the truth. As he gets closer to finding the man responsible for the betrayal of Vesper, 007 must keep one step ahead of the CIA, the terrorists, and even ‘M’ herself, to unravel Greene’s sinister plan and stop Quantum from getting its way.
AVG Free Edition is the well-known antivirus protection tool. AVG Free is available free of charge to home users for the life of the product. Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy to use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements. Highlights include automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run, free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.
This Firefox extension should appeal to anybody trying to minimize bookmark and open tab clutter. Read It Later gives you a one-click option for saving the links and keeping track of which ones have been read. It also now sports deep integration with Google Reader.
When you first start the extension, it will prompt you to install the two Toolbar buttons that are used to control the extension and manage your reading list. Users can also control adding bookmarks to their reading list via the context menu, the Bookmarks menu itself, or with hot keys, making access to your daily detritus fast and painless. The toolbar button “Read This Page Later” is great for adding loaded URLs, while the “R” plus left-click hot key was easiest for saving links.
The second Toolbar button manages your “Read something later” list. Click to open a saved page, or hit the drop-down list for more choices. Saved pages can be opened in a new tab or the current one, you can open the entire reading list into new tabs simultaneously, and you can also set the button to open pages randomly or in order. You can also set the bookmark folder that pages are saved to, and users who really want to explore the extension’s abilities can play around with the less-stable Offline reading option.
Read It Later ran smoothly and glitch-free, and it is exceptionally useful at simultaneously killing Firefox tab clutter and skyrocketing RAM use while improving your reading habits.
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See more updates from your friends in the detailed Messenger list Show off your status:
Easily add links and emoticons to your status messages Watch videos together:
Share videos from popular sites and watch them with friends right in your IM window
Instant Messaging: Send text messages in real-time to your friends on Yahoo! or Windows Live™ Messenger.
Chat Rooms: Join a chat room to meet new friends while you discuss your favorite topics.
Photo Sharing: Share photos from your desktop or Flickr, then discuss them over IM while you and a friend view them together.
PC-to-PC Calls: Make a voice call to another Yahoo! Messenger user for free (microphone and speakers/headset required).
Phone Out (PC-to-Phone Calls): Call friends on their regular or mobile phones from Messenger for as low as 1¢ a minute (Phone Out account required).
Phone In (Get a Phone Number for Messenger): Get a new phone number that allows you to receive calls in Yahoo! Messenger (Phone In account required).
SMS (Text Messaging): Send text messages from Messenger to your friends mobile phones for free.
Webcam: Plug in your webcam to share live video with your friends on Yahoo! Messenger.
IM Conferencing: Instant message with many friends at once in a conference room (includes voice capabilities, where available).
IM with Friends on Other Networks: IM with friends who use Windows Live™ Messenger, Reuters Messaging, and Lotus Sametime — right from Yahoo! Messenger.
File Transfer: Send files instantly to a friend while you IM (2 GB limit).
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