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1. 
   Review - ATI Catalyst Drivers for Windows Vista

   9.1 (Jan 29, 2009)

   Why do Nvidia fans (aka anti-ATI fans) even bother whinging and complaining about Catalyst and calling everything with ATI in the brand name crap? Nvidia are far from perfect, some people say they're the big Blue giant instead of the big Green giant due to the number of BSODs that occur on their system from the Nvidia driver file. Not to mention the issues associated with the Geforce 9 series (and 8 series mobile chips).
   
   These work fine for me, I hope they work fine for you. Keep reviews HONEST. Dissing ATI or any other company and their products - especially products that are valid like ATI's, just shows you need to do that in order to make the product you support look better than it really is and to make it actually look better than the item you are dissing.

2. 
   Review - Nero

   9.2.6.0 (Jan 24, 2009)

   The only thing I use from Nero is the burning programme, yes you can deselect what you don't want but downloading such a big file for almost nothing is pretty crap. Not to mention I tried to talk a friend out of buying it, which he did anyway. He's really annoyed, to put it lightly. You buy the full suite, only to find that you have to pay even more to use the apps which you specifically paid the extra money for in the first place (the dvd authoring stuff etc) - thats a bit of a con. Not to mention even though he has a valid licence it comes up with the 'Buy now' screen, which he has to close off and load nero again several times and it suddenly works. A clean install of windows didn't help either.
   
   They simply lost the plot making Nero, if they want to spend money developing softwate people DO NOT want then thats their problem. They may be paying a premium for it now but other free alternatives are getting better all the time, it won't be long for people to realise its not worth spending the money on and go to a more reliable, cheaper alternative.

3. 
   Review - DAEMON Tools

   4.30.2 (Dec 10, 2008)

   Thats right! You can easily deselect the adware component of Daemon-tools, they're not trying to hide anything! The adware helps pay for the development and upkeep of the free version. Freeware is good in practice, but its very annoying when the main developer decides not to spend any more time on it and it ends up not being updated anymore. This has happened to so many programmes its not funny, at least if there is some income involved for the developer they will be willing to keep updating it!
   
   I find daemon-tools to be the best of the lot, its just so easy to use and you don't even realise it is running. When rating programmes I wish people would:
   - Not rate something without testing it
   - Read things carefully when installing and setting up (important for daemon-tools for example)
   - Not rate something and comment on it poorly simply because you are against it (such as Nvidia fanboi's always dissing ATI, as the Nvidia driver never has ever BSOD'd has it?)
   - Be realistic, fair, and reasonable
   - Just because you use another programme and have done so for a long time, doesn't automatically make it better.
   
   Most people do the right thing, but some just stand out as plain stupid!

4. 
   Review - AVG Anti-Virus Free

   8.0.176a1399 (Dec 1, 2008)

   I am not a fan of AVG, I believe there are better free options out there such as Avast.
   
   An antivirus is an important thing to have on your computer, its funny to read comments like the one a few reviews back on the list here saying that an antivirus isn't important and its purely retardation to have a resident scanner.
   
   I would highly recommend NOT to take advice from people like that, for a start resident virus scanners do not scan every file by default. They scan files that are at risk of being infected. Scanning takes very little resources, and if your computer is slow with the antivirus its got nothing to do with the antivirus being slow, its your computer! AVG is a bit of a pig though, Avast is much more resource friendly. A reasonable antivirus does not slow your computer down, they're very 'transparent'. Its very easy to accidentally open an email attachment, or use a cd/dvd without scanning it and it can take only one slip up to infect your computer.
   
   A word of WARNING:
   Flash drives (pen drives/usb keys/SD, Compactflash etc) can affect your computer by simply plugging in affected drive!!!!
   
   Use Avast if you want a good free one :)

5. 
   Review - PerfectDisk Professional

   Build 61 (Jul 30, 2008)

   First of all, that is a very old screenshot, Perfectdisk 2008 looks completely different.
   
   Jkdefrag and others are very good, but they lack certain features that are appealing with Perfectdisk, and they can NOT completely defrag the drive.
   
   Jkdefrag, defraggler etc cannot defrag the MFT, Metadata, pagefile, hibernation file etc etc, nor can they put the files in boot order for faster system startup. These advantages alone make perfectdisk stand above the others. Also perfectdisk can defrag remote computers. Free defragmenters aren't ideal for a business scenerio either.
   
   I use jkdefrag as well myself, I use it on my media drives (but I do an offline defragment for the metadata, mft etc before running jkdefrag). For the main drive, nothing beats perfectdisk. The computer it faster in loading programmes etc due to the abovementioned ordering and system files defragmentation that the others cannot do.
   
   Perfectdisk does a much better job in my opinion that diskeeper as well, and although diskeeper has a boot defrag as well it does not cover metadata.

6. Comment - Sweeping content security enhancements tested on Firefox 3.7

   Build 61 (Oct 4, 2009 - 1:36 AM)

   Of course 3.7 crashes, anyone expecting it to be stable is just kidding themselves. We're currently on Firefox 3.5.3, the next release being 3.6. 3.7 has quite some way before its ready for release. THERE IS A REASON why is hasn't been released without thorough testing, like with any other programme or OS!

7. Comment - One extra week for Microsoft to defend tying IE to Windows

   Build 61 (Apr 16, 2009 - 1:47 PM)

   If I were Microsoft, I would quite happily bow to the EU's pressure, as long as I could state on the box in clear print something along the lines of:
   'Due to EU regulations, a web browser is not provided with this software. If you have difficulties accessing the internet or getting a web browser, please direct all complaints to the following EU departments:
   etc etc'
   (departments such as governmental EU departments)
   
   Don't you find it interesting how Microsoft is being attacked for IE and WMP, and yet Apple has the free reign in bundling Safari and Quicktime? hardly fair!

8. Comment - No surprise: 'Windows 7' will be Windows 7

   Build 61 (Oct 13, 2008 - 10:02 PM)

   This is actually Windows 6.1, regardless how they label it! Kind of like the difference between Windows 2000 and XP, except this time they had to shake some of the negativity surrounding XP. The main problem with Vista is that it came out in a 32 bit version. People with older or lower spec computers (in reality, not their perception), had problems running it purely because of them being a low spec/older computer! It was the same when XP came out, computers that could run Win 98 fine could struggle under XP.
   
   Vista should have been x64 only, then it would have only been used on newer computers that are more closely suited spec wise! Not to mention that you can only use around 3gb of ram under 32 bit, and this won't change as the 'workaround - Physical Address Extension, never works properly on a large scale across a large number of systems. Compatibility is something people will mention about x64, but most issues aren't related to the OS, its the developers writing software for the OS that haven't written their programmes correctly. Some quite old programmes may not run but Windows is pretty much alone in the capability to run old software, which had been both good and bad (bad in the sense that backwards compatibility contributes to bloat).
   
   I just hope when Windows 7 comes out that there are suitable upgrade paths available for Vista users, and a cheap upgrade path available for those that forked out the large amount of money for the Ultimate version which has truly failed to deliver as promised. I think instead of an upgrade disk, that Ultimate users should be entitled to a replacement disk, especially those that purchased the retail version (even if it means paying the upgrade price).

9. Comment - 'Beta test' of DTV transition an apparent success

   Build 61 (Sep 11, 2008 - 9:06 PM)

   Yeah in Australia it was originally 01 Jan 2008 for the capital cities! The signal problems people experience in the US is understandable, its got to do with the digital system being used. Most countries are using the DVB-T system, however the US is using the ATSC system. ATSC is supposedly better for distance reception, however it is more susceptible to multipath and other interference. Radio signals (meaning radio, television signals including digital) bounce off structures including buildings, hills, and even aeroplanes! Since the distance of the signal is different they reach the receiver at fractionally different times causing multipath interfence. The result of this is a reduced signal quality and a higher potential for dropped or corrupted reception. In homes the other problem is the cabling used, digital tv requires higher quality cabling than analogue tv, and quad-shield is the recommended cabling (this applies for DVB and ATSC)! This reduces interference caused by in home interefence such as light switches etc. Its not essential, it just depends on your area and the length of the cable run.

10. Comment - Microsoft claims a consumer 'shift' to 64-bit Vista, but where are the drivers?

    Build 61 (Aug 2, 2008 - 4:44 PM)

    DO NOT disable the superfetch service, that internet tweak is wrong, but superfetch for applications can cause thrashing. I and many others found it works much better with superfetch off once windows is loaded (and let the normal cacheing/prefetch run, and only superfetch for boot). The registry setting for superfetch should be set to 2 and prefetch set to 3 for best performance. Again, DO NOT disable the superfetch service, as that kills of normal prefetch, etc etc!