Microsoft Security Essentials: the new free antivirus

Today Microsoft had launched the all new, much hyped, and most of all, free antivirus software, dubbed Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). It is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7; in both 32-bit and 64-bit.

Last June, Microsoft had initially launched the beta version, and responses are mostly positive. Even AVG Technologies stated that MSE is an ideal free antivirus for Windows users.

MSE replaces Windows Live OneCare (once a free antivirus which failed to capture the market) and Windows Defender (which only deal with spyware and malware).

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10 most annoying program on the Internet

This list is as old as 2008. But then again, most of them are still annoying. If they can make it out of the list, I’ll update it.

#1: Adobe Reader

What does Adobe Reader do? Displays PDF pages. How does it do it? With as much bloody-minded bureaucracy, delay, and needless interaction as possible. Perhaps it’s because we humans have been spoiled by books, where the gap between wanting to read something and reading it is as short as the time taken to lift the cover. But Reader’s incessant updates (demanding you reset your computer — why?), thundering great list of modules to load, and hour-glass-provoking pauses for thought have given Portable Document Format a reputation for being as welcome as a flatulent camel in the kitchen.

Which is a shame, because other lightweight PDF readers seem to manage perfectly well. Read more »

Testing Windows Vista speech recognition tool

I recently stumbled upon a video on a guy trying to write a short program in Perl using speech recognition tool built-in inside Vista. This clearly is a joke.

Enjoice.