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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

By Joshua Topolsky


It's been a long road, hasn't it? Well, in some respects, it hasn't -- in fact, it's only been about two years since development of Windows Phone 7 as we know it today kicked off -- but when you consider that this product will be replacing Windows Mobile 6.5, that puts things in proper perspective. In fact, even the very latest maintenance releases of good ol' WinMo are based on the same rickety underpinnings as version 5.0 was way back in 2005, at a time when WVGA smartphone displays were science fiction, 4G networks were a good two Gs beyond the average American's comprehension, and Engadget looked like this. Nowadays, it's a very different game; eight year-olds have access to mobile email, your phone understands German, and "Yelp" is a verb (okay, actually Yelp is a verb). Indeed, mobile devices are the new PCs -- and companies like Apple and Google are dominating an industry that had once been practically handed to Microsoft on a silver platter. No one -- either inside or outside of Redmond -- is arguing that change isn't desperately (and quickly) needed, because it simply isn't enough to dominate the desktop anymore.



In light of all that, you could call Windows Phone 7 a desperation move to become relevant in the pocket again. Call it whatever you like, but regardless, brand loyalty isn't going to save this product -- it simply has to be good to sell. Scratch that; it actually has to be nearly flawless in a world where iOS 4 and Gingerbread play. Microsoft still has a few months before it intends to get the first volley of Windows Phone 7-based products to the marketplace, but we've recently been provided with reference hardware -- a not-for-retail Samsung called "Taylor" that's closely modeled on the Symbian-based i8910HD -- to get a feel for where they're at as the clock ticks down. Is this shaping up to be a killer platform for the next generation of high-end smartphones? And more importantly, can it win customers? Read on for our first take.

Overall look and feel


What you've likely already seen of the Windows Phone 7 user interface hasn't changed dramatically in the months since the announcement of the OS, but it has been majorly tightened up and tweaked.



As before the "Metro" UI is in full effect here, meaning lots of very 2D, stark blocks of color and text. Actually, 2D isn't quite right -- the interface utilizes a lot of layers within a single page, so when you're swiping through menus you get a kind of parallax scrolling effect reminiscent of 16 bit side-scrollers (think Castlevania for the SNES). It actually works really well here, giving a sense of depth and detail but not detracting from the content Microsoft is putting up front. Of course, the controversial cut-off text is still present, and while we happen to like the way it looks, it's definitely an acquired taste, and there are times when it just doesn't work, like in the Office hub where PowerPoint looks like it reads "PowerPoir."

We were extremely surprised and impressed by the software's touch responsiveness and speed. In fact, this is probably the most accurate and nuanced touch response this side of iOS4. It's kind of stunning how much work Microsoft has done on the user experience since we first saw this interface -- everything now comes off as a tight, cohesive whole. It really put one of our major fears about Windows Phone 7 to rest. We haven't seen any substantial lag while using the device, and the short transitions between applications or pages are well suited to the overall experience.

Getting around the OS really comes down to three main sections: the homepage "tiles," (a list of glanceable information, updates, and favorite apps or people), the application list (an alphabetical list of all your applications), and the "hub" pages (really a kind of in between point that's sandwiched between a full on app and a menu). We found the overall navigation of the UI to be really quite intuitive, despite the fact that a good number of options and in-app menus are accessible only through a long press... something you're not really made aware of in most cases. The long press becomes a bit like the skeleton key of the OS -- you just have to try it and see what kind of functionality it unlocks. Once you get into the habit of holding down on items instead of wildly searching for the next screen or tile, it makes a lot of sense, but it does take some getting used to.

Windows Phone 7 relies on a drop down, Android-like window shade to show when you've got a new SMS message, so Microsoft is already besting Apple there, and if you're playing music in the background, you're able to bring up your controls by tapping one of the volume buttons. Weirdly, that same area up top is used to show your signal, battery, and WiFi status, but it only drops down if you touch or swipe the upper part of the screen. And in some apps (like pictures) it doesn't appear at all. We're not sure why Microsoft doesn't want to make that info consistent, but it seems like wasted effort to have to call it up manually. Oh, and guys, please add a percentage meter to that battery icon.

Other flourishes in the UI come in the form of subtle animations when something is loading or syncing -- a series of tiny dots that appear and coalesce in the upper portion of the screen. A small touch, but it's nice to know the phone is thinking or working. Otherwise, the UI mostly gets out of your way -- is most apps there aren't a plethora of controls or options immediately visible. Just you and your content... and it actually really works here.




There are two big omissions here, in our opinion. The device won't support copy and paste, and won't support third-party multitasking of apps. We knew this would be the case given what we heard at MIX10, but it doesn't stink any less now. The former really doesn't make any sense to us, especially since Microsoft did a good job of nailing text editing and selection (at least in Word, and really... you guys make Word), and it looks like it would only be a short walk to a contextual pop-over for copy and paste functions. The latter is practically inexcusable in this day and age -- even Apple (which has been a complete laggard in this area) now supports basic multitasking. When we heard in our meeting with Microsoft that the phone wouldn't even support something as simple as Pandora background streaming, our minds were a little blown. It's doubly irritating given the fact that just like in iPhone 1.0, the first-party apps are free to background all they want (mail loads, the browser pulls down pages, music plays in the background, etc.), so there isn't any technical reason why they couldn't extend some of this functionality to other applications. We're hoping that by some magical twist of fate these two items get addressed before launch... but we're not holding our breath.

Still, those issues aside, Windows Phone 7 is easily the most unique UI in the smartphone race right now, and the real perk here is that it doesn't just seem like an arbitrary decision to make things look different than other OSs -- there is real purpose and utility to a lot of what Microsoft has come up with.
Keyboard

Let's just put this up front: the keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is really, really good. We're talking nearly as good as the iPhone keyboard, and definitely better than the stock Android option. It's one of the best and most accurate virtual keyboards we've used on any platform -- and that's saying a lot. The phone we had to test with is actually rather narrow despite its screen size (3.7-inches) and resolution (the Windows Phone 7 standard 480 x 800). So while typing was sometimes a little cramped horizontally, it was never a chore.

The WP7 keyboard is as simple and clean as the rest of the OS, showcasing little more than rows of monochromatic keys (white on black or black on white depending on your app), which pop-up a letter above them when depressed. Hold on a key and you get additional options for accents, just as you'd expect. The general layout offers a familiar placement of the shift, return, and number / punctuation keys, but adds an emoticon button as well. Frankly, we could have done with a little more room down there in its place. Still, Microsoft has made some smart decisions here, such as always having the comma and period keys present, double taps for periods, and our personal favorite, mimicking the iPhone's behavior of pressing on the punctuation key and being able to slide your finger to your desired character instead of requiring three presses.

We were surprised at how refined the keyboard is -- when we saw it at MWC and MIX10, things were still quite stuttery and uneven. Those days are certainly gone, and we think Microsoft got this aspect of the phone's UI pitch perfect.
Contact management and social networking

Windows Phone 7 doesn't have "contacts," per se -- it has a People app, and there's quite a difference. This is a thoroughly social platform, and it doesn't really seek to make any sort of differentiation between people you talk to / text / email, those you just casually observe, and those with whom you're "friends" in name only. If that kind of philosophy reeks of Motorola Blur or Palm Synergy, you're on the right track; as soon as you add a Windows Live, Exchange, or Facebook account, it pulls in every contact associated with that account and disperses associated content throughout your entire phone -- there's nothing you can do about it. That means, for example, that your Pictures app could have a bunch of shots of your ex's aunt's new boyfriend's dog in it (more on that in a bit), and there's not a whole lot you can do to stop that behavior without completely removing your Facebook account from the phone.

With Exchange, this strategy is probably fine in most cases -- contact sync is one of the main reasons you use Exchange ActiveSync, really -- but seriously, Facebook is another matter altogether. If you've got a lot of Facebook friends, this renders your People app all but useless as a traditional phone contact list. So, say you're looking for someone's phone number: if you're a normal human being with maybe a couple hundred or fewer actual contacts, you're used to just flicking through your contact list to get to whomever you need. With Windows Phone 7, though, Facebook has puked all over that list, so Microsoft instead recommends you search for what you're looking for (matching names filter as you type), pin extremely frequent contacts as tiles on your home screen, or make use of People's Recent list, which auto-populates with contacts that you've recently used.

We think the solution is pretty simple: Facebook just needs to be sandboxed a little bit more. Optimally, Microsoft would go with the Android philosophy, which allows the user to choose whether to import all their Facebook contacts to their contact list, sync the information for contacts that are already in the local list, or not to sync at all; meanwhile, you've got an actual Facebook app you can go check out if you want to see your full list of friends. Currently, Windows Phone 7 has no dedicated Facebook app, so that's part of the problem -- your Facebook friends simply have no place to live other than your primary contact list. Alternatively, they could do what Blur does and import everything but at least still give you the option of filtering by contact type so you don't need to see the Facebook noise.


What's strangest about all of this, though, is that as socially-aware as Windows Phone 7 seeks to be, there's not a lick of Twitter integration to be found. For some, Twitter is every bit as important as Facebook -- if not more so -- and it seems like a glaring omission (MySpace isn't there either, but we're far more willing to forgive them for that). All of the UI infrastructure is there to make Twitter an easy addition, because the People app lets you see a stream of status updates from your social networks and tapping on an individual contact gives you access to a stream of their updates alone; plus, the phone comes equipped with a "Me" tile on the home screen that you can tap to update the networks of your choosing (just Windows Live and Facebook for now). Twitter is the perfect fit, they've just got to make it happen.
Email and messaging

As with most smartphones these days, email setup in Windows Phone 7 is relatively automated and painless, and there are plenty of options to go with most people's leanings. When you initially boot the phone, you're asked to provide a Windows Live ID, though it's not necessary to use one. On the email setup screen, you're provided with self-configuring options for the aforementioned Live, Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail. You also get options for manual setup of POP or IMAP accounts. As heavy Gmail users, the option was obvious for us, and you'll be happy to know that Microsoft provides full (well, almost full) EAS support for Google accounts. After a little bump in the road caused by our hosted account not having its mobile sync options switched on (a problem on our side), we were off and running. Contacts and calendars came along for the ride, though we noted a problem right off the bat with calendar sync -- only our primary Google calendar was syncing, apparently a limitation which Microsoft says they're working on. The plan is for full EAS calendar syncing, but the company doesn't know if they'll have it in time for launch.


You're provided with a number of sync frequency options, including push, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, hourly, and manual updating. Push seemed to work relatively smoothly, though we can't comment on battery drain because this version of the OS and demo hardware aren't optimized yet.

The email app on the phone is pretty terrific on the whole, providing a clean, clear layout and upfront options for your most-used functions. In the standard inbox view you get your emails with one line of a message preview, and you can swipe right or left for sorting options by unread, flagged, or urgent (on top of the standard folder view). We found the inclusion of the unread view especially helpful when triaging our inbox. What wasn't helpful, however was the lack of threaded messaging. We pretty much expect everyone to have this figured out by now, but somehow Apple slept on it, Palm hasn't stepped up to the plate, and now Microsoft is leaving us high and dry. We pressed the company on whether or not it would be included, and the word was that it was planned for, but there was no telling if it would be happening by launch (our takeaway was pretty much that it wouldn't make the cut). On the bright side, multiple message management is executed here better than most mobile email apps we've used, requiring only that you tap to the far left of a message to engage your checkboxes. It definitely sped up the process of killing or moving mail. Also nice was the fact that in a standard message view, when you delete an email you're kicked back to your inbox -- not to the next message. If you're like us, you don't want to read an email before you're good and ready. Along the bottom of the display you have icons for creating a new message, viewing folders (that mysteriously doesn't display all folder by default), multi-message editing (which seems superfluous), and refresh.

Tapping the search button while in mail gets you to a pretty powerful search which parses subjects, message content, senders, and receivers all at once. It made it astoundingly easy to find what we were looking for with almost no hesitation. Unfortunately, it only searches messages downloaded onto the device, so if you're looking for that long lost password, you're out of luck here. Additionally, you can tell the app to sync individual folders, but it doesn't seem to peer into those during searches anyhow.

Another thing to note -- there's no combined inbox here. In fact, when you create a new mail account, it places what amounts to a separate app for that inbox into your application list. Likewise, to access it from the homescreen you need to pin that separate app to the front page. We would like to see an option to have multiple items inside of one tile (not dissimilar from the iPhone's new folders) where you could bundle things like your mail accounts into one place. Of course, it would be preferable just to have a combined inbox.

Overall, the mail experience is solid, but not best in class. There's a lot here that is laudable (like the sheer snappiness of it), but there's also a fair amount that's missing. We'd really like to see Microsoft strive for threaded messaging, joined inboxes, and an improved server-side search by the time this hits the market, but we're guessing that's asking a lot.

SMS



The SMS / MMS app in Windows Phone 7 is fairly barebones, but it definitely gets the job done, and looks pretty good while doing it. Microsoft has adopted the all-too-familiar speech balloon motif for this view, and while we can't gripe too hard about that, we wish the company would differentiate sender and receiver by color (even lighter and darker shades of the same color). We found that with the same color used for both incoming and outgoing messages, conversations could get a little confusing.

Creating and sending messages is fairly straightforward, and MMS (at least photos) display inline, but can be saved to your phone as well. Long pressing on individual messages gives you the option to delete or forward them, while in the list view of all your conversations, a long press gets you the option to delete the whole thread. There's not much to it, but it works as advertised. We did run into a few problems, however. One of our test units had a persistent display issues which caused lots of text to overlap, while our other unit started taking ages to go back from a conversation view to the list of conversations. We know this is still unfinished software, but this feels like something that should be already squared away.

Browser


For as much crap as Internet Explorer gets (less, admittedly, now that the debacle of IE6 is finally starting to fade), we've got to say that web browsing on Windows Phone 7 is actually a really pleasant experience. Our understanding is that it's essentially using desktop-class code, bits and pieces of Internet Explorer 7 and 8 tossed together and massaged into something that'll look (and work) better on a smaller display with less horsepower.

Loading the desktop version of Engadget was just a hair slower than an iPhone 4, and just as importantly, rendering new parts of the page as you scroll is plenty fast -- not instantaneous, but fast enough so that you never find yourself consciously waiting for it to catch up. Zooming -- which is accomplished with a pinch gesture, of course -- is buttery smooth. The phone accomplishes this in the same way you're probably used to from other devices: when you first zoom in, it uses the same render resolution so that it can at least show you something without going blank, then it renders the appropriate level of detail as it catches up (Google Maps works the same way on almost every platform). It works well. Zooming out to see as much of the page as possible isn't quite as pretty; in its current incarnation, the browser seems to be using a pretty awful scaling algorithm, and small text looks like a jumble of jaggy, meaningless blocks without a hint of anti-aliasing. We'll admit, it makes browsing just a little less fun, even though you can't really read anything at those zoom levels regardless.

There isn't a lot of bonus functionality, but we appreciated the "pin to start" option that lets you turn a page into a home screen tile, complete with a miniaturized view of the site (of course, there are standard bookmarks available as well). Tabs are also supported; on our test device, they were limited to a maximum of six, which we would assume will be true of all Windows Phone 7 devices -- but let's be honest, you probably don't need more than six open tabs at a time on your phone, and if you do, you should be in front of a laptop anyway. The tabs all continue to load independently regardless of whether they're active or not, which is nice, and doesn't seem to have much of a negative impact on overall browser performance.

Neither Flash nor Silverlight are currently supported on pages, and as anyone with an iPhone can attest, that's generally not a problem (though we'd be curious to see what kind of performance they could achieve). Of course, the real kicker is that you don't get HTML5 video support either, which makes the browser situation somewhat painful. There's not even a YouTube app on the phone! Microsoft -- you've got to step it up on the video front if you want to play this game.

One other thing that did concern us was that a number of sites that detect our iPhone and Android devices to show mobile sites don't detect Windows Phone 7 properly -- a key example being Gmail, which shows you a nasty WAP-compatible site designed as the least common denominator for data-capable dumbphones -- but we imagine this will be a quick fix for most publishers if the platform gets enough traction to justify making mobile IE-compatible versions.

Zune



If you know the Zune HD, then there won't be many surprises here (except, of course, this is a real Zune experience on a phone you might actually want to own). The Zune integration is rather seamless on Windows Phone 7, allowing you to browse and play what you have in your library, sync music and video back and forth to your PC, and if you have a Zune Pass subscription, you can grab whatever you like (well, almost) right on the phone without hesitation. In general, we like the combo here, but there were times when the Zune interface was a bit confusing. Sometimes it was hard to know what section of the player you're in -- the line between previewing and listening is very fine here. In fact, you can listen to a preview clip while doing other things on the phone (one of the places you see Microsoft's first-party only multitasking). It doesn't make a huge amount of sense to us -- previews should likely quit when you leave app. Other times, because Zune Pass lets you sample the entire song, you can be streaming a full length preview, which gives you the impression of listening to a piece of music you "own" (or at least have downloaded) when that isn't the case. We also take issue with the lack of a proper jog control to skip into tracks -- holding down the fast forward or rewind button is inconsistent and seems a bit clunky to us.

That said, we love having almost limitless access to new music on a phone, and the Zune Pass subscription certainly adds that capability, though you're adding another $14.95 on top of your existing phone bill if you decide to go that route. Ultimately it's a question of how voracious of a music buyer you are -- but something tells us we're going to see a marked increase in Pass users when these phones hit the market.

One other important aspect to note about Zune and Windows Phone 7 is that the desktop software and these devices are now extremely interconnected. Not only do you use the Zune software to sync your music and videos, but you'll be able to buy apps from the marketplace on your computer, you can sync photos in the Zune application, and your general account and device management is handled through the app now. It's pretty much a similar arrangement to that of the iPhone and iTunes, and we can't really complain about Microsoft taking that page out of Apple's playbook. Microsoft has always been good about syncing, but this makes the process slightly less obtuse than its ActiveSync options from the Windows Mobile heyday.

Camera and photo management

We'd heard before that one of Microsoft's big goals for Windows Phone 7 devices was stellar camera performance -- not just in terms of picture size and quality, but speed, too. After all, if your camera app takes too long to load or you're waiting for five seconds between shots, the phone's utility as an easy way to capture impromptu moments the same way a point-and-shoot can is significantly diminished. Fortunately, it seems like they're making good on the promise so far -- on the Taylor, we were regularly clocking about four seconds from camera button press to the first shot, and around two seconds between shots. We didn't evaluate the pictures or video for quality since we're dealing with hardware that'll never be released, but needless to say, Windows Phone 7's minimum specs should ensure that you're getting at least moderately decent shots no matter what device you choose.



Once you take a shot, something pretty cool happens: it advances to the left, almost as though you're looking at an actual roll of film, and you can see a dimmed sliver of the shot you just took on the left side of your viewfinder. You can then swipe to the right to see shots you've taken in the past, starting with the most recent, and returning to viewfinder (camera mode, as it were) is as simple as swiping all the way to the left again. It's a neat user experience that we suspect novice users will pick up on very quickly. The available camera options and modes can be extended by phone manufacturers, but the default list is pretty impressive and includes configurable white balance, image effects (grayscale, sepia, and the like), saturation, ISO, exposure, and even metering mode -- and most of these options are still available even when capturing video. Naturally, you can also set the flash to fire automatically, always, or never.

Once you've taken your shots, the phone can be configured to automatically upload them to your Windows Live SkyDrive account in the background with your choice of privacy level (private, friends only, or public). You can also zip pictures over to your Facebook account using a menu item in the Pictures app, but interestingly, you have to choose between "upload to SkyDrive" and "upload to Facebook" menu items in the app's settings -- you can't have both. Menus can scroll, so why not?


Speaking of the Pictures app, this is your one-stop shop for imagery on the phone -- both your shots (locally and from supported online services) and those of your friends show up here. You'll come here to view and send pictures, change your lock screen wallpaper, and -- because this hub is extensible -- use any third-party services that developers have plugged into it. In a way, it's kind of the prototypical Windows Phone 7 app "hub" in that it cycles through your own pictures for its background and has some cool time-dependent features; for instance, it adds a "moments" page that summarizes pictures on the phone that were taken in the current month. It's all very pretty, though we wish there was a way to configure the background image [turns out you can change it by long-pressing on the hub's title! -Ed.] -- and as we mentioned before with the People app, the "what's new" page tends to get cluttered with countless updates from Facebook friends you barely know. Instead, we'd love a way to be able to select an inner circle of contacts from whom we wanted to see a photo stream here.

Marketplace

Microsoft has already started handing out prototype Windows Phone 7 devices (the same ones we're reviewing here, actually) to developers, and it's going to continue to do so in liberal quantities as it gets closer to launch -- oh, and the side of the box says "developers. Developers! DEVELOPERS!!" on it. So yeah, you might say that Redmond understands full well how important third-party apps are going to be to the success (or failure) of this platform. Those will end up being exposed through the Marketplace hub, which as you might expect, is a thoroughly different experience than the one you might be used to on Windows Mobile 6.5. Instead, you get something more akin to what Apple and Google are offering -- with a few twists.



The first thing you notice when you open the Marketplace is that you've got music as an available category, whereas iOS breaks it out into a separate iTunes app and Android leaves that to third-party providers like Amazon. It's not quite as integrated as you think, though -- tapping on music just bounces you out to the Zune Marketplace, which is fine since you wouldn't want two disjoint places to purchase tracks anyway. Likewise, hitting the games category sends you over to the Xbox Marketplace, which sadly isn't live yet and wasn't available to test. Swiping to the left takes you to the Featured page of the Marketplace, which interestingly mixes up both music and applications into a single view -- kind of a neat way to keep people interested in everything Microsoft has to sell without trying to send users' attentions to two (or more) completely unrelated places.

That leaves us to the final category: apps. Though there's just a light smattering of Microsoft-built demo apps available in the Marketplace at this point, it was enough for us to get an idea of the purchase process. Tapping on it takes you into a separate marketplace hub that, by swiping around, gives you the typical views you'd expect: newest, most popular, and featured. You can also search by pressing the phone's hardware search button; on the plus side, it searches across all of Microsoft's marketplaces so you get apps, games, and music in your results, and that's kind of cool. On the downside, though, it appears as though there's no search suggestion functionality as you type.

If you're just browsing, you can delve into the whole list or narrow it down by category; presently they've got Tools, Lifestyle, News & Weather, and Business Center, though we wouldn't be surprised to see this list grow by launch day. Once you've selected a category, the list view is interesting -- it shows you the typical icon, app name, and rating on a five-star scale, but it also shows you a short description of the app directly below the name. Goodness knows not every app has the most descriptive title, so we imagine this feature's going to come in handy fairly frequently. Tapping on an app takes you to its information page, which is pretty much what you'd expect: you've got the price up top (everything appears to be free so far), a full description, screen shots, reviews, version number, supported languages, and a list of phone services that the app needs access to, similar to what you find on Android. The screen shots you see on this page are hilariously small, so you need to tap 'em to get an idea of what's going on -- not a big deal, though this would be a pretty easy one to solve by showing two or three thumbnails at a time rather than four.




Once you've decided to buy, the entire process happens in the background -- just as it should -- and after a few moments, you'll find the app has been added to your applications list. We'd like some sort of unobtrusive notification when the app's installed, though, because as it stands now, it seems to be a guessing game -- you just have to keep checking until it shows up. Microsoft's sample apps are quite small, but with bigger items that third parties will undoubtedly be developing, this could become more of an annoyance.

Office

Tight Office integration, complete with an awesome on-phone document and viewing experience, stands to be one of the biggest differentiators for Windows Phone 7 -- a feature that could almost singlehandedly make these devices impossible to ignore for serious business users regardless of their seemingly consumer-centric slant.




Instead, we came away feeling that Microsoft may have spent too much effort focusing on the collaborative side of Office and not enough time on the actual document editors themselves. Though Word seems to do a decent job rendering pages onto the small display, the editing capabilities are weak at best -- you can't change fonts, for example, and you can only choose from four font colors: orange, green, red, and black. Though there's a spell-checker (you'll recognize the familiar red squiggly lines), there's no copy / paste capability -- and in an app like this, it's hard to imagine being too productive without any sort of clipboard whatsoever. Excel seems similarly gimped, though it's got a pretty solid set of built-in functions; we don't know what percentage of the full app's functions are supported, but it's a long list.

PowerPoint documents, meanwhile, can't be created on the phone at all. And really, that's totally fine -- if you're creating your presentation that you have to give in half an hour on your phone during your train ride into the city, you've probably already blown it. The important thing with PowerPoint is probably the slide show capability -- especially for retail devices that have TV-out -- and in that regard, it seems to do just fine (cheesy transitions and all).



We mentioned collaboration -- indeed, Windows Phone 7 supports SharePoint servers, which'll undoubtedly come in handy for some business users. There's also OneNote, which in many ways is simply Word by another name; Microsoft gears it toward freeform note-taking by making it easy to attach pictures and voice recordings, but really, you should be able to do this from Word just as easily (spoiler: you can't). You can configure it to automatically synchronize to your Windows Live SkyDrive account any time you make a change, which basically means your up-to-date notes are accessible from any computer with an internet connection -- you know, that whole "cloud" thing. Magic!

Xbox Live



As we stated above, there really isn't much in the way of Xbox integration on the device right now. You can add your Live account and you get your avatar into the phone... and that's about the extent of it. We're hoping that before long Microsoft shows off just what these devices will be capable of. We were told by Joe Belfiore during a meeting that there would be two kinds of games on Windows Phone 7 devices -- turn based, "app" games, and Xbox Live content which would be full-on arcade experiences. We're dying to get our hands on something more than just a brief demo of The Harvest, but that's not possible yet.

Maps



Though it's not quite as full-featured as the latest renditions of Google Maps on Android have been, Microsoft's Bing Maps implementation on Windows Phone 7 is pretty great -- they've done a fantastic job of blending the experience of using a mapping app into their so-called Metro design language. You've got access to satellite imagery and real-time traffic information; location fixes happen quickly, though we found that they tended to be a little less accurate than Google's when indoors and out of GPS reception. Pinch-to-zoom is smooth and fast, and we liked the almost ethereal appearance of the map tiles as they loaded after panning or zooming in -- it's hard to describe, but it's a pretty neat (though admittedly unnecessary) effect. Likewise, we liked the zoom-out, zoom-back-in effect when locating your position on the map while a different area is being displayed, which gives you a better idea of your relative position than the iPhone's rapid scroll.

Since this is straight-up Bing Maps on the back end, you can expect the same database of locations here that you get when you search for stuff from your computer. On the phone, you can search either by text or voice (more on this later), which will call up pushpins for matches near your map view. As you'd expect, tapping a pin brings up the name of the result; a second tap calls up a page of information where you can find a phone number, URL, average rating, and even hours if they're available -- this is extremely handy for restaurants since it can save you an awkward trip to the business' inevitably non-mobile-friendly website. Swiping around calls up a screen with nearby points of interest, and another screen with individual reviews; Microsoft is aggregating several sites for these, and we regularly found entries from both Citysearch and JudysBook. No Yelp, it seems.



Our favorite part of Maps, though, has to be the directions list when navigating to a destination. It's no voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation, of course, but the app has a cool split-screen mode that shows the list at the bottom and the map corresponding to the currently-selected list item at the top. As you swipe through the list and highlight different items, the map moves around -- in other words, you can quickly see where (and how) you need to turn. Both pedestrian and car modes are available, but no mass transit, which -- when you're living in a big city, anyhow -- is a feature we'd definitely miss coming from Google Maps.

Search



Like Maps, Windows Phone 7's search capabilities are naturally powered by Bing. Microsoft has done a neat job translating Bing's well-known home page layout to the small screen, complete with gorgeous rotating imagery and hotspots that reveal factoids when you tap them. There's a mic to the right side of the text box that lets you conduct a voice search, and while we wouldn't bother trying to find anything with an odd name this way, common mobile searches (think "burritos") worked really well. Once you run your search, you get not just web hits, but also news (burritos come up in the news more often than you may think) and local results -- basically a tie-in to Bing Maps that uses your location to find stuff nearby.

Though it's a great search app at its core, the details of the implementation fail on two levels. First, accessing it is somewhat arbitrary -- you can get to it by pressing the phone's hardware search button, but not always. Apps can override that key's functionality (People, Maps, and Marketplace all do this, just to name a few), but if they don't, you fall through to Bing -- so there are times when you really have no idea what's going to happen when you press that button. Secondly, the Bing app isn't a universal search, and that's a huge misstep in an age when smartphone users can easily have fifty or more apps and thousands contacts and tracks of music installed.

Wrap-up

What we've been presented with here doesn't exactly feel like a complete mobile operating system in many ways. Some parts of Windows Phone 7 are more like a wireframe -- an interesting design study, an example of what a next-gen phone platform could be. That's both good and bad. On one side, we're still really excited by the prospect of Metro as a viable, clean-slate approach to the mobile user experience, and there are lots of smart moves being made that could lead to greatness. On the other side, Microsoft has to turn this into a viable retail product that can hang with the fiercest competition in the history of the cellphone in just a few months' time, and there are some serious issues that need to be addressed. Frankly, it's a little scary.

By any measure, Microsoft's got its back against the wall in the mobile game, and becoming competitive quickly is vital to the company's success -- and in that regard, we understand why they've been so adamant about getting Windows Phone 7 on shelves in time for Holiday 2010. The thing is, putting out a product that's half-baked risks alienating early adopters at the worst possible time, especially considering that we see a clear-cut (and pretty painless) path to fixing the most egregious shortcomings. Seriously, if the WP7 team put their heads down and added a clipboard and some rudimentary multitasking, Microsoft could have an exceptionally solid version-one product in Windows Phone 7 -- especially when coupled with the company's fierce outreach to developers.

Of course, that's a big "if" -- the clock is ticking on Windows Phone 7, and the industry has already proven that it won't wait around for companies to play catch-up. It's not about lapping the competition at this point, it's about just being in the race -- and if Microsoft doesn't know that by now, it may already be too late.

Additional reporting by Chris Ziegler

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I submit this part of the blog to those who are plucking apples trying installing MS Windows 7 on their Mac boxes :0).
Well keep in mind that your key to this process is "BootCamp" the utility from Apple which will enable you to achive this task.
So let me assume that you have a mac machine installed with Leopard 10.5 or later.





All you need to do is make sure that you have just one partition in your box. If not we need to delete the existing partitions and make it a single Machintosh HD partition. For this operation you can use the Disk Utility.
Make sure that you have the complete Hard Drive space in one single partition. Use the "-" button to delete the existing partitions ( Remember to do the proper Backups).
Once you are done with this you are good to go with the Boot camp. Select bootcamp from Applications -> Utilities and double-click Boot Camp Assistant. Click continue. Now you need to decide the space on your hard drive were you want to install win7. Remember the installation will take almost 10 GB. I recomment 50+ GB space. You can do this by dragging the space dividing the two drives in the screen. Click Partition and wait untill it prepares the partition for you.
Once it is done.. put the Win& Disk into your DVD drive and click start installation .


Now all you need is to sitback and relax.. Watch the drama.. the Mac restarts and boots in windows and will continue with its installation.

Once it is done you will be asked to configure the internet connection. And once it is done. DO UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS from the windows update feature.
This will update all your hardware resources with the latest available drivers on the internet.
Your box will restart.. in WIndows 7 now have a feel of its new graphically rich interface.. Well now you can remove the WIn7 DVD and insert the Leopard DVD into your drive. The auto run pops up and just do what it says.. it will install the BootCamp utility for windows in your box. THIS IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT. This will install all the Mac Hardware Drivers. Now you are done. ENjoy Windows on Your MAC.. :) Adios.








Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Finally on July 7th 2009, I had a chance to touch the Next Generation Device. Microsoft Surface Reached our Kochi office. We were so eager to see the Ultimate machine.. the box came through courier and we had to lift the heavy thing from the ground floor to our office at the 3rd floor. We realized that its no kids game as the table weighed 160 Kg and its fragile.

The well packed tablel din't fit into our lift with its huge box.. so we had to take it out of the box and move it into the lift and bring it up to the 3rd floor.
The funny part began when it reached our office and we all started to fix it and connect it to see the machine working. Our System administrator Mr. Renjith had some documents ready to refer. Thanks to him atleast that reduced our effort a lot. Well first we had to find the switch to turn the machine on.. The switch was discovered by one of my colleague after 20 minutes of search. It is right at the bottom on the table on the left corner facing the floor. We switched it on and few colorful lights came up but nothing else happened. Then we figured that we need to run the Surface shell . We commected an external monitor a mouse and a keyboard. Untill u run the shell its just another vista machine... Finally we could get the thing running and we could feel the image viewer application running in it. Now a days we do test our own applications on Microsoft Surface before delivering to our US Office.. it is really exiting to see and feel our applications working on a surface table which respond to multi touches and gestures.
As a designer i could understand the difference in designing interface for a surface application. There are no mouseover events or the color change effects.. elements are bigger in size natural in moments and layouts. Scattered views free flow scrollbars and list boxes.. Elements which are shy in nature which reponse with a giggle when touched.. i can give a much explanatory blog about designing for Natural User Interfaces later.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

All these time we were working on Microsoft's Surface technology using the surface simulator on out PC's. We use multiple mouse or if we are ona laptop the touch pad and an extra mouse were used to do the Multi Touch and Gestures.
Then Thanks to HP which came up with a much affordable mutitouch computer called the "HP Touchsmart" still it supported only two touches at a time.. We all were wondering why we are not working on the real Surface Table.. Infact Microsoft never allowed its surface table to go out of U.S., But now they have opened it to the entire world."( well i guess so)".. Anyways we are getting one by the mid of this month.. We could see our own applications running on the 41 inch multitouch interactive table. We can really feel its response .. The NUI the X Generation computing.. I shall update the blog with loads & loads of photographs once it reaches our floor afteer clearing all customs clearance and stuff.. Hmmm.. Lets wait :(

Monday, September 1, 2008


August 30th was a great day for Silverlight Designers & Developers and even Business Executives when Identitymine Announced the Launch of cool babe named "Desklighter".

With Desklighter ( Ofcourse Beta ) we can convert a Silverlight Application into a .EXE file.
Now as a Designer by profession i get a million ideas in my head.. We can now create offline games, Corporate presentations, E Brochures, Deepzoom Apps, Photo Albums.. etc etc etc... using Microsofts Cutting Edge Technology Silverlight.

Till now presenting a Silverlight app without a highspeed internet connection was impossible and now with Desklighter you can simply convert the app into an .EXE file and just present it in its complete beauty. Now with Desklighter Silverlight developers can start creating Offline games and Corporate presentations. Business Developers and Executives can now carry the Silverlight Apps in their laptop to present it to their clients.
Read more insider story here.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”~Confucius
Confucius, the Chinese thinker and social philosopher, got this right some 2500 years ago. He realized that the number one reason that people fail is because they don’t even attempt to undertake something great.

That’s pretty self-explanatory. If we do not begin, we cannot complete. What’s a little less understood is why people fail to take that first step when there are so many promises of rewards on the other side. AlexShalman believe that reason is a stigma of not having enough.
In 5 Ways to Maximize Your Mind To Achieve Your Goals AlexShalman mentioned that one of the prerequisites is to firmly believe that whatever you have is enough. Let’s take a look at some of our biggest ‘not enoughs’ and then look at some reasons why we really do have enough.
Popular Not Enoughs, Not smart enough. Some people tend to think that not having a super intellect will prevent them from succeeding. If only they had more brains, more knowledge, and more wisdom they would be able to accomplish what those other, smart guys, are accomplishing.
Not brave enough. To think that some people are born fearless and that you can not possibly get out there and succeed. How will people look at you? How can you possibly muster up the courage?
Not strong enough. Some people are just genetically gifted and strong. It’s their world. Why bother competing in life when these giants can crush me with 1 swift blow?
Not beautiful enough. All the great looking people get all the great jobs and all the doors in life are opened up to them. Right? How could ugly me ever compete with the beautiful people?
Not rich enough. It takes money to make money, so I can never be wealthy and happy, because my parents did not leave me a fortune. The rich are the best off in every way!
Not enough luck. You know you just have to be lucky to succeed in this world.
“We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.”~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

10 Reasons Why Whatever You Have Is Enough

Olympic Gold Asthma. Are you letting your asthma feed your ‘not strong enough’? Guess what, Nancy Hogshead is a 3 time gold metal winner at the Olympics. She has asthma. She’s also not the only one that’s won gold in the Olympics with asthma.
Approximately 10% of Olympic athletes are Asthmatic, and I don’t know the statistics about how many of them went on to win Gold, but just getting into the Olympics is not easy. Just getting in is an incredible physical accomplishment.
900 Club Millionaires. In his book The Millionaire Mind, Dr. Stanley interviewed over 1000 Millionaires and took detailed surveys. The fact is that many of them didn’t break 1000 on their SATs. They still became successful, they still made a lot of money, and they still pursued their dreams.
The standardized ways to measure a persons intelligence are not very accurate. They don’t take into account many factors that enable a person to be successful. One of these factors are social skills, and there is no prejudice against who can develop and excel with people. With practice anyone can be great.

The Cowardly Lion. Yes, I’m silly enough to give you examples from the Wizard of Oz. Remember how the lion thought he was not brave enough? The Wizard gave him this magic potion in order to give him bravery. Upon drinking this potion our lion became the bravest lion in the land.
The truth about this magic potion is that, just like the wizard, it was a big fake. The placebo affect, the belief that he was brave, is what made our lion brave. He had it in him all along.
The Not-So-Handsome Billionaire. Think that all rich people are beautiful? Think your face has to be of a certain genetic make up to make it to the top? This can’t possibly be true. The third richest man in the entire world, Bill Gates, is hardly what one would consider a ‘looker’.
If Mr. Gates sat in his home garage, and decided that crafting computers was only for pretty people, then the world would be a drastically different place than it is today. =)
Deaf, Blind, Mute, Successful. The world renowned Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing at the age of 19 months, went on to graduate college, become a prolific author, and fought for her beliefs. An anti-war activist, who also fought for woman’s rights, worker’s rights, and socialism.
You know I’d hate to use language like this, BUT if she could do it then you better believe that you could do it too. If she believed that her disabilities could keep her from growing, learning, and achieving then she wouldn’t be the huge success story you hear about now.
Theory of Relativity. Do you enjoy your theory of relativity that was brought to you by Albert Einstein? I know I do! What you probably didn’t know is that Albert Einstein had a ‘learning disability’. He didn’t even start speaking until he was 3 years old.
I for one am very glad that Einstein did not let his learning disability hold him back. People with a learning disability have to compensate by creating excellent work ethic and many times this work ethic will take them further than mere intellect. The good news about work ethic is that anyone can cultivate it with a bit of elbow grease.
Music to My Deaf Ears. One of the greatest composers of classical music that the world has ever heard, Ludwig Van Beethoven, was deaf. Beethoven would often put his head down onto the piano in order to feel the vibrations of the notes.
He was able to compose the most beautiful music and go further than most other composers in history. Then you have me, who couldn’t carry a note on the Sax or Clarinet in Junior High. Sometimes ending the music career early is actually a public service to everyone around you!
ADHD Drama. Can’t sit still long enough for your teacher to get out the first sentence of the class because of ADHD? That didn’t stop Robin Williams from receiving several academy awards. This amazing actor has many accomplishments, played many beloved characters on screen, and did it all with ADHD.
I know people with ‘ADHD’ who let it be an excuse. However, just like with other learning disabilities, I think a solid work ethic is the trick to succeeding. In a way, you learn to appreciate your mind, instead of taking it for granted. This appreciation, combined with perseverance, takes a person to success.
Cystic Fibrosis Fighter. Andrew Simmons, a famous British wrestler, suffers from Cystic Fibrosis. CF is a very serious disease that affects many organ systems. Most people with CF would stay in bed, rather than fighting huge professional athletes.
This man went on to tour Europe and wrestle for many different wrestling organizations. He won some, he lost some, but he competed with heart. He wouldn’t even let a broken ankle hold him back for long.
Multiple Sclerosis Success. Richard Pryor was a really funny comedian, actor, and writer. He suffered from MS, which is a very debilitating disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. In his case getting MS forced him to give up his drug habit, which very well saved his life.
Despite his MS, despite his drug habit, Pryor was a very gifted and talented man, that entertained the world on and off screen.
It takes a certain type of determination to pursue your dream in the face of opposing odds. Some would say it takes opposing odds to create such determination. Some would say these people are lucky for tasting adversity, because it gave them something to overcome. Do you hear yourself? You’re creating another not enough… not enough adversity!
There are thousands of such success stories out there. In a way I would prefer if they were not success stories, I would love to live in a society where these types of achievements are the norm. A society where everyone is successful. Is this just a pipe dream, or can we shape this place together?
“The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”~Confucius

Friday, March 28, 2008

3D Graphics:
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-s...ple/index.shtml
Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.htm
SOFTIMAGEXSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/
Anti-Virus:AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/
Anti Spyware:Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html

IRC Clients:
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/
BitchX - http://bitchx.org/download.php
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/
mIRC - http://mirc.com
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/
XChat - http://www.xchat.org/

Audio Players:
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch
Foobar 2000 - http://www.foobar2000.org/
iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Jet Audio Basic - http://www.jetaudio.com/
Musik - http://musik.berlios.de/
QCD Player - http://www.quinnware.com/
Sonique - http://sonique.lycos.com/
Winamp - http://www.winamp.com/

Audio Tools:
Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
CDex - http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
dBpowerAMP Music Converter - http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
EAC - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
Encounter 2003 - http://www.waschbusch.com/
GermaniXEncoder - http://www.germanixsoft.de/
K-MP3 - http://www.katarncorp.com/
KraMixer - http://www.kramware.com/
MP3 Book Helper - http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/
MP3 Tag - http://www.mp3tag.de/
mp3DirectCut - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch/
MP3Gain - http://www.geocities.com/mp3gain/
mp3Trim - http://www.logiccell.com/~mp3trim/
MusicBrainz - http://musicbrainz.org/
Rarewares - http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/
SoundEngine Free - http://www.cycleof5th.com/en/index.htm
TagScanner - http://xdev.narod.ru/tagscan_e.htm
The GodFather - http://users.otenet.gr/~jtcliper/tgf/

CD/DVD Burning:
Burn4Free - http://www.burn4free.com/
Burnatonce - http://www.burnatonce.com/
CDBurnerXP - http://hem.bredband.net/cdburnerxp/
CDRDAO - http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/
CDR Tools Frontend - http://demosten.com/cdrfe/
Deepburner - http://www.deepburner.com/
DVD Decrypter: http://www.dvddecrypter.com/
Easy Burning, DropCD & Audio CD - http://www.paehl.de/cdr
Compression / Decompression:7-zip - http://www.7-zip.org/
bzip2 - http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/index.html
FilZip - http://www.filzip.com/
IZArc - http://www.florida.plus.com/izarc/
QuickZip - http://www.quickzip.org/
TUGZip - http://www.tugzip.com/
UltimateZIP - http://www.ultimatezip.com/
UPX - http://upx.sourceforge.net/
Zip&Go - http://www.handybits.com/zipngo.htm
Zipgenius - http://www.zipgenius.it/
Defrag Software:DIRMS & Buzzsaw - http://www.dirms.com/
OpenVMS - http://www.execsoft.com/freeware/freeware.asp

Desktop Enhancements:
CursorXP - http://www.stardock.com/products/cursorxp/download.html
MobyDock - http://www.mobydock.com/
tclock2 - http://home.inreach.com/2tone/tclock2/tclock2.htm

Download managers:
Fresh Download - http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdown.html
LeechGet - http://www.leechget.net/en/
Net Transport - http://lycos26486.l78.lycos.com.cn/default.htm
Star Downloader - http://www.stardownloader.com/downloads.php
wackget - http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/
wget - http://xoomer.virgilio.it/hherold/

Encryption and data security:
Axcrypt - http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/
Blowfish Advanced CS- http://web.bsn.ch/lasse/bfacs.htm
Eraser - http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/default.php
File Shredder - http://www.sys-shield.com/fileshredder.htm
GnuPG - http://www.gnupg.org/
PGP Freeware - http://www.pgp.com/products/freeware.html
WindowsCleaner - http://www.winnowsoft.com/internet-eraser.htm
File Managers:2xExplorer - http://netez.com/2xExplorer/
A43 - http://www.shawneelink.net/~bgmiller/
Gyula's Navigator - http://www.wanari.com/
JExplorer - http://home.megapass.co.kr/~woosjung/
MeeSoft Commander - http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/

File repair and recovery:
PC Inspector File Recovery - http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Firewalls:
Kerio (Kerio Personal Firewall is FREE for home and personal use) - http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
Outpost Firewall (version 1 is free) - http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpost1.html
Sygate (FREE for personal use) - http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm
Zonealarm Basic firewall - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/conte...reeDownload.jsp

FTP Clients:
Filezilla! - http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla
SmartFTP - http://www.smartftp.com/

FTP Servers:
FileZilla - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
GuildFTPD - http://www.totalshareware.com/asp/d...pplication=8334
Quick 'n Easy FTP Server - http://www.pablovandermeer.nl/ftp_server.html
SlimFTPd - http://www.whitsoftdev.com/slimftpd
WarFTPD - http://www.jgaa.com/

HTML Editors:
1st page 2000 - http://www.evrsoft.com/download.shtml
AceHTML - http://freeware.acehtml.com/download.html
Aracnophilia - http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/
HTML-Kit - http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
Selida - http://www.amaryllis.8m.com/
Trellian webPAGE - http://webpage.vendercom.com/
TSW WebCoder - http://www.tsware.net/

Image viewers:
Ahaview - http://www.aha-soft.com/ahaview/ahaviewfree.exe
Irfanview - http://www.irfanview.com/
SlowView - http://www.slowview.at/
XNView - http://www.xnview.com/

Instant Messenger:
Gaim - http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
Miranda IM - http://www.miranda-im.org/
Rhymbox - http://www.rhymbox.com/
PSI - http://psi.affinix.com/
Trillian Basic - http://trillian.cc/downloads

Internet Explorer Front-Ends:
Avantbrowser - http://www.avantbrowser.com/
MyIE2 - http://www.myie2.com/
SlimBrowser - http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/sbrowser.htm
Mail programs:i.Scribe - http://www.memecode.com/
Mahogany Mail - http://mahogany.sourceforge.net/
Pegasus Mail - http://www.pmail.com/
Thunderbird - http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/
Anti-spam programs:K9 - http://www.keir.net/k9.html
MailWasher- http://www.mailwasher.net/
POPFile - http://popfile.sourceforge.net/
SpamBayes - http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

Network Tools:
CMDTime NTP Utility - http://www.softshape.com/download/
Ethereal Protocol Analyzer - http://www.ethereal.com/
NMap - http://www.insecure.org/nmap/
Ntop - http://www.ntop.org
PingPlotter - http://www.pingplotter.com
PuTTY - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty
RAS Graph & Stats - http://forum.flashfxp.com/showthrea...=&threadid=2400
RealVNC - http://www.realvnc.com/
TightVNC - http://www.tightvnc.org/
UltraVNC - http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/
WinSCP - http://www.winscp.com/

Office Suite:
602PC Suite free edition - http://www.software602.com/products/pcs/download.html
AbiWord - http://www.abiword.com/
Open Office - http://www.openoffice.org/

Partition Managers:
Partition Resizer - http://zeleps.com/
Ranish Partition Manager - http://www.ranish.com/part/
TestDisk - http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

PDF Utilities:
Free PDF - http://www.webxd.com/zipguy/frpdfdl.htm
Ghostscript/GSView - http://www.ghostscript.com/
PDF 995 - http://www.pdf995.com/
PDFCreator - http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Photo manipulation and image design:
ColorPic - http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/
Pixia - http://www.ab.wakwak.com/~knight/
Sodiodi - http://www.sodipodi.com/
The Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/
Tuxpaint - http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxpaint

Programming:
ActivePerl - http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl
Dev C++ - http://www.bloodshed.net/
Dev Pascal - http://www.bloodshed.net/
Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/
Freepascal - http://www.freepascal.org/
jEdit - http://www.jedit.org/
PHP Hypertext Parser - http://www.php.net/
Python - http://www.python.org/
Ruby - http://www.dm4lab.to/~usa/ruby/index_en.html
SharpDevelop - http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/

Pop-up Blockers:
Google Toolbar - http://www.google.com/
NoAds - http://www.southbaypc.com/NoAds/
PopUp Stopper - http://www.panicware.com/product_psfree.html
Privoxy - http://www.privoxy.org/
Proxomitron - http://www.proxomitron.info/

System Information and monitoring:
AIDA32 - http://www.aida32.hu/
CPU-Z - http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Gkrellm - http://bill.nalens.com/
Motherboard monitor - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311
WCPUID - http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA00...c/download.html

Video codes :
DivX Codec - http://www.divx.com/divx/?src=topta...from_/index.php
FFDSHOW - http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow
Kazaa Lite Codec Pack - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
Nimo Codec Pack - http://www.divx-digest.com/software/nimo_pack.html
Quicktime Alternative - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
Real Player Alternative - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/

Video players :
BsPlayer - http://www.bsplayer.org/
Cygwin MPlayer - http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/cygmp/
MaximusDVD - http://www.maximusdvd.com/
Media Player Classic - http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=82303
VideoLan - http://www.videolan.org/

Video tools:
DVD Shrink - http://www.dvdshrink.org/
DScaler - http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/
FlasKMPEG - http://www.flaskmpeg.net
GSpot - http://www.headbands.com/gspot/
VirtualDub - http://www.virtualdub.org/
VirtualDubMod - http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=65889
xviD - http://www.roeder.goe.net/~koepi/xvid.shtml
Zwei-Stein Video Editor - http://www.thugsatbay.com/software/index.html

Web browsers:
Firefox - http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/
K-Meleon - http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/
Mozilla - http://www.mozilla.org/
Netscape - http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp

Web servers:
Abyss - http://abyss.sourceforge.net/
Apache - http://httpd.apache.org/
Sambar - http://www.sambar.com/
Savant - http://savant.sourceforge.net/
TinyWeb - http://www.ritlabs.com/tinyweb/index.html

Webcam Software:
booruWebCam - http://www.booru.net/
Pryme - http://www.hilo.dk/pryme/

Checksum Utilities:
fsum - http://www.slavasoft.com/fsum/
hksfv - http://www.big-o-software.com/products/hksfv/
md5sum - http://www.etree.org/md5com.html
md5summer - http://www.md5summer.org/

General Utilities And Other Applications:
AnalogX - http://www.analogx.com/
AppRocket - http://www.candylabs.com/approcket/
Celestia - http://www.shatters.net/celestia
Cygwin - http://www.cygwin.com
Dirkey - http://www.protonfx.com/dirkey/
EditPad Lite - http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html
Inno Setup - http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
Memtest-86 - http://www.memtest86.com
MWSnap - http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
NetTime - http://nettime.sourceforge.net
Nullsoft Installer - http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nsis
Peerguardian - http://xs.tech.nu/
QuickSFV - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Mouse/4668/
png2ico - http://winterdrache.de/freeware/png2ico
Stickies - http://finiteloop.org/~btaylor/software/stickies/
Sysinternals - http://www.sysinternals.com/
Vim - http://vim.sourceforge.net

You're welcome.