The best Vista version for you

If you’re trying to decide which version of Windows Vista to buy for the first time, simply step through the following Q and A:

1. Will your PCs need to log on to an in-house network server?
a. If not, and your PCs will only need (at most) to access each other’s files and printers via peer-to-peer networking, you only need a Home version of Vista. Go to Question 2.
b. If your PCs need to log on to a network domain, you need a non-Home version. Go to Question 3.

2. (To determine which Home version): Do you have a tablet PC, do you want to burn DVDs, or do you want to record and playback video content with Windows Media Center?
a. If not, you can get by with Vista Home Edition.
b. If you need any of the above features, you need Vista Home Premium.

3. (To determine which non-Home version): Does your company have a Volume Licensing deal with Microsoft?
a. If yes, get Vista Enterprise, which enables you to create a centralized installation routine for Vista.
b. If not, get Vista Business, which is available at retail and has most of the features of Vista Enterprise (as described later in this chapter).

4. (To determine whether you need Vista Ultimate): Do you need some features that are found only in Home Premium and some other features that are found only in the Business or Enterprise versions of Vista?
a. If you need, for example, Windows Media Player (which is available only in Home Premium) and BitLocker drive encryption (only in Enterprise), get Vista Ultimate.
b. If you don’t need such a comprehensive mix of features, save your money and buy a version of Vista that’s cheaper than Vista Ultimate.

Broadcast yourself in Ustream Tv

Ustream.TV is the live interactive video broadcast platform that enables anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily broadcast to a global audience of unlimited size. In less than two minutes, anyone can become a broadcaster by creating their own channel on Ustream or by broadcasting through their own site, empowering them to engage with their audience and further build their brand.

Ustream's one-to-many live interactive video encourages broadcast-to-viewer and viewer-to-viewer interaction, empowering a much more engaging experience for everyone involved.

With Ustream's interactive broadcast functionality, viewers can personally interact directly with whoever is broadcasting -- including personalities like their favorite musician or politician. Ustream viewers can watch specific broadcasts, explore our networks ranging from music, talk shows, sports and politics to discover a world of interesting new broadcasts, or review our past broadcasts.

Bypass Free Site Registration with BugMeNot

Ever more web sites require you to register on them for free and sign in with a username and password to view their contents. An active surfer can easily accumulate dozens of logins for various sites across the Web. But what about when you don’t want to go through the whole tiresome procedure of registering for a web site — you simply want inside?

Web site BugMeNot maintains a public database of shared usernames and passwords for free web sites. If you come across a site that prompts you to log in to view its content, bypass the registration process by heading to BugMeNot to search for an already-created username and password. Not all BugMeNot logins will work, but you can see the percentage success rate for a particular login and report whether it worked for you as well. If you can’t find a BugMeNot login that works? Create one and share it with the BugMeNot community.

There are three ways to use BugMeNot:

• Enter the address of the site you want to log into on BugMeNot.com to get a list of possible logins.
• Drag and drop the Bugmenot bookmarklet to your web browser’s links toolbar. When you come onto a site you’d like to log into, click the bookmarklet and get login detail suggestions in a pop-up window as shown in the fig. Copy and paste the suggested login — in this example, username stupidideas and password asdfghjkl — into the nytimes.com login page to view a password-protected article.

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• Download and install the BugMeNot Firefox extension, available here. Restart Firefox. Next time you are presented with a username and password prompt, right-click inside the username text box and choose Login with BugMeNot as shown in the fig.

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The extension is the fastest way to log in with a BugMeNot account because it doesn’t require you to copy and paste the username and password into the login fields, but it only works in Firefox (http://mozilla.org/firefox/).