Plan, save and control your finances with Quicken Deluxe. It’s easier than ever to manage a personal budget, pay bills on time, track your investments, maximize tax deductions – and find more ways to save.

To disable the registration prompt (nag screen) for Quicken 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004:

1. Press and hold the Ctrl + Shift keys on the left side of your keyboard while you select the Online menu and select One Step Update.

Note: Using the Ctrl+Shift keys on the right side does not disable the prompt permanently and the following message does not appear.

2. When the message “You will no longer be prompted for registration” appears, click OK.

Online features such as online banking, security quotes download and product updates will work normally if you do not register your copy of Quicken.

If you’re a blogger (or a blog reader), you’re painfully familiar with people who try to raise their own websites’ search engine rankings by submitting linked blog comments like “Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site.” This is called comment spam, we don’t like it either, and we’ve been testing a new tag that blocks it. From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel=”nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn’t a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it’s just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists.

For most of the previous versions of WordPress, the is the default setting for external links. Most people would probably agree that legitimate non-spammy comments should not be penalized. There is a DoFollow plugin for WordPress that will disable the automatic rel=”nofollow” attributes added to external links. This makes sense to do this if you have good spam filtering for your comments, or if you moderate your blog. BinaryWolf activated the last year, so that non-spammy commenters get a backlink.

So, a great way for getting backlinks is by commenting on blogs and including the URL for your site. However, if your link is assigned a nofollow attribute by default, it won’t be considered as a backlink. If backlinks are important to you, it may be worth the extra effort to discover blogs that use DoFollow to disable the nofollow attribute and add your comments to those particular blogs. Of course, post a comment only if you have something of value to add to the discussion and not just to get links.

An easy way to to find these blogs that accept comments is to use search engine friendly blog commenting software. After your download and install the software, you type the keywords or a keyword phrase that you want to find blogs for and when the search is complete, select a blog URL. The page opens directly in the software. You submit your comment and then open the next blog and submit the next comment, etc. This is a great way to increase search engines and human traffic to your web sites, boost your natural search engine rankings and gain dozens (if not hundreds) of high quality backlinks to your websites.

Download Now For Free

SnagIt, with very powerful screen capture and image enhancement features, is a must have utility for any blogger or web designer. The latest paid version, with many new useful features, is SnagIt 8.2.

ZoneAlarm Anti-spyware prevents spyware infection from getting onto your PC and removes any existing spyware. Also included is ZoneAlarm’s award-winning Firewall which stops spyware from running. Simple to install and run, its intuitive interface tailors the program to meet your needs. Includes Anti-spyware, Spy Site Blocking, Operating System Firewall, Network and Program Firewall. The latest release improves the Operating System Firewall and applies more robust spyware detection and removal functions.

Download ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware here.

aMember is a flexible membership and subscription management PHP script. It has support for PayPal, BeanStream, 2Checkout, NoChex, VeriSign PayFlow, Authorize.Net, PaySystems, Probilling, Multicards, E-Gold and Clickbank payment systems and allows you to setup paid-membership areas on your site. It can also be used without any payment system – you can manage users manually.

aMember Pro also supports integration plugins to link the users database with third-party scripts, for example vBulletin, Joomla and WordPress. aMember will maintain a users database for the third-party script, so your aMember subscribers can be automatically added to your bulletin board, CMS, help desk, image galleries, email systems and auto responders.

Customer support for this product is first rate. Read the glowing testimonials in the aMember Forum to see for yourself.

As an alternative, you can drag copies of your file to an external hard drive or USB flash drive. Once you have your backup drive connected to the computer, you need to find your iTunes files:

Windows XP or 2000 My Documents > My Music > iTunes folder.

Vista Music folder > iTunes.

Mac Home folder > Music > iTunes.

Dragging the entire iTunes folder to your external drive icon makes a copy of your media files, playlists, album artwork folder and library database. If you don’t have room for all that and just want to back up selected albums or songs, open the folder called iTunes Music, which is inside the main iTunes folder. The tracks are sorted into folders by artist name with album folders inside, so find the files you want to back up and drag them to your external drive.

Amazon is one of the few retailers where you can reserve your copy of Apple’s latest and greatest operating system Apple Version 10.5 . Amazon’s pre-order price guarantee applies, so customers can order with confidence knowing that you will get the when the operating system ships in October 2007.

Product features include over 300 new and enhanced features to OS X, including a new desktop and updated finder enabling easy browsing and sharing between multiple Macs -plus- taking advantage of the latest developments in processor hardware with full native 64-bit support, multi-core optimization, and new Core animation.

System requirement details will be available in the near future.

After installing Windows, you have a 30-day “trial period” to either activate the product or let it lose some functionality. You can activate XP or Vista by allowing the software to contact Microsoft’s servers via your Internet connection. However, Microsoft has built into Vista a simple, one-line command that anyone can use to extend the activation deadline of the product to a total of 120 days.

From the Vista desktop, take the following steps on a machine on which Vista hasn’t yet been activated:

Step 1. Open a command window with admin privileges. Click Vista’s start button and type cmd into the Search box. Rather than pressing Enter, instead press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to open the command window with elevated privileges. If you’re asked for a username and password, provide the ones that log you into your domain. On a single-user copy of , a login shouldn’t be necessary. (My thanks to Serdar Yegulalp for the elevation trick.).

Step 2. Switch to the command-line shell handler. Running script commands in a window will result in irritating pop-up messages unless you change to the character-mode version of Script Host. To do this, enter the following command at the prompt:

cscript /h:cscript

Step 3. Familiarize yourself with SLMGR. Executed with no parameters, slmgr displays a screen of help text. With the parameters -dli (display license information) or -xpr (expiration), the program displays the activation deadline, either in minutes remaining or as a date and time, respectively.

To see the effect of these commands, enter the following in the command window, one at a time:

slmgr
slmgr -dli
slmgr -xpr

If you’ve just installed Vista, the activation deadline will be 43,200 minutes in the future, which translates to 30 days. If Vista was installed some time ago, the remaining time shown will be less.

In my testing, each command required quite a long time to provide a response — as much as one minute. Be patient and wait for the results from each command before trying the next. If you didn’t elevate your command window to have admin privileges in Step 1, you’ll see only error messages.

Step 4. . The parameter -rearm changes the activation deadline to 30 days from today. SLMGR allows this extension to take place only three times. If you extend the deadline the day after you install Vista, you’ll get an extension of only one day, not an additional 30 days.

The following command changes the activation deadline to 30 days after the command is invoked:

slmgr -rearm

If the operation worked, you should see the message, “Command completed successfully. Please restart the system for the changes to take effect.”

It’s not clear where SLMGR stores the number of times that it’s been used to push the activation deadline back. If this number is stored in the Registry or in a system file, it’s likely that hackers will quickly find a way to eliminate even the three-extension limit.

Step 5. Reboot and test. A reboot is required to make the extension take effect. After the Vista desktop loads, you should repeat steps 1 and 3 to check on your new activation deadline.

Hat Tip

Dell’s solution provides customers with a Dimension E520, E521 or C521 desktop without an installed or included Microsoft® operating system. With the n Series desktop, customers have the flexibility to install an (such as a version of Linux® ), and help reduce the price of this system. In addition, the n Series desktop comes with a non-formatted hard drive ready for your custom installation.

User’s can install Windows, Linux, or any other OS without having to first wipe a Dell software preinstallation. Dell’s n-Series first started shipping without an operating system in September 2002.

zamzar.com

Zamzar supports conversion between a wide variety of different file formats.

* Document formats
* Image formats
* Music formats
* Video formats

heywatch.com

Video. Many sources. From the web to your local HD, encode the videos you want.
Podcast. Subscribe to your own HW Podcast feed and get automatically your encoded videos.
Encoding. All formats and devices. A huge list of formats updated frequently (input and output).
Make your own. Create the format according to your needs on heywatch.com

blip.tv

You shouldn’t have to choose between great quality Flash video and compatibility with iTunes. Your videos should work everywhere, no question. That’s why blip.tv supports every video format under the sun, from Flash 8 (much higher quality than most Flash video) to Quicktime (for the all-important iTunes) to DivX and 3gp (we think cell phones are cool, too).

Desktop Solutions

SUPER, Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer. A GUI to ffmpeg, MEncoder, mplayer, x264, mppenc, ffmpeg2theora & the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn. If you need a simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file, without reading manuals or spending long hours training, then SUPER © is all you need. It is a Multimedia Encoder and a Multimedia Player, easy-to-use with 1 simple click.

On2 Flix for Flash Video. AVI, MPEG, QuickTime, DivX, Xvid, H.264, 3GPP–easily converts any video to the highest-quality On2 VP6 for Flash video FLV or SWF.

Virtual Dub is open source and available on all platforms. supports many video formats include DivX, MPEG, AVI, etc.

VirtualDub helps you get video into your computer.

If your capture device is Video for Windows compatible, then VirtualDub can capture video with it. But VirtualDub isn’t your average capture program:

* Fractional frame rates. Don’t settle for 29 or 30 when you want 29.97.
* Optimized disk access for more consistent hard disk usage.
* Create AVI2 (OpenDML) files to break the AVI 2GB barrier and multiple files to break the FAT32 4GB limit.
* Integrated volume meter and histogram for input level monitoring.
* Real-time downsizing, noise reduction, and field swapping.
* Verbose monitoring, including compression levels, CPU usage, and free disk space.
* Access hidden video formats your capture card may support but not have a setting for, such as 352×480.
* Keyboard and mouse shortcuts for faster operation. To capture, just hit F6.
* Clean interface layout: caption, menu bar, info panel, status bar.

VirtualDub lets you clean up video on your computer.

There are lots of programs that let you “edit” video. And yet, they’re frustratingly complex for some of the simplest tasks. VirtualDub isn’t an editor application; it’s a pre- and post-processor that works as a valuable companion to one:

* Reads and writes AVI2 (OpenDML) and multi-segment AVI clips.
* Integrated MPEG-1 and Motion-JPEG decoders.
* Remove and replace audio tracks without touching the video.
* Extensive video filter set, including blur, sharpen, emboss, smooth, 3×3 convolution, flip, resize rotate, brightness/contrast, levels, deinterlace, and threshold.
* Bilinear and bicubic resampling — no blocky resizes or rotates here.
* Decompress and recompress both audio and video.
* Remove segments of a video clip and save the rest, without recompressing.
* Adjust frame rate, decimate frames, and 3:2 pulldown removal.
* Preview the results, with live audio.

You can take a captured clip, trim the ends, clean up some of the noise, convert it to the proper frame size, and write out a better one. Don’t see a video filter you want? Write your own, with the filter SDK.

AviSplit (freeware video joiner, video splitter)

AviSplit is an application for cutting and rejoining AVI/DivX files. Avisplit can split a large AVI file into more convenient pieces (you set the size), rejoin those pieces or extract a clip with a specified starting and ending point.

Whether pieces or a clip, output can be viewed in any standard player, and when the pieces are recombined, the result is exactly the same as the original.

Whether splitting, rejoining or clipping, AviSplit is very fast as no data processing is involved (lossless). Generally, using Avisplit is about as fast as copying the file itself!

AviSplit Classic is a freeware video tool for non-commercial use and may be redistributed without additional permission. So far AviSplit has been released only as freeware. This software is fully functional and does not contain any advertisements or transmit anything through the Internet.

Install and run Replay A/V. It allows you download, capture and save almost any streaming file. Plus, it has a scheduler for recording radio and TV shows (like a VCR). It’s easy to use, and is the best all-purpose streaming media recording software. Editor’s choice!

You may also want to try the WM Recorder. Schedule or instantly capture Windows Media audio/video streams, streaming Real Audio/Video, and streams with just one click! Get WM Recorder and you’ll be able to record all the popular streaming video formats, including , , , , , , , , and more!

Capture streaming Windows Media: .asf, .wmv, .wma, .asx, .wmx, .wvx, .wax [RTSP, HTTP or protocols]

Capture streaming Flash video.: .flv.

Capture streaming Real Media (Real Video and Real Audio): .ra, .rm, .ram [RTSP, PNM or HTTP protocols].

Copy protected streaming formats can’t be saved using the above tools – for that, try Replay Screencast. It can make a screen capture video (including audio) from anything you see on your screen. It’s really easy to use, and it works great.

Check out the Product Comparison Chart.