Come October 6th Microsoft is going to launch some Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets. Microsoft will be calling it Windows Phones, that’s what they are going to call every WinMo 6.5 handset for most likely branding reasons. Microsoft mentions that the Windows Mobiles to be launched in the first week of October will cater to consumers across wide range. We can sense that some cheaper models of Windows Mobiles will be also announced.

Other than that, the following are the network operators and manufacturers which have partnered with Microsoft in bringing these Microsoft Mobiles to carious markets across the world.

In North America: Mobile operators AT&T, Bell Mobility, Sprint, TELUS and Verizon Wireless, and phone manufacturers HP, HTC Corp., LG Electronics, Samsung and Toshiba Corp.

In Europe: Mobile operators Orange, Deutsche Telekom AG and Vodafone Group Plc, and phone manufacturers Acer, HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

In Latin America: Mobile operator TIM Brazil, and phone manufacturers HTC, LG Electronics and Samsung

In Asia Pacific: Mobile operators NTT DOCOMO Inc., SOFTBANK Mobile Corp., SK Telecom, Telstra and WILLCOM Inc., and phone manufacturers Acer Inc., HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

I have been using Windows 7 since it’s launch to the tester community and I find it a much better successor of Windows XP than Windows Vista. Windows Vista was just not enough of an improvement over Win XP while Microsoft seems more prepared to move forward with Windows 7. Microsoft will start selling Windows 7 in few weeks from now on and the need for managing the Windows 7 to keep it clean and fast will be felt.

I think it’d be nice to touch upon some of the areas where people often fear to tread and that is registry. The average computer user just doesn’t want to mess with the registry which is not a problem in its own right but does end up accumulating unnecessary registry entries in it. It’s important to follow few rules when you have to clean up the registry. The following are some of the registry tips, tricks and tweaks to keep your windows registry clean.

An average user must not tinker with the Windows registry unless you understand the repercussions and are able enough to troubleshoot in case of some error. There are scores of free registry cleaners and tools/applications which you can try to keep your registry clean. One registry cleaner which I have been using since last few years is CCleaner and it has never disappointed me. It’s free and good enough at its job of cleaning the registry bloat.

The other rule is to use any registry cleaner regularly. If you download and install lot of applications then it’s quite possible that there are some invalid and malicious entries in the Windows registry. A good registry cleaner will remove these registry errors without you having to edit or modify and registry entry.

A good anti virus will help you from malicious programs from making any unauthorized modifications in your registry while a good registry cleaner will help you keep your computer clean from the mess that has accumulated in your PC.

I tend to use lot of software applications not just because I am a software geek but also because I have to try out many applications sometimes to blog or at others just to see if the product is worth keeping on my system. No matter what I give it a shot. This is all good except that I usually forget once I have used the product that I should uninstall it if it’s not useful enough for me. This no doubt slows down my PC considerably.

Now keeping your windows computer clean is indeed best practice and uninstalling the unused or lesser used programs seems like a good idea. It has to be taken into consideration though that your system doesn’t remove all the mess that a new software program brings along with itself while installation. The Windows Opearting Systems have an inefficient uninstall mechanism which only does the soft unistallation leaving behind the huge chunks of registery codes behind. This calls for some special programs.

The average users can try out some third party applications to clean out the mess or to uninstall the applications more stealthily. One option is to use better uninstall applications and then it’s wise to use a registry cleaner so that the application that you have uninstalled doesn’t leave behind any traces left in your system.

It’s time for me to uninstall some applications and then clean all the registry mess. Hopefully or quite certainly my system will get a new lease of life after that.

In the season of application store, how could Microsoft be far behind. Microsoft will be taking apps for the Marketplace from the July 27. Now we do know that its becoming increasingly difficult for the companies to market themselves effectively when everyone’s doing that so Microsoft will be more focused about the Business and Enterprise applications.

Windows Marketplace will have a special Business Center section where the such applications will be showcased. Microsoft sure knows its strengths because its devices are more popular among the corporate users and the business apps are also the ones which are usually bought. The announcement regarding Windows Marketplace was made at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference this week.

It was originally being said that the marketplace will only have support for Windows Mobile 6.5 version which will be launched later this year. It has been now made cleared that the classic versions namely WinMo 6.0 and 6.1 will also have the support for these apps. The application will open to its users sometime later this year and then we shall see if it can replicate the excitement of iPhone App store.

Nobody likes useless junk taking up the valuable hard drive space. Fortunately, there’s a whole slew of good, free programs out there to help us keep things organized and less space consuming. In this post we have compiled a free list of Cleanup Utilities For Windows, that you may use.

CCleaner: The most widely-known name in computer crud removal. CCleaner has a lot going for it: it’s easy to use, scans quickly, cleans the registry, and also includes a lightweight Add/Remove programs alternative and startup items manager. Found 36.1Mb of junk and 20 registry issues on my machine.

Glary Utilities: This one packs a whole lot more functionality into one package than the others, but it’s still under a 5Mb download. In addition to scanning for files, registry issue, and broken shortcuts, Glary can also check for malware, optimize memory, edit your context menu, shred and encrypt files, and analyze drive usage. It’s a must have, and totally free for personal use (and well worth paying for at the office). Found 23.4Mb worth of files and 42 registry issues.

Comdo System Cleaner: CSC does file, registry, and privacy cleaning and also packages an autorun manager, system tweaker, and CRC checker. 32 and 64-bit versions are provided for both the portable version and installer. The installer doesn’t play nice with Windows 7, but the portable version will get the job done - just double-click CSC.exe to get things started.

Bleachbit: While it only handles file cleanup and is a comparatively large download (it’s Linux and Windows compatible and runs about 8Mb with GTK), Bleachbit supports a much larger list of programs than most of the other cleaning apps. Apart from all major browsers, it also tidies up after Google Earth, Flash, Java, Second Life Viewer, Skype, Vuze, and more. Found 63.7Mb of crap files on my recently-cleaned drive.

FCleaner: Like Bleachbit, FCleaner doesn’t handle registry cleanup. It does an excellent job of finding garbage files, turning up about 15% more than even Bleachbit. Also features an uninstaller, startup manager, and quick links to system tools like the command prompt, system restore, scheduled tasks, and Security Center. Found 72.7Mb of files.

Windows Mobile users have been live without an official Facebook application. On Thursday, that all changes with the launch of Facebook for Windows Mobile 6 . Microsoft has now introduced an official Facebook app for Windows Mobile 6 and Windows Mobile 6.1.

The free application will work on any 6.0, 6.1 or 6.5 smartphone, touchscreen or non-touchscreen, and will allow full messaging, video and photo uploads and integration with the handset’s phone features to place calls direct from Facebook profiles.

The Facebook client for Windows Mobile also allows you to edit and amend your profile and add status updates.  It’s recommended that you have an unlimited data plan, however, if you plan on uploading large quantities of video.

Facebook already has a mobile version formatted for small smartphone and cellphone displays, but the functionality tends to be limited compared to the desktop interface.  This new application which is an 871kb CAB file download should make navigating the site easier for Windows Mobile users.

If you haven’t downloaded Windows 7 just yet then it might interest you that Windows has postponed the date at which downloads of Windows 7 beta was supposed to shut down. Windows Team blog has earlier stated that January 24 will be the last date for free download of Windows 7 beta but now the date has been extended to January 10. The guys who have started but not completed the download process will be able to do so through February 12th.

Apart from that you will be able to use it without any key either. You can activate your Windows 7 installation any time later. I installed Windows 7 today and it gave me the option to either fill the key or just get it activated after the installation. At the time of writing, I haven’t completed the key filling ceremony and I am not really bothered about it either since you Product keys for the Windows 7 Beta will continue to be available even after February 12.

It took me hardly thirty minutes to install Windows 7 and I’m loving to screw it.

This is hardly a point of contention that Windows XP has been the best performing and most successful Operating System Windows has ever produced. They might have tried to replicate the success and upgrade the standards with Windows Vista but it’s clear by now that they have failed miserably in doing that.

Microsoft had put a deadline of December 31, 2008 for the sale of PCs with Windows XP pre-installed. The date of the delivery of Windows XP has now been extended to May 30,2009. This merely means that distributors can get the copies of Windows XP till May 30. They would still need to get the orders by the year end.

Microsoft had done some campaigns earlier this year to market Vista which further deteriorated the sentiment of users. The reviews of Vista were worse to say the least and it prompted users to stick to Windows XP. The fact that Microsoft is going to launch Windows 7 has also given users a reason to wait and skip Vista altogether.

Source: Channel Web

A screenshot or screen capture is a way of taking a picture of your computer screen. So have you ever needed to capture a snapshot of a web pages to send to a friend or may be for another reason. Well there are many ways to capture a screenshot of an entire web pages. Let me sum up with the two easiest tools to do these quickly and hassle free.

Websnapr: Websnapr lets you capture online screenshot of a entire webpage. Just enter the URL and choose a size from micro to large and click capture.

It’s as simple as that. WebSnapr will put your request into a queue and after a few seconds reload the page to view your thumbnail.

The cool thing about it is that you can copy the URL link in the address bar and send that to someone via IM chat, email, or whatever. Or you can just right-click and save the file.

Thumbalizr :

Using thumbalizer you can capture an entire scrolling web pages . So, for example, if you take a look at the screenshot generated by WebSnapr, you’ll always get this:

However, if you do the same thing with thumbalizr and choose the Page option, you’ll get the following result:

As you can see, it captured the entire web page that a person would see if they were to scroll all the way down! Pretty cool! Also, thumbalizr gives you more options to choose from for the size, including making it any custom size that you want.

Screenshot capture and print screen is perhaps the most efficient way to share whatever appears on your desktop. If you happen top be a blogger then the need of a screen capture application of software is pretty invincible. There are screenshots capturing tools of various degrees from the ones for basic screen capture to the ones which can also create screencast.

FastStone Capture: FastStone is a lightweight and feature rich screen capture tool. It enables you to capture Windows, objects, selections or the entire desktop and apply additional editing tools like resizing, sharpening, shapes, text, watermarks and more. The capture can be sent to the image viewer, clipboard or directly saved to file. Other features include support for image viewing a screen magnifier, a color picker and support for capturing of scrolling windows .

ZScreen : ZScreen is an open-source screen capture program that allows for region,window or full-screen screenshots. It can FTP screenshots and put the URL in your clipboard in a single keystroke. It supports automatic custom naming conventions with variables. It can also interface with image editing software.

Screenshot Captor: Screenshot Captor is a free tool that enables you to take a grab of your entire screen ,  a specific window or simply a section of the screen. It’s a superb little tool that competes with the commercial screen-grabbing tools on the market. Additional features include automatic saving of files, support for external tools, capture of scrolling pages and more. Screenshot Captor can save images in gif, png, jpg, tiff and other formats.

Cropper: Copper is a screen capture utility written in C#  that allows you to capture portions of your desktop and automatically save the output to a file, copy it to the clipboard or send it to a printer. It offers a resizable, translucent capture area that can be moved and sized freely to capture the portions that you want to grab. The program also includes a thumbnail feature that can automatically resize the capture and save it as thumbnail version instead. Cropper can save images in BMP, JPG and PNG format.

MWSnap: MWSnap is a small yet powerful Windows program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen handles which supports 5 most popular graphics formats and contains several graphical tools like a zoom, a ruler, a color picker and a window spy. It can be also used as a fast picture viewer or converter.

Snippy: Useful free  Snippy tool to copy webpage screenshot for sharing purposes. Interesting thing is that, when you cutting out a portion of an Internet Explorer window, the URL will also be copied to the clipboard; this makes it very convenient to select something interesting on a Web site and send it out in an email message.

Screengrab: Screengrab only allows you to save your files as JPG or PNG, but it does have a nice option in that not only can you choose the viewable area or full page for screenshots, but you can do just a section or frame if you choose. Can save you a lot of editing time by just not even bothering to save parts you won’t ever need.

ScreenPrint32: ScreenPrint32 is a freeware tool that runs in the background and when the Print Screen key is pressed it captures the screen and sends it to the printer. You Can also add the user defined header and footer with the date and time or stamp etc and resized the printed image or  converted to grayscale or black & white.