Activity for July 12

Review - Sysinternals Suite
Build 09/13/10 (Sep 18, 2010)

Incredibly useful set of tools for Windows, a must-have for your toolbox. I have this suite on every machine I set up, and couldn't do without them. It takes a little bit to figure out what's-what, as it's a bunch of separate utilities vs one big do-it-all program (as it should be), but once you do you'll wonder why you didn't grab these sooner.
Review - Sumatra PDF
1.1 (May 20, 2010)

Light and fast, I prefer this over Foxit's. (And both of which are 1000% better than Adobe's.) It's very barebones though, but if all you're doing is wanting to read a document, it's a good pick.
Review - Mozilla Firefox (v3.6) for Windows
3.6 RC2 (Jan 18, 2010)

Noticeably smoother performance over 3.5. Seems pretty solid, been using 3.6 since beta and have yet to have any issues with it. No compatibility issues with any of the addons that I'm using. Still fairly weak with Windows 7 integration though, but not a critical issue for me. For me, still the best and most flexible browser out there.
Review - HashTab for Windows
2.1 (Nov 11, 2008)

Very handy for validating downloads and such quickly without having to launch a console or separate app. One utility I wish I had on my Gnome desktop.
Comment - How much more are you willing to pay Netflix?
2.1 (Jul 12, 2011 - 5:47 PM)

Rarely ever use actual disc media anymore, and when I do I typically either just buy or rent locally, so it makes practically zero difference for me. Been with Netflix for over a year and don't think I've ever ordered a physical disk. Still a great deal for the "random stuff to watch" versus the much smaller selection I'd get with the pay channel's on-demand system.
Comment - Would you cut cable for Netflix?
2.1 (Apr 11, 2011 - 5:42 PM)

Love Netflix, long since dropped most of my premium channels for it. Cut cable though? Absolutely not,at least at this time.. just not a replacement for general TV yet. If they did offer as many shows as cable, then yes, I'd possibly switch if the content was there.
Comment - IE9 will leave a significant portion of Windows users behind
2.1 (Sep 18, 2010 - 11:40 AM)

Well they do need to draw a line somewhere. XP is already two versions out of date, how long do you think they should provide updates to an unsupported and outdated operating system? Why not throw in Windows 98 while we're at it? Besides, Microsoft exists to make money; of course they're going to want to influence the holdouts to upgrade to the newer OS. They're not going to spend money to work around issues because of API features that XP just doesn't have. Not bashing XP mind you, some just like it better, or don't have the option. (Although you really should switch.. so much nicer than XP ever was, and even on older hardware runs better.)

If you want to stay with XP, you still have options. IE8 is available, which is a massive improvement over XP's original IE6. (If the machine in question is still running IE6 then they're obviously not updating the system; the browser is the least of their worries.) Plus there's quite a few other quality browsers to choose from, at least until they drop XP support too.
Comment - Steve Jobs: Why Flash sucks
2.1 (Apr 29, 2010 - 12:35 PM)

Lost any credibility after "Flash is a closed, Adobe-controlled system." Had to double check and make sure it wasn't April 1st, this coming from the most closed and proprietary company in the industry.