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1. 
   Review - Microsoft Windows Essentials

   2011 (Oct 4, 2010)

   Not everyone using XP is a living under a rock. Many people have company PCs that have XP on them, and are stuck with XP until the company decides to upgrade the PC.(Yeah, the PC not the OS). I never chose XP, I was issued it.
   
   As for this verison of MWLE, it is as bloated as ever, but my employer uses it so I have to as well.

2. 
   Review - Apple iTunes for Windows

   8.1.1 (Apr 6, 2009)

   iTunes always was a crock, and this version is no improvement.
   
   It takes a week to start up, the UI is painfully slow, it is enormous, and it insists on using that other crock, QuickTime. In our house we call it "iToss" because it is (as we say in England) a tosser.
   
   For all its faults - and there are many - it actually works well. It keeps my iPod up to date, which is all I require of it, and it seldom crashes. Plug in the iPod, and let iTunes get on with it... very slowly.
   
   I just started using this version, and yep, it's still a crock.

3. 
   Review - OpenTTD for Windows

   0.6.0 Beta 4 (Feb 20, 2008)

   This is a great fun game, one of the first I ever bought. It's a bit limited here and there - buses are great early on, but mainly the game economy revolves around trains and, to a lesser degree, planes and ships. This version seems to work well.

4. 
   Review - Windows Live Messenger

   8.5 Beta 2 (Sep 6, 2007)

   The installer never finished its job. Tried a few of its suggested fixes to no avail. Will wait for the next beta. The installer in the previous 8.5 beta worked fine.

5. 
   Review - ASCII Generator dotNET

   Beta 0.8.0 (Jun 11, 2007)

   Awesome! I wish I'd written it. It does what it does brilliantly. It's also very fast and very small.
   
   Do I need what it does? No, not in any way, but it's great to know it's there!

6. Comment - Expensive roaming is history in EU this July

   Beta 0.8.0 (Apr 23, 2009 - 7:08 AM)

   Roaming charges in the EU have been very high for far too long. Every time the EU investigates, the phone companies whine that they will be broke if the charges come down, yet they turn in huge profits every year.
   
   I used to work in the mobile phone business - at the server and billing system end of it. It always was a money machine.
   
   The system uses "toll-tickets" to track each call (basically one ticket for each base station used during a call - as you move around during a call, you switch automatically to the nearest base station). The tickets are collected and the total call cost is calculated. When roaming, the toll-tickets are passed down the line to the user's home country (i.e. service provider). This is the only additional cost involved in roaming calls. The local call cost and exchange rate is handled beforehand via agreements between service providers (a bit like how overseas mail is paid for. Note that unlike mail, no physical handling is required). Calls and text messages are handled in exactly the same way. The cost for a roaming call/text is only marginally higher than for a domestic call. The high charges are therefore nothing more than money-grabbing.

7. Comment - The Dark Knight may yet save Blu-ray from the lair of the PS3

   Beta 0.8.0 (Dec 22, 2008 - 7:59 PM)

   Just an observation... When the F.W.Woolworth's closing down sale started a few days ago here in the UK, I went along at noon on the first day to get some bargains. At that time almost all the DVD shelves were empty, but the Blu-Ray shelves were still full. I guess from it that, even with prices slashed, still nobody wants Blue-Ray discs.

8. Comment - French say Apple and Orange aren't a well-balanced diet

   Beta 0.8.0 (Dec 18, 2008 - 10:00 AM)

   One could say that Orange and Apple are a right pear :-)

9. Comment - O2 beefs up iPhone plans in UK to boost sales

   Beta 0.8.0 (Jan 30, 2008 - 1:36 PM)

   "We've listened to what our customers want and acted, offering simple but competitive tariffs across all our handset range." - tee hee!
   
   Tariffs are designed to MAKE money for the network, not SAVE it for the customer.

10. Comment - Britain Refuses to Extend Music Copyrights

    Beta 0.8.0 (Jul 26, 2007 - 6:28 AM)

    This article misses a key point in the UK argument: Under UK law, while the singer/player loses copyright after 50 years, the song writer gets royalties for the rest of their life plus 70 years. The trick here is to write and perform your own material.
    
    Another side of the argument over royalties is this: They offer the recording artist a payback over time that evens up the score with the manager. For example, 1980s teen band S Club 7 earned around £600,000 each from their music, while their manager earned himself £50 million.