I work for a small computer store. We give away utility CDs to our customers (or anyone else who wants one) packed with free-to-use or preferably open-source software to go with their Vista computers. (...I know...) Previously, I used CD Interface Studio, but it looks like the suck in Vista and is no longer updated. I tried poking the source code with a stick, but that didn't help.

Does anyone have any recommendations for free-to-use or open-source catalog/utility CD software that would fill the gap? I realize I could just make an html file with links to the installers, but I was hoping for something a little more pro than that.

For the curious, the list of included software: (All of which are free to use, or the free version of that program, or straight up open-source.)

7-Zip, Acrobat (reader), Ad-aware, A-squared, AVG, CCleaner, CDBurnerXP, CDI-Studio, DirectX, DVD Utilities (absolutely does NOT contain DVD Shrink or DVD Fab HD Decrypter, nope not at all), Filezilla, Firefox, foobar2000, Free Download Manager, GNUCash, the hosts file from mvps.org, Irfanview, ISOBuster, iTunes, K-Lite codec pack, a bunch of MS Powertoys (yay tweakui!), Notepad++, OpenOffice, Opera, Par utilities (testing), a folder with some free/open source RPG utilities, Speedfan (regretting this, one nub already borked his computer with it, apparently he thought my "Expert Users Only" warning didn't apply to him), Spybot, TCPView, Thunderbird, Trillian, links to the Tweak Guides, utorrent+installer, VLC, Waste, Winamp, and XNView. Whew. Ohyeah and the tiny windows-based installers for Ubuntu. (8.04 and the new one)

Suggestions for additional software to include on the CD are welcome, too. Just keep in mind it's a CD so it won't be holding full DVDs of Linux any time soon. Other tiny windows-based Linux installers may find their way on there though. ;)

The Notepad Bug still exists in vista.

Here's how to do it:
Open up Notepad, of course. Turn on 'word wrap'. Start typing. Enter some huge lines of text, ones that wrap several times. Save the document. Did you notice that the cursor position changed? Start typing again. Things get even more weird from there. Lines will no longer wrap properly. The text may get scrambled. Problems may occur. Your document may even get corrupted.

That's right, microsoft fucked up a featureless text editor.

Why do I dislike Microsoft? It's not because they're so damn big, or charge so much for their OS, or pretend not to be a monopoly, or stifle innovation, or refuse to release the source to their OS. They're a company, companies are expected to try and suck as much money out of the economy as possible. So they make business decisions in line with that singular goal.

No, it's because they're goddamned assholes.

New features developed for their next OS, ones that AREN'T deal-breakers and WOULDN'T keep people from buying the new products, somehow never seem to make it into patches or updates for the older versions of Windows.

An Example: "Lock the Taskbar" was a rather nice and useful feature they added in WinXP. But how hard would it be to add that feature to Win2k? A tiny little patch right? It's not THAT complex, since after all it's just an option that breaks the resize functionality of the taskbar. If there wasn't a switch for it and it happened seemingly at random, it would be called a bug.

There are many other examples of that.

Their refusal to admit that bugs or problems even exist with their OS also ticks me off. It's not that hard either. "Our bad, we screwed up and we're fixing it/have fixed it." Not that hard to say.

I'm sure anyone who's played around with Windows to any extent and kept track will have a nice list of problems they've encountered, but here's my favorite:

There's a bug in Notepad. Roll that around on your tongue. THERE'S A BUG IN NOTEPAD. That's right, they fucked up a featureless text editor. The bug still exists even in Windows XP.

Here's how to do it:
Open up Notepad, of course. Turn on 'word wrap'. Start typing. Enter some huge lines of text, ones that wrap several times. Save the document. Did you notice that the cursor position changed? Start typing again. Things get even more weird from there. Lines will no longer wrap properly. The text may get scrambled. Problems may occur. Your document may even get corrupted. To fix it, you have to turn word wrap off and then back on.

Now, I could understand if this was a bug that only occurred when doing something really bizarre or unexpected or unintended. But this isn't THAT unusual of a series of events. Typing with word wrap on. Saving the document. These are all the usual things I would expect to be able to do with a text editor. Am I wrong?

Tacit tracks down where some malicious spyware comes from. In summary, don't do business with Rackspace, XzoomY.com, Peer 1 Network, 2nd-thought.com, eXact Advertising, Revenue.net, Look2me.com, NicTech Networks, as they all condone, support, or finance spyware on the level of a malicious virus. Oh, and never ever click on any popups offering spyware removal. ;>

Of course, there's always one certain way to deal with viruses and spyware. Well, okay, two.

I submitted this as a story but it was rejected. I expect this is because Slashdot does business with one or more of these companies. ;>

Back to not reading this site for another year or two.

I have a friend who doesn't like "geeks" very much.. I'm starting to see why.

Livejournal is better. =P =)