I always used to blame people who weren't paying attention when handling files. I kept asking them: How can you be so stupid to delete your personal documents or image files? When I taught my mother to use the computer I told her that 'Shift+Delete' is the total extinction of files, with no possible way of going back. I myself actually believed that for a while.

Then I discovered the file and data recovery software. 'What a great technology'', I said! Just until I had to recover my first accidentally deleted video files. The result: a total mess; all my recovered videos were unplayable, and the ones that I could play were fragmented, with altered sound and misplaced frames. However, there were cases when I managed to recover my lost files.

In November 2007 Microsoft launched a new e-mail client called Windows Live Mail. This client is one of the tools included in the Windows Live set of services and software products. Windows Live Mail is the successor of both Outlook Express and Windows Mail. This means that in the future it will be the only supported free e-mail client, and all development work going forward will only be on Windows Live Mail. For this reason, you might consider going to the download page and start using it.

But, before you do that, let's see what novelties Windows Live Mail has to offer.

This is the last article in our series about free security solutions for Windows Vista. In this article I will talk about firewalls and present to you the free alternatives I have managed to find for you. Unfortunately, there are not too many free firewalls for Windows Vista so this article will be pretty short compared to the others.

In order to write this article I have searched and tested all the free antivirus solutions I could find on the internet. The available offerings can be split in two categories: antivirus solutions which offer real-time protection and on-demand virus scanners. To keep your system safe you need to install a solution that offers real-time protection. On-demand virus scanners are good only as a "second" opinion not as a solution for primary protection. You can use them to scan your PC from time to time, to make sure your antivirus solution did not miss a virus or something.

Today we will start a series of articles showing how to keep your Windows Vista system safe from threats such as viruses, spyware, hackers, etc. In this article I will present to you a few anti-spyware solutions that can be used with no charge. Unfortunately there are not to many options available and some of the free solutions are just "crippled" versions of their commercial alternatives. However, you can keep your PC safe without paying any extra cash. The best strategy is to combine two complementary applications and benefit from their added features.

For example, you can use a free anti-spyware prevention tool such as Comodo BOClean Anti-Malware in combination with an on-demand scanner such as Ad-Aware 2007 Free. Or, you can go for my personal favorite - Spyware Terminator and use Spybot Search & Destroy as a backup, to double check your system from time to time. The choice is yours. What is important is the fact that you can keep your system safe from spyware for free.

Sharing computer experiences has become a common practice among internet users and that's why capturing the right moments on screen is a frequent activity. I often happened to send and receive images with unexpected or funny error messages, benchmark results or desktop captures. I must admit it wasn't easy to do it without the appropriate software for this.

I have thus decided to get rid of the old-fashioned and rigid PrintScreen method and began trying out professional software applications that are specially designed for this. Screen Capture Software - ACA Capture Pro is one of them and, since the 30 days trial version of this application is fully functional, I allowed myself to explore its features and capabilities. You can also download it and try it for free.

I must admit that I was a bit reticent about this software at the beginning as I kept wondering why one should pay for such an application when there are many free products out there which are said to be doing approximately the same things. And yet, after exploring and configuring ACA Capture Pro's features, I have agreed that a well done job can only be made by a well done software, whereas the well done software is done by professional programmers.

So let's see then what this 'Pro' product can do and why should it worth the price to pay for!

A few weeks ago we have been contacted by James A. White who asked us if we would be interested in reviewing a book he just published. Until now we did not review any books, but considering the fact that it is about Windows Vista and computer basics we decided to give it a try. So... here you have our first book review.

Windows Vista brought a big number of changes, including a new startup process. The Windows Vista boot manager is pretty different compared to the one in Windows XP, therefore managing your boot configuration is more complicated. Fortunately for us, the "PROnetworks" team developed VistaBootPRO - a tool that allows users to manage their boot configuration without getting their hands dirty with the technical stuff. Unfortunately, VistaBootPro has a fee of $9.95 for personal use.

The people from Mozilla have recently released a new version of the award-winning Thunderbird e-mail client. If you are not satisfied with the features of Windows Mail or you are a fan of open-source software you should definitely try Thunderbird v2.0. This new version is available in over 35 languages and works on all recent version of Windows, including Windows Vista.

The list of new features is pretty impressive and includes the following: