It’s possible to create a USB pen drive that you can use as a boot device. This can be useful when you have a Windows computer that refuses to boot correctly, or when a system is infected with malicious software that you’re unable to remove from Windows.

I prefer to use the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (UBCD4WIN) for this purpose,  it includes a Windows XP PE environment with lots of useful system utilities and applications.  You can find out more information about UBCD4WIN at their website

Here are some links that cover the process of using UBCD4WIN to create a bootable USB drive in detail:
http://foribb.blogspot.com/2009/01/make-your-pen-drive-bootable-install.html
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/livecd.html

Here’s a cool new add-on for Vista that allows you to have multiple desktops like a Mac.

http://www.codeplex.com/vdm

If you’ve lost your local Windows password in the past then you may have already found this tool.  This is a very handy boot disk to change your Windows password and should be a part of any technician’s toolkit. 

This post is a warning though….the previous versions of this tool should not be used on Vista!!!  There is a new version which supports Vista and that is the only version that should be used.  Using the previous version on a Vista machine will corrupt the filesystem and make it difficult to get your system to boot again.  Somehow, it corrupts it to the point where the Vista installation CD cant even be used to repair it.  To get my system to boot again after making this mistake I had to use an XP installation CD to run chkdsk and correct the errors. 

 Here is the link to the latest version of the Password Recovery Boot Disk:
http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

I was looking for a way to customize the Windows Vista Start Menu Search for the longest time and I finally found an app that lets me do what I wanted.  Initially, I wanted to be able to type things like “kb xxxxxx” in the search field and have it automatically go to the url for the Microsoft KB article that corresponds to the number I supplied (in this case http://support.microsoft.com/kb/xxxxxx).  Start++ lets you do just that and more.  Check it out!

 http://brandontools.com/content/StartPlusPlus.aspx

Here’s is a cool app for Vista that allows you to tile your open windows on the desktop just like Expose on a Mac.  Your PC must be capable of running Vista Aero to use this app.

http://insentient.net/

A five min clip from the screen savers in ‘03.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4147847319296070400

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201204229&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News

Dial from any phone
1-800-GOOG-411
(1-800-466-4411)  

Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

Using this service, you can:

• search for a local business by name or category.
  You can say “Giovanni’s Pizzeria” or just “pizza”.
• get connected to the business, free of charge.
• get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
  Just say “text message”.
• It’s FREE

http://labs.google.com/goog411/

http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/