Good news! Everyone who has already suggested a product -- and anyone who suggests a product between now and April 13th -- is automatically entered to win an AppleTV!

Here is Ed Albro's blog entry announcing the contest, and here are the official contest rules.

We'll announce the winner right here in this forum thread. Keep submitting your product suggestions, and you could be the winner!

If you have any questions, let me know.

Kellie

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Kellie Parker | Online Community Manager | PC World

I have a few that I like:

Gmail- Easy to use, and integrates chat, plus 2GB of storage, good for someone like me who never deletes email, except spam (which it filters really well).

Google Talk- Also easy to use, it works incredibly well for me.

Ubuntu Linux- Fast, easy to use, and PREDICTABLE RELEASE CYCLES! Can Microsoft say that?

Firefox 2.0.0.3- The best browser just got better. Session saving and built-in spell checker make it better than ever.

VLC Media Player- This little media player is fast and can play just about everything- including DVD's, for FREE!

Google Toolbar- Bookmarks, spell checker, AutoFill, and a translator make this a piece of software that I use on a daily basis, and can't function without it.

Craigslist- I look to this site for things I need or at least think I need, and found some pretty cool stuff in the free section.

Nintendo DS Lite- Fun and ground-breaking gaming device that I can't put down.

Palm Treo- I personally don't own one, but I've used one and know people who have them and they all can't live without one.

HP OfficeJet 7410- This is the best, most dependable printer I've ever owned, and has two paper trays, a duplexer for automatic double-sided printing, and built-in wireless networking make it convenient, too.

Google Desktop- Faster and better than Vista's built-in search hands down.

Crap Cleaner (CCleaner)- Gets rid of all that Windows crap that builds up, and even has a registry cleaner.

Wikipedia- Best online encyclopedia with accuracy that matches Brittanica.

Webroot Window Washer- Like CCleaner, only more powerful with more options

Webroot SpySweeper- Fast, strong, and powerful, its saved me many times.

Targus ChillMat- This thing keeps my notebook cool, since Toshiba didn't think about heat dissipation when designing my notebook.

Windows Live OneCare- Controversial,for obvious reasons. Even though the antivirus didn't get good marks, it has a pretty good firewall, backup, and has a nice tune-up feature, which defragments my hard drives, scans for malware, checks if I need to back up my files, and cleans some of the crap off my computer. I'm not too concerned about the crappy antivirus, since I learned the hard way that at least two should be running on your computer.

I'm done my monologue- for now :twisted:

The Wii - brings back that "new" kind of fun you used to have when you 1st started gaming....

Internet Explorer 7. It matches Firefox feature by feature, looks better and more streamlined and has features Firefox doesn't like Quicktabs and a one-click-new-tab button.

And Windows Vista, definitely. It's the greatest OS ever made, it has Windows Aero, 3D animation, Media Centre, DVD Maker, Movie Maker, great games and more.

And the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and Xbox 360 Elite. They're all great.

And the cute little Boku programming enviroment.

They all are technically still beta versions, but each of them has many features that wok fine, and no known "bugs" per se, like those that crash the app. Here they are:

1. Evolution Media Center (http://leffe.myftp.biz/evolutionmc.com/web/)
a free .NET 3.0 based app that is meant to provide a smooth media center interface for all XP and Vista versions. The best part is that the UI is totally new, that is, it is no rip-off/clone of FrontRow/AppleTV/XPMC/VistaMC etc. It has nice sleek animations and is intended to be skinnable and extendable in the future. Kinda shows you what "could-have-been" in XP with .NET 3, that MS didn't do.

2. Explorer Breadcrumbs Toolbar (http://minimalist.com/software/ExplorerBreadcrumbs/)
Nag-free donation-ware for XP, and I say its a beta only 'cause it's supposed to be part of a larger suite that's under development. Otherwise "feature-complete". Vista-like breadcrumbs navigation for XP's Windows Explorer, without losing the good old Address Bar, that goes a step-further, allowing you to go forward on the breadcrumbs (folder) trail in addition to tracing a path back. Only thing that bothers me, is that the "skin" on it is the old Windows Classic that may look a bit odd if you've skinned XP itself.

3. Freelook (http://freelook.org)
The author calls it alpha 12 version, but I found it works fine. It's a free headtracking-mouse controller that works with your webcam. Supposed to be for disabled people who want to use head movements for mouse control, but really shines in FPS games. No more, whirring you mouse around, just "look" in the direction you want, and the game's camera/pov will shift in that direction. There are commercial apps that do this better, but they are CRAZY expensive and require special equipment.

That is all.

I have to go with Parallels Desktop. I bought a new MacBook in August, and I'm taking a C# programming class now. I needed Windows to do the assignments and didn't have XP SP2, which BootCamp requires. With Parallels, I was able to install the XP1 that I had and upgrade. With the updates to Parallels since my install, it's not a bad experience at all, aside from Windows draining the battery about twice as fast.

A lot of people thought "Who is going to want that?" but the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit has been a great accessory to drive iPod and Nike shoe sales. It got me running more. The NikePlus website has also been a success logging over 10 million miles of running by its members.

A program I think that should be on the list is Tuneup Utilities 2007( http://www.tune-up.com/). I don't understand why AVG 7.5 (http://www.grisoft.com) wasn't listed in your anti-spyware or anti-virus, the anti spyware was called ewido. Another Anti-virus program I would add is Nod32 (http://www.eset.com) I think that this is probably the best virus software out there. Almost forgot to post this site ( http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm ) it's for host file to stop spyware and more.