Tired of your start menu moving icons around every time you install or remove new software? Want a more polished look for your start menu? Want a more command/keyboard friendly start menu? Well, I’m happy to say that the Vista Start Menu has provided these features and more. Now, I for one hate vista, so don’t be confused, this program works on Windows NT, 2000, 2003, XP, and Vista.
What exactly does it do?
This program will order all your programs in the start menu, and keep them there. They will not move around. I always found this annoying, because I would go to look for a program, and I wouldn’t be able to find it right away, because the order changed.
This program also gives you a command and search option right on the start menu. The search function will try and find the program if you input it into the box. This is very helpful, I have been down a road where I couldn’t find a program I wanted to launch! 
The start menu has also been made more friendly to using a keyboard 100% and not having to touch the mouse. For instance, I can hit the windows key and be presented with the programs menu. There are then different areas in the program list assigned letters. Once I hit that letter, some numbers for each program in that area show up. Then I can hit the number, and that program is selected. Then I can launch the program. This is very cool. In fact, I like this feature the most.
There are also tabs in place, so you can move to the quick start menu easily, and put in programs you use often.
New programs are highlighted, for quick reference. This is very helpful, because I would look around for a newly installed program for ages sometimes. If too many programs take up the screen, then they are scrolled through. I’ve never had this happen to me, but I suppose if it got to that point it would be useful.
I also really liked being able to re-size the menu and move it around wherever I wanted.
There’s a few different skins to choose from, such as Vista start menu classic, Windows classic, and Windows XP. Depending on what skin you’re using in windows, one of these skins will obviously blend better.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed using this software, I think everyone who runs windows should give it a shot. It really does make things easier to manage. It is basically the way the start menu *should* have been setup to begin with. I did not test the Pro version, but from their site it has some extended features like quick launch, quick uninstall, and menu customization. A lot of the complaints seem to be that you can’t customize the free version. However, the free version seems to have most of the features you would really want. In case you’re wondering, there was no spyware/adware attached to this program, and I’m actually surprised about that. It is very easy to uninstall if you don’t want it anymore, it doesn’t change any system settings.
You can check it out for yourself here: http://www.vistastartmenu.com/
Well, I’m a long time ZoneAlarm user. I just recently pulled a switch to the comodo security suite. Instantly, I’m greeted with dialogs just like I would expect from ZoneAlarm. However, Comodo takes it a step further. It seems to monitor every little thing a program does, from modifying any little registry value in windows, to internet access attempts. Why didn’t I try out Comodo sooner? Well, I was under the impression that ZoneAlarm was awesome, and there couldn’t be something better. Well, I was wrong, dead wrong in fact. I see that comodo does virus scans, updates automatically, secures internet, and monitors programs very closely. Many say that Comodo is less resource heavy as well.
Irssi is a very interesting IRC client. It runs completely through the command prompt. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX. On windows, you can install it through the executable. It will run through DOS/Putty command lines. On Linux, you can either compile it or install from a binary, through apt-get or something similar. It runs through Bash, obviously.
