Figure 1

Launchy is a really cool program that not only saves you valuable time, effort, and screen real estate, it also looks really cool.  it's design is simply to launch a specified program simply by typing the name of it.

With Launchy, to launch an app, you press the desired keystroke (default -> ALT-SPACE) to launch the main Launchy menu (Figure 1) and simply start typing what you are looking for. as you can see from the image, by just typing the letters "ama" the suggestion to run the Amarok application has come up. Then when you press the enter key the selected application loads and the Launchy app goes back into idle mode.  When it is in idle mode it just hangs out in the background waiting to be launched again.  Out of sight, and saving all that valuable screen real estate that the Windows Start menu takes up!

So now you can hide that Windows bar, with confidence that you don't have to rely on it so heavily!

Launchy is available from: http://www.launchy.net/

Some of the formats that VLC support are:

3GP,[17] ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, Musical Instrument Digital Interface (.mid/.midi),[18] QuickTime, MP4, Ogg, OGM, WAV, MPEG-2 (ES, PS, TS, PVA, MP3), AIFF, Raw audio, Raw DV, MXF, VOB.
Video formats, Cinepak, Dirac, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HuffYUV, Indeo 3,[19] MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, RealVideo 3&4[20], Sorenson (thus enabling direct playback of the modified Sorenson H.263 encoded videos downloaded from YouTube), Theora, VC-1,[21] VP5,[21] VP6,[21] WMV, AAC, AC3, ALAC, AMR,[17] DTS, DV Audio, XM, FLAC, MACE, Mod, MP3, PLS, QDM2/QDMC, RealAudio,[23] Speex, Screamtracker 3/S3M, TTA, Vorbis, WavPack,[24] WMA.

the program also works amazingly well on a netbook, because it is so lightweight and it uses minimal system resources.  The full package is just over 17MB, and is distributed as Open Source software, so you can also download and compile your own copy, if you want.

The FREE Windows version can be downloaded from here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

GSView is a free frontend to the GhostScript application that it's original intention was reading Postscript files, but has evolved GhostScript into a full featured PDF viewer that is incredibly fast. The typical load times for the application ar a second or 2, and even loading a large - graphically rich - file loaded in a third the time Adobe Acrobat Reader took to load. It even beat Foxit Reader, which is another free PDF reader that is designed to be a more lightweight alternative to Adobe.

To install the reader, you must first install the Ghostscript application (http://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/GPL/gs864/gs864w32.exe for MS Windows) and then install the GSView application (http://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/ghostgum/gsv49w32.exe also for MS Windows).

A great (and fast) program to get the best out of your netbook!

Moblin is an exciting new Linux distribution that stands alone due to the fact that it is designed for netbooks, specifically with the atom processor.  it is an extremely easy to use OS (Operating System) and is faster than anything I have ever tried before.  It's visually pleasing with animations and sliding toolbars, but that doesn't change the performance at all.

Moblin is distributed as an .img file, that has to me "byte copied" to a flash drive to use (See http://moblin.org/documentation/test-drive-moblin/using-moblin-live-image for more details).  Then you simply have to plug in the flash drive and choose the option to boot from the flash drive.  Moblin will then boot into it's "Live Mode" which runs completely off the flash drive, with no changes made to your hard drive.  This give you a chance to try it before you actually install it alongside your current Operating System.

The system has all of the main options listed within tabs, which includes access to your calendar, email, web browser, social networks, music, etc.  Anything you would normally use in Windows, just a lot easier (and nicer looking).

It is a free OS and is Open Source software, so that the source code is available to anyone that wants to view it, change it, and compile the system yourself.  People are encouraged to join the community, and if you find a bug or have a question, there is a strong community of people to help you, and get the software fixed, without the mess of a corporate conglomerate's tech support department.

Moblin is available to download from http://moblin.org/downloads.