Malaysians are greatly disadvantaged since we do not have free access to foreign media unless it goes through the censor board first. Freeview satellite tv is unheard of, and all we have is Astro which is a restricted commercial satellite tv service.

The Internet has been responsible to liberate a lot of such constraints which have been imposed on Malaysians all this while, most notable is the easier access to uncensored local and foreign news on the the World Wide Web. But what about TV? We are still restricted as to what we can and cannot watch.

iSoftwareTV is the perfect answer to this problem. Essentially, it is a piece of software which gives you access to over 3000 channels featuring Full DVD Quality Movies, International TV Shows, Music Videos and much more! This amazing piece of software has received acclaim from CNN, MSNBC, CNET and America Online. The best part is that since it is software, it will work wherever you are in the world! All you need is access to an Internet connection.

Your Astro subscription easily sets you back RM 80- RM90 a month on average, and you get to watch reruns of the same shows again and again. If you are in the United States, traditional satellite TV and Cable services can cost easily in excess of $90/month. iSoftwareTV costs only $39.95 ONE TIME. There is no monthly recurring fee to be paid at all. Even if you convert that to Ringgit Malaysia, it comes up to about RM 120 which is what you are paying A MONTH if you subscribe to every channel on Astro (not including Box Office shows).

So the next time you switch on your TV and start flipping channels looking for something worthwhile to watch, consider getting . It is simply liberating!

If you have a fresh installation of Windows XP, you will realize that it won’t play DVD videos, or a host of other audio/video formats on the Internet, including MPEG4 videos encoded with codecs such as DivX, Xvid, H.264 and the like. Even if you do not need to be able to watch these newer MPEG4 video formats, you will at some time need to be able to at least watch a DVD Video.

However, if you were to pop in a DVD into your computer expecting Windows Media Player to play it, you will be in for a surprise, as it will not play your DVD Video if you have not installed a DVD decoder software. This is most likely to happen if you installed the DVD drive into your computer yourself, or if you have newly formatted your computer (since any DVD decoding software which may have originally come with your computer would have been erased).

If you were to perform a search on Google to solve this issue, you may come across several different websites which will point you in different directions for a solution. Most of them lead to commercial software which then allow your computer to play the DVD content. One example is this excerpt from a blog post entitled DVD Playback in Windows XP, hosted on Microsoft’s servers:

If you are unable to find an installed DVD decoder, you can purchase one from the same vendors from which PC manufacturers license theirs. Ravisent, InterVideo, and CyberLink all have DVD Decoder Packs available for purchase and download over the Internet. Windows Media Technologies also lists third-party software vendors who have DVD Decoder Packs available. The cost from each vendor runs about $14.95, unless you want to pay a little more and get a combo-pack which also includes MP3 encoding. I tried products from the three vendors mentioned above, and they all worked great. Their decoder packs installed quickly and easily, and as soon as installation was complete, Windows Media Player immediately started to play the movie after I inserted a DVD.

While some of the software mentioned above are good, the good news is that there is no real need to fork out your hard earned money just to be able to playback your multimedia content. Windows Media Player is an excellent video player and you do not really need to pay for another video player on your computer. All you really need is a proper set of codecs which will help Windows Media Player (or any other video player on your computer for that mattter) understand the format in which your multimedia content was created in.

Personally, I would recommend the XP Codec Pack, or the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack depending on your needs. Essentially, both of these are a set of codecs which have been carefully put together to enable the playback of most audio/video formats. If alll you want to watch is DVD Video or AVIs encoded with DivX or Xvid, then XP Codec Pack would suffice. If you want to be sure of being able to watch practically any audio/video content available today, regardless of what codec it was encoded with, you will want to go for the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.

Both of these codec packs also include Windows Player Classic, which allows you to access the various functions included with the codecs, allowing finer control over how the audio and video content is decoded, thereby tremendously improving your viewing experience. So if you find that you are unable to play a certain format of video or audio on your computer, be it DVD content, or a movie you downloaded from the Internet, be sure to install one of the codec packs mentioned above, and you should be well on your way to enjoying your multimedia content.

Someone requested me to recommend a laptop for casual computing (surfing, word processing, etc), and I immediately fired up the browser and navigated to Dell, my favorite laptop manufacturer. When I checked out the laptop deals on offer in conjunction with the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration, I was amazed!

One offer I found irresistable was the Dell Vostro 1400 Notebook, configured with the following specifications:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5270 (1.4GHz, 2MB Cache, 800 MHz FSB)
• Windows XP Home Edition
• 14.1″ Widescreen WXGA Display (1280×800)
• 2GB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM
• 80GB SATA HDD
• 8X DVD+/-RW Combo Drive (Dual Layer)
• Intel Graphics Accelerator X3100
• Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Dual Band 802.11a/g 54Mbps Wireless Mini Card
• 1 Year NBD Warranty
• 6-cell 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery
• Dell Lightweight Nylon Case
• Microsoft Works 8.5

Belive it or not, a brand new Dell Vostro 1400 with the above specifications can be yours for only RM 2317.00. As with any Dell system, you are free to tweak the specifications to your preference and the new price will be calculated automatically on-the-fly. But hurry! This unbelievable offer is only available until 01/02/2008.

To check out this and other Dell laptop offers, visit : http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/notebooks_better?c=my&cs=mybsd1&l=en&s=bsd&~ck=ticker&~lt=popup

If you are like me, each time you format a PC and reinstall Windows on it, there seems to be a fixed set of programs which are absolutely necessary to be installed next. I thought it could be useful for me to document these programs in this post for the benefit of all. If you have other useful programs which you simply must install after having performed a clean install of Windows, please feel free to drop a comment.

The very first thing would be to install the various drivers, including the display, network, sound and other device drivers. If you are having a standard desktop PC built in recent times, you will realize that most of the components within your CPU are built-in to your motherboard. In this case, all you will need to look for will be the motherboard setup CD which will contain the drivers you need.

Next would be to install a productivity suite, such as Microsoft Office, Lotus SmartSuite or even an Open-Source suite, such as Open Office. This will provide you with basic functionality to perform tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet-related work and some record keeping. Many versions of today’s productivity suites come with a host of other applications to complement these basic tasks, which may include desktop publishing applications, diagramming applications and web development tools.

Perhaps the two most important programs no one can do without on a PC today is an anti-virus program as well as anti-spyware program. Personally, I use AVG Free Edition, which suits my needs perfectly. It is absolutely free, updated regularly and does not hog my computer’s resources when it runs. Granted, it may miss a virus now and then compared to other more popular anti-virus programs in the market, but it is usually able to catch up within a couple of definition updates.

As for anti-spyware, I would highly recommend using Spybot Search and Destroy, in combination with Lavasoft’s AdAware Free Edition. When used together, I have found that these programs are able to detect and clean practically any kind of spyware, malware or trojan ever created. The effectiveness of these two programs even rivals some of the commercial anti-virus programs. However, for these programs to be effective, you will need to regularly update the definitions and perform a full system scan at least once a week, especially if you actively surf the Internet.

There are other software which I have found to be very useful and I routinely install them after installation of Windows. Adobe Reader is an absolute necessity that you cannot do without nowadays. It lets you view documents in PDF format, which has become the ubiquitous format for downloading documents on the Web such as product manuals, research papers,and a wide variety of other kinds of documents. Another essential software is a file compression and decompression utility. Personally, I favor WinZip, despite Windows’ built-in support for compressed files and folders. There are other compression formats as well, including TAR, RAR and GZIP, but WinZip handles most compression formats extremely well and I have personally developed a preference for it.

If you have a DVD or CD burner installed in your desktop or laptop, I would personally recommend Nero which comes with a whole range of other useful applications such as Nero Wave Editor and Nero Cover Designer within the Enterprise Edition. Many DVD and CD burners also come pre-bundled with a cut-down version of Nero, called Nero XPress which is very easy to use and allows users to burn files and make copies of CDs or DVDs easily.

Finally, another piece of software which I recommend you to get is XP Codec Pack. Essentially it is one of the most complete codec packs on the Internet which will let you view audio and video files encoded with practically any codec in the market. This is especially useful if you do not have a DVD decoder installed on your computer, since Windows XP does not come with a DVD decoder. This is a much better alternative than having to fork out money unncessarily for a standalone DVD player such as WinDVD or PowerDVD when in fact, all you need is a simple codec, and Windows Media Player or any other media player you use will be able to play your audio and video content perfectly.

So that wraps up this post and I hope that you found the information I shared here useful. If there is any other software which you find useful and are sure to install whenever you set up a fresh installation of Windows, feel free to share with all of us.