Software Reviews

Windows 8
Some info for the next Windows version for all computers from tablets to servers.

What non-Windows alternatives to the Metro interface?
Seven, the last Windows as we know it.
Comparing Seven to the user interface of several other systems.
Projects of Microsoft for the future
From the more or less secret labs of Microsoft, innovative hardware with software to improve the experience in the future.
Sysinternals, free utilities for Windows
Microsoft provides now an archive holding a lot of utilities for getting infos and tweaking Windows.

What genealogy software to use?
Overview of online services and software for editing and creating family tree.
Skywriter, online code editor. From Mozilla.
Oracle vs. PostgreSQL
Why to buy an expensive DBMS when a free alternative exists?
Google Building Maker
An online modeling tool for Earth compatible with Sketchup. Customers can add buildings on the map with their signature.
Firefox extensions
For Web application design and debuggin, Firefox may be turned into a development tool. The list includes tool for design, checking for errors or compatibility, and SEO with infos about the popularity of a website.

Tools, lists, comparisons

Comparison of anti-virus software.
Comparing free and paid solutions.
Utilities for the desktop or the web.
Free alternative to commercial software.
List of free archivers
Comparison of free tool to build archive and compress files, ZIP compatible.
HTML editors
Various tool for writing HTML pages. Star Office for document to put online, solutions to write a blog offline with a good editor.
List of tools for video
The best free software to display and edit videos, extract images, convert the format, compress, copy a movie to hard disk.

Google Commerce Search
For the webmaster, a promoting tool, for the user, a replacement for price comparison websites.
Moderator
Online service offered by Google that allows users to vote for questions. You can browse topics and know what's most interesting to people. Well informed webmasters have immediately understood the value of the service.
Should us move to Google App Engine?
Google provide a free hosting to Web applications, but webmasters have to change their habits.

Empire and anarchy
Against a powerful organisation with an overall vision and a coherent strategy, a plethora of incompatible open source solutions.
The magic slate of the MIT.

These software are abandoned of have uncertain future.

Silverlight
Web programmers need for standards. After XMLHttpRequest (first available in 2000 on Internet Explorer 5) and Ajax (popularized in 2005), XAML could be the next step, but it was missing a runtime to run on any computer. Silverlight is this tool that allows to run RIA on several browsers and operating systems. Moonlight is a port for Linux.
Volta
Microsoft once released Volta, a complete tool with runtime and library intended to provide an alternative to Google Web Toolkit. The link to the project is now broken.
Sidewiki
Now abandonned, was a tool offered by Google, to add comment on web pages, it creates a new source of information for users.
The Google pack
A lot of tools for webmasters. Star Office is now dropped but it may be replaced by Open Office.
The popfly site from Microsoft has been closed.

See also...

All Google sites. List of sites and services of Google and list of Google's blogs.