David Malki’s Wondermark is brilliant. Discuss.

(Warning: Contains occasional naughty words and racy themes. But hilarious.)

Sorry for the lack of posting. We’re in the final week of our post-SP1 update to Windows Vista Inside Out. I’ll be able to say more about it next week.

If you own an HP MediaSmart home server, HP wants you to take a survey, and they’ll give you 20 bucks in credit at hpshopping.com for your time. (You must have a serial number to complete the survey, so don’t bother unless you actually own one.)

If you qualify, click here to start.

Uh, that would be me… Logo and headlines clipped and some weird scrolling effects

I’ll have to see if I can figure out where the trouble is in my style sheet.

The beta makes a very good first impression, but it is Beta 1. I have it running on a test system, where I don’t mind restoring a backup in the event of problems.

First look coming up soon.

Update: Fixed the logo, but it’s all still pretty ugly. I’ll have to take a closer look at this stylesheet in about two weeks. Not now.

New at ZDNet:

My 10 favorite Windows programs of all time

In this article and accompanying gallery, I list 10 Windows programs I use every day. Every one adds a feature that makes Windows easier to use or can help make you more productive. Each one comes from a company that has proven its ability to support the product and improve it over time. I’ve been using every program on this list for long enough to recommend it without reservation.

Here’s the list with direct links to review pages, and don’t forget to visit the image gallery, which has a gazillion screenshots.

Process Explorer (Sysinternals/Microsoft) The most amazing diagnostic tool ever, created by Microsoft Distinguished Fellow Mark Russinovich. If you use Task Manager, you should replace it with this free alternative, which does so much more.

RoboForm (Siber Systems) Create strong passwords, save them, and automatically fill them in using Firefox or IE. If you’re frustrated by passwords, this is your answer.

Keyfinder (Magical Jelly Bean Software) If you had to reinstall Windows tomorrow, do you know where your product ID is? If the answer is no, get this tiny free utility, which finds product IDs for dozens of popular programs (including Windows and Office) and lets you print or save the results.

ClipMate Clipboard Extender (ThornSoft Development) When I set up a new PC, this is the first program I install. It’s that good. I save thousands of keystrokes a year thanks to this gem of a utility.

FeedDemon for Windows (NewsGator Technologies) The best damn RSS reader in the Windows world. Period. And it’s now free.

Windows Live Photo Gallery (Microsoft) You’ll have to search for it, but this updated version of the Windows Photo Gallery that debuted in Vista is worth the hunt. If you’ve chosen to steer clear of Vista, no worries: It works in XP too.

Allway Sync (Usov Lab) This powerful tool synchronizes the contents of folders over a network or to external storage and is an ideal complement to most backup programs.

SnagIt (TechSmith) As a technology writer, I use this screen capture program nearly every day. Even after six years, I’m still discovering new tricks it can do.

IE7 Pro If you use IE7, you need this free add-on, which provides ad blocking, tab management, inline search, crash recovery, and all the other features Microsoft left out.

FinePrint (FinePrint Software) Over the years, I can’t even imagine how many trees I’ve spared with the help of this program. If you print more than a few pages a month, you have to try this.

Ian Dixon had me on as his guest for a live edition of the Windows Media Show yesterday. I think it went pretty well and I actually cut my “uh”-per-minute ratio to an acceptable level (I think). You’ll be able to listen to the final version in two or three weeks, with Ian’s excellent editing to make it all flow a little more smoothly.

We talked about Vista’s reputation and whether it’s deserved, and about Service Pack 1, and about the quality of blog-driven tech journalism, and whether Microsoft should build a headless Windows Media Center a la Windows Home Server. We got some good comments from the folks in the chat room as well.

I’ll post a link when it’s ready for listening.

Props to Ryan Smith at AnandTech for an excellent, thorough, detailed, and well-balanced review. A Second Shot: Windows Vista SP1 is worth reading (and re-reading).

The most interesting part to me was the detailed discussion on page 2 of the registry changes required to fix the performance problems you’ll observe if you try to perform file transfers over a network when a multimedia application is running.

If my last radio interview didn’t scare you off, or if you missed it, here’s another chance to hear me jabber.

Ian Dixon is having me on as his guest on The Media Center Show this coming Friday, February 29, at noon PST (8pm GMT). We’ll be talking about Vista SP1, Media Center, and whatever else comes up. The show is live, so stop by Ian’s place and see if you can get your question answered in real time.

Ian’s an excellent interviewer and his show is a must-listen for anyone who’s even remotely (heh) interested in Media Center topics.

If you can’t make the broadcast, leave a question in the comments here or e-mail it to Ian.

I’m looking for a little distributed research help here.

In an upcoming article on product activation, I want to compare the activation approaches taken by direct programs from a variety of vendors. I have a good knowledge of how activation works with Windows Vista and Windows XP and with all recent versions of Microsoft Office.

But what about companies other than Microsoft? Which software vendors require activation before their software will work? (Or before it will continue working after a trial period?) I’ve encountered activation when installing Adobe Acrobat Standard 8.0. I’ve also run into the requirement for activation with a handful of smaller, more obscure programs.

So what’s been your experience? Which programs (other than the ones I’ve mentioned here) require activation? What’s the experience like? Have you had any hassles? Click the Comments link and share…

Update: In the comments, Rick suggests I should define activation. Fair enough. I’m not talking about unlock codes, which basically allow you to type a serial number and then install a program. I’m talking about those that require a unique serial number and an extra step such as connecting to a server to verify that you’re authorized to use that serial number and that it hasn’t been reused.

I’ve been using an ASUS R1F Tablet PC for about six months now and am still quite pleased with its performance and reliability.

I’ve become addicted to its fingerprint reader for logging on to my user account and password-protected websites. But until recently I assumed that the reader hardware was defective.

Despite my practice at perfect my fingerprint swiping technique, it often took three or four tries to get a good read.

And then, a little over a week ago, I discovered an update to the UPEK driver software that powers the fingerprint reader hardware. (According to UPEK’s site, the hardware is used in notebooks from Amoi, ASUS, Gateway IBM/Lenovo, Itronix, MPC, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba.) The driver package works with Windows 2000, Windows XP (32 and 64 bit), Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit), and Windows Server 2003 (32 and 64 bit).

Since February 13, I have consistently been getting successful reads in a single swipe, and on those occasions when I miss the mark, I hit it on the second try. That’s a huge improvement, and it certainly isn’t because my technique suddenly improved.

This experience really does show what a difference a driver can make.

(By the way, I found this driver by following a link from fellow MVP Aaron Tiensivu’s list of Thinkpad T60/T60p/T61/T61p 32-bit Vista drivers. Must reading for Thinkpad fans.)