Leaving aside the problems that emerged in the last few days, Skype remains a solid, easy to use and very popular solution for people that want to have the oportunity to chat with their friends over the Internet without having to pay the fees usually required when using a regular phone line. Since there's no build-in voice recording feature, third party applications allow you to do this, and today I want to tell you a few things about one of them, called MX Skype Recorder.

As you can see above, this program's interface is not brilliant, and it doesn't come for free, either. The last version, labeled 3.5.1, was released earlier this week, so I thought it would be nice to give you a hint, because I guess you didn't heard about it so far. So...what's special about MX Skype Recorder?

According to the (not so great) official site, this program can work in automatic or manual mode, uses Lame Encoder to compress audio data to MP3 files, but can also save WAV PCM files. While conversations can be recorded in single or dual track, and the evil side of this program shows when I tell you about the spy mode (think about a keylogger, it's exactly the same thing, only that this time audio conversation is recorded without the knowledge of a Skype user - be careful with this!).

Other than the above, it's good to know that other VoIP applications are also supported, including Google talk and Yahoo Messenger. At last, you should know that MX Skype Recorder can work with PC-to-PC, PC-to-phone and skypecast conversations.

Supporte operating systems are Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista, and the program only needs 1MB of space for installation, but additional space is required to store recorded data, of course. The trial version can be downloaded from here, but if you want to purchase the program, you should know there are 2 different versions available - the Standard, priced at $14.95, and the Professional Version, sold for $24.95. Details about their features can be found on this page.

We all know Google is the king of Internet search engines. Obviously, some may not agree, and they may be right - I didn't say that Google is the best all-around search engine, I simply said Google is the king, and sometimes a king doesn't have to be the best all-around performer. For now, Google is best thing we have...but it seems its Chinese counterpart, Baidu, started to expand and challenge Google on foreign territory (Baidu is the most used search engine in China already), heating up things a bit...

In the US, things are written in stone: there's Google, then comes Yahoo, then simply "the others". Although some smaller search engines are very good for specific areas of interest, Google is "the king", as I was saying. In Europe, things aren't much different, the only differences being in the "others" area, but we won't talk about that. The burning issue for both Yahoo and Google is Asia, where things don't look so simple...

Let's leave China behind, because things are clear there. Just look at the graphic above, and you'll understand. In Japan, Google also has some problems, since in the last 7 years, the leading search engine was Yahoo, with over 43 million users, while Google only had about 28 million, gaining second place.

According to various reports, it seems Baidu isn't playing a clean game, as long as it was revealed that some users ended up on that site through the help of an IP address redirection from... you got it, Google!

Well, we need to wait and see how things are going to evolve, as long as Baidu Japan's division chief Masuda Jun doesn't give any relevant information when asked:"Following the formal launch of our Japan site, we expect to see even greater user reception to the four different Japanese language services we will offer, including Web search, image search, video search and blog search services.", he said today, in a public statement.

Remeber Vista? That failure not-so-good-as-expected operating system from Microsoft? Well, despite the low customer satisfaction degree, sales don't look that bad, especially since computer sales all over the world exploded, and the OEM market is clearly dominated by Microsoft, so a lot of people end up with a Vista computer, no matter how much they want it. Anyway, according to recent reports, the first service pack gets closer and closer (while the second patch for Leopard is near), and some voices also claim that Vista is "most secure". Interesting, so let's see...

First, let's talk about the "secure" part. According to Microsoft's Steve Wilson, "During Windows XP's first year, updates were released on 26 separate days.", while "Through a combination of the move to a predictable monthly release schedule, and decreased vulnerabilities, Windows Vista had updates released on just nine days in its first year. To the average security professional, this is one of the most relevant metrics: how many times did I have to activate my internal patch management process due to vendor update releases over the course of a year?"

No, Mr. Wilson, I don't think this is true. If you release less patches, that doesn't mean the system is more secure. In fact, Vista manages to be much more annoying than Windows XP, and I don't think that petition was initiated by a bunch of oldies still dreaming about CP/M...

On the other hand, let me throw one "conspiration theory" into the pot - most people using Vista are not professionals, and so those attacking the Windows platform didn't move to this OS yet, simply because breaking into a Vista computer has less chances to deliver interesting results than a Windows XP system. Well, it's just a thought, don't pin me to the wall!

I was just about to forget...the first service pack to Vista! Everyone is expecting it, especially corporate users and gamers that didn't move to Vista yet because what they heard or experienced with the new OS. What do we have for now? It's only just another Beta, without any significant improvements, especially when it comes to the performance issue on low-end PCs.

These being said, the news is...there's really no news, and if you didn't make the downgrade upgrade to Vista, you still have to wait some time until this is really an option. We'll keep you in touch with the evolution of this situation, don't worry!