Melida

Looking for a Garmin Forerunner? I outline each of the 5 choices and some of their benefits and weaknesses. These are the main features of the models, but by no means do I cover every feature!!

Rechargeable? The Garmin Forerunner 101 is the only one that is not rechargeable, it uses 2 AAA batteries. All others have a rechargeable lithium ion battery that lasts between 10-15 hours depending on usage.

Waterproof? All the Forerunner units have a IEC 60529 IPX7 rating, which means the GPS case can withstand accidental immersion in one meter of water for up to 30 minutes. Notice it says ACCIDENTAL....do not use these devices for the swimming leg in triathlons, they will not hold up for long!! Running in the rain will not cause issues that I have found, they are not immersed.

Computer downloadable logs? Again, the 101 is the only device which does not have a computer interface, so the information that is kept must be deleted at some point. All the devices are capable of holding approximately 5000 laps, which equates to around 2 years of data.

Size & Weight? The 101, 201, & 301 are virtually identical in size and weight. The 101 is slightly larger at 3.3"W x 1.7"H x .9"D compared to the 201 & 301 at 3.3"W x 1.7"H x .7"D. Believe it or not these are extremely lightweight. The 101 weighs in at 2.6 ounces with batteries, the 201 and 301 both weigh in at 2.75 ounces. The 205 and 305 have a different design which looks more like a watch. They both have the same measurements at: 2.1"W x 2.7"H x .7"D and 2.7 ounces in weight. I have used both designs and they are very comfortable and lightweight. My opinion....there is not enough difference in weight or designs to make a decision from.

GPS Signal Strength The Forerunner 101, 201, and 301 all have the same antenna and the 205 and 305 share a antenna design. Between the 2 groups, the 205 and 305 have the stronger signal strength with an improved antenna design which points at the sky while running. I have noticed the 101, 201, and 301 all will occasionally lose signal while running under dense tree cover or around large buildings. The 205 and 305 don't seem to have this behavior.

Heart Rate Monitor: Only the Forerunner 301 and 305 have a heart rate monitor option. This allows you to display and track your heart rate and configure audible alarms if your heart rate goes above or below certain thresholds.

Cool things: All 5 devices have AutoLap, AutoPause, Virtual Partner, Pace Alerts, Time or Distance Alerts, and Interval training options. AutoLap creates a lap for you at an interval you define (1 mile, 1 minute, 30 minutes, etc...). Auto pause will pause the timer if your pace falls below a threshold you specify. This is a nice feature if you have to cross a lot of streets and are waiting a lot. The Virtual Partner feature is for those of us competitive types who have to have the sense you are beating something!! You set up a predefined time/pace and it shows this 2 little people on the screen, one is you, one is the computer. It then tells you who is ahead of who and by how much! Talk about motivation....can't let a stinking computer beat you!!!

Specific features for the Forerunner 301 and 305: As already mentioned, the 301 and 305 have a heart rate monitor capabilities. They also have the ability to have multi-sport profiles (biking, running, one other sport) and advanced workout features. The advanced workout features allow you to set up workouts with specific durations and targets (speed or heart rate) so you can follow them. Things like 4 1 mile intervals at a 8:30 pace with a 1 minute rest period between intervals. It then beeps to alert you on your intervals.

Do they tell time? Believe it or not, this is one of the most asked questions and yes, you can configure one of the screens with many different pieces of data. Time of Day is one of them.

Foreign Language and Units of measure? All units allow to change the language on the console and the unit of measure to meters if so desired. The manuals only come in English however.

The Forerunner 305 also has an optional GSC 10 speed cadence sensor you can purchase for bicycling.

All 5 of the Forerunners are extremely valuable in your training and you can't go wrong no matter which one you choose.

More GPS information and resources can be found at 4Runner Sports.

If you would like to enhance your leadership and decision making skills, and would like to become more competitive in todays job market; a business school may be an ideal educational path for you to pursue. Providing educational programs that lead to Bachelor's Degrees of Science in Business Administration (BS) and/or Master's Degrees in Business Administration (MBA); business schools are comprised of colleges and universities that offer business administration and business management coursework.

Business schools offer an all inclusive education geared toward several leading industries including communications; Education; Financial Services; Government; Health and Life Sciences; Manufacturing and Retail.

Relevant to commercial, industrial and/or non-profit enterprises, essential business school programs instruct a curriculum that incorporates in-depth lessons regarding Finance; Human Resource Management; Office Management; Information Technology; Marketing and Public Relations. Depending on the precise industry in which business school students enroll, more specific classes may center on analysis and reporting; data management; customer retention; regulatory compliance; service level management; credit and operational risk; process management; procurement; and many other specialized topics of study.

Business school students who desire to attain a Masters degree will have to complete a comprehensive course of study including focused areas of Business Intelligence; Customer Relationship Management; E-business; Finance; General Management; Global Business; Health Services; Insurance; Non-Profit Management; Personnel Management; Resource Management; Retailing; Risk Management; and Supply Chain Management.

Because the professional sector demands knowledgeable and educated business school graduates, successful candidates will possess an advanced degree from an accredited college or university to go onto attaining exciting careers that are both challenging and rewarding.

To learn more about Business Schools, we invite you to visit our site for futher information and resources.

DISCLAIMER: Above is a GENERAL OVERVIEW and may or may not reflect specific practices, courses and/or services associated with ANY ONE particular school(s) that is or is not advertised on SchoolsGalore.com.

Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved by SchoolsGalore.com, in association with Media Positive Communications, Inc.

Notice: Publishers are free to use this article on an ezine or website, provided the article is reprinted in its entirety, including copyright and disclaimer, and ALL links remain intact and active.

C. Bailey-Lloyd is a staff writer for Media Positive Communications, Inc. in association with SchoolsGalore.com. Visit our Traditional School Directory and find Colleges, Universities, Vocational Schools, and Online Schools at SchoolsGalore.com, your educational resource to locate schools.

In the last 20 years, Americans have increased their consumption of foods, such as fruits, vegetables and grains that have been linked to prevention of several diseases, including heart disease, according to a recent study.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota which examined the diets of 5,000 men and 6,000 women to determine whether they were eating according to American Heart Association (AHA) dietary guidelines. The results which were published in this months issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association revealed that during the past 20 years participants improved their diets by eating more fruits, vegetables, total grains and whole grains. They also consumed less saturated fat, trans fat, total fat, cholesterol, and alcohol.

However, the researchers found that participants were consuming more calories than they burn, which usually leads to weight gain.

The data which was collected from people 25 to 74 years old who took part in the Minnesota Heart Survey, revealed overall improvement in following the recommendations developed to reduce heart disease risk between 1980 1982 and 2000-2002. Improvements related to the amount of fats in peoples diets reached a plateau during 1995 1997. However, there was a slight increase in consumption of saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol between 1995 1997 and 2000 2002.

The study showed that improvements in whole grain consumption also appear to have leveled off between the survey periods despite more evidence emphasizing the health benefits of whole grain.

The findings suggest that efforts to educate Americans about the benefits of diet for the prevention of heart disease may be yielding results. The researchers also indicated that their findings could provide insight into trends in overall consumption habits in relation to national dietary guidance for prevention of major chronic diseases, because of a nearly complete overlap between AHA guidelines and the governments guidelines.

In comparing the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 with the AHA dietary guidelines, only a few differences are apparent. Most notably, Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 includes recommendations related to added sugars and potassium that are not included or explicitly stated in the AHA dietary guidelines, wrote the researchers.

It is encouraging to see the increase in consumer awareness and adoption of dietary guidelines. It is to be expected that as more research over a longer time period becomes available, more benefits will be discovered, and greater acceptance by consumers will follow.

Syble James is President of Alpha Health Source, online at http://www.AlphaHealthSource.net, where visitors can find supplements, weight-loss programs, body care, organic and natural foods and beverages, and request consultations. Ms. James also researches, writes and consults on VMS, weight loss, health clubs, nutraceuticals, foods, beverages and MLM (supplements and body care) within the investment and fitness industry sectors. She can be reached at Syble.James@AlphaHealthSource.net or 1-800-899-0799.

I'm sure I can sign all of you up for some healthy eyes, and I am sure that none of you will mind. Your eyes are one thing that you dont want to be messing around with. Where would you be without them? Well, you wouldnt know. So to put your name down for good eyes, you first need to find an Optometrist. These people aren't too hard to locate, as there are eye clinics all over the globe.

An Optometrist can, of course, be male or female, and they are responsible for keeping your eyesight in good shape. They are there to examine and diagnose your eyes, as well as give sufficient treatment to correct poor eyesight. This treatment isn't a bottle of "good-eye" pills, or a needle full of eyesight, it is vision correction throught the use of lenses and other optical aids. Glasses and/or contact lenses are the norm for perscriptions by doctors in the field of optometry.

Now I know there are a few readers out there who are thinking "These eyes are mine! I'm not trusting them to some 'doctor' who can harass me with medical jargon" Luckily, I have your solution... Learn it yourself! No, I'm not saying that I have just found the lost book "Optometrist Medical Jargon for Dummies", there will be some work required. If persuing a carrer in eyesight suits yours interest, there is many institutions to study it. In Canada you can learn about eyes at the University of Montreal (Quebec), or the University of Waterloo (Ontario). In the United States you many more options such as the University of California (Berkeley), the University of Houston (Texas), or the Michigan College of Optometry at Ferris State University.

The field of Optometry is massive, and one can get involved easily. make sure you make a quick visit every so often to make sure your eyes are holding up, and you should be good to go!

Feel free to reprint this article as long as you keep the article, this caption and author biography in tact with all hyperlinks.

Tyler Brooker is the owner and operator of Find Optometrist - http://www.find-optometrist.com, which is the best site on the internet for all Optometrist related information.

I spent the first few years of my son's life reading a lot of books about parenting and quite a few about homeschooling. I remember thinking something along the lines of "it's great that people can do that with their children, but I don't know if I could." Especially since my son was an only child, I didn't feel that family, friends, and acquaintenances would be supportive of him spending so much time with only me. But I loved sharing books with him and teaching him new things, playing imaginative games and making up novel ways to learn. Always the dutiful mom wanting to do the right thing, however, I visited preschools, found a great Montessori school, and enrolled him. That worked fine and still left us more than enough time to learn together.

Fast forward a few years, though, and we found ourselves living in a different state, in a county with an overcrowded school system, with middle school rapidly approaching. I was already disappointed in the elementary school he was getting ready to leave, because despite his achievements and fine grades there, I saw gaps and deficiences in his learning that I could not easily help him repair with the very few hours left over to us at the end of each's day's classes and activities, especially when we both were tired. He was doing advanced grade mathematics and yet needed to use his fingers if I asked him to do a quick calculation at the supermarket. When he wrote anything longer than a phrase, he committed multiple spelling errors. And while he had hours of "creative" homework, his foundation in basic skills seemed shaky. What was really frightening to me is that his academic weaknesses seemed to grow after he had just spent two years in "gifted" classes and now he was scheduled for all six of his middle school classes to be "gifted" classes.

The middle school turned out to be even more overcrowded than the elementary school. Homework began to take up to five hours each evening, depriving my son of time for reading books of his own choice and threatening to leave him no time to attend his beloved weekly theatre group. It just didn't seem right, especially since he seemed to be learning more from the books he read on his own and was gaining incredible poise and speaking ability from participating in the theatre group. Seven weeks into middle school, after I had suggested it several times, he came home from school one day and basically said, "I don't want to go back there; I'll try your idea to homeschool".

We agreed to homeschool as a one-year experiment. I will admit the first weeks were rough on both of us. I lay awake at night wondering if I was ruining his life. He, on the other hand, was in the process of "deschooling", though at the time I had never heard the term and wondered why he didn't want to get off the couch and do all the fun learning things I had planned. He had seemed depressed in the middle school and now he still seemed depressed. But within three or four weeks, we found a homeschool support group that met weekly at a local park. I was able to talk to parents with experience in homeschooling, and he was able to see there were other kids like him and that he had a place to make new friends. A few weeks later, he told me he did not ever want to go back to that middle school, so that we would do this through eighth grade. Six months later, he took a homeschool coop class in algebra and met homeschooled high-schoolers. Then, he went a step beyond as far as I'd ever thought about, announcing he also wanted to homeschool high school.

So here we are today, on the threshold of eleventh grade. It's been an incredible journey and sometimes I am as amazed as anyone that it has worked fine. After the first year, it got much, much easier. We learned about one another's expectations, made compromises, and, in time, he became the self-motivated learner he had been as a pre-schooler all over again. While I did teach during those middle school years, I find for high school I am more the guidance counselor, the curriculum consultant, and the recordkeeper.

I'm writing this for all parents who were like me, daydreaming about homeschooling but wondering if they could really do it. I remember once during the summer after my son's fourth grade year thinking that he was one-third of the way to the end of high school and that there was SO much I wanted to tell him, teach him, share with him, and pass onto him in the eight years that were left, but that with school and social activities it seemed there would never be enough time. Well, let me tell you, without "real school", I've been able to do all that telling, teaching, and sharing in just the last five years....all of it. That feeling of not enough time has gone, replaced with the knowing that whatever the future brings, I've given him the experiences, the knowledge, and the foundation I wanted him to have. Seize the day!

Linda Popolano is a homeschooling mom and an Independent Consultant for BRIGHT MINDS/The Critical Thinking Company at Home. Please visit her website at http://www.inspirethinking.com if you'd like to learn more about BRIGHT MINDS home workshops and the BRIGHT MINDS home business opportunity.

The prevailing winds in the summer months are from the west. It will blow from midday well into the evening. It may reach force 6 in July and August. In the spring and autumn winds will come from the east or west dependent on conditions in the adjacent Aegean or Ionian. The gulf of Patras is prone to thunderstorms in spring and autumn with attendant waterspouts. There is little problem with gusts of high land, as the mountains tend to act like a funnel. The exception is in the vicinity of Corinth where there are some violent gusts and care is needed.

Killini is on the Peloponnisos at the western end of the gulf of Patras. Yacht can go bow or stern to the western part of the mole avoiding the underwater ballasting that extends out in places. The bottom is mud and provides good holding. Water on the quay and fuel and most provisions can be found in the village. There are several waterfront tavernas. In Venetian times the port sat on the trade route around the Peloponnisos and was a busy place. The restored fort, built in 1220, is worth a visit for the superb views.

Mesolongion is on mainland Greece. Yachts sail through a dredged canal some 2 miles long to reach the harbour. Berth bow or stern or go alongside the northern quay. Alternatively anchor in the west of the harbour. The bottom is mud and provides good holding. Mesolongion provides excellent shelter from all winds. Water is available on the quay and the hotel in the SE of the harbour has showers. This is where Byron died but there is little to mark his passing save a single statue and a small museum.

Patras is on the Peloponnisos. Care is needed on entry with winds from the west creating a confused sea of the breakwater. Also watch out for large ferries entering and leaving the harbour. Yachts should go bow or stern to or alongside the northern side of the central mole. There is good holding in mud. Water is available on the quay and fuel can be delivered. Alternatively there is a small marina a little further north that it is sometimes possible to find a berth in. All provisions can be obtained and there are good tavernas, some of them offering fresh fish. Patras is the largest city on the Peloponnisos and the third largest in Greece. It is a busy place with a slightly grubby feel to it. This is partly offset by its vibrant atmosphere. The region provides the excellent Demestica wine and a visit to the Achaia-Klaus factory that produces it is worthwhile.

Navpaktos lies on mainland Greece and is the first harbour in the Gulf of Corinth. It dates from medieval times and is very well preserved. But it is tiny and unsuitable for large yachts, once inside there is very little room for manoeuvre and the yacht should be prepared prior to entry. Yachts should go bow or stern to the southern quay or the western quay near to the fuel berth or anywhere there is room, in July and August yachts may not be able to get in here. Water and fuel are available on the quay. All provisions can be obtained and there are plenty of tavernas to choose from. The harbour is lined with plain trees and sits beneath a Venetian fort. This should be up near the top of the must visit lists. The only drawback is the noise levels whether from the traffic during the day or the disco music coming from the bars until the early hours of the morning.

Nisos Trizonia is a small island just of mainland Greece. Yachts can anchor in the bay where there is good holding in mud and weed once through the weed. Alternatively yachts can use the marina in the north of the bay. Water and most provisions can be found in the village and the local tavernas serve food of a good quality. In addition Lizzies offers showers, a laundry service and a book swap library. The surroundings are attractive with the cultivated land given over to olives and vines.

Galaxidhi is on mainland Greece. Care is need on the approach of the reefs on the islands of Apsifia and Yeoryios and the one just to the east of the entrance to the harbour, a stone beacon marks the latter. Yachts can go bow or stern to taking care to avoid the underwater ballasting that protrudes in places. There is water on the quay and fuel can be delivered. Most provisions can be obtained and there is a good choice of tavernas around the waterfront and in the town. Another attractive setting opposite the pine covered slopes. Galaxidhi has not been developed to the extent of some other locations and still has a tranquil feel. This is a good place to visit ancient Delphi from.

Itea is also on the mainland. Yachts can go bow or stern to where convenient with laid moorings. The harbour provides good all round shelter. Water and electricity are available on the pontoons. Fuel can be delivered. All provisions can be obtained and there are plenty of tavernas to be found both on the waterfront and in the surrounding back street. Whilst the waterfront is pleasant the village has little to recommend it. Although it is a good spot for a visit to Delphi.

Kiato is on the Peloponnisos. Yachts can go bow or stern to the mole but the depths at the end are 15m and it is better to go alongside. Water is available close to the quay and fuel can be delivered from the town. All provisions can be obtained and there are several tavernas on the waterfront. There are good beaches nearby and the surrounding countryside is attractive with citrus trees and vines.

Corinth lies at the entrance to the canal of the same name. Care is needed with strong winds from the NE when severe gusts can be expected. Westerlies produce a swell but once inside the mole things calm down. Yachts should go to the yacht harbour and go bow or stern to. The bottom is mud and provides good holding. There is good all round shelter within the yacht harbour. Water is available close by and fuel can be delivered. All provisions can be obtained and there is a good choice of tavernas in the town. The city is modern and busy and has little to recommend it but a visit to the ruins of the old city on the plain is recommended.

Finally the canal itself: It is 3.2 miles long and is one of the most expensive waterways in the world. The construction was originally undertaken by a French company but completed by the Greeks in 1893. Using the canal a yacht can cut over 100 miles of the distance between Athens, in the Aegean and the Ionian Sea to the west.

Ken Jones runs a Sailing Site. More info on Yacht Charter here Other Marine Services in Greece here.

If you're looking a gift for that hard to please teenager, one word comes to mind: cool! When you're a teen, its all about what's in and what's out. You remember the teenage fads? Do leg warmers, Atari and boom boxes ring a bell? It's hard to believe that these are fads gone by. So its important to do a little research to find out what really qualifies as being "cool", before actually purchasing a gift for a teenager. If you're at a loss, here are some really cool gift ideas:

Money: Okay, it may not be cool, but it can certainly buy cool! There's not a teenager on the planet that would turn away the gift of money. Go ahead and throw a few bucks into a huge box. They'll have a great laugh when they discover that its money, not a big screen TV, hidden inside.

Team Jersey: Suitable for a teenage boy or a teenage girl, a team jersey is a great way to buy them some team memorabilia and keep them looking cool. Find out what their favorite teams are and visit your local sporting goods store. Or go online. Team Web sites usually have a link to where you can buy their gear directly.

Moon Chair: Have them relaxing in style with an oversized moon chair. Also called Papapons, these unique circular shaped chairs are extremely durable and can be used indoors or out. They'll love lounging in one while listening to tunes on their iPod or MP3 player - which also happen to be very cool gift ideas!

Music Store Gift Certificate: It's a well known fact, teens love music! Hip hop, rock, alternative, reggae - they listen to just about everything. So, why not give that special teen the gift of music? Pick them up a gift certificate to their favorite local music store. Ask their parents where they shop for their CDs. Or you can buy them a gift card to an online music store like iTunes, Napster or Real.

Leather CD Case: The average teen owns about ten music CDs, which are usually scattered about their car, room or the rest of the house. Help them get organized with a leather CD case. You can find these virtually anywhere - from Wal-Mart to Wilson's Leather.

Gift Basket: Teens are not the typical recipient of gift baskets, that's why giving them one is so much fun! Their response to opening one of these bundles of goodies is shock, awe and absolute excitement. Teens love junk food, so you're better off opting for a snack, candy or cookie basket.

2005, Kathy Burns-Millyard. Visit The Home Gift Shopper at http://www.homegiftshopper.com for more teen gift ideas.

Just lately it seems to be the fashion amongst writers on the internet to compare and criticise operating systems. While one user talks up the merits of Ubuntu Linux versus Windows Vista on her blog, another is quick to criticise Ubuntus lack of user friendly features and available software. In this article I am here to sing the praises of the old dog Windows XP. Once the all singing all dancing multimedia darling, XP is now the older brother of the much younger and trendier Windows Vista. While Vista can be the life and soul of the party, it is still very much a problem child for many users who are frustrated with incompatibilities, poor driver support and degraded performance in multimedia applications and games. If, like me, your Vista experience wasn't all you hoped it would be, read on as we take another look at Windows XP and find that you really can teach an old dog some new tricks.

Security

One of the biggest shocks long time Windows users had to face when upgrading to Vista was the new security measures, specifically User Account Controls. Microsoft's answer to the problem of rampant malware on Windows machines was a barrage of security checks which can quickly become daunting. While emulating this feature might seem like a bad idea, UAC is a partial solution to a very sticky problem and the alternative, allowing malware to continue to spread unhindered, is not really an option. Although you can't have Vista style user account control under XP, there are a number of alternatives. An aggressive firewall product such as Outpost firewall not only monitors internet traffic but also alerts you when programs misbehave or perform potentially dangerous operations. Outpost costs $39.95 per year and includes a regularly updated spyware scanner.

Sudown is similar to UAC and allows you to temporarily elevate the privileges on a limited account to that of an administrator account in order to run programs such as installers. Sudown is less intrusive than UAC but arguably less secure and less complete (you may find that you still have to log into the administrators account under some conditions). Sudown is a free utility and is available from sourceforge.

Windows Explorer

Windows explorer featured several significant upgrades in Vista. Handling of photographs and multimedia files was improved and search was fully integrated. Breadcrumbs were introduced, this is a somewhat bizarre name Microsoft gave to their new windows explorer extension that allows for convenient browsing between directories and subdirectories.

While you cannot reproduce the Windows Vista explorer completely, you can actually go one better. Directory Opus is the most powerful file manager/explorer on the planet and works extremely well with Windows XP. If a little intimidating at first, most users will quickly learn to appreciate the power and flexibility this utility offers. Surpassing Vistas new Windows Explorer in almost every department and with powerful photo/multimedia features, Directory Opus really is worth the learning curve and there are many comprehensive tutorials available on the internet to help ease new users in. Directory Opus costs around $70 per licence. If you want to learn more about this superb utility then start here.

Search

Windows Vistas integrated desktop search is one of my favourite new features in the operating system. Here, XP lags a little behind its younger sibling but it isnt an entirely lost cause. Many users do not realise, but Microsoft Desktop Search is also available for free for Windows XP. While it lacks the slick integration with Windows Explorer, it is still a powerful tool. You can download Desktop Search for XP here.

Looking to really get organised? Desktop search is good, but many of us have piles of CD-R or DVD-R disks kicking around our workplaces. Wouldn't it be great if there was something that could neatly catalogue all those files too? Well, there is. The aptly named WhereIsIt? is able to neatly organise and catalogue not only files on your hard disk but files stashed away on removable disks too. WhereIsIt? Is shareware, with the full version costing $39.95 per licence. Enter WhereIsIt into Google to find out more.

Look and Feel

For those systems able to run it, the new Aero interface in Windows Vista is both fast and beautiful. By comparison, the blues and creams of Windows XP look distinctly last generation. Of course, beauty is only skin deep and what really matters is functionality. That said, a little more eye candy obviously appeals to a lot of people, since numerous web-sites and utilities have sprung up for Windows XP with the sole aim of making the operating system look better. The pinnacle of these utilities is the Object Desktop suite from Stardock. With a few clicks you can instantly transform your XP desktops look and feel into any of hundreds of visual styles available for download from Stardocks website. Want Aero-like special effects on Windows XP? Object Desktop Window FX can do them and you can even customise exactly which visual effects to use. Want two start menus? No problem, with Objectbar you can do that too. Want Windows Dreamscene animated wallpapers? Well sorry, you are out of luck this time. The price for all this desktop pimping? $49.95. To find out more, or download a trial version, enter object desktop into Google. All this talk of desktop enhancements brings us nicely on to:-

Sidebar and Widgets

Windows Vista comes with its own sidebar with detachable widgets, but sidebars and widgets are old news in Windows (and indeed in most other modern operating systems too). My favourite XP sidebar is the somewhat unoriginally named Desktop Sidebar. This sidebar is highly configurable, uncluttered and includes the best RSS news reader/ticker out of all the sidebars and widgets I have ever tried. In fact I even run Desktop Sidebar in preference to Vistas own sidebar on my Windows Vista installation. Google search for desktop sidebar to find out more.

If widgets are you thing then there are currently several competing standards. The Open Widget Engine is gaining momentum slowly, with the aim of one day uniting the efforts of widget makers across the world. Until that day comes, you can choose between Google Desktop, Desktop X and Yahoo Widgets. Desktop X is a powerful widget engine that is included as part of the Object Desktop suite that I mentioned in the Look and Feel section. Yahoo and Googles respective offerings are free and hence much more popular. Yahoo widgets probably includes the best selection of widgets out of all the widget engines available. Again, do a quick Google search on the program that interests you the most to find out more.

Media Centre

Windows XP media centre edition has been around for a while now, but an upgrade to Vista Ultimate or Home Premium will give you full media centre capabilities included in the price. If you are using vanilla XP home or Professional and you want media centre capabilities, they are available for free in the shape of Media Portal, an open source and highly configurable media centre application. Also free and worth a look (at least if you are American) is Yahoo Go For TV. Based on Meedio, which was one of the best commercial media centre products for Windows, Go For TV seems to have been left to stagnate since Yahoo took control. Nevertheless there are already a wide range of plug-ins and accessories available for it that were previously developed for Meedio. Bizarrely, Yahoo currently insists on locking out all users outside of the United States, so if you live elsewhere in the world, give this one a miss. Set Google hunting for media portal or Yahoo Go for TV to find out more.

Games and Direct X 10

As any PC gamer will tell you, XP is (at the time of writing) the best operating system for games. With Vista, Microsoft introduced DirectX10 and made it Vista only. A number of breathtaking DirectX 10 games are regularly plastered over the preview pages on major PC gaming websites and magazines. To date however, aside from a few update patches for older games, Microsofts cutting edge games for DirectX10/Vista basically consist of Shadowrun (an above average multiplayer FPS) and Halo 2 (A conversion of an old Xbox game). Re-hashing a previous generation console title to demonstrate your bleeding edge graphics technology must have made sense to someone in Microsoft but it makes little sense to gamers assessing if an upgrade to Vista is worth their money, especially in light of the performance handicap or crippled sound that some games exhibit under Vista. However, like every new gaming platform, fast forward to Christmas and XP gamers can expect to be enviously eyeing up the new Vista only games starting to appear. If you are hoping that Im going to tell you now some way of getting DirectX 10 to work on XP, you are going to be disappointed. A company called Falling Leaf systems claims to be working on some sort of project that would accomplish this feat, but they still have a lot to prove especially considering early versions struggled to run the most basic of DirectX 10 demo code. Unfortunately, it looks like DirectX 10 is one trick that XP isnt going to be performing any time soon, if ever.

So there you have it, far from being on its last legs, Windows XP is still a very capable operating system with a fair few tricks up its sleeve. If youre willing to invest in a little new software mentioned in this article (much of which also works under Vista) you can easily transform your XP into a top notch operating system and still enjoy your old games and multimedia software.

Matthew Buxton is the web master at www.Top-Windows-Tutorials.com A computer science degree graduate, software engineer and computer enthusiast from an early age, Matt has almost 10 years experience with the ups and downs of Windows operating systems.