This one came across my Inbox last week and I didn't get around to blogging it until now. The folks that make the DebugBar (free for private use only) and Companion.JS (free) addons for Internet Explorer have released a new (also free) tool called IETester.

It works in both Windows XP and Windows Vista when you have IE7 installed as the default browser and allows you to test in IE5.5 and IE6 (I'm not sure if IE8 Beta 1 has any negative effects on it though).

It's only an alpha release but from the quick testing I've done it seems to work quite well. The only immediate issue I had was that it assumed Flash support was available but it was unable to render Flash content on any of the sites I tried.

So if you aren't a fan of running a virtual machine all day long this could be a promising option :)

I've had a couple of goes at the trial version of DeskSpace recently, but each different version had an issue or two that stopped me from using it full-time. Today I finally purchased it because v1.5.4 seems to have resolved the issues I was having :)

DeskSpace is a pretty slick app for desktop management in Windows and works great on Windows Vista. The rotating cube animation for transitioning between desktops is super smooth on my new notebook, and although you can use up to 6 desktops (1 for each side of the cube) I have been perfectly happy just using 2 desktops, as per the screenshot below. I find it works well to do general browsing and other tasks on the first desktop (which I've set to use Win+Q shortcut), and all my coding and testing on the second desktop (which I've set to use Win+W shortcut). Having different desktop backgrounds also helps you quickly recognise which desktop you are working on. You can also drag windows between the desktops if you wish.

At USD$19.95 it's a bargain price and comes with a 30 day money back guarantee too. I'll see how it goes over the next few weeks, but I think it will be sticking around on my notebook for a while!

Niiiiice, just came across these high res wallpapers on the Windows Vista Ultimate site. I totally dig the dark wallpapers these days ;)

I might use one on my desktop PC and the other on my notebook!

(hat tip: Neowin.net)

A couple of weeks ago I came across this awesome tool called Start++ by Brandon Paddock. It allows you to configure search prefixes and search actions which can be used in the Start Search box on the Start Menu to direct your searches to a specific source, such as your favourite search engines and web sites, build playlists to play in Media Player, preview images and more...

A similar feature just for searching has been around for quite a while in the Opera web browser and I was hopeful that Microsoft would pick this up at some point, so I'm really glad that Brandon has found the time to develop this handy application.

Here's a screenshot of the few simple search commands that I'm currently using:

And here's an example of how you could use the Start Search to find the Borat entry on IMDb:

I don't think I'll ever have a Vista installation that won't include Start++, unless it becomes a part of the OS in a future service pack :)