There are all sorts of anti-virus products out there, some of which aren’t worth the price. This article looks at four tools you can get for free.

Microsoft has released two public server betas. Aurora is a cloud-based version of Windows Server for Small & Medium Businesses while Vail is aimed at the home server market. This article includes links to download the betas.

A new beta version of Windows Live Essentials 2011, also known as Wave 4, is now available. The suite includes Messenger, Live Mail, Writer, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, and more.

For companies that feel Premier Support is inadequate, Microsoft is now offering an expanded version of Premier Mission Critical Support. The support may not be much better but the price is certainly higher.

Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group is sponsoring the Student Innovation Contest at UIST 2010. This year the challenge is to find uses for an Adaptive Keyboard. Two videos are included to show the experimental keyboard and what it can do.

Dell’s top executives knew the company was shipping defective computers but tried to hide the e-mails that exposed the extent of their knowledge. Instead of exploring ways to fix the computers, executives discussed ways to downplay the problem.

Happy birthday Internet Explorer. Version 1 was released August 16, 1995 as part of Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95. Version 9 is scheduled for a September 5, 2010 release.

You only need to patch one server instead of hundreds of workstations. However. Sometimes, as Microsoft discovered recently, patching the server doesn’t go as smoothly as planned.

Today’s e-communications bring with them the potential for near to constant interruption.

Read this OutlookPower article.

The Microsoft team working on IronRuby is down to one member, that for IronPython is not doing much better. And now Microsoft has released both under an Apache Software Foundation license.