All good things come from Sweden.

Don’t believe me? Think about it: Abba. Ikea. Dynamite. GPS. Green-living communities. Lord of the Rings-inspired metal music. Statuesque blond ski instructors.

And Spotify.

Way back in 2008, a software development company in Sweden kicked back and thought about how great it would be to offer DRM-free, streaming music to the masses. Granted, lots of people have had this thought. I’m sure you’ve all spent some time on websites like Pandora, last.fm, and maybe even Grooveshark. But you probably don’t have an iTunes-like desktop client that will do what those sites will do. That’s what Spotify is all about.

Spotify lets you pick and choose what music you want to hear from their seemingly bottomless catalog, track by track, album by album, or artist by artist. It will also automatically import any existing audio files on your computer into its directory, so can play those songs along with stuff from Spotify. You can drag things directly into your play queue or create custom playlists. The stuff you make is saved to your account, so you can access the same playlists and history from any computer. You can also link your Spotify account to your Facebook, so you can share playlists with your friends and subscribe to their playlists in turn. Lists are also provided from time to time by the Spotify staff, and other commercial interests like Rolling Stone magazine and various record labels.

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We here at NYC Tech Guys have discovered that folks have a lot of complaints when it comes to their computers. From speed issues to viruses run amok, there are myriad frustrations that can complicate the user experience.  But even more amazing, lots of people don’t realize that there are some excellent software solutions out there that can ameliorate or even totally rectify some of the most troublesome issues that plague your computer.  To that end, we present “our picks,” a basic ranking of our preferred options for the most popular types of software to help you find the right programs to make your life easier.  This week, we’re talking about some great utilities for Windows users.

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We here at NYC Tech Guys have discovered that folks have a lot of complaints when it comes to their computers. From speed issues to viruses run amok, there are myriad frustrations that can complicate the user experience.  But even more amazing, lots of people don’t realize that there are some excellent software solutions out there that can ameliorate or even totally rectify some of the most troublesome issues that plague your computer.  To that end, we present “our picks,” a basic ranking of our preferred options for the most popular types of software to help you find the right programs to make your life easier.  This week, we’re talking about antivirus and protective software.

Viruses, worms, malware, and spyware all pose a very real threat to your computer’s security.  And even if you’re very careful, you’ll probably suffer an infection at some point. At best, these troublesome bits of programming will make it hard for you to use your computer without their interference. At worst, your personal information might become compromised.  It’s important to take the proper precautions to avoid infection when you use your computer (like keeping all your software up-to-date, only opening email attachments that come from trusted sources, and avoiding risk-taking behavior and downloads online). But on top of all that, you need a good antivirus. Here are our top picks for the various places you might be computing.

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In spite of all the wonderful things computers have added to modern life, they’ve given us some pretty rotten things too: sentient AI along the lines of HAL and SkyNet, diminished capacity for social interaction, FarmVille. But of all these modern inconveniences, repetitive strain injuries have to be the most prevalent, persistent, and downright annoying. From headaches to hand cramps, there are myriad ailments you can blame on your PC.

Including sleeping poorly.

Ever since computers stopped using interfaces made up of neon green fixed-width type on an empty black screen, the light emitted by your PC’s display was meant to mimic daylight. Specifically, the color temperature of most displays is set to around 6000K by default.  And if you leave your display’s brightness setting at the higher end of its range, it means your eyes are getting bombarded with an awful lot of photons.  Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to stare into the sun?

And burning holes into your retinas aside, staring long and hard at your computer screen after dark can actually affect your circadian rhythms—the biological clockwork that tells you when it’s time to eat, time to wake up, and time to sleep.  Since your body interprets the cooler temperature light coming from your display as sunlight, it thinks computer time equals party time, even if it’s actually nighttime and you want to retire shortly after that last round of Spider Solitaire.

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There’s been a lot of talk about Windows 7 since it’s launch, most everything has been positive (which certainly wasn’t the case after Windows Vista launched).  In this tough economic client people are asking themselves, “Why should I upgrade and what benefits will I see if you do?”  I’ve been running Windows 7 since August with their Release Candidate and installed the full version as soon as Technet offered it and I’ve found many improvements over previous versions.

(Be warned, this is a long post.  I wanted to get as much information in as possible.  The short story is if you’re getting a new computer definitely get it with Windows 7, if your computer is less than 2 or 3 years old I would recommend the upgrade).

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The other day I came across a site that I haven’t visited in quite some time. I’m actually very grateful for the site since some one took the time and effort to write out guides for default services settings in different windows programs.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/registry.htm

Generally if you like to tweak with your services and/or registry , you can sometimes forget to set them back. Or if things really go off kilter , you can just set them right back. Of course you are making backups of anything you change first …right? Generally I have used it when a computer has been hit by a Trojan. The new ones will disable as much as possible , creating havoc  for any administrator to get the system back up and running. I am also of the mindset that formatting is not necessary …..most of the time.

What is the registry-

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Microsoft put out a series of patches today for all versions of Internet Explorer from 5 to 8 for every operating system from Windows 2000 to Windows 7 to address a huge security vulnerability .

The vulnerability was used in the cyber attacks against Google, yahoo and others over the last couple weeks. If you’re running any versions of Internet Explorer please install any updates from Windows Update that are pending on your system or grab the update manually from Microsoft’s site.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-002 – Critical

Like many people, you may have received a new computer for the holidays.  If you’re already an avid user you know how to set it up, install your favorite apps and get to work/play.  But if you’ve just moved to a new operating system (Windows 7, OS X or even Linux) you may be a little lost as to the new functionality in your new toy.  Luckily lifehacker has put together a great list of tips and tools for whatever system you’re baffled over.  Take a look at this list and let me know if you have another cool trick you’d like to share.

image from bolti22 on flickr