Microsoft finally launches its hotly-anticipated new mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7 today. If you're thinking of getting one of the new phones, why not first check out the official Windows Phone 7 emulator, which lets you have a play around with the OS? Grab the developer tools suite, then check out this video guide to the emulator before having a look around Windows Phone 7 yourself!

Do you remember the days when music applications were just for playing erm, music? iTunes has evolved from a simple music player to a sophisticated home entertainment app capable of managing iPods, playing videos and making online music purchases.

But what about all those that don't have iPods, don't buy their music through iTunes and don't want to watch videos in iTunes? Is it any wonder that Windows gets clogged-up when applications such as this give you no choice over the components it installs? iTunes 9 installs five additional programs without asking for your consent.

As you can see here, the components are Apple Application Support, Apple Mobile Device Support, Apple Software Update, Bonjour and QuickTime (out of shot) in order to work on Windows.

A closer look at each of these add-ons shows that most users who don't have iPods, watch videos in iTunes or stream music elsewhere, will have little need for them:

Apple Application Support A new addition to iTunes 9 which allows you to manage iPods, iPhones and iPod Touch devices

Apple Mobile Device Support Used for syncing iPods and iPhones although not needed for other iPods e.g. Nano, Shuffle etc

Apple Software Update Checks for new versions of Apple software installed on Windows machines (not just iTunes). This is the only component you can choose not to install when you originally install iTunes. However, even when I unchecked the box, it still installed it!

Bonjour Allows you to share iTunes (and other devices such as printers) over a network, or access other users' shares

QuickTime Apple's proprietary media player with codecs for playing back a wide variety of media

Some of these components can be removed without damaging iTunes (I recommend using Revo Uninstaller for this). Apple Mobile Device Support and Apple Software Update I removed with no problems. Bonjour also removed successfully although I was issued a warning that I wouldn't be able to share music on iTunes without it and should repair the issue:

However, removing Apple Application Support and QuickTime prevents iTunes opening at all. Instead you receive the following error message:

In total then, I was able to remove 3 out of the 5 components but it wasn't a very simple process. The point is though, it shouldn't be necessary to do this just to have a streamlined version of iTunes on your machine.

Mac users - quite justifiably - complain of all the bloatware that Microsoft software often installs on Macs with Microsoft Office being a prime example. However, iTunes proves that Apple can be just as bad at clogging-up Windows with extra components.

A lite version of iTunes would surely be welcomed by all those Windows users who don't need the added extras.

Next week we'll be publishing an exclusive in-depth video interview with Mathias Tönnesson, Vice President of Business Development at the "Spotify for movies" service Voddler. The half-hour interview covers everything from a look at Voddler's basic business model and what has driven its success in Sweden to questions about content, quality and availability of the service that I'm sure many readers have.

It's a fascinating insight behind the scenes of one of the hottest dotcoms around as well a tantalizing taster of the exciting things to come for those eager to try the service. For now though, here is sneak preview of what's to look forward to in the interview:

For most internet startups such as Voddler, it can be very hard to attract investment. You’ve just announced another new 2.5 million Euro investment deal with Eqvitec. How have you been to attract such investment so far?

Tönnesson: I think it’s the quality of the product we are offering. I obviously can’t go into too much detail about the various partnerships we have but I think it’s the technique, that’s the important thing that attracts investment. The Voddler net streaming technology is a world unique product secured by over 30 patents of how you stablise video, how you put movies out over a P2P network, how the network takes slices of data from other users and puts it all together in DVD quality etc. Everything is secured by the 30 patents and that’s what brings attention to the final product because investors see it as a fantastic technical platform.

Do you think you will ever get to the stage where you are able to publish films on Voddler at the same time as they are released at the cinema?

Tönnesson: We hope. Of course, we need to work very very closely with our content owners. But for example, Avatar is the most downloaded film ever on Pirate Bay. And I think if you would allow a window of opportunity for viewers to watch it on Voddler at the same time as the American cinema release, I think you’d find thousands and thousands of Swedes watching it legally, and paying for it. And I think you would find a lot of people willing to pay to watch it – not just a few Euros but even as much as thirteen Euros for the opportunity to watch it in DVD quality, in a comfortable environment with Swedish subtitles. I think a lot of people would be willing to pay that. In that way, the distributors will be earning money that would other be lost to illegal downloading.

If you didn't have enough with our review about Windows 7 RC and the blog post with further details about the Release Candidate, here's a video where you'll be able to see Microsoft's new operating system in action while waiting for the 2.36 GB file to download.

Internet Explorer 8 has finally hit the shelves today, without many differences in comparison with the release candidate launched two months ago. Accelerators, Web Slices, InPrivate browsing and the so called SmartScreen filter are some of its most outstanding new features. But since a picture is worth a thousand words, we though you might get a better idea if you see Internet Explorer 8 in action. Here's a video we just recorded with the newly launched browser: an overall review that covers its main tools and explains all the new stuff.

There's been a bit of trouble for Microsoft at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona. It seems like Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo (right) was a bit careless as he roamed around Barcelona last night and managed to lose his prototype HTC Touch with the yet-to-be-released Windows Mobile 6.5 running on it.

Luckily, this happened after OnSoftware had already taken a sneaky peak at the device and grab a video of the new operating system in action. Coincidentally, we were also in the same room as Sol Trujillo yesterday, when he delivered his keynote address at the conference. I know it might seem like the evidence is stacking up against us but I can assure you that it's purely circumstantial and we can confirm we went nowhere near Sol's pocket at any point during the day.

Besides, Microsoft Steve Ballmer had said earlier this week that because the new Windows Mobile service backs up all your personal data "it doesn't matter if it gets stolen". So what's all the fuss about then?

Straight from the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, here's some video of Palm giving us a first look at their new device, the Palm Pre. The first video features the phone's search feature and web browser. The second highlights the address book and image viewer included with the brand new WebOS operating system.

Despite the criticism for its ever growing size, Nero remains the most popular burning app in the world. Its latest version, Nero 9, offers new features such as a more elegant interface design, a better tool organization, support for Blu-Ray discs and several HD video formats, a highly improved backup tool and other slight changes that make content sharing and multimedia creation easier and more enjoyable. If you want to take a first view at Nero 9, don't miss the screencast we've prepared for you with all the Nero 9 essentials.

If you're anything like me, you probably installed the new Google Chrome web browser, thought that it was pretty neat, then went back to Firefox when you realized that many of your favorite sites and web services don't work in it. I decided it was time to take another look at the Google browser, and really got under the hood to explore some of the more interesting features that sets the app apart from the likes of IE and Firefox. Learn how to master these powerful tools by checking out the screencast.

Icy Tower provides a great way to waste time during a lunch break or a rainy day. While the gameplay never gets boring, you tend to get sick of the sight of Harold the Homeboy after around the 1,000th attempt at cracking the game. A while back I explained how to create your own Icy Tower character, but seeing as some of you still seem to be having trouble building your new hero I thought I'd do a quick screencast to walk you through the process.

If you read us on a regular basis, you'll have seen, and maybe even tried, our Photoshop tutorials. This week though we wanted to do something different, so we decided to publish our weekly tutorial as a video instead of the usual step-by-step written post. This first Photoshop tutorial on video shows you how to create a really nice blending effect between two pictures in just two easy steps. Hope you like it!

What does it take to change the appearance of your Vista computer? Is there a way to play around with the taskbar's transparency level? A while back Nick gave us some tips on how to tweak transparency on Windows XP.  Elena also came up with the Transbar application and explained how you could use it in XP. In the following video we show you how you can make your Vista taskbar transparent with Transbar and give you a few quick tips on changing the appearance of your desktop. Enjoy!

Unless you've been living on a desert island for the past week, you can't have missed the release of the brand new Firefox 3. Although the event was marred by a few connection issues, which prevented users from downloading the program for a few hours, Mozilla's Download Day was globally a success and the new version of the browser has already been downloaded more than 13 million times worldwide. This week, Nick and I took to testing Firefox and exchanged our impressions. Today, I invite you to check out a video review of the new features in Firefox 3:

You may have Firefox as your regular web browser, but that doesn't mean you make use of all of its features. A simple enough one is the 'Clear Private Data' function. This allows you to erase all the information stored in your browser. Using it regularly is not only safe practice, as it ensures that you clear out sensitive information like passwords or certificates regularly, it can also improve Firefox's performance. Anyway, enough said here. Why read when you can watch? Here is a little tutorial using our new video feature. Enjoy!