Yahoo Messenger

Get social over the long-established, well-rounded chat and VoIP client Yahoo Messenger and you'll find drag-and-drop capabilities and contact importing from friends other IM, e-mail, and social-networking accounts who are also on Yahoo chat. Another favorite trick is the ability to see images and videos displayed inside the chat window when you or a pal drops in a public URL.
Yahoo Messenger 10 adds some visual enhancements that call out VoIP and video chats on the conversation window. Tweaks in the buddy list showcase an updates tab that operates as a newsfeed for friends' status messages. Other visual refreshes to version 10 spruce up select icons.
Users should note that the download stub will finish installing the program online, and that the download bundles the Yahoo Toolbar. In the preinstallation window, click over to Custom Install to deselect add-ons you don't want. We could also live without the heavy-handed Yahoo branding, and it would be nice to see a link to hidden smileys in the emoticon drop-down, but these are minor niggles when weighed against the benefits of an easy-to-use, feature-rich chat client that only continues to improve.

uTorrent

Small enough to run off a USB key, but powerful enough to download any torrent in a jiffy (if it's got enough seeders), uTorrent 2.0 is easy on the eyes and smart on your network. The memory footprint for uTorrent is very small, and system resources are barely touched. While you're torrenting, you shouldn't be surprised to find that other programs that use your Internet connection slow down, but the latest version of uTorrent has an answer to that. Called uTorrent Protocol, or uTP, it's a built-in throttling that detects network congestion and slows down the torrent until the traffic jam has dissipated.
Version 2.0 includes a transfer cap, so that users who have had limits imposed by their ISPs can keep track and automatically kill torrenting when that limit is reached. Skins have also been introduced, but there's no skins option in Preferences: instead, you must go to the uTorrent site and download and install them yourself. That's unnecessarily irritating.
The most difficult aspect of using a torrent client is still finding the torrents, but included are both a torrent search bar and a handy RSS feed download function. Subscribe to select feeds, and uTorrent automatically downloads files as they publish. Adding, starting, pausing, and listing torrents takes merely a click each. A speed guide helps you test your ports and adjust system settings for optimal performance, although watch out for the opt-out Ask.com toolbar when you install. Combined with Local Peer Discovery and DHT Network options, and Teredo and Ipv6 support, uTorrent should be the torrent program of choice for novices, intermediate, and advanced users.

TypingMaster Typing Test 2010

If you're looking to boost your typing speed and accuracy, TypingMaster Typing Test can provide the repetitive practice you need. Just don't expect this freeware program to give you any coaching. In a typical session, you might start with the rudimentary (and rather dull) warm-up games and move on from there to the full-blown typing tests. TypingMaster offers only one kind of testing method--retyping a set text--though you can break up the monotony by supplying your own TXT files. The program can store results for several users and track their progress over several tests. At the end of each test, the program gives a brief performance evaluation, though we wish it also gave custom-tailored advice based on our typing patterns. Unfortunately, that feature is restricted to the for-pay version. In sum, TypingMaster Typing Test offers nothing to distinguish it from countless similar titles, and earns only a lukewarm recommendation from us.

ooVoo

ooVoo is an iChat-like video conferencing and chat tool for Windows, loaded with useful, powerful tools that make it a viable alternative for small work groups using conference calls and screen-sharing applications.
A recording feature lets users tape video chats with other participants. Since the video and audio are being recorded to the hard drive, the only time limit is how much free space the computer's hard drive has. In testing, a nearly 15-minute, four-way video conversation only took up 95MB, which ooVoo can convert into a workable FLV file.
A conference calling tool gives host and participants a phone number to call. Other ooVoo users who call this conference line get plugged right into the audio that's a part of the video chat, and just like the video recordings, this audio gets archived too. Call-in lines support up to six people, meaning users can have up to a dozen participants--including those on the video side. Note that this service isn't free. An optional companion for ooVoo's video player can be used for screen sharing or file sharing, and fun facial overlay tool that applies digital masks either to users faces or to backgrounds. High-quality video streams are also supported.
Two qualms with the service are the audio quality, which sounded a little too compressed, and delays in the datastream of about a second or more. Besides being annoying, it can really force a heated debate to grind to a halt. Overall, ooVoo makes for a strong alternative to other VoIP and conferencing software.