I know this doesn't relate to technology at first but once you kind of get into it, it does have a hint of technology. First it's an automated website where you sign up either as a blogger or advertiser and once your blog is accepted or your advertising account is approved you will be able to take offers from there. They are a creative bunch, whoever run this site because of the way it is set up. It is unlike most paid to post websites, as there aren't many places to go which means they are concentrating on getting advertisers to bloggers and they also make posting as clear as day. The biggest added benefit is the payment process. Within 7 days of writing your blog post, the post will either get approved or rejected and if approved, your payment will arrive via one of the internet's most successful payment processors, PayPal in a matter of weeks. I do recommend Smorty over alot of other paid to post websites because they are a growing website that will make big things in the future.Get paid for blogging at Smorty.
Microsoft is yet again trying to expand and this time they are mostly competing with Google. Specifically they are rolling out a version of Google Docs called Microsoft Office Live Workspace that is currently in public beta. I have signed up but it hasn't accepted any members yet.
Image Backup
The Ultimate version automatically lets you make images that exactly replicate a disk byte by byte letting you easily restore a failed disk with the OS, settings, and files running as they did when they were running perfectly. There are 4 options for a replacement ranging from free-$50. Noron offers Save & Retore for $50, Acronis offers True Image for $29, and Discwizard or MaxBlast for free only if you have a Seagate or Maxtor drive which sadly I don't have. Another alternative is DriveImage XML which isn't the best but it'll do the job.
Shadow-Copy Files
The Ultimate version automatically backs up different versions of all the files you save so you can easily find it even after you've deleted the other copy. To replicate this software on Home Premium, a piece of free software called FileHamster will easily duplicate Ultimate's program. After saving a file, FileHamster will ask you to annotate(tag) the duplicated verion and optionally protect it from deletion.
VirtualPC
VirtualPC is offered by Microsoft for free which is surprising because they don't offer this on Home Premium. A Virtual PC is when you run one operating system behind another although
you can run the same operating system if you like. You would download this because you might not be sure of a program so you run it in the virtual OS so your real PC won't get messed up or say when you browse the internet because tons of viruses and spam happen there. If you don't have another OS then I recommend going to VMwares website and downloading VMware Player which is free and works like VirtualPC. The reason why this is better is because the site offers virtual OS usually for free. These aren't completely full versions of OS like for example there is one called DSL which stands for Damn Small Linux. To find these Operating Systems you need to go back to the home page of VMware.
Want to win a contest just for writing a How-To Post? Well Geeks Are Sexy: Technology News is running a contest with 6 prizes that are listed in more detail on their website all totalling $1300. They are celebrating their 3rd anniversary and they thought it'd be great to run a fantastic contest. The best thing about it is, is that a professional model, Teresa Noreen, will be picking and announcing the winners. The second best thing is that you will get a link back to your site which is amazing as Geeks Are Sexy gets read by 1000's of readers a day. This is only for a short time but it will get your blog noticed. So go to GAS and read the rules and submit today, but please don't make an amazing post as I'd like to win with my absolutely amazing post.
Your iPod is probably getting old with that boring interface. Too bad you can't upgrade it with a Mac OS or Windows OS. Luckily though Rockbox has come onto the scene with a free open source upgrade for digital music players such as the iPod. I say iPod because the Apple iPod is such a huge seller that I am most likely to attract more visitors. Rockbox was made popular due in part to the fact that it supports FLAC, an open standard like MP3. It has much better quality and is therefore a joy to listen to. The iPod doesn't support FLAC. That's where Rockbox comes in. Download Rockbox and open your music player to a much better world. Since Rockbox is updated almost daily, the stability might not be the best but there are many other features that make it plenty attractive. There are hundreds of user submitted themes for your build (i.e. most updated software for your mp3) but since builds are updated constantly, some themes might not work well. If you do love a theme, you might need to tweak it a bit to make it work better. It can be some fun if you know what you're doing but HTML-defficient people like me it might not be as easy. Obviously if it doesn't work just uninstall it and you're back to normal. A quick note when installing Rockbox on your mp3; connect it right to your computer as opposed to a hub connected to your computer as it may cause write problems. 
2010 is a year Microsoft is looking forward to as it is the proposed release date of its new OS. With Vista failing expectations, Microsoft needs to put all its effort into creating an amazingly great OS that has great security, speed, and performance and from the word go. Already leaks have been sited on the new OS but none to specific. One feature is it will not include if any groud breaking software and features like Vista did, but improve on Vista's flaws and make them superior. For example, the difficult to use, Bitlocker for all those technical readers out there. Even though the userface has gone a modern look, Microsoft is hinting the new OS wil undergo a major revamp called a really thin OS that manages virtual machines. Finally, a touch screen interface will maybe makes it way into the next-gen OS, many people are waiting for, and analysts putting heavy weight on.