I suppose I should start by telling you what my old favorite feature was... I'm not sure what it's called but it allows you to navigate up and down folders much more quickly.  It's great for going from one folder to another at the same level (e.g. from one folder of pictures to another).

My NEW favorite feature comes courtesy of Omar's blog: the shadow copy. Here's the MS description of the feature:

Windows Vista now includes shadow copy functionality built in, which enables users to access previous versions of their documents, even when they are stored locally on their computer instead of on the network. Accessing the previous versions of a file you're working with is easy.

What happened is I was bit by a bug which removed all the date taken information from the pictures I took over Christmas time.  Big deal?  Not to people who simply print their pictures... but for me it meant all the pictures were in random order on our web site.  I searched high and low for a tool to copy the date information from another part of the file and then remembered Omar's post.  The process of restoring files was pretty straight-forward... and really made me happy work provides us with Windows Ultimate (unfortunately for home users, it's not available on the consumer version).

For the curious, I made some screenshots of the process:

Oh, also cool: if you get a Windows Home Server your backups on the server will show up there too.  Sweet!  Dang I want that cool round one! See the Digital Amnesia site for more info (presented in an entertaining fashion) or for a great demo, watch CJ's video interview on 10.

Thanks Vista for the save (and thanks Omar for the pointer ).

I've found that without an RSS reader I don't get around to checking out my friend's pages, so I need to get myself a reader and am now going to make a concerted effort to find one that fits my needs. Throughout this process I'll keep you updated with my impressions of the various clients I try out. Note that I may end up finding a great client and/or get bored before I can try out every client out there, so don't be disappointed if I peter out.

So, what are my criteria?

Must Have:

• Offline Reading - I tend to live most of my life on my laptop and if I can't take care of some of the reading while on an airplane or sitting in a waiting room it won't work for me.
• Comments API - The original post is not all of the interesting content related to a post, I need to be able to read the comments on my blog and the blogs of my friends without having to navigate to the blog and dig down to the comments page.
• Windows application - I use Windows, if it runs on another platform it obviously won't work for me (and please don't start any religious Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux discussions with me, I can't be bothered).

Like to Have:

• Saved Searches - When part of my feed base relates to work it's great to have a "feed" which is a view of all posts which contain a particular keyword (e.g. Hotmail).
• Outlook Hotkeys - I use keyboard shortcuts in Outlook to speed up reading of messages. If my RSS reader were to use the same keys I'd be able to quickly mark things read, delete and forward posts without having to learn a new set of keys (which would potentially get confused with other applications).

I've started an initial list of readers with my main requirements: http://www.little.org/tips/rssreaders.htm. If you have an app you really like, please let me know.

Cool downloads from smart people thinking of future stuff: MS Research Downloads.