Yeah you heard right. You can turn your ordinary laptop running Windows 7 into a Wi-Fi hotspot thanks to an undocumented Windows 7 feature called Virtual Wi-Fi. The feature, which had been under development by Microsoft Research allows you to split your wireless card into several virtual adapters, thereby turning your notebook into a wireless hotspot.

You can connect all sorts of Wi-Fi enabled devices and share internet connection among them. And if you are wondering, then no, it doesn’t setup an AdHoc network. This is regular access point, encrypted with WPA2 encryption.

Planning the big move to Windows 7? Or you just want to do a clean install of your current operating system – Ninite is an application you should look out for.

Ninite lets you install all your applications from a single installer, all at once. This makes OS reinstallation really simple because you wont have to sit on your PC and install all the software. It gets even better, as Ninite lets you perform unattended installation, so you don’t even have to answer those annoying prompts and click next on wizards.

You’d run into a lot of Lifestreaming services these days. You know the ones that take your Tweets and your Flickr photo stream and mix them up with your Facebook news feed and Last.FM scrobbles. A lot of services let you do that now, and they come in all shapes and sizes, like FriendFeed fr example. Even though there are a lot of services that can mash up your social activities, and publish them to the web, we still haven’t run into a lot services that make good use of those streams.

Skimmer is one example. This beautifully designed Adobe AIR application by Fallon gathers your social streams from different services all in one place; for pleasurable viewing.

If there i one thing you’re sure to run into every day, it a brand new Twitter application. It seems like everyone these days wants to get their hands on the Twitter API. From Web Apps to Desktop Clients to Mobile Apps and even the Xbox 360, almost everything can tweet now. But rarely do we see a Twitter based application that has deeper inspiration than just posting tweets.

*Chirp is one of those applications. It has taken tweeting to a whole new level. It is arguably, the best looking twitter client available today. In fact words don’t do justice to this wonder, and neither do screenshots. You have to give this a try to get the true feeling of its rich user experience.

Update: The latest version of *Chirp is now named blu.

No web savvy user really needs an introduction to Google Earth. If you have ever used the internet for more than just email and chat, then chances are that you have heard or seen Google Maps, and its cousin, Google Earth. But still for those who don’t know, it is a virtual globe, that lets you see maps in 3D (that’s just giving it a one line definition).

Google Earth has evolved over the years, introducing features like Sky View, Mars and Street View in the desktop client. Google has continued the trend with its latest beta, Google Earth 5, introducing Ocean and History views along with other features and enhancements.