This isn't at all what you asked for, but I thought perhaps you needed an flv to avi converter because you don't have anything that plays flv files.

http://www.bitcomet.com/tools/flvplayer/index.htm

Not a converter, but plays flvs great.

Have you tried http://www.erightsoft.com/S6Kg1.html

It also depends on the codec you're using - divx, Xvid, avi, mpeg-4 etc.

Try different types and see what gets the best result for your clip. I don't do a whole lot of video encoding so I'm fairly useless at recommending a program.

If Winamp is set as the default player for that file type, it'll tell you it's a Winamp media file.

If you go to Folder Options -> View, you can uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types" to see what file type it is.

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this elsewhere, but check out Zamzar.

You might look at Media Player Classic.

I have been using Veoh for a few days now and I must say that I like it a lot.\

http://www.veoh.com/

It is a handy tool that lets you download and save podcasts, google video, etc. on your PC. with one handy interface.

Maybe not a must-have, but if you've got anything that's reluctant to uninstall properly, Revo Uninstaller might be worth a try.

Didn't see PC Decrapifier mentioned, it's good for clearing bundled randomness from newly bought PCs

Firefox extensions that are good IMO;  CustomizeGoogle, Copy All Urls, Fasterfox, Image Zoom, Download Statusbar, UnPlug, NoScript.


 

Another good program for making animated gifs from flv files is SWF Toolbox. It can take frames from flv files and turn them all into individual gifs to use with unfreez. It can even make animated gifs directly from a flv file as long as it's short.

The only problem is the freeware version leaves a watermark. However, if you're looking to make something short it's easy to edit out the mark on the individual frames using photoshop or even ms paint.

In terms of development, there's a couple of popular open source IDE (integrated development environment) solutions out there that are pretty decent.  There's Eclipse which was originally an IBM made solution, which has a ton of modules for C/C++, Perl, PHP, Ruby, and the ubiquitous Java (perhaps others, but I don't develop in them).  Additionally, there's Netbeans which is newer than eclipse, but is gradually getting the Sun IDE functionality ported to it (C/C++, PHP, Ruby and Java thus far - no Perl yet).  For database, PostgreSQL has a lot of the functionality of oracle with none of the cost.  Additionally, if you're interested in PostgreSQL, but want some more handy stuff bundled in, EnterpriseDB offers a version called "PostgreSQL Plus" with a bunch of utilities.

I didn't see it mentioned, but for video viewing on windows, I find MPlayer to be good (Linux too).  VLC is okay, but with XP x64 edition, it will hard lock your machine when you watch some avi files with it.

Information Security:
Comodo was the best rated the last time I checked, it's free and that was even comparing it to Norton, etc.

If you're looking into playing around with a new operating system, VMWare Player coupled with the vast number of appliances they've got (Linux, BSD, Nexenta GNU/Solaris) will give you a good opportunity to try them without reformatting a machine.

Lastly, if you're into usenet, GrabIt is a pretty good bin downloader.