So Microsoft is buying skype for $8bn. Whether that figure includes the $686m of debt that Skype has isn’t clear. What is clear is that this is a huge amount of money for a company that has a turnover of $859m and an operating loss of $7m.

What is staggering is that Microsoft has bought it. Skype would have been a great fit for Apple. A great fit for Facebook. But Microsoft? Hello?

When an acquisition like this is announced, we sit around stroking our beards pontificating about the “synergy”, the “good fit” and so forth.

Microsoft has a full infrastructure in place with MSN and Lync. It has the Lync services in place for the new Office 365 product. How on earth does Skype fit in here?

And then it all becomes clear. Microsoft is basically buying 600 million customer details. And Skype is a perfect fit for the online services division of Microsoft, which manages to haemorrhage money year after year. Skype is therefore the perfect acquisition.

1. Paint.NET

Windows 7 may now include a version of Paint complete with a fancy Ribbon interface, but it still doesn’t offer the features I need to quickly enhance photos and mould screenshots to my whims. Paint.NET does, and it also supports plug-ins for RAW files (and more), making it my top photo-editing choice.

2. Mozilla Firefox

Sorry Internet Explorer 8, but you’re too slow (as Microsoft’s own engineers accidentally admitted by saying they’d focus on performance with Internet Explorer 9). And frankly, I don’t use all those fancy right-click shortcuts that Microsoft has built in. I far prefer the faster Firefox, complete with all the Extensions such as Echofon for Twitter.

3. Windows Live Writer

I know it’s basic compared to some blogging tools out there, but Windows Live Writer is the perfect partner to our WordPress-powered blog. It’s easy to use while still offering all the power and features I need, such as retaining my favoured settings for photo formatting and links. To download it, type “live essentials” into the Windows 7 or Vista search box.

4. Adobe Reader

I’ve tried to like alternatives to Adobe Reader, such as FoxIt Reader, but against all my best instincts I keep on coming back to the bloated and comparatively slow Adobe offering. And that’s despite the fact I hate the way its install routine tries to sneak in a Yahoo toolbar and those annoying updates. The best thing that can be said about this program is that it works.

5. FileZilla

There may well be better FTP utilities than FileZilla, but as far as I’m concerned everyone can halt development right now: FileZilla is free, it works, and the interface – while doing for good looks what Bob Hoskins does for swimsuit modelling – is plain and functional. As far as I’m concerned, this is the poster child for open-source software.

6. VLC media player

I haven’t actually needed to use this tiny application since rebuilding my PC, but it won’t be long before a media file comes along in a form that Windows Media Player can’t recognise (one obvious example being FLV files). VLC media player, on the other hand, is fantastic at handling pretty much anything that’s thrown at it.

7. Spotify

While I still can’t bring myself to pay £10 per month for music I can’t keep, Spotify is my first port of call when it comes to distraction in the office. After all, a man needs to listen to something to drown out Stuart Turton’s whines about Liverpool’s latest failure (this weekend excepted), Jon Bray muttering to himself as he tests mobile phones, and Barry Collins ranting about various watchdog authorities.

8. BBC iPlayer

Travelling home by a train, sometimes I can’t quite force myself to do anything useful. Luckily those kind people at the BBC have built the iPlayer. With HD shows available for download as well, I’m in the odd situation where TV is better while travelling than at home. Note: this service is only available in the UK. If it’s any consolation, our weather’s awful.

9. Skype

I’ve moaned about Skype’s habit of grabbing my credit unless I use its pay-as-you-go service every six months, but this remains an essential tool in my foreign-trip armoury: much as I love my children, I’m not making 30-minute calls home on mobile roaming rates! With Skype, it’s free to call other Skype users and just 1.7 Euro cents to UK numbers.

10. Windows Live Mesh

I approach Live Mesh with a certain amount of trepidation: press Delete at the wrong time and it has the capability to permanently lose files with almost as much as speed as it allows you to share them. But if you, like me, flitter between different machines at a whim, then having one always-accessible copy of vital files can’t be underestimated.

If you make a call using Skype (or any other VoIP service for that matter) you’re far more likely to be impressed with the sound quality. Even using the built-in microphone of an average laptop and a set of crummy headphones, the quality is higher than a landline.

It even supports video under tough conditions. My sister spent two weeks in Kiribati, in a hotel with crumbling walls and one of the flakiest broadband connections known to man, but somehow managed a five-minute video call with my father. And all for free.

I still prefer the convenience of a traditional phone for national calls, but whenever I’m abroad I take with me a travel headset (probably too grandiose a term – really it’s a couple of pieces of wire with an earplug and microphone stuck on the end) and stump up ten euros so I can call landlines.

It’s an excellent system that works out far more cheaply than calling from a mobile or hotel phone: calling a UK or US landline costs 0.20 euros per minute, and even calling mobiles costs just 0.24 euros per minute.

But it comes with one big annoyance: if you don’t use your Skype Credit for six months then you lose it.

“We don’t want you to lose your credit,” Skype’s reminder email says, “so we send reminder emails 30 days, 7 days and 72 hours before your credit expires.” Now call me odd, but if Skype really didn’t want me to lose my credit wouldn’t it just keep it there?

Surely it’s hardly a burden on Skype’s systems to keep that database entry at EUR6.50 (my current balance) rather than zero?

To be fair, at least Skype is now sending reminders. I’ve lost 10 euros in the past due to this same problem, before (to the best of my knowledge) it had any reminders at all. But what about the people who use rarely checked email addresses when signing up for services like Skype? Or who go to Kirabati for a month and don’t take a netbook with them?

Come on Skype, and to all those companies that use a similar “use it or lose it” system. Eventually there will be laws that force you to keep our money in our accounts rather than wiping them clean, so change your ways first. That way I won’t have to perform ridiculous measures to keep my account active.

But if you’ll excuse me, I now have to make a one-second phone call so that my 6.50 euros Skype Credit doesn’t disappear forever.