Tonight at its event in San Francisco, Boxee showed off the first shots of what it’s working on for the beta release of its software. CEO Avner Ronen says Boxee users should expect this in September, though it could be pushed to October.

Forgive the slightly blurry shots, consider this a test of the iPhone 3GS camera at live events. (There are some slightly better ones at the bottom.)

Well this ought to be of some use to our Chinese readers. And by that I mean people who are actually in China who visit, for whatever reason, crunch gear dot com. There’s some sort of software called Green Dam that will be required on all Chinese PCs soon that blocks all sorts of fun content from being downloaded and/or viewed. Salty political talk? Banned. Pornography? Banned. (Well that’s 90 percent of the Internet right there, silly political arguments (NOBAMA, REVERSE RACISM, etc.) and porn.) Tips on how to grow marijuana? Banned. Violent video games? Banned. Fun all around!

“Oh, FFS!” That’s what the likes of Norton and Symantec can be heard saying today with the news that Microsoft plans to release free anti-virus software, code-named Morro. (That’s the name of a beach in São Paulo, and is pronounced “MO hoo. Tell your friends.) A beta is expected “soon,” but Microsoft hasn’t said when the final version will be available

Panic, the maker of shockingly good Mac software, is having itself a nice little sale that you may want to take advantage of. From now until 11:59 PM PDT on May 29 (so, a little over a day) you can buy Transmist, Coda, Candy Bar and Unison for 50 percent off.

Here’s a random software recommendation for your Friday afternoon enjoyment. It’s Vox, it’s for Mac OS X, and it’s a lightweight music player. No, it’s not going to replace iTunes on your system—there’s no library feature, for one thing—but it’ll play some of the more obscure formats out there.

If you’ve never worked in an office where an unsuspecting co-worker gets an e-mail sent out on his or her behalf announcing that happy hour drinks are on the house, you haven’t LIVED! It’s the perfect way to teach someone that they should always, always, lock their computer whenever they head over to the break room to find that someone drank all the coffee and didn’t bother to make another pot. Those days may be about to end, though, thanks to Phoenix Freeze.

Battery from Native Instruments is a great piece of software. It’s a software sampler for drums and percussion with more than 12 GB of samples. Now you can get it for $99 and that’s like 57% off the original price. What are you waiting for? Get it from audioMIDI today. No need to hurry though: the offer is valid until the end of May.

A bunch of granola chewing hippies freedom loving technologists sent a letter to President Obama, encouraging him to consider open source software. Signed by representatives from Novell, Red Hat, Unisys, and a bunch of other open source solutions companies, the letter is well-written piece of advocacy. Of course, not everyone supports the initiative.

When we heard about iLife ‘09 last month, Apple touted the Faces and Places features of the iPhone and image stabilization and precise editing in iMovie. How much does all of this pleasure cost? $79 or nothing if you get it with a new Mac. But is it worth the upgrade?

The most prominent additions are Faces and Places. Places uses embedded GPS data to place your photos on a map and you can use this information to make map-based video travelogues. Although this is great for iPhone shots - the iPhone embeds GPS coordinates in every photo it takes - it’s not so great for owners of non-GPS enabled cameras. While there are plenty of folks out there who use and need GPS information in their photos, those folks probably aren’t using iPhoto. It’s a nice to have but not a real draw.

Psst, buddy! Wanna make a quick $3,200? All you need to do is rat out someone you know who’s illegally using commercial software. Is $3,200 enough to compensate your lack of sleep and soul?

So how’s that Windows 7 beta treating you? Even if you’ve had issues—and we know that some of you have—you should know that Microsoft is trying to make this whole experience work as smoothly as possible

Looks like Microsoft didn’t anticipate the demand for its Windows 7 beta, as many of you are no doubt aware. As such, Microsoft is busy adding hardware to its fledgling online operation and will re-open beta downloads when it’s got everything all set up.

Look what happens when you try to visit Microsoft’s Windows blog, in search of the Windows 7 beta.

Whoever predicted that Apple would introduce iWork ‘09 today gets a gold star. Keynote, Pages and Numbers all received what I would consider minor updates; no need to run around all willy nilly for these, methinks.