Net - Article

Download E-Book Ajax in Oracle JDeveloper

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:05:00 PDT

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) is a web technique used to transfer data between a browser and server asynchronously without posting the web page to the server. "Asynchronously" implies that the processing of the web page continues while the Ajax request is sent to the server and a response is received from the server. The web page, or section(s) of the web page, is refreshed with the Ajax response without reposting the web page. Ajax has the following advantages over non-Ajax web applications.

- Reduced response time and reduced server load, as the complete web page is not reposted.

- Reduced bandwidth of web applications as only data is transferred and the HTML format is applied in the browser.

- Separation of data, format and style.

The book covers web search and RSS Feed with Ajax as well as form validation with Ajax frameworks for Java, JSP, JSF, and PHP. It discusses using Ajax in Oracle JDeveloper and is IDE based. JDeveloper has the following advantages over Eclipse IDE.

- JDeveloper 11g provides an integrated JavaScript Editor for Ajax/Web development.

- It also provides a PHP extension.

- JDeveloper has a built-in support for JSF and for JDBC.

Download Now

Dowbload E-book BSD Hacks

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:39:10 PDT

Looking for a unique set of practical tips, tricks, and tools for administrators and power users of BSD systems? From hacks to customize the user environment to networking, securing the system, and optimization, BSD Hacks takes a creative approach to saving time and accomplishing more with fewer resources...

Download Now

Download e-book 3D Modeling and Animation: : Synthesis and Analysis Techniques for the Human Body

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:15:20 PDT

3D Modeling and Animation: Synthesis and Analysis Techniques for the Human Body covers the areas of modeling and animating 3D synthetic human models at a level that is useful to students, researchers, software developers and content generators...
Download Now

Foundations of Mac OS X Leopard Security (Foundations)

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:24:54 PDT

Foundations of Mac OS X Leopard Security is written in part as a companion to the SANS Institute course for Mac OS X. It contains detailed Mac OS X security information, but also walkthroughs on securing systems. By using the SANS Institute course as a sister to the book, the focus includes both the beginning home user and the seasoned security professional not accustomed to the Mac, and allows this title to establish the “best practices” for Mac OS X for a wide audience. Additionally, the authors of the book are seasoned Mac and security professionals, having built many of the largest network infrastructures for Apple and spoken at both DefCon and Black Hat on OS X security.

What you’ll learn

* Security overview
* Walkthroughs to secure systems
* Walkthroughs and suggestions for third–party applications on systems
* Mac forensics
* Mac hacking
* Apple wireless security
* Mac OS X security

Who is this book for?

A wide audience of users, power users, and administrators who wish to make sure their Mac platform is secure.
Related Titles

* Getting StartED with Mac OS X Leopard
* Mac OS X Leopard: Beyond the Manual
* Foundation Mac OS X Web Development
*
* AppleScript: A Comprehensive Guide to Scripting and Automation on Mac OS X
Download Now

Apple Training Series : Mac OS X Support Essentials (2nd Edition) (Apple Training)

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:06:26 PDT

The only Apple-certified book on Mac OS X, this updated best-seller will take you deep inside the latest big-cat operating system, covering everything from networking technologies to system administration, customizing the operating system, command-line programming, and more...

Download Now

Download E-book Paypal hack

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:31:13 PDT

If you've bought or sold items through eBay, or through hundreds of other online sites, then you're familiar with PayPal, the online payment service.

With PayPal, a valid email address, and a credit card or bank account, you can easily send and receive payments online. Not a bank or financial institution itself, PayPal describes its service as one that builds on the financial infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards, and using advanced propriety fraud prevention systems, creates a safe, global, real-time payment solution. Put simply, PayPal provides the means for people to conduct financial transactions online, instantly and securely.

But there's more to PayPal than meets the eye. PayPal Hacks shows you how to make the most of PayPal to get the most out of your online business or transactions. Authors Shannon Sofield of Payloadz.com and PayPal evangelist David Nielsen guide you through the rigors of using and developing with PayPal. Whether you're building an ecommerce site using PayPal as a transaction provider, or simply trying to pay for an eBay auction without getting burned, PayPal Hacks will give you the skinny on this leading global online payment service.

The collection of tips and tricks in PayPal Hacks shows you how to find or even build the right tools for using PayPal to buy and sell on eBay or as a transaction provider for ecommerce on your own site. Written for all PayPal users, from those just starting out to those developing sophisticated ecommerce sites, this book begins with the basics such as setting up your account, then moves quickly into specific tips and tools for buyers, sellers, and developers.

With PayPal Hacks, you can:

* Learn extra steps to help protect yourself while buying or selling on eBay
* Save time and money with advanced tips and undocumented features
* Learn dozens of easy-to-follow procedures to help you request and receive payments and fill orders
* Use PayPal to handle subscriptions, affiliate systems, and donations
* Create and customize your customers' checkout process
* Effortlessly integrate PayPal's shopping cart system into your own website
* Implement digital fulfillment with Instant Payment Notification (IPN) and Payment Data Transfer (PDT)
* Develop and distribute ecommerce applications with the PayPal API

Each hack consists of a task to be accomplished or a creative solution to a problem, presented in a clear, logical, and task-oriented format. PayPal Hacks provides the tools and details necessary to make PayPal more profitable, more flexible, and more convenient.

Download Now

Download E-book Google Hack

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:21:17 PDT

Google Hacks is a collection of industrial-strength, real-world, tested solutions to practical problems. This concise book offers a variety of interesting ways for power users to mine the enormous amount of information that Google has access to, and helps you have fun while doing it. You'll learn clever and powerful methods for using the advanced search interface and the new Google API, including how to build and modify scripts that can become custom business applications based on Google. Google Hacks contains 100 tips, tricks and scripts that you can use to become instantly more effective in your research. Each hack can be read in just a few minutes, but can save hours of searching for the right answers.
Download Now

Download E-book BSD Hacks

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:17:39 PDT

Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, Second Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:36:15 PDT

Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, Second Edition is a hands-on guide to learning object-oriented programming design and analysis...

Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, Second Edition is a hands-on guide to learning object-oriented programming design and analysis.

Download Now

Teach Yourself Linux in 24 Hours

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:18:54 PDT

While this guide won't make you an expert in Linux, it will explain how to get Red Hat Linux to work and how to do basic things with it...

Organized into 24 lessons that take about an hour apiece, this book helps you ensure that your system can handle Linux and walks you through the process of installing Red Hat Linux and the Xfree86 windowing system. Ball's coverage of installation is rather weak, through paying only cursory attention to this confusing process. From there, however, Ball hits his stride in detailing the ins and outs of file-system commands, shells, Internet connections (by PPP), various Internet tools, and administration. For example, in the lesson on graphics programs, Ball explores the most popular graphics program of recent memory: the GNU Image Manipulation Program, affectionately known to its users as the GIMP. Similarly, he covers the popular but cryptic Emacs in his lesson on text editing. In brief, this book introduces you to Linux and the world of Unix tools in a palatable, easy-to-follow way

Download Now

Beginning Microsoft Office Live: Build Your Own Web Site Quickly and Easily (Beginning from Novice to Professional)

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:45:24 PDT

Having a web site is almost mandatory whether you are an individual promoting yourself, part of a company showcasing its products or services, or even a member of a band promoting its music, for instance; but unless you want to hire an expert to put your web site together, you’ll need a good deal of experience and knowledge of web technologies to make your site look professional and convincing...

Microsoft Office Live provides a complete solution for creating attractive and effective web sites through a series of easy-to-use interfaces. The basic version is free, and you don’t need any coding knowledge to start making use of it.

Learn all the basic functions with Beginning Microsoft Office Live and get advice on how to improve site usability for your visitors, as well as explore more advanced topics. Your web site will soon be better designed and even more effective once you’ve mastered the more sophisticated aspects, such as sending e-mail to and from your site and adding dynamic functionality.

* Create your own web site without any coding knowledgeâ€”ANYONE can use Microsoft Office Live!
* Learn how to use all the standard functions.
* Improve your web siteâ€”you’ll easily grasp the more advanced topics, such as improving site design and usability, e-mail, and adding dynamic functionality.

What you’ll learn
# What the different parts of the Office Live family are and its capabilities
# How to sign up for Office Live and get a domain for your web site
# What the most important aspects of creating a web site are
# How to create a new site and add pages to it
# How to manage resources such as images and documents
# How to improve your site’s look and feel
# How to make web site easier for your visitors to use
# How to make your site easier to find on the Web
# How to send e-mails to and from your site
# How to manage your site effectively
# How to add dynamic functionality to your site using JavaScript
Who is this book for?

This book (and Office Live itself) is for anyone who wants to create a web site but doesn’t have much in the way of coding knowledge

Download Now

Microsoft Office 2003 Step by Step

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:56:12 PDT

Discover the new features of Word and master the fundamentals for creating great-looking documents. Topics include using styles, templates, and Smart Tags; formatting, editing, and publishing your ideas in print and online; organizing information and adding impact with tables, chartes and graphics

Download Now

First Look 2007 Microsoft Office System

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:39:42 PDT

What’s inside the newest release of the Microsoft Office system? How will the new interface change the way you work and make you more self-sufficient and effective? How can your business put the new workflow capabilities to work right away in this new world of work? With FIRST LOOK MICROSOFT OFFICE 2007, well-known author and columnist Katherine Murray gives you an exclusive introduction to the next generation of Microsoft Office.
You’ll get an expert overview of new and enhanced applications, features, and capabilities in addition to advance insights and straight talk from the Office product group, Discover the new user interface and revolutionize the way you use Office; learn about the Live Preview feature that allows you to see how a format will look before you make a change; introduce yourself to the new collaboration products and services, including Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Microsoft Office Groove. In addition, learn about enhancements to existing ! Office applications, including new graphics capabilities in Microsoft Office PowerPoint®, easier database creation with Microsoft Office Access, easier time-management capabilities in Microsoft Office Outlook®, and improved charting capabilities in Microsoft Office Excel®. It’s an exclusive, guided preview for business decision makers, early adopters, and users—and anyone else who wants to start planning and hit the ground running with the next generation of Office.

Download Now

2007 Microsoft Office System Inside Out

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:22:02 PDT

This book packs hundreds of time-saving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds for using the 2007 release of Microsoft Office. Whether you are upgrading from Office 97 or Office 2003, youll be able to dig in to the work-ready resources that help you take your Microsoft Office experience to the next level. This comprehensive guide to the 2007 Microsoft Office suites helps you navigate new features and capabilities in the Office programs you use everyday, including the new, easy-to-use user interface and new formatting and editing capabilities. Youll learn how to use the new graphics features in Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office PowerPoint, create a database with Microsoft Office Access, and manage tasks by using Microsoft Office Outlook and more.

Download Now

50 seriously useful Windows 7 tips

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:39:58 PST

Read on for 50 ways in which Windows 7 will make a real difference to your PC.

1. Problem Steps Recorder
As the local PC guru you're probably very used to friends and family asking for help with their computer problems, yet having no idea how to clearly describe what's going on. It's frustrating, but Microsoft feels your pain, and Windows 7 will include an excellent new solution in the Problem Steps Recorder.

When any app starts misbehaving under Windows 7 then all your friends need do is click Start, type PSR and press [Enter], then click Start Record. If they then work through whatever they're doing then the Problem Steps Recorder will record every click and keypress, take screen grabs, and package everything up into a single zipped MHTML file when they're finished, ready for emailing to you. It's quick, easy and effective, and will save you hours of troubleshooting time.

2. Burn images
Windows 7 finally introduces a feature that other operating systems have had for years - the ability to burn ISO images to CDs or DVDs. And it couldn't be much easier to use. Just double-click the ISO image, choose the drive with the blank disc, click Burn and watch as your disc is created.

3. Create and mount VHD files
Microsoft's Virtual PC creates its virtual machine hard drives in VHD files, and Windows 7 can now mount these directly so you can access them in the host system. Click Start, type diskmgmt.msc and press [Enter], then click Action > Attach VHD and choose the file you'd like to mount. It will then appear as a virtual drive in Explorer and can be accessed, copied or written just like any other drive.

Click Action > Create VHD and you can now create a new virtual drive of your own (right-click it, select Initialise Disk, and after it's set up right-click the unallocated space and select New Simple Volume to set this up). Again, you'll be left with a virtual drive that behaves just like any other, where you can drag and drop files, install programs, test partitioning software or do whatever you like. But it's actually just this VHD file on your real hard drive which you can easily back up or share with others. Right-click the disk (that's the left-hand label that says "Disk 2" or whatever) and select Detach VHD to remove it.

The command line DISKPART utility has also been upgraded with tools to detach a VHD file, and an EXPAND command to increase a virtual disk's maximum size. Don't play around with this unless you know what you're doing, though - it's all too easy to trash your system.

4. Troubleshoot problems
If some part of Windows 7 is behaving strangely, and you don't know why, then click Control Panel > Find and fix problems (or 'Troubleshooting') to access the new troubleshooting packs. These are simple wizards that will resolve common problems, check your settings, clean up your system and more.

5. Startup repair
Windows 7 is more reliable than we'd expect from a beta, but you still might run into problems, and the worst might stop it from booting. Even into Safe Mode. And that's very bad news if you downloaded Windows 7, as you've no CD or DVD to use for re-installation. Which is why you need to click Start > Maintenance > Create a System Repair Disc, right now, and let Windows 7 build a bootable emergency disc. If the worst does happen then it could be the only way to get your PC running again.

6. Take control
Tired of the kids installing dubious software or running applications you'd rather they left alone? AppLocker is a new Windows 7 feature that ensures users can only run the programs you specify. Don't worry, that's easier to set up than it sounds: you can create a rule to allow everything signed by a particular publisher, so choose Microsoft, say, and that one rule will let you run all signed Microsoft applications. Launch GPEDIT.MSC and go to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Application Control Policies > AppLocker to get a feel for how this works.

7. Calculate more
At first glance the Windows 7 calculator looks just like Vista's version, but explore the Mode menu and you'll see powerful new Statistics and Programmer views. And if you're clueless about bitwise manipulation, then try the Options menu instead. This offers many different unit conversions (length, weight, volume and more), date calculations (how many days between two dates?), and spreadsheet-type templates to help you calculate vehicle mileage, mortgage rates and more.

Don't take any Windows 7 applet at face value, then - there are some very powerful new features hidden in the background. Be sure to explore every option in all Windows applets to ensure you don't miss anything important.

8. Switch to a projector
Windows 7 now provides a standard way to switch your display from one monitor to another, or a projector - just press Win+P or run DisplaySwitch.exe and choose your preferred display. (This will have no effect if you've only one display connected.)

9. Automatic PC clean up
If inexperienced PC users sometimes access your system then you'll know that, well, this can cause problems. Leave them alone for too long and they'll mess up your settings, install dubious programs, delete important files and cause all kinds of havoc. But Microsoft feels your pain, and Windows 7 will include a possible solution: PC Safeguard. This lets your less technical users log on, play games, use the browser or chat on an instant messenger, say, just as normal. But when they log off, any settings they've changed are undone, and any files they've saved are deleted. Which means it's much more difficult to mess up your PC.

This isn't a new technology. Microsoft have made their Shared Computer Toolkit (aka Windows SteadyState) freely available for years, and this does exactly the same thing (it's more configurable, too). This is the first time it's been fully integrated with Windows, though, which makes it much easier to use.

To give PC Safeguard a try, go to Control Panel > User Accounts and Family Safety > User Accounts > Manage another account > Create a new account. Enter an account name, click Create, then click the account, select Set Up PC Safeguard > Turn on PC Safeguard > Apply. Log on as that user, try downloading and installing a program, then restart and log on again to confirm that the software has gone.

10. Understanding System Restore
Using System Restore in previous versions of Windows has been something of a gamble. There's no way of telling which applications or drivers it might affect - you just have to try it and see.

Windows 7 is different. Right-click Computer, select Properties > System Protection > System Restore > Next, and choose the restore point you'd like to use. Click the new button to 'Scan for affected programs' and Windows will tell you which (if any) programs and drivers will be deleted or recovered by selecting this restore point.

11. Set the time zone
System administrators will appreciate the new command line tzutil.exe utility, which lets you set a PC's time zone from scripts. If you wanted to set a PC to Greenwich Mean Time, for instance, you'd use the command

tzutil /s "gmt standard time"

The command "tzutil /g" displays the current time zone, "tzutil /l" lists all possible time zones, and "tzutil /?" displays details on how the command works.

12. Calibrate your screen
The colours you see on your screen will vary depending on your monitor, graphics cards settings, lighting and more, yet most people use the same default Windows colour profile. And that means a digital photo you think looks perfect might appear very poor to everybody else. Fortunately Windows 7 now provides a Display Colour Calibration Wizard that helps you properly set up your brightness, contrast and colour settings, and a ClearType tuner to ensure text is crisp and sharp. Click Start, type DCCW and press [Enter] to give it a try.

13. Right-click everything
At first glance Windows 7 bears a striking resemblance to Vista, but there's an easy way to begin spotting the differences - just right-click things.

Right-click an empty part of the desktop, for instance, and you'll find a menu entry to set your screen resolution. No need to go browsing through the display settings any more.

Right-click the Explorer icon on the taskbar for speedy access to common system folders: Documents, Pictures, the Windows folder, and more.

And if you don't plan on using Internet Explorer then you probably won't want its icon permanently displayed on the taskbar. Right-click the icon, select 'Unpin this program from the taskbar', then go install Firefox, instead.

14. Desktop slideshow
Windows 7 comes with some very attractive new wallpapers, and it's not always easy to decide which one you like the best. So why not let choose a few, and let Windows display them all in a desktop slideshow? Right-click an empty part of the desktop, select Personalise > Desktop Background, then hold down Ctrl as you click on the images you like. Choose how often you'd like the images to be changed (anything from daily to once every 10 seconds), select Shuffle if you'd like the backgrounds to appear in a random order, then click Save Changes and enjoy the show.

15. RSS-powered wallpaper
And if a slideshow based on your standard wallpaper isn't enough, then you can always create a theme that extracts images from an RSS feed. This isn't fully implemented in the beta yet, but Long Zheng has created a few sample themes to illustrate how it works. And Jamie Thompson takes this even further, with a theme that always displays the latest BBC news and weather on your desktop.

16. Recover screen space
The new Windows 7 taskbar acts as one big quick launch toolbar that can hold whatever program shortcuts you like (just right-click one and select Pin To Taskbar). And that's fine, except it does consume a little more screen real estate than we'd like. Shrink it to a more manageable size by right-clicking the Start orb, then Properties > Taskbar > Use small icons > OK.

17. Restore the Quick Launch Toolbar
If you're unhappy with the new taskbar, even after shrinking it, then it only takes a moment to restore the old Quick Launch Toolbar.

Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars > New Toolbar, type "%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch" (less the quotes) into the Folder box and click Select Folder.

Now right-click the taskbar, clear 'Lock the taskbar', and you should see the Quick Launch toolbar, probably to the right. Right-click its divider, clear Show Text and Show Title to minimise the space it takes up. Complete the job by right-clicking the bar and selecting View > Small Icons for the true retro look.

18. Custom power switch
By default, Windows 7 displays a plain text 'Shut down' button on the Start menu, but it only takes a moment to change this action to something else. If you reboot your PC a few times every day then that might make more sense as a default action: right-click the Start orb, select Properties and set the 'Power boot action' to 'Restart' to make it happen.

19. Auto arrange your desktop
If your Windows 7 desktop has icons scattered everywhere then you could right-click it and select View > Auto arrange, just as in Vista. But a simpler solution is just to press and hold down [F5], and Windows will automatically arrange its icons for you.

20. Disable smart window arrangement
Windows 7 features interesting new ways to intelligently arrange your windows, so that (for example) if you drag a window to the top of the screen then it will maximise. We like the new system, but if you find it distracting then it's easily disabled. Run REGEDIT, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, set WindowArrangementActive to 0, reboot, and your windows will behave just as they always did.

21. Remove 'Send Feedback'
Microsoft has released Windows 7 to get feedback from the public, so it's important to take advantage of that. If you don't like something, or have a good idea, then click Send Feedback and tell them what's on your mind. You really could make a difference. But once you've done all that then you might want to get rid of the Send Feedback links on your windows, and this is very easy to do. Just launch REGEDIT, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, set the FeedbackToolEnabled value to zero and restart your PC. (Set it to 3 if you'd like the Send Feedback links back again.)

22. Display your drives
Click Computer in Windows 7 and you might see a strange lack of drives, but don't panic, it's just Microsoft trying to be helpful: drives like memory card readers are no longer displayed if they're empty. We think it's an improvement, but if you disagree then it's easy to get your empty drives back. Launch Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options > View and clear 'Hide empty drives in the computer folder'.

23. See more detail
The new and improved Windows 7 magnifier offers a much easier way to zoom in on any area of the screen. Launch it and you can now define a scale factor and docking position, and once activated it can track your keyboard focus around the screen. Press [Tab] as you move around a dialog box, say, and it'll automatically zoom in on the currently active control.

24. Protect your MP3 files
Along with many good new features, the Windows 7 beta also includes a nasty bug. Its version of Windows Media Player 12 will automatically add missing metadata, including album art, and this can overwrite the first few seconds of the file. Oops. Installing an update may fix this (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961367) but it would probably be a very good idea to back up your MP3 files, too.

25. Customise UAC
Windows Vista's User Account Control was a good idea in practice, but poor implementation put many people off - it raised far too many alerts. Fortunately Windows 7 displays less warnings by default, and lets you further fine-tune UAC to suit your preferred balance between security and a pop-up free life (Start > Control Panel > Change User Account Control Settings).

26. Use Sticky Notes
The Sticky Notes app is both simpler and more useful in Windows 7. Launch StikyNot.exe and you can type notes at the keyboard; right-click a note to change its colour; click the + sign on the note title bar to add another note; and click a note and press [Alt]+[4] to close the note windows (your notes will automatically be saved).

27. Open folder in new process
By default Windows 7 opens folders in the same process. This saves system resources, but means one folder crash can bring down the entire shell. If your system seems unstable, or you're doing something in Explorer that regularly seems to causes crashes, then open Computer, hold down shift, right-click on your drive and select Open in New Process. The folder will now be launched in a separate process, and so a crash is less likely to affect anything else.

28. Watch more videos
Windows Media Player 12 is a powerful program, but it still won't play all the audio and video files you'll find online. Fortunately the first freeware Windows 7 codecs package [shark007.net/win7codecs.html] has just been released, and installing it could get your troublesome multimedia files playing again.

29. Preview fonts
Open the Fonts window in Windows XP and Vista and you'll see the font names, probably with icons to tell you whether they're TrueType or OpenType, but that's about it. Feeble, really, but Windows 7 sees some useful font-related improvement.

Open the new fonts window and you'll find a little preview for every font, giving you a quick idea of how they're going to look.

The tedium of scrolling through multiple entries for each family, like Times New Roman, Times New Roman Bold, Times New Roman Bold Italic and so on, has finally ended. There's now just a single entry for each font (though you can still see all other members of the family).

And there's a new OpenType font, Gabriola, added to the mix. It's an attractive script font, well worth a try the next time you need a stylish document that stands out from the crowd.

30. Restore your gadgets
Windows 7 has tightened up its security by refusing to run gadgets if UAC has been turned off, so limiting the damage malicious unsigned gadgets can do to your system. If you've disabled UAC, miss your gadgets and are happy to accept the security risk, though, there's an easy Registry way to get everything back to normal. Run REGEDIT, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Sidebar\Settings, create a new DWORD value called AllowElevatedProcess and set it to 1. Your gadgets should start working again right away.

31. New WordPad formats
By default WordPad will save documents in Rich Text Format, just as before. But browse the Save As Format list and you'll see you can also save (or open, actually) files in the Office 2007 .docx or OpenDocument .odt formats.

32. Protect your data
USB flash drives are convenient, portable, and very easy to lose. Which is a problem, especially if they're carrying sensitive data. Fortunately Windows 7 has the solution: encrypt your documents with an extension of Microsoft's BitLocker technology, and only someone with the password will be able to access it. Right-click your USB flash drive, select Turn on BitLocker and follow the instructions to protect your private files.

33. Search everything
Windows 7 can now try to search the contents of just about any file type, useful if it's not currently finding the data you need. The problem? Searches can be much, much slower. If you'd like to try it anyway, then launch Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options > View and check "Try to search the content of unknown file types".

34. Configure your favourite music
The Windows 7 Media Centre now comes with an option to play your "favourite music", which by default creates a changing list of songs based on your ratings, how often you play them, and when they were added (it's assumed you'll prefer songs you've added in the last 30 days). If this doesn't work then you can tweak how Media Centre decides what a "favourite" tune is- click Tasks > Settings > Music > Favourite Music and configure the program to suit your needs.

35. Customise System Restore
There was very little you could do to configure System Restore in Vista, but Windows 7 improves the situation with a couple of useful setup options.

Click the Start orb, right-click Computer and select Properties > System Protection > Configure, and set the Max Usage value to a size that suits your needs (larger to hold more restore points, smaller to save disk space).

And if you don't need System Restore to save Windows settings then choose the "Only restore previous versions of files" option. Windows 7 won't back up your Registry, which means you'll squeeze more restore points and file backups into the available disk space. System Restore is much less likely to get an unbootable PC working again, though, so use this trick at your own risk.

36. Run As
Hold down shift, right-click any program shortcut, and you'll see an option to run the program as a different user, handy if you're logged in to the kids' limited account and need to run something with higher privileges. This isn't really a new feature - Windows XP had a Run As option that did the same thing - but Microsoft stripped it out of Vista, so it's good to see they've had a change of heart.

37. Search privacy
By default Windows 7 will remember your PC search queries, and display the most recent examples when searching in Windows Explorer. If you're sharing a PC and don't want everyone to see your searches, then launch GPEDIT.MSC, go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer, double-click "Turn off display of recent search entries..." and click Enabled > OK.

38. Tweak PC volume
By default Windows 7 will now automatically reduce the volume of your PC's sounds whenever it detects you're making or receiving PC-based phone calls. If this proves annoying (or maybe you'd like it to turn off other sounds altogether) then you can easily change the settings accordingly. Just right-click the speaker icon in your taskbar, select Sounds > Communications, and tell Windows what you'd like it to do.

39. Find bottlenecks
From what we've seen so far Windows 7 is already performing better than Vista, but if your PC seems sluggish then it's now much easier to uncover the bottleneck. Click Start, type RESMON and press [Enter] to launch the Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory, Disk or Network tabs. Windows 7 will immediately show which processes are hogging the most system resources.

The CPU view is particularly useful, and provides something like a more powerful version of Task Manager. If a program has locked up, for example, then right-click its name in the list and select Analyze Process. Windows will then try to tell you why it's hanging - the program might be waiting for another process, perhaps - which could give you the information you need to fix the problem.

40. Keyboard shortcuts
Windows 7 supports several useful new keyboard shortcuts.

Alt+P
Display/ hide the Explorer preview pane

Windows Logo+G
Display gadgets in front of other windows

Windows Logo++ (plus key)
Zoom in, where appropriate

Windows Logo+- (minus key)
Zoom out, where appropriate

Windows Logo+Up
Maximise the current window

Windows Logo+Down
Minimise the current window

Windows Logo+Left
Snap to the left hand side of the screen

Windows Logo+Right
Snap to the right hand side of the screen

Windows Logo+Home
Minimise/ restore everything except the current window

41. Faster program launches
If you've launched one instance of a program but want to start another, then don't work your way back through the Start menu. It's much quicker to just hold down Shift and click on the program's icon (or middle-click it), and Windows 7 will start a new instance for you.

42. Speedy video access
Want faster access to your Videos folder? Windows 7 now lets you add it to the Start menu. Just right-click the Start orb, click Properties > Start Menu > Customize, and set the Videos option to "Display as a link". If you've a TV tuner that works with Windows 7 then you'll appreciate the new option to display the Recorded TV folder on the Start menu, too.

43. Run web searches
The Windows 7 search tool can now be easily extended to search online resources, just as long as someone creates an appropriate search connector. To add Flickr support, say, visit I Started Something, click Download the Connector, choose the Open option and watch as it's downloaded (the file is tiny, it'll only take a moment). A "Flickr Search" option will be added to your Searches folder, and you'll be able to search images from your desktop.

44. Schedule Media Centre downloads
You can now tell Windows Media Centre to download data at a specific time, perhaps overnight, a useful way to prevent it sapping your bandwidth for the rest of the day. Launch Media Centre, go to Tasks > Settings > General > Automatic Download Options, and set the download start and stop times that you'd like it to use.

45. Multi-threaded Robocopies
Anyone who's ever used the excellent command-line robocopy tool will appreciate the new switches introduced with Windows 7. Our favourite, /MT, can improve speed by carrying out multi-threaded copies with the number of threads you specify (you can have up to 128, though that might be going a little too far). Enter robocopy /? at a command line for the full details.

46. Really remove the sidebar
At first glance you might think Windows 7 has got rid of the sidebar, but don't be fooled. Gadgets are still hosted by the Sidebar.exe process, it's just that this is now launched automatically when Windows boots. If you don't plan on ever using gadgets then you could delete the Sidebar Registry entry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, and recover a small amount of RAM. That might be a little risky, though, as we're not quite sure what else the sidebar process does in Windows 7. The safest approach is to disable it temporarily by launching MSCONFIG.EXE, clicking the Startup tab and clearing the box next to the Startup entry. Now reboot and test Windows 7 for a day or two to confirm everything is still working, before finally deleting the sidebar Registry entry.

47. Load IE faster
Some Internet Explorer add-ons can take a while to start, dragging down the browser's performance, but at least IE8 can now point a finger at the worst resource hogs. Click Tools > Manage Add-ons, check the Load Time in the right-hand column, and you'll immediately see which browser extensions are slowing you down.

48. An Alt+Tab alternative
You want to access one of the five Explorer windows you have open, but there are so many other programs running that Alt+Tab makes it hard to pick out what you need. The solution? Hold down the Ctrl key while you click on the Explorer icon. Windows 7 will then cycle through the Explorer windows only, a much quicker way to locate the right one. (And of course this works with any application that has multiple windows open.)

49. Block annoying alerts
Just like Vista, Windows 7 will display a suitably stern warning if it thinks your antivirus, firewall or other security settings are incorrect.

But unlike Vista, if you disagree then you can now turn off alerts on individual topics. If you no longer want to see warnings just because you've dared to turn off the Windows firewall, say, then click Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Change Action Centre settings, clear the Network Firewall box and click OK.

50. Parallel defrags
The standard Windows 7 defragger offers a little more control than we saw in Vista, and the command line version also has some interesting new features. The /r switch will defrag multiple drives in parallel, for instance (they'll obviously need to be physically separate drives for this to be useful). The /h switch runs the defrag at a higher than normal priority, and the /u switch provides regular progress reports so you can see exactly what's going on. Enter the command

defrag /c /h /u /r

in a command window to speedily defrag a system with multiple drives, or enter defrag /? to view the new options for yourself.

Windows 7 Build 7048 Leaked

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:33:04 PST

First reports are in that another Windows 7 build has been leaked to the Internet. After magazines like Winfuture posting screenshots of Windows 7 build 7048 yesterday first reports have emerged that this build is available on various Bittorrent sites on the Internet. The complete build string of the release is 7048.0.winmain.090219-1845 indicating that it was compiled on February 19, 2009 at 18:45. It is surprising that this build got leaked as it only got distributed to internal testers and several Microsoft partners who participate in the Technology Adopters Program.

Windows 7 build 7048 is supposed to be distributed to beta testers on the Connect portal later this month according to the article at Winfuture.

Internet Explorer 8 Can Be Uninstalled In Latest Windows 7 Build

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:27:43 PST

You might have noticed the legal battle between Microsoft and the European Union about the integration of Internet Explorer in the Windows operating system.The European Union is pressuring Microsoft to provide alternatives or ship the next installment without Internet Explorer much like the Media Player-less installations that are available in the European Union as well.

It should also be noted that uninstalling Internet Explorer 8 from the Windows 7 installation will not remove all of its components from the computer system. Microsoft has integrated Internet Explorer into the Windows operating system that it would practically require a full rewrite to get rid of it completely.

Only the actual Internet Explorer executable will be removed from the Windows 7 build if the option to remove Internet Explorer 8 is selected. Here are the steps to undertake to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7:

* Enter the Control Panel and look at “All Control Panel Options”
* Click “Programs and Features”
* In the left sidebar, click “Turn Windows Features On or Off” (you will be thrown a UAC prompt if you elevated UAC)
* Wait for the list to load.
* Look for Internet Explorer 8 in the list and uncheck it.
* Click OK. You will see a prompt notifying you of a reboot.
* The machine will reboot once, configure things, and reboot again.

There is no word yet if the uninstallation of Internet Explorer in Windows 7 affects any other areas of the operating system. Several components but also third party tools use the rendering engine of Internet Explorer.

Microsoft Open Source

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:43:36 PST

Solution for Securing Web Content Through Isolation

Source code available through Apache License 2.0

Microsoft has made the source code for Web Sandbox available under the open source Apache License 2.0. The Web Sandbox is designed to secure web content through isolation, while at the same time delivering quality of service and extensibility capabilities for both web content developers and website users. Ultimately, the Web Sandbox provides an interception layer set up to deal with pieces of untrusted code via virtualization.

“The Web Sandbox was created in response to limitations found in the current web platform, and is designed to explore potential solutions. Having a more secure and robust architecture as a foundational building block will help drive the next wave of Web innovation,” revealed Open Source Community Manager Peter Galli. “The Sandbox is a framework that works on most modern browsers that support the"ECMA-262, 3rd Edition" (JavaScript) standard, and provides the same features in all modern web browsers.”

Microsoft informed that the adoption of the Web Sandbox would be sufficient to deliver an extra tier of security through virtualization. In this regard, leveraging the technology would not require any additional components. Because it aims to provide not only additional security but also the normalization of different browsers while also delivering W3C DOM support, Microsoft aims for widespread adoption of the Web Sandbox, and is emphasizing the need for interoperability with existing complementary technologies.

“The goal? An open and interoperable standard that will help foster interoperability with complementary technologies like script frameworks and drive widespread adoption of the Web Sandbox,” Galli added. “This move is good news for Microsoft and the open source communities. But, it is important to note that while an Apache license is being used, the Web Sandbox project is not an Apache Software Foundation project and is not sponsored or endorsed by the ASF.”

15 Activation Keys For Windows 7 Pre-Beta

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:17:54 PST

Vista glories seems to be gone windows 7 (build 6801) is taking the place, i noticed many people trying new pre-beta but this new windows 7 m3 (build 6801) pre-beta gives you 30 day trial period after that its gona seize the way vista used to which results data loss. If you are stucked in the middle and need activation key to activate your copy of windows 7 pre-beta simply scroll down and use anyone of them.

Note: These 15 Multiple Activation Keys (MAK) works with windows 7 (32bit and 64bit both) and you can use them on as many pc’s as much you want. you can activate Windows 7 online or by phone activation.

J7PYM-6X6FJ-QRKYT-TW4KF-BY7H9

D67PP-QBKVV-6FWDJ-4K2XB-D4684

HQDKC-F3P6D-C9YYM-HRB89-QDBB7

76DX2-7YMCQ-K2WCP-672K2-BK44W

2RG93-6XVFJ-RKHQ7-D2RTT-3FMQT

TT63R-8JGWP-WWT97-R6WQC-4CVWY

YQJX6-D6TRM-VWBM7-PHDJK-YPXJH

Q7J7F-GQHBT-Q42RQ-2F8XV-2WKKM

KH4X7-JY8G7-RCD7G-BYDJW-YTPXH

WYBJ8-8QVP3-24R82-VV2VP-72Q9W

9DP2R-W78GJ-GJBKW-CKR46-H3WYT

CXB7F-WWCM4-BP9V3-2YH43-RK8Y6

W9BYV-K2TB8-4YDJT-QBQWP-KFDHB

WGDJW-B8DYC-WVKX4-6MKF4-B8PK8

2PHXF-9PBDW-D3WWY-CPDKD-XG87V

Is it your first time? if you did’t installed Windows 7 yet then head over to this post and grab a copy of Windows 7 M3 (build 6801) pre-beta, use the keys mentioned above to activate it.

Enjoying Windows 7? enhance your desktop experience with coolest and huge windows 7 wallpapers collection

Blue Badge patch for Windows 7 unlocks additional features

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:52:43 PST

On November 2, Rafael Rivera, announced that his indications that the Windows 7 Pre-Beta Build 6801 has some locked additional options, were right. The locked content is primarily related to the UI that actually is one of the most looked-upon things in Windows 7. By his notices, it is not hard to conclude that some contents are locked with reason, because they are far away from stable, even for a pre-beta release.

He explained the type of protection that Win7 PB build 6801 has on his entry, and a way how he got to it. The entry also includes the way to get that content yourself.

By that scheme, an unlocking tool, called the Blue Badge is available for download. This tool should make the already announced steps much easier. Of course, this is still a risky operation, and you take it on your own risk.
These files are to be patched with Blue Badge. The patch is available only for x86 versions; the x64 is still not released.

~~If case you already have a superbar patch applied, Blue Badge will NOT work.~~ Correction, users have reported that the Blue Badge will work even with the superbar patch applied.

windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:55:05 PST

Introduction

It’s that time again. Has it been that long? Windows Vista has been Microsoft’s most public, most controversial yet most important release in the Company’s history. Consumer reception of the operating system released world-wide in January of 2007 was one of hesitance, let’s wait and see, and for those who adopted early, unforgiving. A lot of things with Windows Vista were not coordinated well, from communication, its system requirements, Industry Partnership and what value does it really offer to a Windows XP user which has dominated the market for nearly 7 years. The Company’s (OEMs) who were supposed to represent Windows Vista on their systems did so poorly initially. A lot of debate has started over this, which includes Microsoft’s alleged deal with Intel to support a particular integrated graphics chipset, the Windows Vista Capable branding and the perception that Vista was never ready out the gate. I would describe myself as being at the centre of most of these issues.

For one, OEMs did a bad job of communicating Vista by sending systems out of their factories without properly testing real world scenario’s of what the average consumer will be doing with such a system leaving them with just the bare minimum. Second, Microsoft never gave clear understanding of what it really takes to run the OS acceptably. The coordination was pretty much a disaster in the early months of its release. Third, competitors such as Apple Inc. took the chance and ran with this hit ‘em when their down strategy and over the past couple of years defined Microsoft and Windows into a Company that cannot meet consumer expectations. Although it was mostly inaccurate when Vista was setup on systems that should have been released in January 2007, the damage in some ways seems to have already been done; regardless the OS has garnered over 180 million strong support on systems worldwide. The first Service Pack was released in 2008 improving general performance and common task like file copy/move and boot time and Microsoft is expected to release the second Service Pack some time in 2009. There is still this thing of perception though, but Microsoft known to not rest on their laurels, used this experience as a good dose of ‘we need to do extremely better’.

And so it is with this new venture called Windows 7 we arrive at the opportunity to fix the past and right the future. Company CEO Steve Ballmer has described the release of Windows 7, as ‘a better Vista’. Interestingly enough, a lot of the folks who were behind the Windows Vista Project are no longer with Microsoft, most notable are Jim Allchin, Brian Valentine and William H. Gates (former Chief Software Architect and Chairman of the Board). Familiar faces from different territories in the Microsoft platform now lead the development of Vista’s successor; some of them include Steven Sinofsky, Joe DeVaan and Julie Larson Green VP of Program Management for the Windows Experience (of Microsoft Office Fluent fame). To understand Windows 7, one needs to understand the goals behind the Project. In early August of 2008, an online journal ‘The Engineering 7’ blog was started by Steven Sinofsky and Joe DeVaan to start early communication with developers, enthusiast and end users around the next release. The site has primarily focused on reasons for what was done in Vista with little substance on how Windows 7 would improve the experience. So, this is where we at ActiveWin.com come in, we are here to give a personal, human hands on experience with this early glimpse of Windows 7 and what it means to you, me and the Windows platform in general. We do understand this is an early preview which is not even representative of BETA 1 which should be arriving sometime soon. So, if we do assume things, please forgive us.

When is Microsoft going to deliver Windows 7 to consumers? Microsoft has scoped this release to three years after Windows Vista’s general availability, which would put it somewhere around late 2009 or early 2010. This would suggest a short testing cycle and early availability to OEMs, it’s definitely sounding like a well oiled developer team. Windows 7 builds on the foundation of Windows Vista/Server 2008 SP1, the NT Kernel version remains at 6.x to maintain compatibility with certain applications and device drivers that are hard coded to check for this specific numeral. Microsoft has promised to make Windows 7 available in both 32 and 64 bit platforms.

The name, Microsoft in the past has been notorious for marketing a brand with a certain flare. During prior Windows development stages a code name would be used, e.g. Chicago, Memphis, Whistler or Longhorn. With 7 Microsoft chose to eliminate this approach and has described the development as ‘the Windows 7 Project’. Windows 7 did have code names though, Blackcomb and Vienna. The history of the OS goes back as far as the year 2000, where 7 (Blackcomb at the time) would be a major release following Vista (Longhorn at the time). The scope of the project has changed considerably since then. Microsoft chose 7 to make the branding simpler in the eyes of consumers. Although some would dispute how Microsoft reached the number 7 or even if Windows isn’t already past that number considering the amount of versions over the years. ZDNET journalist, Ed Bott best describes the versioning as based on Microsoft’s NT line of operating systems: NT 3.1 (1), NT 3.5 (2), NT 4.0 (3), 2000 or NT 5.0 (4), XP or NT 5.1 (5), Vista or NT 6.0 and we arrive at the magical number Windows 7 (NT 6.1).

Key Goals:

Under-promise and over deliver
Reduce Compatibility problems and bring investments in Vista forward
Reduce disk foot print and memory foot print
Improve performance
Secure, predictable
Make the Windows and PC Experience easier
Exceptional hardware and software support
Bring future releases to market faster
Personalized experience that defines you
Superior mobility through reliable performance, power management

All of those goals seem very reasonable; at the same time achievable and the Windows Team have been working on them since the release of Vista. In some ways, it’s back to basics for Microsoft, delivering on the core values of Windows, giving the user what they want and enabling choice through Microsoft platforms such as Windows Live. Some of the changes in Windows 7 will seem radical to users who have come to expect Microsoft to incorporate everything in the Windows OS except the proverbial kitchen sink. Microsoft has realized this is actually holding back innovation, not necessarily performance.

Coming directly from Windows Vista, the most notable thing about Windows 7 is how strikingly similar both are from face value. A lot seems almost untouched, but there is more to it than it seems. The interface has been extremely cleaned up to give Windows a less cluttered appearance. Areas such as the Desktop and Taskbar have received major improvements. The Start Menu and Windows Explorer have also received major enhancements. Familiar applications have assumed new appearances and new tools and old ones have been improved to give users a better understanding of their personal computer. It seems that Microsoft is going full steam ahead with the previous SKU strategy for Windows 7. During setup, I chose not to install with the product key and was presented a selection of Windows 7 editions that are familiar to Vista users. It’s not known what key differentiators Microsoft will be making across the board this time around, but with a lot of the multimedia applications now available through Windows Live and to Windows Vista users and even XP users, its going be a tough sell in my opinion. Since we are on the topic of Editions, Windows Anytime Upgrade is still around but with a few upgrade process improvements. In Windows 7, Windows Anytime Upgrade enables you to quickly and easily upgrade from one edition to another in about 10 minutes—without requiring physical media. All the software required to upgrade already resides on your PC, and can be “unlocked” by purchasing a software key from Microsoft or a retailer. You won’t have to download any software, and your existing customizations—including the exact look and feel of your desktop—will be retained. If you upgrade online, you won’t even need to type in an upgrade key.

The requirements for a successful installation include a 1 GHz Intel Pentium III or compatible processor or better, 1 GB or more RAM, 10 GBs free disk space, an SVGA Plug and Play monitor, keyboard, mouse, a DVD Drive, network adapter. My setup includes a Desktop machine Dell Dimension 8300 (March 2004), 3.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4, 2.6 GBs of RAM and an nVidia Geforce 6200 512 MBs of vRAM AGP. My next system, an ACER notebook (late 2006) includes a 2.0 GHz AMD Turion x2, 2 GBs of RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256 MBs of vRAM.

At first glance, Windows 7 looks like Vista, but with a lot of polish, the new theme is called Scenic. Parts of the interface such as the Start menu panel, features a shinier glossy look and feel. There is more emphasis on the integrated Search box with blue highlight around it. Open Explorer and you will notice that the Command bar has been changed considerably, featuring a similar appearance to Windows Live applications, the toolbar buttons are now text based with a silverfish bluish colour scheme. Microsoft is not aiming to renovate the entire experience, just make improvements that are more welcoming, the code in itself, looks almost complete and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Windows Team has this out much earlier than promised.

Setup

For Windows XP users upgrading to Windows Vista was a hit and miss. In particular, the upgrade matrix was confusing and at times frustrating. Only users of 32-bit Windows could do upgrades, while 64 bit users were left in the cold. Fortunately the situation with Windows 7 has improved for the better. Unfortunately for those who invested in Windows XP Professional x64, not so good. Windows Vista 64 bit users can take confidence in the ability to do an upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit. The two machines we tested Windows 7 pre-beta on had a different set of Windows operating systems; I decided to do a clean install on both machines. I will do an upgrade if it is fully supported in BETA 1, since I can preserve my existing Vista Ultimate installations through Complete PC Backup, this makes BETA testing in particular a whole lot easier too. Doing the installation required careful planning; I had to ensure that after the installation I could access the Internet, so I made sure I copied my ACER Drivers folder to my external hard drive. I also checked the manufacturer’s website for more recent device drivers for my NIC (Broadcom 5788MG) and built in Wireless (Wireless Atheros ABG/BG). Windows 7 features a new ‘load driver’ feature in the case where an upgrade is blocked because of an incompatible or missing driver that is needed to properly boot the system, you can instead load a new or updated driver from the Compatibility Report and continue with the upgrade. That sounds like thinking ahead.

Installing Windows 7 was rather uneventful but very informative; throughout the installation provided regular progress updates throughout the entire install process. The installation time was considerably short, based on my testing; both systems installed Windows 7 in less than 15 minutes. Compared to Windows Vista this is a dramatic drop in the time it takes to get the OS on the system, for Vista, I recorded 45 minutes. The Windows 7 OOBE (Out of Box Experience) introduces new options for multiple PC environments, for instance homes can now make sharing personal files (Documents, Pictures, Music and Video) seamless through a new feature called Home Groups. During Windows Vista’s early phase of development, a feature was being touted called ‘Castles’ or ‘Domain for Homes’. The premise was to bring the fundamentals of Microsoft’s Network Operating System profile roaming and replication capabilities to home environments without the need for a Client/Server scenario. Home Groups, is an excellent way to manage data in families where multiple PC’s are setup throughout the home with its syncing capabilities, especially if a main PC goes down. In 2007 Microsoft introduced Windows Home Server which pretty much provided some of the capabilities of Home Groups, but Windows 7 takes the cake by simply turning your existing PC’s into their own Home Server’s. The OOBE features expanded options, in Vista, the only customized options was your User Account Picture and Desktop Wallpaper, in 7 you can personalize not only those options, but additional experiences by selecting a Glass colour, screen saver and sounds.

After reaching the desktop, the user is greeted by the desktop, not the Welcome Center, which has been replaced by the Getting Started Guide located on the Start menu. Getting started on the Start menu indicates common tasks on a new PC through a new feature called Jump List, a great way for you to access the content from the programs you use most often. The Getting Started Jump List features task you can explore, such as transferring files from your old PC, add new user accounts and more. The great advantage is it’s there when you need it and it’s out of your way. It’s one of those things I hated about Welcome Center in Vista, on the initial log in it was mandatory and would not give you the option to uncheck it until the second restart and sometimes you would end up forgetting to even uncheck it. Regardless of all these pre-requisites, the installation was successful and the fundamentals were detected. To start an early test with compatibility, I decided install the existing device drivers for components that were not detected.

Tweaking the system is probably the most common task one does after installing the system, this includes, setting appropriate screen resolution, DPI and Theme/colour scheme, Control Panel would be the place to do this. Not much has changed here; it’s just like Windows Vista’s with even more applets available for tweaking and applying changes to system settings.

Applets in Control Panel have received some significant updates; they include Windows Update and the Personalization explorer along with new ones like Windows Solutions Centre, Accelerators Clear Type Text Tuner. Old favourites like Windows Sidebar are not restricted to a certain type of presentation area on screen.

Daily Usage

Well, I have just been using Windows 7 for 5 hours so far. But I have adjusted just fine so far, the changes to the interface are not revolutionary or dramatic. The Welcome Screen is the same as it was in Vista. What are most notable are the considerable improvements to how security is handled. The controversial User Account Control utility is more controlled. Persons familiar with it in Vista resorted to disabling the feature out of nuisance. I expressed my views about it in our ActiveWin Vista review. Windows 7 takes a more passive experience with UAC; the most notable is when a system component triggers UAC it does not block out the screen. In addition to that, the dialog now features the AERO Glass theme instead of reverting to an AERO Basic look when triggered. UAC also gives the user more information about why does what it does. For instance, an application is shown which part of the system it needs to access or write to. UAC is still annoying, but it’s not in your face. In Windows Solution Centre which now replaces Windows Security Centre and Problem Reports and Solutions, a new setting called User Account Control settings provides users the option of controlling how they are notified of potential changes to the system. Similar to Windows Internet Explorers ‘Security level for this zone’ setting, users have a choice between Never and Always Notify.

Never Notify is the most drastic option and is pretty much similar to turning of UAC all together. I don’t think you want to choose this option because UAC still has a place in Windows, just that it needs to be more intelligent. For this there are more flexible options, there is the option to only be notified when programs attempt to make change to the system, but exclude user initiated actions. It kind of defeats the original premise of UAC protecting novice users from themselves, but for those who are novices and experts who find UAC in its current state too intrusive should find this to be the right balance. Two other options, ‘Always Notify Me’, notifies the user, but does not wait on a response from the user, which the obvious ‘Always notify me and wait for my response’ does.

Overall, I consider this to be progress; users finally have choice on this critical area of the system. It’s clear Microsoft is listening and users should feel more confident with changes they make to UAC. In Vista there is this nagging paranoia even for those who willingly turn it off in Vista. It’s all about choice and confidence.

Action Center is an improved applet in Control Panel, formerly Problem Reports and Solution, Security Centre and Maintenance Program group combined into one location. Within Action Center the health of your Windows 7 system is monitored, from fundamentals like Security Center, Problem Reports and Solutions, Windows Defender, Windows Update, Diagnostics, Network Access Protection, Backup and Restore, Recovery and User Account Control. When your attention is needed, an icon appears in the notification area where you can find out more information. You have the option of directly addressing the issue or go immediately to the Action Center for additional details or you can leave it until you are ready. A nice fix for Windows users, you can disable notification messages if you don’t have an Antivirus solution installed, especially for Automatic Updates. So, those nagging notification area messages should be a thing of the past if you wish. Control Panel tries to eases the sanity when navigating UI by providing related links to common areas of the system you might be situated in.

New and Notable:

Clear Type Text Tuner – helps you customize the appearance of text on your screen to suit you preferences and work well with your hardware. It checks that your monitor monitors are running at optimal resolution and enables you to improve the clarity of on-screen text, making it appear more detailed and smooth.
Display Calibration Wizard – You can adjust your display to be as close as possible to the sRGB standard colour space. It guides you through a series of adjustments using your display’s front panel controls on screen controls, on screen controls and easy-to-use visual calibration targets.
Display – now its own dedicated Explorer shell instead of the dialog window ‘Display Settings’ from Vista’s Personalization, now makes it really easy to customize the visual experience in Windows. The size of text and other items can be changed choosing an available option. In addition to this, you can just as easily set your screen orientation (Tablet PC users), Connect to a projector, resolution and brightness conveniently.
Recovery
Troubleshooting
Workspaces Centre
Credentials Manager
Biometric Devices -
System Icons – dedicated applet for managing Notification Area icons and controlling the behaviour. Options include, turning off, removing and turning off the associated notification. It works almost like the Auto-Play applet in Windows Vista today.

The Windows Desktop is a lot more productive, some nice user experience features include additional options available on the right click Contextual menu. These include Gadgets, Display Settings along with a new Share with menu. Speaking of Gadgets, the Windows Sidebar is no more. Instead, Gadgets are free to roam the desktop which is actually more logical. Windows 7 makes gadgets easier to use, enabling you to position them anywhere on the desktop and make them smaller or larger. If you like to keep your gadgets at the edges of your screen, they’ll snap into place like magnets. In Vista this is what I did with my Gadgets since I wanted to have more than the selected few in view or I would just have to click through the Sidebar closet to see the additional ones. There is still no auto-hide option which I would like to see. Right now, there is nothing new to see, only what has been included in Vista, hopefully by BETA 1 or 2 there will be some new ones, like that Media Player Gadget I first saw at PDC 2005.

Windows Explorer which manages the contents of windows, has been refreshed and simplified with a more compelling look and feel, called Scenic. Areas such as Navigation Pane are much cleaner and more organized. Favourite’s links for instance now only list places you often visit instead of just a generic list of User folders such as Music, Pictures, Documents now in Vista. Microsoft has also made changes to the User Folder structure, Libraries now assumes the position of the User folder instead of the traditional account name. Icons associated with Documents, Music, Pictures and Downloads are simpler without the accompanying green folder. The addition of the Home Group link and traditional hierarchal tree are also available in the Navigation Pane when setup.

The Command Bar which was first introduced in Vista has been updated, but I honestly don’t know if it’s for the better. Instead of adding functionality, it now features text only buttons similar to those found in the Windows Live Wave beta 3 applications like Photo Gallery and Live Mail. The organizational tools are now placed over to the extreme right along with the View menu and a new button Layout once available under the Organize menu. There aren’t any major changes to the Bread Crumb area, but the Search field is now resizable and features the area location that is being searched, for instance Search Computer, Search Documents. The appearance itself is easier on the eyes but the icon less buttons are not something I think will have a lot of people jumping for joy.

Navigation has been greatly simplified, common task such as copying and moving files is more reliable, with lesser prompts, in addition to showing the name of the file you are actually copying. The Copy dialog in Vista is atrocious, you get confused sometimes wondering if you replacing the file with file you are trying to replace. While we are on the topic of appearances, Windows 7 has made some minor visual tweaks, for instance, the Taskbar features a more tinted look with less transparency compared to Vista’s, there is also a new Show Desktop button situated at the extreme right of the Notification Area. Microsoft has focused on making the Taskbar more customizable, each open window appears as a graphic thumbnail that expands to a full-screen preview when you hover over it with your mouse. Icons are bigger too making it easier to select them with a mouse or the new Touch features in Windows 7. Finally, finally, you can place each program exactly where you want it on the taskbar and pin frequently used applications for quick access, it’s so overwhelming when I think about it, I have been asking for this feature for so long, Microsoft has finally delivered. You can also see progress bars on a taskbar icon, so that you can stay aware of progress without keeping the window visible.

Maximized windows retain their Glass colour, but I actually find this distracting. In Vista, when a window is maximized, it darkens the title bar area; in 7 the colour is displayed. Microsoft described XP’s Luna theme as being too bold and distracting around the content area of the window. The Windows Team, now insist that the similarity featured in Vista is to drive consistency and keep the UI streamlined. But I can’t help but see my folders in the background of a title bar window on my desktop. The Start menu panel does not feature any significant changes, except for looking a whole lot shinier and thinner. Jump List which is situated on the Start menu and Taskbar makes it exceptionally easy to find what you want instead of having to open the application or hope it shows up in the Recent Items list. For example, the Jump list for a Microsoft Word shortcut will display your most recently opened documents, while a Windows Media Player Jump List shows options to Play All Music or resume your last playlist. Some suggestions I would make is to make the profile icon that is displayed every time the Start menu is clicked go away. Instead, Display, pictorial representations in front of the panel link name when hovered over. The Start menu has enough space for this any way. It’s hard to tell if Microsoft will be doing more towards changing the interface. Windows 7 even at this early stage of development looks baked; the branding is featured throughout the interface in many places such About Dialog.

The Personalization Explorer features improved customization and accessibility. For persons who like to make their Windows experience unique, Microsoft has reintroduced expanded theme capabilities. Windows XP and Vista offers the ability to customize the interface to a certain degree, such as changing the window and Start menu colour for instance. If you wanted additional options, you had to turn to third party solutions such as Star Dock. In 7, Microsoft provides in addition to window colour, the ability to choose pre-packaged themes that matches the bundled wallpapers. Glass colour options have increased from 8 in Vista to 16 now in 7. You can even create your own theme and save them. The themes explorer itself is more centralized with one stop approach to customizing your Desktop Background, Sounds and Screen Saver while you are at it. I say halleluiah. In Vista, the cumbersome separate dialog from XP’s Display settings was a confusing experience and multiple step approach to making Windows your own. I personally suggested collapsible panels in Windows Vista, but this new look and approach is even better! Microsoft still includes the venerable Windows Classic theme for those who just can’t escape the Windows 95 experience.

Windows AERO makes working with multiple Windows easier, you can hover your mouse over the far-right of the Windows Taskbar and all of your open windows become transparent, this makes ‘Show Desktop’ so 1998. This also makes my cussing over auto hide feature for Sidebar Gadgets very irrelevant, thanks Windows Team; you really know how to outdo a suggestion. You can maximize a window by dragging its border to the top of the screen to restore the window to its original state by dragging it from the top of the screen. For persons who often do data comparisons with content from two windows on screen, Windows 7 has made this a cinch by simply making it possible to drag the opposite sides of the screen; automatically the windows will fill its half of the screen.

Windows 7 focuses on getting the most out of the Desktop; one such way is through a new feature called Accelerators for Windows which first debuted in the Internet Explorer 8 BETA. A voice command supported utility that makes it easy for you to automate common task by asking your computer information about any text you have selected. Accelerator provides quite a number of commands that users are most likely to work with and features tight integration with Windows Live products and services. Located in Control Panel, I was able to enable commands for blogging with Live Space and email which I use very often. There are others related to Pictures, Calendar, Desktop Search, Online Search and even Instant Messaging from the Voice Search pop up list box. You can easily manage your voice shortcut with options to clear its default setting, disable, delete in addition to finding more online. A table list the type of Accelerators, and its shortcut command along with its status. For instance, I can have ‘Blog with Windows Live Spaces’ and with a quick voice shortcut set to ‘Blog’. Does it really work, you bet, but again, with proper training in Windows Speech Recognition the productivity of Accelerators will deliver better results. Once setup, Accelerators either by point and click or voice command can be accessed from the Taskbar. I see synergies here and the focus on integrating with both the desktop and online services gives more relevancy to the local desktop experience in this ever growing web 2.0 focused society.

The Start menu All Programs is a little meagre, with less built in productivity and multimedia applications compared to Vista. Microsoft has not stopped development of these applications, it’s just that they are now a part of the suite of Windows Live services called Windows Live Essentials, which means, the best way to enable them is to go download them. But why is Microsoft even doing this? I know a lot of persons like myself who don’t even want to go through the chore of having to install or go download additional applications after doing an installation of Windows. But Microsoft has given some understandable reasons for this.

Brian Hall (General Manager for Windows Live) notes that removing programs such as Photo Gallery, Mail and Movie Maker from the core operating system will give Microsoft more time to focus on the core operating system experience in addition to improving the efficiency of things like Service Packs which could ultimately be fewer and smaller. Mr. Hall also said that a cleaner operating system eliminates potential confusion for customers faced with two different programs that are similar in function-one already in Windows and the other from Windows Live. He also said that Microsoft is working with OEMs are around Windows 7 so that they can place shortcuts that will link to a download page where you can choose just the programs you.

It’s all about balance while delivering choice. Users have complained over the past couple years that Windows has become bloated. Personally, I don’t see it; a lot of the stuff that came with Windows are applications a lot users ended up needing and using anyway. Removing Movie Maker, Photo Gallery and Mail does not significantly reduce the OS’s disk foot print. A default install of Windows 7 uses about 8 GBs of Disk space, a good improvement over Vista’s 11 GB install.

The Ever Expanding OS

Windows 7 supports native Blu-Ray Read/write support. This is probably the final nail the coffin for HD-DVD which competed aggressively with Sony standard which support vast amounts of storage on innovative optical disk. Windows 7 adds support for Bluetooth 2.1, which improves the peering experience in addition to battery life.

Location Aware Printing

In Windows 7, you no longer need to select the printer to match your location. When you change network locations, such as taking your work laptop home for the evening, the default printer setting can change to reflect the best printer for that new location. When you print at work, Windows 7 will print to your work printer. When you print at home, Windows 7 will automatically select and use your home printer.

Ultra Wideband (UWB) and Wireless USB (WUSB).

UWB and WUSB are new technologies that provide wireless alternatives to USB cables. Support for UWB and WUSB in Windows 7 lets you take advantage of new wireless devices and wireless USB hubs.

ApplicationS

Over the years, Microsoft has done little to improve the traditional bundled applications in Windows such as Word Pad, Paint and Calculator. Windows 7 is a major exception.

Word Pad is now watered down Microsoft Word 2007, featuring the popular Office Fluent UI, word pad still is basic in its capabilities, and there is support for Word 2007 .Docx format. The interface has been arranged I would conclude for the purpose of consistency. Functionally, it looks like over kill since Word Pad was never straining under 1,500 commands and toolbars like Office Word. Improvements that users will most appreciate include highlighting, line breaks, additional text colours, bullets, indents and print preview enhancements in addition to picture insertion and zooming capabilities. Will users be pleased with it, I guess, but I don’t see as adding significant value to user experience.

Paint also inherits this look and feel, but also suffers from the fact that it was not a detrimental necessity. I will certainly admit the program looks darn gorgeous and was a needed update in terms of refreshing the UI a bit. Some new features include media paint brushes and the ability to easily pick colours and shapes. There are some additional options that make working with illustrations a little easier such as options for transparency and opaque. Measurement options have been improved with, the ability to zoom in and out, display a ruler, grid lines and full screen mode.

Calculator is drastically pleasant, richer options and modes are available for Standard, scientific, duration between two periods, add or subtract a period of time, gall mileage, lease estimation, mortgage estimation, unit conversion and many more. The interface itself looks a lot like a traditional calculator, with big bold bright buttons; this should be for those using the Touch capabilities on a Tablet PC. The new calculation options I mentioned, conveniently pop out from the left side when invoked.

A part from the three mentioned the rest you will find through Windows Live. Here is a small overview of them. Branded Windows Live Essentials, this suite of programs provides tools for sharing videos, photos and blogging; they include Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Mail with Calendar and Windows Live Writer.

Windows Live Mail replaces Outlook Express (again) and Windows Mail in Vista. Featuring tight integration across a wide range of Windows Live Services, the new Windows Live Mail includes integrated Calendaring and Contacts. This now replaces the built in Calendar that came with Windows Vista. You can access both Calendar and Contacts when you are off line. Support for POP and IMAP is also included for easy access to third party email services such as Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL. A built in feature called ‘photo mail’ lets you send high resolution photos to friends without clogging their inboxes. Instead, they will receive light embedded thumbnail images, along with links to easily download the full-resolution versions or to see the images played as a slide show. Windows Live Mail also supports multiple email accounts.

Home Networking in Windows has evolved over the years, from Windows 98’s Internet Connection Sharing to Windows XP’s Home and small office networking. I consider Vista’s networking capabilities to be quite overwhelming, don’t get me wrong, there are indeed major improvements, but the options are vast and not structured in a way that makes navigation more focused. The problem continues in Windows 7 and I would have hoped that some of the changes that have been made to areas like Personalization would also creep into this critical area of the OS. Microsoft still managed to make certain aspects of networking multiple PC’s in the home a seamless experience. One of this is through HomeGroup and Sharing. HomeGroup provides a centralized location to setup the sharing of personal data and resources such as Pictures, Music, Videos, Documents and Printers. Taking a cue from Windows Media Player 11’s media sharing capabilities, HomeGroup expands these capabilities with additional options for sharing pictures, music and videos in particular with devices. Users have the option setting up a HomeGroup password, leaving a HomeGroup with additional advanced settings.

PC’s connected to your HomeGroup automatically show up in the Navigation Pane in Windows Explorer. Some of the great things you can do include interacting with shared Libraries from other PC’s just like you would locally in addition to changing the views, search them, you can also be specific with your search criteria’s. If one of your computers is joined to a domain, you still have access to HomeGroup features such as your Home Printer and content shared within it, by default though, content cannot be shared by a PC that is joined to a Domain.

Media Streaming is also a part of the HomeGroup experience in Windows 7 with a very simplified experience. HomeGroup when setup, automatically enables media streaming from within Media Player 12, for pictures, music, and videos, they are instantly made available on other PCs and devices in your HomeGroup.

Connectivity

Windows 7 makes viewing and connecting to networks simpler and consistent. A one click access to Wi-Fi, Mobile Broadband, a Corporate VPN or even Dial-up based networks is so much easier. A wireless enabled PC can easily share its connection by turning it into an access point. You can connect wireless-enabled devices such as portable printers and digital cameras directly to your computer. If your PC is connected to the Internet, those devices can access the Internet through your PC. If your computer has a wireless data card, you can easily connect your computer to the Internet, regardless of the cellular provider. The process is done through View Available Networks feature. No need to install additional software (such as Motorola’s Mobile Phone Tools), just insert your wireless data card and your PC will connect to the Internet automatically. And if your PC has a built-in data card, you can be connected to the Internet whenever there’s a cellular service.

Networking in 7 is not about just connecting up a few PC’s, but into broader areas, such as location awareness. Location and Sensors allows detect things such as your current location or the orientation of your PC. There is deep integration with the Internet by providing supported applications the ability to offer additional functionality to users. Sensors based applications though may use information in a way that affects user privacy, but you can take comfort in the face that it’s optional. The right click contextual menu now features a Share with menu that allows you to share a specific file or folder with your Home Group with specific options such as Read/Write or People.

Direct Access, new feature in Windows 7 allows road warriors to have better access to applications and personal data. Remote users are able to access their corporate network anytime they have an Internet connection without the need for setting up a VPN connection. The benefits are definite simplicity and management of an IT infrastructure. Prior to this, one would have depend solely on technologies such as ‘NAT’ Network Address Translation to make data moving between the Company’s network and the Internet complex secure experience. Of course, for a Company and the end user to take advantage of this specific feature in 7, investment in the next version of Windows Server will have to be considered.

Performance and instantaneous access to information is now a dream come through, BranchCache as the name suggest caches content from remote file and web servers in branch locations so users can more quickly access this information. BranchCache support the same network protocols that are commonly used in enterprise establishments like HTTP and SMB so applications already compatible with these standard can automatically benefit right away, in addition to these network security protocols such as SSL and IPSec are also supported for superior authentication again, this technology call for the next version of Windows Server.

Windows Connect Now makes setting up a wireless router or access point a cinch this is because Windows 7 now supports the Wi-Fi Setup industry standard. You can connect computers, mobile devices, and other network-enabled wireless devices to that network. Windows 7 lets you discover and request access to your wireless network. To accept the request, you can simply press the WPS button on the wireless router or access point. Your computer will automatically get the network settings from the wireless router or access point and set up a wireless connection – you won’t have to remember or type in a password every time to connect.

Network aware devices such as wireless printers that are certified for Windows 7 are easy to setup. When the Add a device wizard is launched, all you have to enter is the PIN located on the device itself. Windows 7 will automatically configure the device and connect to your wireless network. Once connected, Windows 7 automatically downloads the necessary device driver for it.

Microsoft has definitely focused on the end to end experiences with Networking Windows 7. I still think there is more that could be done to consolidate certain aspects of the interface. For example, the Local Area Connection properties should be an Explorer instead of this same old dialog, I have been seeing since Windows 95. It’s just too much clicking, I had to open Network Center, then click Manage Network Connections, right click the connection, click Properties, and it’s a chore really.

Windows Internet Explorer

7 include the latest version of Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer 8. There are no differences at all between IE 8 on Vista, 7 or XP except that Windows 7 itself now has built in support for Accelerators and I can safely predict Microsoft does not have any plans to back port the previous versions of the OS. It has been in development with the first beta released back in March of 2008. The fundamentals of this release revolve around Microsoft’s security initiatives. The new InPrivate mode allows users to clear any private information such as cookies, visited web pages and the entire session itself. There is also an improvement to Phishing Filter through Smart Screen which puts greater focus on web pages that try to collect personal information from users, it’s great for scamming sites that utilize know URLs such as PayPal or know banking merchants. The how it does this is through a black list of known or suspected phishing sites so it’s an ongoing game of cat and mouse, users should still be cautious about how they enter personal information on the web.

Ease of use is also a must; areas such as the Address Bar are now streamlined to make navigating the interface a sure pleasure for surfers. Auto Completion now suggest websites that you might want to go to, suggestions are based on your history of websites you like to visit, your personal web browsing history and Feeds that you have subscribed to. Typing in a URL offers some address bar tricks, if you click the arrow below the URL in the middle, it will reveal a number of commands:

Go to – Enter
Navigate to – Ctrl + Enter
Open in a new tab – Alt + Enter
Open in a background tab – Alt + Shift + Enter

Hands down, this beats Firefox in the Power User category, offering a faster, more intelligent browsing experience. It also lessens the repetitiveness of common takes that users often do in the browser. One thing would have make this feature even more friendly and powerful, an actual command key to reveal the commands, instead of shifting between the keyboard and mouse.

Changes such as a single Favourites button, chrome based skin with a flatter appearance and removal of the Tools and Feeds menu (but changes back to Feeds when browsing), now pushed under the chevron. Taking the spotlight are Web Slices, Read Mail and Safety.

The search fields features new convenience improvements to its search facilities, providing more detailed options when text is typed in. For instance, based on your search history, a list of Search option links are listed by the Search Engine of choice. Type in ‘Mariah Carey’ and you will see a number of query filters, which could range from lyrics, thriller, songs, soundboard, news, jokes or popular topics. Search suggestions can also be populated based on your history. I also love the new Search on the fly option which allows you to quickly change Search engines based on your query. I use Wikipedia a lot, it’s very cumbersome having to type in the query through Google, search for it then open Wikipedia. With this feature, you are take immediacy to the source, which is sure to be a hit with those who want a more detailed browsing experience with better results.

Integration with Windows Live would of course be a must. You can see of this already through the Search Field, but version 8 takes it a little further by integrating it deep into other parts of the browser, such as the Contextual menus, for instance, right clicking a link gives you a choice of options such as blogging with Windows Live Spaces, email with Live Mail or Translate through Windows Live. Highlighted text on a page adds additional options such as Searching through your Default search engine define with Encarta and even search through Live Maps. Users familiar with Smart Tags in Microsoft Office might also find the Accelerator menu share some distant similarities; it gives you additional options for finding and management of these extensions. It ultimately eliminates the mundane task of copying text back and forth between web pages. Another unique addition in IE 8 is Web Slices which allow for sections of a web page to be subscribed, stored and monitored from the Favourites Bar. The success of Web Slices will ultimately depend on how many web pages out there decide to support it. It’s a neat idea though that promises to make information obtained from the Internet more personalized.

Microsoft has not forgotten about improved performance and compatibility. The browser definitely feels snappier, using IE 8 on a mobile phone connection web pages load considerably faster, it seems like some significant changes have been made to the caching engine itself. The IE 8 Team have noted that considerable improvements have been made to the HTML parse, CSS engine, Jscript runtime and the associated garbage collector. ActiveX permissions are more independent allowing users to define how they run depending on the site.

Version 8 offers a compatibility layer, so that site designed for an older version of the browser will continue functioning as normal. Common problems you might see if a website is not updated to support the latest features in the browser include, out of place menus, images, or text. An integrated contextual button built into the address bar appears next to the Refresh and Stop button refreshes the website and presents it in its original state as if you were browsing in a supported version of the browser, nice! What I notice when you do enable Compatibility mode is, you lose access to some of the new features of the browser.

Internet Explorer 8 is looking like an excellent update, and you are not going to need Windows 7 to experience it, Microsoft has promised to release the browser for Windows XP and Vista users by November. The focus on improving the browsing experience, relevancy and productivity of the Windows Live services, developer flexibility and compatibility in addition to the features that focus on making the browsing experience more secure, personal and not intrusive will surely give users reason to stick with the platform and might even bring some users over from Firefox which I personally have had problems with in the memory resource department.

Multimedia

Libraries is a new experience in Vista that streamlines the process of managing the array of information users have scattered across their PC. Organization was a key focus of Vista, but regardless you tried your best to keep your files in their appropriate locations photos in the Pictures directory, videos in the Videos director, audio in Music directory, etc. You still ended up having a lot of files stored in folders you either create or parts of the system such as the desktop out of quick convenience. With Libraries, you don’t have to remember exactly where you stored a particular photo or search multiple places to find what you need. You don’t even have to keep multiple copies of the same file around.

With Libraries, you can not only organize, but view and manage files that that are stored in more than once place. This reduces the need to view files even when they are stored in different folders. Libraries are so powerful that they even span different disk drives, PCs on your home network. There are a range of options for organizing and browsing, by type, date taken or genre depending on the file type. The power of Libraries grows when combined with rich capabilities of Home Groups discussed earlier, meaning; families can get in on the fun by access a shared library by having the right permissions setup.

Searching is a key aspect of the information management experience in Windows 7, Windows Vista presented a great opportunity for users to make access their data easier by integrating Search heavily throughout the interface and giving users tools make results more accurate. In 7, Search is much smarter, by presenting input recommendations based on previous searches and dynamic filter suggestions, to help you narrow down results. Because of the tight integration with Libraries, you can search beyond the PC right at the Start menu which grouped for easier visualization. When Searching across multiple PC’s in a corporate setting, Administrators can fine tune how a search is executed, be defining up to five search destinations. All of the search processing is handled on a remote server and results presented you within your comfort zone. This sounds complex and it is, but Windows 7 is subtracting complexity of it all and presenting you only with ease of use part of the equation.

The Search engine in 7 uses an improved algorithm to determine relevance and rank results. Within those results, words from the search query you make are highlighted with parts of a file or even a path to it to give you a clearer idea of what’s happening and if its meeting your expectation. Search operates multiple ways by offering results based on multiple Libraries if you search through the Start menu if you search specifically from Windows Explorer; it stays within that particular library. For persons who have data stored on multiple devices, Windows 7 Search is a dream come through, a new feature called Search Federation allows you easily add a location; these include multiple PCs, external hard drives, servers and even websites. Users running Windows 7 in the Enterprise can also do searches on popular business applications such as SharePoint Server. Windows 7 uses public standard OpenSearch to make it possible to search for content on the Internet and remote servers.

Building on the rich functionality in Windows Vista, 7 is no exception and it promises to deliver a first class multimedia platform. Yes, Movie Maker is not in there, so how can you even call this a platform for multimedia? Remember, you are still getting Movie Maker, but as a part of the Windows Live platform which is an extension of the operating system and for free.

Windows Live Movie Maker features the new Scenic Ribbon UI, but it’s drastically limited compared to its predecessor in Vista. The interface seems like it’s designed for an on the go user who is uploading videos to YouTube or MSN Soap box and does not really fancy details too much. The Ribbon features the tabs Home, Visual Effects and Edit. It quite basic, features like Timeline are not even in there, I’m hoping that the label beta is the reason for this. You add photos and videos from the Home menu which are automatically populated within the window. Content by default is played in the view it’s laid out, but you can drag and drop to rearrange how you want scenes to play with the video. Live Movie Maker remains light on visual effects, even PowerPoint 2007 would do a better job (then again, PowerPoint 2007 cost $300). It’s quite obvious there is more to expect and hopefully in the near future we will see an update, the only options right now are Sepia Tone, black and white and one transition, cross fade. Live Movie Maker supports direct publishing to MSN Soap Box, but no YouTube yet. Microsoft, I realize Google is a competitor, but if you can support GMAIL access in Windows Live Mail, YouTube should be an out of box option, put competition aside for sake of offering your consumers choice and real value. Yes, there is an option to a plug in, but come one, which is more popular, YouTube or MSN Soapbox? The Good the bad and the ugly right now is the fact that its limited in what it can do, limited effects and transitions, no support for narration, no text over lays, you can’t edit footage, but most importantly of all, no Time line. I hope by the time Windows 7 hits beta 1; we will see an updated Windows Live Suite with comparable options to Windows Movie Maker or even better.

Windows Live Photo Gallery has been through a couple of iterations since its debut in Windows Vista. Microsoft released an updated version immediately after as part of the Windows Live family, re-titled Windows Live Photo Gallery. I was very impressed with some of these features such as the ability to publish photos to your Windows Live Space or third party services such as Yahoo!’s Flickr. The latest Wave 3 release of the product features a similar UI to Windows 7’s Explorer, with a text based tool bar. The toolbar features two new menus, Slide show and Extras, Extras provides options for opening in another viewer or graphics applications for advanced editing. The Gallery control padding at the bottom of the Live Photo Gallery screen has been reduced to a simplified status bar appearance with a just a as functional look.

This new version differentiates itself by incorporating a revolutionary face detection technology that works with you to help make people-tagging simple. The Photo-stitching feature lets you easily build panoramic views from a collection of photos. In addition to its strong support for photo-sharing services, you can order prints directly from over 70,000 worldwide printer services partners.

Windows 7 includes Windows Media Player 12; this new version features radical changes to its menu structure, with some menus positioned on the left and right sides of the interface. I don’t see the significance of this, but it does look stylish, and features two thick toolbars of controls, the second one focusing on traditional features such as Organization, Sharing, Playlist and Search. The interface is much warmer and attractive I must say player controls are not translucent anymore which give it a more conservative appearance. My friend looking at it right now says it a bit too bright and actually prefers WMP now, but it’s a work in progress I am trying to explain. The more I notice this update it seems to share a more iTunes like similarity. Media Player 12 supports a wide variety of media formats; this lessens the need for using multiple players to listen to your library of content. It also makes it easier to manage and synchronize your media across a broad range of devices. Common media formats supported include WMV, WMA, MPEG-4, AAC and AVC/H.264.

Users can also expect enhanced DVD Playback, when a DVD is inserted; it will start quickly and transition immediately into full screen mode, no need to even press play. Media Player 12 includes a Lightweight Playback Mode that is optimized for you content and tasks. When you’re watching a movie or listening to a song, you can quickly see its title by hovering over the Windows Media Player icon in the Taskbar. Featuring an improved Media Player toolbar you get instant access to playback controls, so you can quickly skip a song or pause playback. Jump list integration makes it easy to quickly access music, videos, and recorded TV.

Media Center in 7 supports browsing broadcast or broadband TV schedules to find show you to watch and record, watch recoded TV shows on your PC or a big-screen TV, and synchronize them to a laptop or portable device to enjoy on the go. With a streamlined user interface and support for new content types and digital TV. Some of the key improvements include:

Internet TV: You can choose from a variety of online TV shows and movies, all organized into a TV guide view. Search for shows across multiple networks and providers, and instantly watch them on your PC or save them for later. Windows 7 Media Center also makes it easy to discover and watch shows related to what you’re currently watching. When you watch a TV show you’ve recorded, you will see that program information includes thumbnails for other online episodes and links to related information, such as Internet movie trailers and related shows.

Broader Support for Global TV Standards: There is support for a wider range of TV standards to meet the needs of television viewers around the world. Digital TV in Windows 7 works in more than 20 global markets, with certified support for the United States ATSC and QAM cable standard, Japan’s ISDB standards (ISDB-T and ISDB-S) European DVB TV standards (DVB-T, DVB-S) and Pay TV standards.

Sharing TV Around the Home: If you have multiple PCs running Media Center in your HomeGroup, you can access TV libraries (in addition to your music, photos, and videos) on those different PCs. You can easily copy a TV show to your portable PC to enjoy on the go. Windows 7 Media Center ensures that all unprotected Windows TV (WTV) recordings can be discovered, played, and copied by any PC running Windows 7 in the HomeGroup; and that all “Copy Freely” and “Copy Once” protected WTV recordings can be discovered, played and copied using Media Center.

Enhanced UI: New features such as turbo scroll make finding the media you want faster, enabling you t quickly move through a large library or TV guide by pressing and holding the right cursor. You can quickly jump to what you want by clicking the seek bar when viewing a show.

Direct3D 11 extends the functionality of the Direct3D 10 pipeline and provides Windows 7 games and high-end 3D applications with efficient, robust, scalable access to the upcoming generation of GPUs and multi-core CPUs. In addition the functionality found in Direct3D 10, Direct3D 11 introduces several new features. Geometry and high-order surfaces can now be tessellated to support scalable, dynamic content in patch and subdivision surface representations.

To make good use of the parallel processing power available from multiple CPU cores, multithreading increases the number of potential rendering calls per frame by distributing the application, runtime and driver calls across multiple cores. In addition, resource creation and management has been optimized for multithreaded use, enabling more efficient dynamic texture management for streaming.

New general-purpose compute shaders have been created for Direct3D 11 Unlike existing shaders, these are extensions to the programmable pipeline that enable your application to do more work completely on the GPU, independent of the CPU. DrawAuto, which was introduced in Direct3D 10, has been extended to interact with a compute shader.

Advanced Features

Microsoft is always looking to new ways to advance and make the PC experience more natural through new input methods. Windows XP Tablet PC edition was a good example of this by allowing us to use inking capabilities with new form factor devices called Tablet PC’s. Microsoft tirelessly works to promote the platform and has gone beyond that in recent years, the latest endeavour being the Microsoft Surface Table. Although the Surface remains an expensive proposition (think US $13,000), the Windows Team realizes that to make the experience more ubiquitous, Windows would be a best place for this feature to gain wider availability not only just for persons in offices, but also the consumer. In Windows 7 controlling the computer by touching the screen is a core user experience, with visual feedback provided for tap and double-tap gestures.

The Start menu, Windows Taskbar and Windows Explorer are touch friendly, with larger icons that are easier to select with your finger, Browsing the web with Internet Explorer 8 is easier too – just use your finger to scroll down a web page or browse your favourite links. You can even use your finger to arrange the pictures in a photo album. Windows 7 also includes multi-touch technology, which lets you control what happens on the screen with more than one finger. You can zoom in on an image by moving two fingers close together, like you’re pinching something, or zoom out by moving two fingers apart. You can rotate n image on the screen by rotating one finger around another and can right click by holding one finger on your target and tapping the screen with a second finger. Touch Gestures provide direct visual feedback and interact with underlying content in a natural and intuitive way.

Tablet computing has been a 5 year investment for Microsoft and the company is not giving up on it anytime soon. First debuted in Windows XP Tablet PC Edition in late 2002, Microsoft focused on delivering a rich, natural experience through natural inking using a stylus. The device has been mostly targeted at vertical industries such as business and medical. Windows Vista made considerable improvements to its hand writing analysis while also making more available through multiple SKU’s in Vista’s product line up. Tablet PC in 7 features even greater accuracy and speed for hand writing recognition while delivering support for hand written math expressions, personalized custom dictionaries for handwriting recognition and stronger language support. The Math Input Panel is a new accessory that recognizes handwritten math expressions with strong correction results with the ability to insert math expressions into target programs. Math Input Control offers similar recognition and correction functionality, enabling developers to integrate math hand writing recognition into programs directly for a higher degree of control and customization.

Compatibility in Windows 7 is continued progress report. Applications that already work well on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 will continue to work just as well on Windows 7. It’s not a guarantee coming from Windows XP that everything will be just as smooth, but if you have invested heavily in Windows Vista, it should be a rather smooth transition. The Compatibility process itself is handled through a number of avenues, which include the Windows Upgrade Advisor and Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) to help customers assess application compatibility. For untested or in-house developed applications, Windows 7 provides a number of in-box compatibility aids. For example, if an application fails to install because of a hard-coded version check, the Program Compatibility Trouble-shooter can automatically fix the problem (with the users consent) and rerun the installer. Windows 7 includes an expanded application shim infrastructure and Problem Steps Recorder that people can use to capture compatibility issues for evaluation by technical experts. Personally I would have like if Microsoft could bring their investments in the SoftGrid application virtualization solution to make compatibility a thing of the past. With SoftGrid, isolation enables each application to have its own virtual registry and run in its own virtual environment. Let’s hope by the time Windows 7 RTMs we will see a surprise.

RemoteApp and Desktop Connections

With concerns over security, continual cost pressures, and the need to support remote users, companies are looking for ways to host client applications centrally—on servers in their data centers. For many years, Microsoft Terminal Services technology has enabled IT professionals to do just that. However, in previous versions of Windows, the end user experience for Terminal Services-hosted applications was noticeably different than their experience for client-hosted applications. The user interface for those applications was not as rich, and users couldn’t launch them from the Start menu. Windows 7 provides a better user experience when connecting to Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Users can more easily connect to remote applications and remote desktop sessions from any Windows 7 PC, whether in the office or on the road. After a connection is established, users can access remote applications or desktops from the Start menu, just like they do for local applications. Applications launch, look, and feel just like they do when running locally. New applications that IT professionals make available automatically appear on the Start menu, so that users always have access to the latest programs.

Integrated VHD Support

The feature it guarantees is the ability to boot your installation of Windows 7 on any computer (possibly only Windows 7 PCs) I assume, but then again the ability to have access to your “computer”, all your files, all your applications and settings. By the time Windows 7 hits market most external drives will be 2 to 3 TBs standard. Complete PC Backup in Vista (Ultimate, Enterprise and Business) backup in .VHD format, the ability to mount that same VHD on any computer running Windows 7 would make me upgrade to this release on all my computers in a heart-beat.

VHD has become even more important now especially from a usability point of view. If you are running Vista Ultimate, Enterprise or Business and backup such installations with Complete PC Backup, then the format needs to be more flexible in how it can be used with Windows. The idea of building on what was done in Vista will really make the format a valuable tool for end users. The ability to simply carry my computer anywhere with me through an external drive, mount and use it like I would be sitting in front of my computer at home is just an awesome.

Security

If its one thing Windows Vista was known for it was security, some would say too much of it actually. Features like Kernel Patch Protection, Service Hardening, DEP, ASLR and the controversial UAC all made up a complete security experience in Windows Vista. Windows 7 is about improving the usability aspects of these fundamental features. Windows Defender is now integrated into to Action Center discussed earlier. This provides a consistent way of alerting users when action is needed. The overall scanning experience has been improved for spyware and checking for updates. Scrollbars were removed in the configuration settings screen and Software Explorer feature has also been removed because it’s not integral to spyware detection and removal. Real time protection in Windows 7 is improved to provide continuous monitoring while reducing the impact on overall system performance.

Third party products can selectively turn on or off parts of the Windows Firewall, giving you the choice to have a third party software firewall co-existing with the built in one in Windows 7. In addition to Parental Control facilities in Windows 7, Windows Live Family Safety extends its capabilities by filtering inappropriate web content and providing parents with a report on their kid’s activities on the PC. Parents can monitor the activities of their kids not just from a PC but any web enabled PC or mobile phone.

BitLocker To Go provides enhanced protection against data theft and exposure by extending BitLocker drive encryption support to removable storage devices, such as flash memory drives and portable hard drives, thereby helping you safeguard sensitive data on all of your USB removable storage devices.

Performance & Reliability

Windows 7 is changing the perception by improving the out of box experience. I have come across cases where a user buys a brand new laptop, and it’s slow for the first time boot time and it remains that way for the rest of its life. The key areas for most users are Start-up, shutdown and resume from Standby. Windows 7’s solution to this is to go under the hood by reducing background activities and add support for trigger-starting of system services, starting them only when they are needed instead of ahead of time. For example, the Bluetooth service is only started when a Bluetooth device is connected to the computer. There are also improvements to how the kernel enable applications and services scale efficiently on small to large systems.

Microsoft realized that insufficient RAM can dramatically affect performance, so to reduce memory consumption, the Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) and graphics stack were reduced to deliver a responsive user interface across a broader range of system configurations. Capabilities are also added to allow device manufacturers to improve the performance of their video drivers. The Windows Team have also looked at the engineering practices on within their Teams to ensure that Windows 7 delivers improved performance. Virtual teams consisting of feature developers, testers and UI designers. New tests implemented throughout the development process help ensure early detection and resolution of any performance-related issues.

Windows 7 features a fault tolerant heap, which is designed to resolve common memory mismanagement issues without requiring change to the offending application. Microsoft notes that as many as 15% of crashes today are due to heap corruption. Fault Tolerant heap mitigates the most common causes of heap corruption, which ultimately reduces the number of crashes you will experience. Process Reflection reduces the disruption caused by diagnostics. Using Process Reflection, Windows 7 can capture the memory content of a failed process on your PC while at the same time recovering that failed process through a ‘cloning’ capability. This makes application recovery possible while you continue work and Windows 7 diagnoses and analyzes the failure condition. The Driver sandboxing prevents drivers that are not written properly from affecting the stability of the system, so task like printing is more reliable and in the event of the a problem it does not affect other device drivers.

Diagnostics

An improved Reliability Monitor interface makes it easier to get more information while having control over what you submit to Microsoft for further analysis. Diagnostics of common printing problems is easier because the of the Driver sand boxing, so that removing a stuck print job is easier to diagnose and repair.

Battery Life and Power Management

It’s a fact that more people are using laptops, not mainly for mobility reasons, but for personality and style. They want to carry it with them wherever they go and be able to use it without having to be an expert in conservation. Windows 7 features exception Power Management enhancement to include increasing the idle time for the processor, automatically dimming the display, and more efficient playback of DVDs. There are also better information tools to keep you up to date about the state of your battery life when on the go. The Windows Team worked to increase the efficiency of battery life in laptops by reducing the amount of background activities and which supports the trigger-starting of services discussed earlier. Adaptive Display Brightness automatically reduces display brightness after a certain period of inactivity similar to cell phones. Less power is required to watch a DVD because Windows 7 requires less processing power which leads to a more efficient way to spinning the disk, this leads to benefits such as watching a full length movie on a single battery charge. In Vista, Wake on LAN could only be done over a wired network connection, in 7, you can now Wake on Wireless LAN which provides the same capabilities over a wireless network connection. For IT environments, this minimizes power costs for such systems for scenarios like maintenance and applying patches.

Today, mobile PCs send energy to parts of the computer when they are not being used, such as sending power to the network adapter when you don’t have an Ethernet cable plugged-in. Windows 7 automatically turns off power to the network adapter when the cable is disconnected and restores power when the cable is connected. Making users aware of the battery life status is key in Windows 7 for a better; the Battery Life Notification Area applet provides prominent, timely information to ensure that you can use your notebook in tight situations where there is no power. A new utility called Power Config detects problems across devices, policies, firmware, system settings, applications, and other common areas where settings can reduce power efficiency delivering that information to you in an easy to understand report.

Device Management

Control Panel features a new explorer for managing devices connected to your PC such MP3 players, Phones, keyboard and mice in addition to Printers. Called Devices and Printers explorer located under Hardware and Sound you can interact with all your devices, browse files or manage settings. You can easily connect devices to your PC using USB, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi and simple wizards walks you the through the setup process. After a device is connected you’ll see it in the Devices and Printers folder. The Devices and Printers folder itself is very centralized it gives you sanity to manage your peripherals in a more cohesive way. Again interaction is a major focus; you interact with Multifunction printers, stand alone printers, faxes and scanners so you don’t have to go ten different locations to manage the 10 devices you have connected to the PC. Multifunction devices in particular will appear just as they do on your desk, a single, unified device instead separate pieces scattered through various dialogs and applets.

Introducing Device Stage – the user experience you have with all those different devices can be very overwhelming at times. Management in particular from the Windows interface can be cumbersome, un-satisfactory and plain annoying. Device Stage makes this a very seamless process by making the unique experiences around devices such as your portable media player, phone, camera and even printers available in a customized explorer with unique information about the device. Information is provided by the device manufacturer which can be updated frequently with new content and extending the functionality with new Task and online services. Portable devices such as digital cameras and cell phone that are connect displays a photo-realistic image of the device on the Taskbar. From there, you can easily launch the Device for that deice or quickly access tasks for the device by right clicking on it.

Improved Support for External Displays. If you have a mobile PC, you may want to connect it to an external display—for example, to watch a movie at home or give a presentation at work. Windows 7 makes it easier to connect to external displays because all of the common display-related features are consolidated in one place, under Display in Control Panel. And with Windows 7, you can press the Windows key + P to toggle between your laptop screen and an external display.

Help & Support

Microsoft has made ongoing improvements to how you troubleshoot, maintain and protect your computer. Microsoft introduced System Restore in Windows ME which was unreliable but had good intentions; it has improved over the years. For backup in Windows 7, the restoration process is a little more palatable, you can now restore individual files, selected folders or all your personal files. You can even reimage or restore your entire PC from a recent backup in the event of a hard drive failure or presence of malicious software. System Restore in Windows 7 is even more reliable, predictable and effective. You can now see a list of programs that will be removed or added, providing you with more information on which restore point to choose. System restore points are also available in your backups, giving you a larger list of restore points to choose from and over a longer period of time.

Windows 7 includes a new trouble shooting utility called Windows Troubleshooting which diagnoses and resolves common operating system and hardware issues, providing built-in troubleshooters for several different types of problems. Whether its power management, performance, programs, networking or printers just to name a few. Some troubleshooters that come with Windows 7 automatically run in the background, on a scheduled basis. If they discover a problem they will let you know in the Action Center. Examples of such scheduled maintenance tasks include cleaning up temporary files, detecting hard disk errors, removing broken shortcuts, and ensuring the system time is correct.

Right now, one of my Vista systems is in limbo, I resized its partition from within Windows XP using Acronis Disk Director. When I booted into Windows Vista, Windows Explorer refuses to load with an error message popping up informing me that the file ‘rundll32’ is missing or the path to it cannot be found. I have been trying to repair this issue for the past week now without having to resort to reinstalling the OS. Windows Vista provides a Start-up Repair utility, but it’s of no use right now because I am able to start the OS and reach the desktop, just that Windows refuses to work but not loading Windows Explorer. To make matters worse, my optical drives are not working in the system and I can’t repair by launching setup from a Vista image since it would be choosing to reinstall instead of booting into the System Recovery environment, and I am unable to boot from the image itself.

Windows 7 automatically transforms current experiences like this in Vista by doing a number of things, automatically it installs Start-up Repair tool onto the operating system partition, so you’ll always have access to it, no more booting from a DVD. If the OS refuses to load properly, it will automatically load the Start-up Repair, which will scan your PC for issues (such as corrupt registry and system files or an invalid Boot Configuration Database).

Acessibility Support Tools

New improvements include full-screen mode to magnify the entire desktop and lens-mode to magnify only a portion of the screen. Magnifier works with DirectX content and supports the use of a pen, touch, and keyboard shortcuts in full-screen magnification.

Feature Breakdown

Installation/Interface	Compatibility/Updates	Connectivity
· Improved Install and Migration · Informative installation procedure · Improved device driver and application compatibility reporter · New look for desktop and menus · Improved Search Experience · Libraries · Windows Touch	· Vista 64 bit upgrade path · Action Center · Program Compatibility Troubleshooter · Windows Troubleshooter · Better device driver support and backward compatibility with Vista · Problem Steps Recorder	· HomeGroups · Windows Connect Now · Better Wireless device support · Improved wireless experience · Direct Access · VPN Reconnect
Internet	Entertainment	Power User
· Accelarators · Web slices · InPrivate Mode · Compatibility Mode · Improved Address Bar and Favorites Bar · Smartscreen Filter	· Media Player 12 · Windows Live Essentials · Improved Gaming experience · Better Media Center with world wide support and internet integration	· Remote App and Desktop Connections · BitLocker To Go · App Locker · BrancheCache · Powershell 2.0 · Starter Group Policy Objects

Final Comments

How It Grades

Installation: N/A
Manual: N/A
Features: N/A
Performance: N/A
Design: N/A
Price/Value: N/A
Overall: N/A

It’s safe to say I am overwhelmed, overjoyed and most of all excited about Windows 7. This is the release of Windows everybody has been waiting for, it’s what Vista was meant to be and beyond that. Windows 7 puts the user first; it’s about going back to the fundamentals of what an operating system must do. Managing and maintaining your PC is exceptionally seamless in Windows 7 and users will appreciate the tremendous improvements and advancements this update will offer on both existing and new hardware form factors in the future. Windows Vista set the foundation for a lot of what is happening in Windows 7 today. Windows 7 makes security Essential, but not aggressive like Windows Vista. The improved UAC will no doubt give consumers confidence in this feature, just the fact that you can tweak it to a certain degree is a welcome change. Businesses will appreciate the improvements to how the OS is managed and deployed while mobile users can get better experiences between their work and home environments. Home Networking has finally reached a level of ease of use that will make even the novice to make those PCs in the home talk to each other. There is still a lot of work to be done as this early glimpse shows. But Microsoft is on the right path with Windows 7, focusing on ease of use, compatibility, better ways of interacting with the PC and managing the personal data. This is an upgrade I am looking forward to and you should too.

Linux Terminal Control Sequences

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:40:55 PST

Linux terminals share alot in common with their primitive ancestors such as vt100 like consoles. These early devices is capable of sending sequences that signaled events outside of the normal flow of typed characters, such as escape, tab, linefeed...etc. Linux uses CTRL key to send out these out of band signals.

This article summarises many of the commonly used control sequences that are used in all Linux terminals.

CTRL-C
This is the most commonly used sequence. In the bash shell, CTRL-C will terminate any currently running process and return you to the bash prompt. For example, if you accidentally run a command that does not stop, use CTRL-C to cancel the command.

CTRL-D
Many Unix commands read their input directly from the keyboard. An example is the WC command. WC counts the number of lines, words and characters that a user types in from the keyboard. So if you tpye WC at the command prompt, the command will wait for your input till you use CTRL-D to signal the end of transmission.

CTRL-Z
CTRL-Z means to suspend a program. For example, you are working with a command and you want to stop it temporary as it is taking too long. To do that, you can use CTRL-Z. You can later restore back the command using the fg command.

CTRL-U
If you have messed up a certain command and you want to start all over, instead of using backspace, you can use CTRL-U. CTRL-U resets the current line.

CTRL-H
Instead of using the backspace key, you can use CTRL-H to function the same way. Unless the backspace key is malfunctioned or mapped wrongly, this sequence serves very little purpose.

CTRL-L
If your screen is too cluttered with unwanted information, you can clear the screen using CTRL-L.

CTRL-S
Freeze your screen. This is a good command to use if you decide to go for a coffee break and do not want any process to run till you are back.

CTRL-Q
This sequence is exactly the opposite to CTRL-S. If you have freezed the screen before, you use this command to unfreeze it.

CTRL-J
Functions the same way as the RETURN key.

CTRL-G
Makes a terminal beep sound for fun and entertainment.

Control Sequences are important to all Linux / Unix users. Some sequences are important while some are useless today. It is worth memorising the first few sequences as described in this article.

Installing Mozilla Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:20:48 PST

Web browsing is becoming a favourite past time of many households around the world. With the introduction of broadband internet over the last several years, access to the World Wide Web has never been easier. You are now just one step away from a library of information, but you need to be safe from unsavoury software like pop-ups and viruses;

So you need Mozilla Firefox…

What Mozilla say about Mozilla Firefox

"A Better Web Experience

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 has an intuitive interface and blocks viruses, spyware, and popup ads. It delivers Web pages faster than ever. And it's easy to install and import your favorites. Packed with useful features like tabbed browsing, Live Bookmarks, and an integrated Search bar, Mozilla Firefox will change the way you experience the Web, for the better."

Other features include:

• Faster Browsing
• Automatic Updates
• Tabbed Browsing
• Improved Pop-up Blocking
• Integrated Search
• Stronger Security
• Clear Private Data
• Live Bookmarks
• Accessibility
• Customise Mozilla Firefox
• Next Generation Web Support

Mozilla Firefox is undoubtedly a very good, safe and practical alternative to Internet Explorer and over the next few paragraphs I will explain how you can install Mozilla Firefox and describe how to set it as your default internet browser, replacing Internet Explorer in your Start Menu.

Ok lets get started; firstly you will need to download Mozilla Firefox if you haven't already. For those of you who have not yet downloaded Mozilla Firefox I have included a link in the authors box at the end of this article. Alternatively you could go to www.raidencomputers.co.uk/latest/installing_mozilla_firefox.html where you will be able to see the original copy of this article and the step by step image guide with the Mozilla Firefox link in the top right hand corner.

Step 1

Installing Mozilla Firefox

Double (left) click on the Mozilla Firefox Setup.exe (exe is short for executable). This will open the Welcome to Mozilla Firefox setup window. Click next in the set up window.

Step 2

Software License Agreement Window

You are now at the software license screen where you have to select I Accept the terms of the License Agreement. To do this place your cursor over the white radio button and left click. You should see a black dot in the area you clicked. Now you can continue with the Mozilla Firefox installation by clicking on the next button in the bottom right of the Software License Agreement Window.

Step 3

Setup Type Window

The setup type window allows you to select either a Standard installation or a Custom installation. In this instance we only require the standard Mozilla Firefox installation as this installs all of the necessary components that you will need to use Mozilla Firefox as your internet browser. Click next in the bottom right of the Setup Type window.

Step 4

You are now at the Summary window which details the location of the Mozilla Firefox internet browser on your computer hard drive. By clicking the next button in the bottom right of the Summary window you will begin the installation procedure. This may take a few minutes depending on the speed of your computer. Once the installation has been completed the Install Complete window is displayed.

Congratulations you have just installed Mozilla Firefox. Left clicking on the finish button in the bottom right of the screen will launch Mozilla Firefox for the first time.

Now that we have installed Mozilla Firefox lets make it your default internet browser.
Making Mozilla Firefox your default internet browser

Step 1

Properties Box

Right click on the windows start button in the bottom left of your screen. You will see that a box appears with a list of items. Don't worry if your listed items do not match mine, the Properties button is always displayed. Look down the list until you find the Properties button and left click on it.

Step 2

Taskbar and Start Menu Properties Window

The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window is now displayed. You will see that the Start Menu is already highlighted. To the right of the Start menu is the Customize button. Left click on the customize button to open the Customize Start Menu.

Step 3

Customize Start Menu Window

As you can see the Customize Start Menu Window has a number of items displayed. We need to focus on the bottom section of the window in the box titled Show on Start Menu. You will see that the top drop down box has Internet Explorer highlighted. To change this to Mozilla Firefox left click on the down arrow to the right of Internet Explorer. A list of internet browsers will be displayed. Locate Mozilla Firefox and left click on it. Once you have done that click on the OK button in the bottom of the window.

Step 4

We are now back at the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties Window. In the bottom right of the screen you will notice that the Apply button is now highlighted, left click on the Apply button to confirm the change from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox. Now click on the OK button and the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties Window will close.

Congratulations you have now replaced Internet Explorer with Mozilla Firefox as your default internet browser. Click on the Start button in the left hand corner of the screen. At the top of the Start Window you will see Mozilla Firefox. Well done.

Now that you have installed Mozilla Firefox why not give it a whirl, happy browsing.

Displaying An RSS Feed On Your Website Using PHP And MagpieRSS

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:17:42 PST

These days everybody wants to have fresh content on their web site. Search engines like to see dynamic web pages, where the content is updated on a regular basis. Static pages that have information that doesn't change are not only boring, but less likely to be visited by a search engine spider than a page that changes every time it is displayed.

By using RSS and the MagpieRSS toolkit, you can import data from another web site or news source and display that information on your own site.

First, download the MagpieRSS kit from http://magpierss.sourceforge.net.

Next, unpack the archive, into a directory off your root on your web site called "rss".

Then, create a directory off your root called "cache". CHMOD this directory to 777.

You'll need to know the URL for the feed that you want to display. You can find this by searching for "RSS feed" in Google, or by going to one of the many sites that allow you to search thrown various sources for feeds. Syndic8.com is one, for example.

To display data from a single source, you can use code similar to this:

require_once('rss/rss_fetch.inc');

$news_feed = ';

error_reporting(E_ERROR);

$rss = fetch_rss("http://www.url-of-the-rss-feed.com");
$items = array_slice($rss->items, 0);
foreach ($items as $item )
{
$news_feed .= ' . $item['title'] . ' . $item['summary'] . ';
}

echo $news_feed;

MagpieRSS not only decodes the data, but it will also cache the data so it will retrieve news articles only once per hour.

Utilizing RSS in this fashion will allow your web site to have fresh content displayed constantly, and will (hopefully!) keep the search engine spiders interested in your site. The more the spiders index your site, the more pages you will have listed in the search engines. And with more pages listed in the search engine indexes you have a much better chance of attracting people to your web site.

Notebook / Laptop Memory (RAM) Upgrade In 5 Minutes Or Less

noreply@blogger.com (Bintang) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:40:41 PST

This article is set up in two parts, one part about RAM overview and a second part about RAM upgrade. If you are curious on how the RAM works, you will find a detail summary that should give you all the information that you need to know about RAM, organization and speed. If you just want to read the how to upgrade section, move on directly to part two Upgrade your laptop ram in 5 minutes or less.

1 – RAM Overview

There are two big categories of random access memories:

* Dynamic memories (DRAM, Dynamic Random Access Module), not very costly. They are in most cases used for the central memory of the computer

* Static memories (SRAM, Static Random Access Module), quick and expensive. SRAM is notably used for cache memories of the processor

Functioning of the random access memory

The random access memory is constituted of hundred of thousand small condensers storing charges. When it is loaded, the logical state of the condenser is equal to 1, otherwise it belongs to 0, what means that every condenser represents one bit of memory.

Given that condensers off-load, it is always necessary to recharge them in a space of regular time called cycle of refreshment. Memory DRAM requires cycles of refreshment for instance (Ns) is about 15 nanoseconds.

Every condenser is coupled with a transistor allowing to "recover « or to change the state of the condenser. These transistors are lined up in form of matrix, that is they achieve a hut memory (so called memory) by a line and a column.

So, for a memory of type DRAM, the time of access is of 60 nanoseconds (35ns of delay of cycle and 25 ns of time of latency). On a computer, the time of cycle corresponds contrary to the frequency of the clock, for instance for a computer pulsated in 200 MHz, the time of cycle is 5 ns (1 / (200*106)).

As a result a computer having a frequency well brought up and using memories the time of access of which is much longer than the time of cycle of the processor must perform cycles of wait to access to the memory. In the case of a computer pulsated in 200 MHz using memories of types DRAM (which the time of access is of 60ns), there are 11 cycles of wait as a cycle of transfer. The performances of the computer are of as much diminished as there are cycles

Formats of Random Access Memory (RAM)

There are numerous types of random access memories. These all come in the form of barrettes of memory attachable on the motherboard.

* SIMM (Single Inline Memory Module): it is about printed circuits among which one of the faces has fleas of memory. There are two types of barrettes SIMM, according to the number of connector cables (30 or 72)

* DIMM (Dual Inline Memory Modulates) are from memories 64 bits, what explains why it is not necessary to match them. Barrettes DIMM have fleas of memory on both sides of printed circuit and have also 84 connector cables on each side, what endows them with a total of 168 brooches. They have bigger dimensions than barrettes SIMM (130x25mm).

* RIMM (Rambus Inline Memory Module, conscripts also RD-RAM or DRD-RAM) are from memories 64 bits developed by the society Rambus. They have 184 brooches. These barrettes have two notches of location (détrompeurs), avoiding very risk of confusion with the previous modules. Considering their well brought up speed of transfer, barrettes RIMM have a thermal film made responsible for ameliorating the clearing up of warmth. As in the case of DIMM, there are modules of smaller size, called SO RIMM (Small Outline RIMM), intended for laptop computers. Barrettes SO RIMM include only 160 brooches.

* DRAM (Dynamic RAM, dynamic RAM) is the type of memo most spread at the beginning of the millennium. It is about a memory from which transistors are lined up in a matrix according to lines and of columns. A transistor, coupled with a condenser gives the information of a bit. 1 byte consisting of 8 bits, a barrette of memory 256 Mb DRAM will contain 256 therefore * 2^10 * 2^10 = 256 * on 1024 * on 1024 = 268 435 456 bytes = 268 435 456 * 8 = 2 147 483 648 bits = 2 147 483 648 transistors. A 256 Mb barrette has so in reality a capacity of 268 435 456 bytes, that is 268 Mb! These are memories from which the time of access is 60 ns. On the other hand, accesses memory are made in general on data lined up consecutively in memory. So the mode of access in gust (burst mode) allows to achieve the three successive data in the first one without time of additional latency.

* DRAM FPM to speed up accesses to DRAM, there is a technology, called pagination consisting in achieving data located on the same column by changing the address of the line only, what allows to avoid the repetition of the number of column between the reading of each of the lines. They speak then about DRAM FPM (Fast Page Mode). FPM allows to acquire time of access in the order of 70 - 80 nanoseconds for a frequency of functioning that can go from 25 to 33 Mhz.

* DRAM EDO (Extended Data Out, Goes out of data ameliorated sometimes also called "hyper-page") appears in 1995. The technology used with this type of memory consists in addressing the following column during the reading of the data of a column. It creates an overlapping of accesses allowing to save time on every cycle. The time of access to memory EDO is therefore about 50 - 60 nanoseconds for a frequency of functioning going 33 - 66 Mhz. So, RAM EDO, when it is used in mode gust allows to acquire cycles of form 5-2-2-2, that is a benefit of 4 cycles on the access to 4 data. As much as memory EDO did not accept the upper frequencies in 66 Mhz, it disappeared in aid of SDRAM.

* SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM, translate synchronous RAM), appeared in 1997, allows a reading of data synchronized with the bus of the card-mother, contrary to memories EDO and FPM (qualified as asynchronous) having their own clock. SDRAM allows therefore to free itself from time of wait owed to synchronization with the card-mother. This one allows to acquire a cycle in mode gust of form 5-1-1-1, that is to say benefit of 3 cycles in comparison with RAM EDO. In that way SDRAM is able of working with a cadenza going until 150 Mhz, allowing him to acquire from time of access about 10 ns.

* DR-SDRAM (Direct Rambus DRAM or else RDRAM) is a type of memory allowing to transfer data on a bus of 16 wide bits to a cadenza of 800Mhz, what confers on him a band passer-by of 1,6 Go / s. As SDRAM, this type of memory is synchronized with the clock of the bus to ameliorate exchanges of data.

* DDR-SDRAM (Double Dated Miss SDRAM) is a memory based on technology SDRAM, allowing to double the rate of transfer of SDRAM with equal frequency. Reading or writing of data in memory am accomplished on the basis of a clock. Standard memory DRAM uses a method conscript SDR (Single Data Fails) consisting in reading or writing data in every forehead going up. DDR allows to double the frequency of reading / writings, with a clock pulsated in the same frequency, by sending data in every forehead going up, as well as in every downward forehead. Memory DDR has in general a commercial appellation of type PCXXXX where "XXXX " represent the debit side in Mb / s.

* DDR2 (or DDR-II) allows to attain twice as well brought up debit sides as DDR with equal external frequency. They speak about QDR (Quadruple Dated Fail or quad-pumped) to indicate the method of reading and used writing. Memory DDR2 uses in effect two channels separated for reading and for writing, so it is able of sending or of accepting twice more data than DDR.

2 - Upgrading Your Laptop RAM

upgrading a notebook memory is a specific simple process pending that you have the right RAM and are somewhat delicate.

There are different types of RAM, and you must choose the one that is compatible with your notebook computer. Memory is also a fragile, so you need to be very cautious when installing it. You should ensure that the laptop is turned off and disconnected from any exterior power supply. No lights should be visible.

It is a lot easier to install RAM on a laptop versus a desktop PC. Access to the memory slots is via a panel generally located in the bottom of the laptop. Once you have opened this panel with a small screwdriver you can see the existing memory. you can check the exact type of memory that your Notebook currently uses, because it is usually shown on the front of the memory strips and will be evident when you open up the memory panel.

The memory strips are generally locked in with small clips on the ends of the strips. To take out existing memory, simply flip the clips and then remove the memory strips gently from their holding place. If you are simply adding memory, and there is space available, just add the new memory, gently pushing it in to ensure it is fully seated in the slots, and then push the clips to hold the new memory in place.

Once you have replaced or added your Notebook computer memory, replace the access panel, and then screw the panel back in place. Lastly, power up the notebook, When the PC starts up, it will count the memory and tell you how much RAM is loaded on your laptop.

As long as you have right memory, the whole operation should take less than 5 minutes, you can then enjoy your faster, less crash prone laptop.

About The Author
Christophe Catesson - Communication Manager for http://www.bestlaptopsreviews.com . Laptop and notebook reviews and ratings, most popular laptops, industry news, Forum, Q/A....