OneNote 2010 has almost gotten there now, which will be using SkyDrive for storage. The technical preview didn't mention SkyDrive, although considering the Office Web Apps are using SkyDrive on their backend, rather than Office Live it isn't that surprising.
Hopefully we'll see this functioning shortly, before the final release, ideally when we have the OneNote Web App up and running. Then Adam can edit his own show notes. :-)
]]>Best of all Bing Maps now have Ordnance Survey maps too, which previously only Multimap had.
What's so cool about Ordnance Survey maps? You're not going to find the Hundred Stone, the old dismantled railway, old Roman villas or Jack the Treacle Eater on a "modern" map.
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How the hell is this worthy of being the lead technology news item at the moment. Microsoft have always banned modified consoles from Xbox Live for the last 7 years since the service was launched has anyone given it this much coverage when the other batches of users were banned? No.
What's worse, the BBC even features the opinions of one Radio 1 listener who was banned and turn it into an entire article.
I was pretty distraught at the time, I can't remember exactly what it said but I saw the words 'banned' and I was gutted, completely gutted.
At first I was in shock, I mean it's always at the back of your head using pirate games you know there's that possibility but you haven't heard about it, there's been no warnings and you haven't heard it happen to anyone in the last two years.
Too bad. The terms of use clearly states no modified consoles are allowed on the network. Not just to stop piracy but to stop people modifying games and cheating on the service.
I've probably saved about £600 and I've copied roughly 30 or 40 games. A lot of them I've downloaded or I've taken off friends that have downloaded themselves.
Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect £200.
]]>Long time readers of my blog will know the epic battle I've always had with anti-virus. To the point where during the Windows Vista timeframe I didn't run anti-virus. Obviously I don't recommend the average computer user to do that. But I could never find any anti-virus software that was both free, fast and not annoying.
In Windows XP you could tolerate anti-virus and 3rd party firewalls constantly nagging you and having annoying spinning icons in the system tray. In Windows Vista because the OS experience was so much cleaner than Windows XP anti-virus software like AVG or Avast always seemed drastically out of place and frankly noisy and annoying.
I was thrilled when Microsoft announced they were dropping Windows Live OneCare, a rather heavy security suite and replacing it with what was then codename Morro, now Microsoft Security Essentials. Why? Because it promised and delivered a Windows Defender-like anti-virus solution, namely fast, nag-free and out of the way. I would strongly recommend to everyone Security Essentials. It's a lightweight, fast and nag-free anti-malware application. Meaning it deals with viruses and spyware. In my opinion there is no competition anymore in the free anti-virus space, this is it.
Even if you've just brought a Windows 7 PC and have a trial version of Norton or McAfee I'd even recommend removing them and installing this instead.
As for a firewall. Post Windows XP SP2 this is really a non-issue. I'd recommend using the built in firewall. There's no need to clutter the machine with anything else.
And finally as a first line of defence against phishing and driveby malware if you're running Windows 7, you've already got Internet Explorer 8 there. Great. From a security standpoint there's no safer browser. If you're still on Windows XP or Windows Vista I'd suggest upgrading now. I know most of my readers use Firefox and that's fine for more tech-savy users. But I wouldn't recommend it for your average computer user, the data is clear, For phishing Firefox blocks 80% while IE8 blocks 83% and more malware in general Firefox catches less than 30% (other browsers were even less). Internet Explorer 8 was blocking 81%.
In short: Use Internet Explorer 8. Use the built-in firewall and install Security Essentials.
You can of course quickly add them back.
Press Start
-> Control Panel
--> Programs
---> Turn Windows features on or off
Up the top of the list of components you should see Games. Check that box, or drill into it and specify individual games. And press OK. Within a few moments the games should be installed.
You can also add the Games Explorer on the Start Menu by right-clicking on the Start Menu -> Clicking customize and adding it in the new dialog box and OKing out.
]]>In addition you can also download branded themes, for example there's a Ferrari theme and a Gears of War theme and even a Coca Cola theme.
Hey I might have to start releasing the themes I use here. :-)
]]>In truth we've had a couple of problems with programs and updates we've tried to install.
Oh really? At the same time the following is displayed (yeah they couldn't even be bothered to use some screen capture software, instead filming a monitor argh):
Hmmm, unsurprisingly Sun's shoddy Java breaks. I've banned it from my machines because when it does work its always nagging you about updates and it has the nerve to fill up Add/Remove Programs with endless entries about itself and its updates.
Why do I have a problem with this? Well the general public will as always believe this is a Microsoft problem and the usual nonsense will be repeated. It's analogus to reviewing a new Samsung television set and mentioning in the review that your old Sony video tape recorder is broken. It's irrelevent.
The title of the article is A look at what's new in Windows 7 so why are they talking about Java and implying that Windows 7 is responsible for it not working?
]]>I'd recommend trying the latest Daniel K drivers, in the past these have resolved problems I've had with lower than normal volume compared to Windows XP/Vista. At the moment the latest ones are here, however there will be a new release soon to correct a few bugs in these. The latest official drivers are dated from July but I suspect also resolve this issue, although I haven't tested these since the release candidate days.
]]>During September Windows 7 usage accounted for 1.52% of traffic measured by Net Applications, and as of this last weekend it broke 2%.
During the same timeframe 10.6 (Snow Leopard) which was released the previous month, accounted for just 0.77% of traffic.
I'm willing to bet with a few weeks of launch Windows 7 will eclipse the entire Macintosh user base. I'll be very interested in October's figures too to see how close it gets.
]]>What I'll cover here is the Gadget platform. If you recall in Windows Vista you could open the Sidebar on either the left or right sides of the screen which could hold all the Gadgets, or if you wanted to you could drag them off the Sidebar and place them where you wanted, and even close the Sidebar.
Myth: In Windows Vista desktop Gadgets cannot be moved.
False. Here's a picture I took during the development of Windows Vista showing the clock gadget, how you could have multiple instances open all with different settings and time zones, and importantly anywhere you wanted.
It's disappointing when so many people get this wrong and even worse when it is mentioned right at the start of a video covering Windows 7. If they can get one of the very first facts wrong it doesn't fill you with much confidence.
If anything the Gadget platform in Windows 7 is weaker than in Windows Vista. Here's why. With the Sidebar in Windows Vista you could configure it to always be on top, when it was set like this any windows would maximize to the edge of the Sidebar enabling you to always see any Gadgets contained in the Sidebar. In Windows 7 there is no way to achieve the same thing. You have to tell individual Gadgets to be on top, and when that happens they'll obviously cover up areas of any maximized windows, as maximized windows will fill the screen as usual.
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