The World of Windows

20 Windows 7 free apps to download today, Chapter 1.

2012-05-22T13:15:00.000-05:00

Here are 20 free Windows 7 applications that stand out in terms of quality of results you get from them.

Ninite is a quick and easy way to download most of these applications into a single customised installer.

1. GIMP

The Paint application got a much needed improvement in Windows 7, but it doesn't cater to the needs of professionals and by no stretch of imagination can it be considered a Photoshop replacement.

GIMP, a diamond of freebies, is simply remarkable in terms of quality and quantity, with an array of options. From 3D perspective tools to eye-popping render effects, GIMP impresses throughout. (For a less professional based image editor, Paint.Net is a good alternative).

2. VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player is not about the cool menu colours or the glow of the play button seen in its rivals. The developers of this fantastic piece of software have focused on the core aspects of a media player, and it succeeds by being able to play virtually any video and audio format with impressive quality. Great ease of use makes this media player a must-have.

3. Handbrake

Converting video from one format to another is child's play with Handbrake, which accepts practically any format as a source. Handbrake also includes chapter selection, basic subtitle support and audio embedding. With tree diagrams and tabs in the interface, Handbrake is a pleasure to use.

4. Firefox

The browser war is pretty fierce and everybody has their favourite browser. However, the star of open-source development is undoubtedly Mozilla Firefox. Does your browser look dull? Then download one of the many themes from the Mozilla website. Increase functionality and productivity with add-ons such as Sxipper and Firegestures.

5. Picasa

Created by Google, Picasa gathers and organises all your photos to make them easily accessible. Adjusting and fixing your photos, posting them online or viewing a timeline are just a few clicks away, and amateurs will appreciate the simple yet very effective layout in Picasa. Included with Picasa is the excellent Picasa Photo Viewer to preview pictures in Windows explorer folders.

6. Fences

Windows 7 might bring a brand new taskbar, but it doesn't do much to improve upon the main desktop itself. Fences is a great way to make your desktop organised, by arranging and sorting icons into various 'fences' or labelled shaded areas in a well-presented manner. Fences make life a lot easier.

7. CCleaner

Like its predecessors, Windows 7 will tend to run slowly on lower end computers. One way to speed up a slow computer is to clear up unnecessary junk files that pile up in your hard drive, and CCleaner does just that. And with an added uninstalling feature that removes annoying programs that refuse to leave your computer, CCleaner is strongly recommended.

8. Enhancemyse7en

From Cleaning up registry problem to detecting system clutter, Enhancemyse7en notifies you about improvements that could be made on your computer. However, the supreme aspect of this program lies in the insane amount of data and tools provided, including hard drive monitors that measure 'Work Time' and 'Temperature' and helpful options such as 'Time to wait when a program hangs'.

9. Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader might be an unnecessarily larger download than its rivals, but it manages to keep a constant footprint on resources (unlike Foxit PDF Reader that has a constantly increasing footprint) and with a browser plug-in included, it's a good idea to stick to the software provided by the creators of the PDF format themselves.

10. Notepad ++

Unlike Paint, Windows 7 makes absolutely no improvement to the Notepad application. Fortunately, the freebie, Notepad ++, expands on the functionality of the default notepad by including tabbed windows. It's a programmer's dream, with support for various programming languages. This program justly deserves the name 'Notepad++'.

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Windows 8 Consumer Preview FAQ..

2012-05-17T13:05:00.000-05:00

Windows 8 had just arrived and lots of buzz is going around related to the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, The Developer Preview was released by Windows Earlier for testing purposes which seemed to be a lot good and improved.

Some people also said that Windows 8 Developer Preview was better only for Tablet devices. But now Microsoft has now released the newer release of Windows 8, that is Windows 8 Consumer Preview. After the release, blogs are writing lots of tutorials about this new release.

Q: Where can I get information about how to download and install Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
A: Information about downloading and installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview can be found on the Springboard Series for Windows 8 on TechNet site. Here you will find links to the Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO image downloads for x86 and x64 and top resources such as a product guide, Windows To Go overview, and Windows Store FAQ.

Q: Where can I find information about exploring Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
A: Exploring Windows 8 Consumer Preview content can be found on the Explore Windows 8 on TechNet page. Here you will find technical feature overviews, such as BitLocker, Client Hyper-V, IPv6, and more. You’ll also find FAQs for BitLocker and managing the Windows Store and Windows 8 with Internet Explorer 10.

Q: Where can I find additional content about Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
A: All Windows 8 Consumer Preview content for IT Pros can be found on the Springboard Series for Windows 8 on TechNet site.

Q: Do you have a guide that helps businesses understand what is in Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
A: Yes. Please review the Windows 8 Consumer Preview Product Guide for Business.

Q: Where can I find get additional help if I run into a problem or have a question about Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
A: Please search the forums for an existing thread that discusses your issue. If you don’t find one, please create a new thread in one of the following forums:

TechNet: For IT Pro issues and questions
Dev Center (formerly known as MSDN): For Developer issues and questions
Microsoft Answers: For Consumer issues and questions

Q: Where is Microsoft officially discussing Windows 8?
A: Official information about Windows 8 can be found on the Building Windows 8 Blog.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview Wallpapers

But for now Microsoft has released the OS .iso file and it’s available for download on their official website, we’ve compiled some awesome new wallpapers of Windows 8 which have been created by the users and designers. Thanks to the community who keep on working and provide support to us for free. I’ve compiled some of the best looking wallpapers which can look amazing on the background of your Android Mobile Phone.

Windows 8 Metro-UI Wallpaper.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview Wallpaper.

Windows 8 Beta Preview Release Wallpaper.

Windows 8 Wallpaper.

Black Windows 8 Wallpaper.

This post will be constantly updates with all the coming wallpapers that seem to be good. All the images are grabbed using the Google Image search. You can use all of these wallpapers on your Android mobile phone to make it’s background look purely beautiful, try them and out and do subscribe to us to recieve these updates directly to your Inbox.

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Maximize windows on the desktop using Snap.

2012-05-13T12:43:00.000-05:00

Windows 7 has introduced many new window arrangement features such as Aero Snap and Aero Peek. It includes docking windows to the edges of the screen, vertical expand, easy maximize and other enhancements that make it easier to manage multiple windows.

Can’t switch to Windows 7 right now? WindowSpace brings the most outstanding Windows 7 features straight to your Vista or XP desktop. Importantly, WindowSpace not only transfers the new window management functionality to Windows 2000/XP/Vista, but also improves and extends it to provide exceptional productivity on a multi-monitor or big-screen system.

You can use Snap to maximize a window, which makes it easier to focus on that window because of less distraction from other open windows.

Watch this video to learn how to maximize windows on the desktop using Snap (0:49)

To maximize a window

Drag the title bar of the window to the top of the screen. The window's outline expands to fill the screen.
Release the window to expand it to fill the entire desktop.

To return the window to its original size, drag the title bar of the window away from the top of the screen.

Tip
If you use multiple monitors, you can drag a maximized window from one monitor to the other.

Other ways to maximize an open window:

Double-click the top of an open window just below the top edge. To restore a maximized window to its original size, double-click the top of the window again.
On the taskbar, press Shift and right-click a taskbar button or a preview of an open window, and then click Maximize.

Notes

If you minimize a window by pressing Windows logo key +Down Arrow, you can restore it by clicking its preview on the taskbar, or by pressing Shift and right-clicking the program’s button on the taskbar, and then clicking Restore.

Snap might not work on some programs that have custom window behaviors.

Examples:

The snapping feature is enabled when you move or resize a window with the mouse.

1. Drag the titlebar to move a window
2. Snap window to the screen edges

Once this feature is enabled, windows will snap to each other or to the screen borders neatly, edge to edge, rather than block or cover one another completely. You’ll be able to align windows properly without having to reposition them constantly on the desktop, or hunt for the application you need behind other windows.

When you resize a window with the mouse, snapping allows you to quickly make two or more windows the same width or height.

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Top 10 changes to security in Windows 7.

2012-05-04T12:28:00.000-05:00

1: Action Center

In Vista, security configurations are accessed from the Security Center in Control Panel. In Windows 7, you won’t see a Security Center. That’s because it’s been absorbed into a new Action Center. The Action Center has security configurations as well as options for other administrative tasks, like Backup, Troubleshooting And Diagnostics, and Windows Update. Figure A shows the Action Center.

Figure A: The Action Center absorbed the functions of the Security Center.

2: Changes to UAC

User Account Control (UAC) was new in Vista, designed to provide better protection from malware. It makes all user accounts run as standard users, even administrator accounts. If you need to do something that requires admin privileges, it asks for permission. And asks. And asks. This in-your-face aspect of UAC has caused numerous complaints and has led some users to turn it off completely, thus exposing themselves to threats.

In Windows 7, UAC is still there, but now you can configure how “vocal” it will be. There are four settings you configure from the UAC settings in the Action Center. You can set UAC to:

Always notify you when you install software or make any changes to Windows settings (as Vista does now).
Notify you when programs make changes but not if you make changes to Windows settings (this is now the default).
Notify you only when programs make changes but turn off Secure Desktop, which dims the desktop while the UAC prompt is displayed. (This is my preferred setting.)
Never notify you. (This is not recommended.)

You configure these settings with a slider, as shown in Figure B.

Figure B: You can set when and how UAC notifies you with the slider.

3: Better BitLocker

I didn’t use BitLocker much in Vista. At first, it would encrypt only the operating system drive. That’s nice for laptops, but I didn’t need it for my desktop because that machine is physically secure. Then Service Pack 1 added the ability to encrypt other drives, and that was nice, but it applied only to fixed hard disks. What I really needed to encrypt were my thumb drives and flash cards and USB drives, since they’re removable and portable and more likely to get lost or stolen.

Windows 7 comes through and lets you encrypt removable drives. And it’s easy to do. Just open the BitLocker applet in Control Panel, pick the drive you want to encrypt, and click Turn On BitLocker. The removable drives appear in the section called BitLocker To Go (Figure C).

Figure C: You can now encrypt removable drives, like the Lexar USB flash drive, with BitLocker.

For more details about the BitLocker improvements and step by step screenshots of how to encrypt a drive with BitLocker in Windows 7, see this article.

Also note that, as with Vista, BitLocker probably won’t be included in the Home editions of Windows 7.

4: DirectAccess

A brand new feature in Windows 7 is DirectAccess, which allows remote users to connect securely to their corporate networks over the Internet without using a VPN. Administrators can apply Group Policy settings and otherwise manage the mobile computers and even update them whenever the mobile machines are connected to the Internet, regardless of whether the user is logged on to the corporate network.

DirectAccess also supports multifactor authentication with smart cards and uses IPv6 over IPsec for encrypting the traffic.

5: Biometric security

Arguably the most secure method of authentication is biometrics, or the use of a fingerprint, retinal scan, DNA, or other unique physiological feature to identify the user. Windows isn’t quite at the point of having built-in support for DNA sampling, but it does include built in support for fingerprint readers. Windows has supported the use a fingerprint sensor to log on, and many Vista laptops come with fingerprint sensors. But a third-party program is required to use it. With Windows 7, it’s part of the OS.

The Biometric Devices applet in Control Panel (Figure D) lets you configure fingerprint readers (which are the only kind of biometric devices supported).

Figure D: Now support for fingerprint readers is built into Windows.

6: AppLocker

Software Restriction Policies are included in XP and Vista and they seemed like a great idea. Administrators can use Group Policy to keep users from running particular programs that might present a security threat. But they’ve never been used that much because they aren’t easy to use.

Windows 7 has improved on the concept with a new feature called AppLocker. AppLocker is also included in Windows Server 2008 R2. It’s easier to use and gives administrators more flexibility and control. You can use AppLocker with domain Group Policies or on the local machine with the Local Security Policy snap-in. As you can see in Figure E, AppLocker falls under the Application Control Policies node in the left pane of the snap-in.

Figure E: AppLocker does the same thing as Software Restriction Policies, but does it better.

Win7 still supports the old Software Restriction Policies, too. Also note that AppLocker may not be available in some editions of Windows 7.

7: Windows Filtering Platform (WFP)

Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) is a set of APIs introduced in Vista. In Windows 7, developers can use it to integrate some parts of the Windows Firewall into their own applications. This will allow a third-party program to turn off certain parts of the Windows Firewall selectively if need be.

8: PowerShell v2

Windows 7 comes with PowerShell v2, the command-line interface by which administrators can use cmdlets (small “one liners” that allow you to perform single functions) to manage various settings, including Group Policy security settings. You can put multiple cmdlets together to create scripts. The cmdlet method generally requires fewer steps than using the graphic interface to perform the same task.

Windows 7 also includes the PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) (Figure F), a graphical tool for using PowerShell.

Figure F: Windows 7 includes both PowerShell v.2 and the PowerShell ISE.

9: DNSSec

Windows 7 includes support for DNSSec (Domain Name System Security), which is a group of extensions to the DNS platform that enhance security. With DNSSec, a DNS zone can take advantage of digital signature technology so that you can validate the authenticity of data that’s received.

According to the Port 53 Blog on TechNet, the DNS client doesn’t perform the DNS validation on its own but is security-aware, so it expects the server to return the results of validation. You can read more about this here.

10: Internet Explorer 8

Windows 7 comes with IE 8, which provides such security enhancements to the Web browser as:

The SmartScreen filter– Replaces/expands upon the Phishing Filter in IE 7
The XSS Filter — Protects against cross-scripting attacks
Domain highlighting — Puts emphasis on the relevant part of the URL so you can more easily determine the real location of the site you’re on
Better security for ActiveX and the ability to install controls on a per-site basis
Data Execution Prevention (DEP) enabled by default

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Windows 7 consumer security software providers.

2012-05-01T10:27:00.000-05:00

We recommend that you install security software to help protect your computer from viruses and other security threats, and that you keep your security software up to date.

Some companies use products that appear to be antivirus programs to install viruses or malware on your computer. When you install the program, you might also be installing the virus or other malware, without knowing it. Many companies, including those listed on this page, distribute antivirus programs. You should carefully investigate the source of antivirus and other products before downloading and installing them.

The companies listed below provide consumer security software that is compatible with Windows 7. Just click the company name to see the Windows 7-compatible product they offer. For business security software that is compatible with Windows 7, please visit the Windows 7 Compatibility Center or contact your security vendor of choice.

Important: Before you install antivirus software, check to make sure you don't already have an antivirus product on your computer. If you do, be sure to remove the product you don't want before you install the new one. It can cause problems on your computer to have two different antivirus products installed at the same time.

Microsoft is actively working with the partners listed on this page and additional security independent software vendors (ISVs) to provide security software solutions tested on Windows 7.

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Windows Dev Center: Tools, samples and docs to build Windows apps.

2012-04-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

Metro style apps.

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Windows Neptune is the project of developing the most famous of Microsoft operating systems that have never seen the light.

2012-04-25T22:45:00.000-05:00

Neptune was the codename for a version of the Windows operating system that was under development by Microsoft during 1999. It was based on Windows 2000 and was scheduled to be the first consumer version of Windows to be built on NT code, to replace the Windows 9x series.

In early 2000, Microsoft merged the team working on Neptune with that developing Windows Odyssey, the upgrade to Windows 2000 for business customers. The combined team worked on a new project codenamed Whistler, which was released at the end of 2001 as Windows XP. In the meantime, Microsoft released another home user DOS-based operating system called Windows Me.

Only one alpha build of Neptune, 5111, was released to testers under a non-disclosure agreement, and later made its way to various beta collectors' sites and virtual museums. Also, there were at least two other builds, which were Build 5000, which was released to very few people, and Build 5022. Build 5000 is very heavily debated.

In the early roadmap for Neptune's development (shown in the Anti-Trust documents) there were five service packs planned. In the Microsoft Anti-Trust documents, it shows that Neptune was to have a successor named Triton which would be a minor update with very few user interface changes, and service packs were planned for it. Internally, the project's name was capitalized as NepTune.

Features.

Neptune largely resembled Windows 2000, but some of the new features introduced such as the firewall, were later integrated into Windows XP as the Windows Firewall. It introduced a logon screen similar to that later used in Windows XP. Neptune also experimented with a new user interface, called Activity Centers, for task-centered operations.

Screenshots.

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Nvidia’s GTX 680 emphasizes efficiency, pours on the speed

2012-04-20T10:28:00.000-05:00

Nvidia’s GTX 680 emphasizes efficiency, pours on the speed

Nvidia takes the wraps off Kepler, its next-generation GPU, and quite possibly the greatest step forward for graphics processing since it unveiled the G80 in November 2006.

The first desktop card out of the gate is the GTX 680. Unlike the 5xx series, which were based on a refined version of the Fermi architecture Nvidia debuted back in 2010, Kepler uses a new GK104 GPU — and its design is a sharp departure from Nvidia’s previous architectures.

Over the past five years, Nvidia’s GPU strategy has more-or-less amounted to “Everything+Kitchen Sink and we’ll sort things out when we do the refresh.” After the disastrous debut of its R600 architecture in 2006, AMD adopted a strategy of building smaller, mid-range oriented parts and doubling them up to address the high end of the market — Nvidia, in contrast, adamantly stuck to its monolithic guns. Until Kepler.

The transistor counts below are from Nvidia; Kepler’s die size is estimated but should be close to the mark. Kepler’s die size and transistor count are notable achievements in and of themselves, but we’ve barely scratched the surface of the new core. Here’s a table comparing the vitals of NV’s GT200 that debuted in 2008, (the “Tesla” moniker refers to the GPU family, not the high-end scientific computing cards), Fermi, and GK104.

Shaders are now clocked at the same speed as the graphics core. Kepler is clocked 30% higher than Fermi and packs 3x as many cores, but we want to highlight a change Nvidia wouldn’t explain during its presentation — the GK104′s cores aren’t as capable as the GF110′s. With 3x the core count and a 30% clock speed boost, Kepler “only” offers twice the GFLOP throughput. Not that that’s a bad thing.

A number of other GPU resources have been shuffled around as well.

Nvidia’s ratio column is remarkably unhelpful; it only describes the increase between Fermi and Kepler rather than how resources are distributed relative to each other. GK104 packs four times the special function units (SFUs) and twice the texture units as GF110; the core is capable of processing twice as many instructions per clock (though it has three times as many cores to fill with those instructions).

One area Nvidia did shed some light on are the changes it made to its warp scheduler. In weaving (with a loom), the term “warp” refers to the longitudinal threads in a pattern; Nvidia uses the term to mean a group of threads. For our purposes it roughly corresponds to the thread scheduler.

Fermi’s scheduler was designed with hardware stages to “prevent data hazards in the math datapath itself.” Registers were tracked and checked before data was issued to ensure that they were ready for new instructions, while decoded instructions were kept available for fast dispatch when applicable. Kepler simplifies this structure and handles some of the checking in software; dispatch latency instructions are now issued alongside the instructions themselves.

The company also notes that “We also developed a new design for the processor execution core, again with a focus on best performance per watt. Each processing unit was scrubbed to maximize clock gating efficiency and minimize wiring and retiming overheads.”

What all this adds up to is a rearchitected GPU with a focus on power efficiency that’s been notably lacking from the company’s previous high-end efforts. Those of you familiar with Nvidia’s historic naming schemes will recognize the GK104 moniker as one that Team Green typically would reserve for a mid-range GPU. Thus far, there’s no indication of a higher-end part in the works, and no obvious places where NV might have disabled compute units to improve yields, as it did with GF100.

Nvidia wasn’t able to ship us a card for testing — heck, the company wasn’t even able to brief us until less than 24 hours ago — so we have to preface our data with the hefty caveat that these figures are drawn from Nvidia’s own testing. The only good news is that these figures are from the company’s whitepaper rather than poorly labeled slides, meaning we were able to at least check the Appendices for config details. The company also included results in a wide range of titles and two prominent resolutions. Generally speaking there’s an inverse relationship between a company’s confidence in a product’s performance and the results they’ll hand you on launch day.

For those of you who are curious, the GTX 680 is a consistent 14% faster than the highest-end Radeon 7970. That’s not a variance that flat blows the doors down, but there are other factors to consider. The GTX 680 is priced at $499 (we’ll see if NV can hold the price there post-launch), while the Radeon 7970 is $50 more. This time around, Nvidia appears to have beaten AMD on both die size and transistor count. Other factors, such as opting for 2GB of RAM instead of 3GB, and using a smaller 256-bit memory bus instead of the Radeon’s 384-bit option, also tilt cost structures in Nvidia’s favor.

Its been years since Nvidia has been able to claim to have a GPU that decisively took home both the power efficiency and performance crown, but the GK104-based GTX 680 appears to have done just that. We’ll reserve final judgment until we’re able to run our own numbers, but this chip is impressive on multiple fronts. The one fly in the ointment is its GPU compute performance; figures on that front were very noticeably absent from Nvidia’s briefing yesterday, but the technical data available suggests that GK104 trades some raw math muscle for its new gaming oomph. Then again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing — AMD has effectively left the GPGPU compute field (at least where scientific computing is concerned).

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Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace will officially shut down on May 9.

2012-04-11T10:59:00.000-05:00

What a long, strange trip it’s been. As Microsoft throws their considerable weight behind the Windows Phone platform, they’re running out of love for their still-kicking Windows Mobile OS, and today they’ve driven another nail into its coffin. According to a new email being circulated to users as I write this, the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace will officially shut down on May 9.

The move to kill the Windows Mobile Marketplace (not the newer Windows Phone Marketplace, to be clear) has been in the works for a while now — it began back in June 2011, when Microsoft announced that Windows Mobile users would no longer be able to download apps from the Marketplace website.

Fortunately, apps could still be downloaded directly to a user’s device though that functionality will soon go dark. Microsoft advises WinMo users (all 9 of you, really) to make sure to snag whatever updates you can, because you’ll be out of luck before long. It’s worth mentioning though that while Microsoft is pulling the plug on the Marketplace, there’s still no shortage of communities dedicated to pushing out new (and dare I say cool) apps to the aging OS.

I doubt that the news will break many hearts today, but Windows Mobile was an important stepping stone in the evolution of the mobile operating system. It tried (perhaps too hard) to bring translate the standard PC experience to a different kind of device, and while Microsoft ultimately tried to revamp it with Windows Mobile 6.5, the dual onslaught of iOS and Android meant it was already fighting a losing battle at that point.

Of course, Windows Mobile isn’t completely dead and buried yet. You’ll probably find more than a few WinMo-devices support your local big box store’s stock system, and a nifty mod lets you run Windows Mobile within Windows Phone — a bit of Winception, if you will.

Screenshots.

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Introduction to SQL Azure.

2012-04-05T10:45:00.000-05:00

Since the SQL Azure database services are in the cloud, you do not have to worry about high availability and scalability. SQL Azure will maintain a “Monthly Availability” of 99.9% during a calendar month. For example, you or your network administrators do not have to spend time on high availability which is taken care by the services. Also, you don’t have to worry about security patches and service packs which will be installed by the service provider.

Using SQL Azure.

SQL Azure is still in CTP , the SQL Azure Database CTP is available for free and you can register below to receive an invitation. Due to high demand for the SQL Azure Database CTP, there may be some delays in receiving your invitation codes. http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149681&clcid=0×09

Editions & Pricing.

There are two editions for SQL Azure, namely Web and Business. While self-managed DB and auto high-availability features are supported in both editions, there are few differences between them.

Main difference is the storage, as the Web edition supports only 1 GB of database storage space and the Business edition supports 10GB.

In case you need to store more that 10GB of data, you will have to break the databases into small sizes. Apart from basic T-SQL facilities, there will additional features like auto-partition and CLR in the business edition. However, these features are not yet available in CTP.

Upon the availability of production ready SQL Azure, the fee will be as below:

•Web Edition: Up to 1 GB relational database = $9.99 / month

•Business Edition: Up to 10 GB relational database = $99.99 / month

•Bandwidth = $0.10 in / $0.15 out / GB

Using SQL Azure Databases.

As there are no options in the web interface to create tables or databases, you will need to use other tools for creating and designing Azure based databases:

SQLcmd

SQLcmd is supported on SQL Azure and you can connect to an Azure database using the below command.

C:>sqlcmd -U <User> -P <PPassword> -S <ServerName> -d master

Management Studio

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is the most frequently used tool to connect to SQL Server databases. However, when connecting to SQL Azure there several additional steps you need to follow.

1. Open SSMS

2. Cancel out of the first connection dialog that pops up and click on the New Query button from the toolbar. If you enter credentials without performing this step the following error will appear: (Microsoft is working on this issue).

3. When you are prompted to connect to a database, cancel that dialog.

4. You should be left with an empty management console. Click New Query.

5. For the server name, take the fully qualified host name from your SQL Azure connection string. It should look something like mlqe0vurwb.database.windows.net.

6. Choose SQL Server Authentication as SQL Azure does not support Windows Authentication. Supply the username and password that you used for your database.

7. Click on the Options button on the bottom right of the dialog box

8. Set the database name, manually, to the name of your database. It will not show up in the drop-down list. Please note that in case you need to connect other databases, you have to connect again.

9. Make sure the server type is set to the database engine.

10. Click Connect.

For SQL Azure SSMS does to show the objects in the Object Explorer and you will need to write T-SQL for all your needs.

Visual Studio

You can view the connection strings for the relevant databases by clicking the Connection String button.

Using above connection strings, you can connect to SQL Azure from Visual Studio.

Third Party Tools:

As demonstrated, SSMS may not be a good tool for SQL Azure. There are couple of third party tools that I have been working with:

Omega Web Client

Omega Web Client has a great set of functionalities. It has a great object explorer. You can access this tool online at https://onlinedemo.cerebrata.com/SQLAzureClient/default.aspx and therefore no installation is needed.

Below is the main view of the UI that you will see from this tool.

SQL Azure Manager

SQL Azure Manager is another tool which supports SQL Azure. However there are quite number of draw backs which will be discussed laterò.

You can download this tool from http://hanssens.org/tools/sqlazuremanager/.

The SQL Azure Manager UI is much better than SSMS or the Omega web client.

Though SQL Azure Manager has a much better UI than SSMS 2008 or Omega, it is still lacking a lot of features in the object explorer. For example, it shows the views in object explorer, but does not allow the user to create the alter script for a view. Also, it does not display stored procedures or functions in the object explorer and can only show data of tables with the dbo schema.

SSIS & SQL Azure.

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is used to integrate data between different data sources.

The first thing to note is that SQL Azure currently does not support OLE DB. The normal recommendation for SSIS is to use the OLE DB Source or Destination to access SQL Server. However, if you want to work with SSIS and SQL Azure, you must use the ADO.NET Source and Destinations. This is fine for 2008, but if you are using SSIS 2005, there is no ADO.NET Destination, so you will have to implement your own through a script component. This can be done by creating a source or destination and then using the SSIS control flow tasks and data flow tasks.

After it will be the standard way of write SSIS packages.

When using SSIS for SQL Azure, tables without a clustered index are not supported hence you are required to create a clustered index.

Migrating From SQL Server to SQL Azure.

The SQL Server Migration Wizard helps you to migrate your local SQL Server 2005 / 2008 databases to SQL Azure. The wizard walks you through the selection of your SQL objects, creates SQL scripts suitable for SQL Azure, and allows you to edit / deploy to SQL Azure. You can download SQL Server Migration Wizard from http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com/

I have copied few screen shots to demonstrate the product. However, it is fairly simple.

After selecting the Source database, next you have to select the required options from the following screen.

You can select either a new database or an existing database with the credentials to login to the SQL Azure database.

Next, the wizard will transfer data and objects to SQL Azure.

Not Supported on SQL Azure:

· The backup command is not available due to the multi-tenant nature of the service. You can use BCP or SSIS instead.

· Server options (sp_configure)

· SQL Profiler

· SQL traceflag

· Data Types like HierachyID, Geography

More Information.

SQL Azure Database:

http://www.microsoft.com/azure/data.mspx

SQL Server News Blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/archive/2009/07/08/microsoft-sql-services-is-now-microsoft-sql-azure.aspx

SQL Azure Team Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ssds/

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The Windows Azure Platform is an application platform in the cloud that allows Microsoft datacenters to host and run applications.

2012-04-01T10:30:00.000-05:00

Microsoft on Monday announced a version of Windows that runs over the Internet from inside Microsoft's own data centers.

Dubbed Windows Azure, it's less a replacement for the operating system that runs on one's own PC than it is an alternative for developers, intended to let them write programs that live inside Microsoft's data centers as opposed to on the servers of a given business.

"It's a transformation of our software and a transformation of our strategy," said Ray Ozzie, a computing industry pioneer who now serves as Microsoft's chief software architect. (For a play-by-play account of Ozzie's speech, see "PDC 2008: Windows Azure live blog.")

Microsoft first outlined a shift to "Live Services" at an event in San Francisco in 2005. The company has released a few things piecemeal, such as Live Mesh, but Monday's announcement marked the first real discussion of how Microsoft's disparate Internet strategies fit together.

The announcements come at the start of Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference here. On Tuesday, Microsoft plans to go into more detail on Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista, due out by about January 2010.

With the launch of Azure, Microsoft will find itself in competition with other providers of Internet storage and computing services including Amazon, Salesforce.com, and Rackspace.

Ozzie said he was tipping his cap to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for innovating the hosted computing model. Amazon "established a base-level design pattern, architecture models, and business models that we'll all learn from," he said.

Microsoft is making Windows Azure in preview form to developers, with a limited subset of the features that it plans to have in the product before its final release.

There weren't many details on how Microsoft will charge for Azure, saying it will be free during the preview period. Final pricing, Ozzie said, "will be competitive with the marketplace."

The company itself plans to offer businesses the option of running over the Internet the kinds of software that have traditionally run on a company's own servers. Microsoft already sells its Exchange corporate e-mail software in this way, but that is just the beginning, said Microsoft vice president Dave Thompson.

"All our enterprise software will be delivered as an online service as an option," Thompson said.

The Windows Azure Platform is an application platform in the cloud that allows Microsoft datacenters to host and run applications. It provides a cloud operating system called Windows Azure that serves as a runtime for the applications and provides a set of services that allows development, management, and hosting of applications off-premises. All Azure Services and applications built using them run on top of Windows Azure.

Windows Azure has three core components: Compute, Storage, and Fabric. As the names suggest, Compute provides a computation environment with Web Role, Worker Role, and VM Role while Storage focuses on providing scalable storage (Blobs, non-relational Tables, and Queues) for large-scale needs. Relational Database functionality is offered through SQL Azure, which is a scalable version of SQL Server that runs on the Azure platform.

The Windows Azure fabric is the networking underpinnings of the Windows Azure platform which uses high-speed connections, and switches to connect nodes consisting of several servers together. The Fabric along with the Compute and Storage resources make up the Windows Azure Platform.

Fabric resources, applications, and services running are managed by the Windows Azure Fabric Controller service. It acts as the kernel of the Windows Azure distributed cloud operating system, providing scheduling, resource allocation, device management, and fault tolerance for the nodes in the Fabric. It also provides high-level application models for intelligently managing the complete application lifecycle, including deployment, health monitoring, upgrades, and de-activation.

The Windows Azure Platform provides an API built on REST, HTTP, and XML that allows a developer to interact with the services provided by Windows Azure. Microsoft also provides a client-side managed class library which encapsulates the functions of interacting with the services. It also integrates with Microsoft Visual Studio so that it can be used as the IDE to develop and publish Azure-hosted applications.

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Quake III Arena was specifically designed for multiplayer.

2012-03-28T06:38:00.001-05:00

Quake III Arena is a multiplayer first-person shooter computer and video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly.

Quake III Arena is the third in the series and differs from previous games by excluding a traditional single-player element and focusing on multi-player action. The single-player is instead played against computer controlled bots in a similar style to Unreal Tournament.

Notable features of Quake 3 include the minimalist design, lacking rarely used items and features, the extensive customizability of player settings such as field of view, texture detail and enemy model, and advanced movement features such as strafe and rocket-jumping.

Quake 3 is available on a number of platforms and contains mature content. The game was highly praised by reviewers who, for the most part, described the gameplay as fun and engaging. Many liked the crisp graphics and focus on multiplayer. The game engine has been heavily modified.

Quake 3 has also been used extensively in professional electronic sports tournaments such as Quakecon, Cyberathlete Professional League and the Electronic Sports World Cup.

Quake III Arena features an advanced AI with five difficulty levels which can accommodate both a beginner and an advanced player, though they usually do not pose a challenge to high-tier or competitive players.

Quake III Arena's multiplayer-focused development led to it developing a large community of competitive players and like its predecessors it was used extensively in professional electronic sports tournaments.

In competitive Quake III Arena there are two distinct gameplays, often referred to as 'rulesets', the out-of-the-box Quake III Arena game, also known as vanilla Quake 3 (VQ3), and the CPM ruleset of the Challenge Pro Mode Arena mod.

Each bot has its own, often humorous, 'personality', expressed as scripted lines that are triggered to simulate real player chat. If the player were to type certain phrases the bots may respond, typing "You bore me" might cause one of the bots to reply "You should have been here 3 hours ago!". Each bot has a number of alternative lines to reduce the repetition of bot chatter.

The Gladiator bots from Quake II were ported to Quake III and incorporated into the game by its creator - Jean Paul van Waveren, aka Mr. Elusive. Bot chat lines were written by R. A. Salvatore, Seven Swords and Steve Winter. Xaero, the hardest opponent in the game, was based on the Gladiator bot Zero.[citation needed] The bot Hunter appears on magazine covers in the later id game Doom 3.

Screenshots.

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Medal of Honor Airborne is a World War II first-person shooter computer game and the 11th installment of the Medal of Honor series.

2012-03-23T06:33:00.001-05:00

Medal of Honor Airborne is a World War II first-person shooter computer game and the 11th installment of the Medal of Honor series. It was developed by EA Los Angeles and was released worldwide on the PC and Xbox 360 in early September 2007.

A PS2 and Wii version was set to be released but was cancelled in 2007. A PlayStation 3 version was released late November 2007.The game takes place in the European theater of World War II, and is the first in the series to focus only on paratrooper activities.

In the single-player mode, the player takes on the role of PFC Boyd Travers, a fictional paratrooper in the US 82nd Airborne Division.Missions include various insertions into Italy, northern France, the Netherlands and Germany, each one beginning with a jump behind enemy lines, and success requiring completion of given objectives.

Airborne also features a multiplayer mode available for online play, where users have the choice of fighting for the Allies and parachuting down to the battlefield, or fighting for the Axis and starting on the ground, defending the position from enemy paratroopers.

The game uses a heavily-modified Unreal Engine 3. Airborne employs a nonlinear gameplay style whereby the player can start the game anywhere in the map by directing where they land, as opposed to previous linear FPS games where the start point and direction is already laid out, such as Allied Assault.

Story
In Airborne, the player assumes the role of Private First Class (later promoted to Corporal) Boyd Travers, a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and later the 17th Airborne Division of the United States Army during World War II. Travers's insertion is into major engagements in Italy, northern France, the Netherlands, and Germany.

The game begins with a training mission, where the player learns how to jump from the plane, among other basic controls.

After the tutorial mission, the player is sent to Sicily in 1943, with a drop into a small walled village called Adanti as part of Operation Husky, the costly Allied invasion of Sicily. It is followed by Operation Avalanche, the invasion of mainland Italy, where Travers is inserted into an operation near the Greek ruins of Paestum.

These ruins were used by the Axis as a staging area to counterattack the advancing Allies from the beaches of Salerno. The 82nd Airborne is then airdropped into France during the morning hours of June 6, 1944 as part of Operation Neptune.

During this, Travers is part of the paratrooper force dropped inland the night to take and hold the 82nd Airborne's goal of Sainte-Mère-Église. Before the Normandy beach invasion to clear the infantry's path into Vichy France. The player is able to see the Utah Beach landings of Operation Overlord while in the air.

Travers then drops into the Netherlands as part of Operation Market Garden, General Montgomery's failed plan to secure routes through the Netherlands enabling a push into Germany. Largely featured is the partly destroyed city of Nijmegen and the attempt to secure the bridge over the Waal River for the Allies.

The game's 2nd to last level takes place during Operation Varsity, which sees Travers parachuting alongside 17,000 soldiers into Germany in the single largest Allied airdrop in history, as the final level depicts a combat jump over a Flak tower,named Der Flakturm in Essen, Germany.

Gameplay

The main gameplay element, which was introduced in Vanguard,and improvised in Airborne, is the paratroop jump. At the start of each mission, the player begins in a C-47 along with fellow soldiers preparing to drop.

The team then jumps out of the plane and parachutes down to the ground, marking the beginning of the mission. During the drop the player is able to freely control where in the field of battle they land; pre-determined drop zones are marked with a green flare, where the player will find their allies and supplies, however they can also choose to land elsewhere,within a small to medium sized map, which affects the way the game is played.

For example, the player could land near the enemy stronghold and come up against heavy opposing firepower, or land on the rooftops with a sniper rifle and choose a stealthy approach to the mission. This free-roaming experience based on unlimited choice of landing spots offers infinite ways of gameplay, ensuring no two matches are alike.

For Playstation 3, the SIXAXIS controller can be used to also determine which way the player leans, being accomplished by tilting the controller forward or backward.[Additionally, unlike previous scripted first-person shooters, the missions in Airborne have no specific start or end point. As the player can land anywhere in the map, beginning the mission where they choose, they can complete the given objectives in any order they wish. The rate at which players become ready for battle depends on their skill at hitting the ground; a poor landing results in notification of a "botched landing", with the player having to spare a few seconds to regain composure.

The other two landings include "Flared Landing" and a "Greased Landing." In addition to this, players can instantly kill an enemy soldier if they land on top of them. The objectives in the missions usually have the player taking down 20 mm Flakvierlings, high-ranked officers, or placing Composition B charges on many different supplies (i.e. ammo caches, a railway gun, Tanks, pressure valves, and cannon cars) for mass destruction.

Weapons A wide range of weapons is available in Airborne, such as the Thompson submachine gun and the M1 Garand rifle, which have defined previous Medal of Honor titles.

Grenades can be kicked away, and if one explodes too close, the player experiences blurred vision and shock effects. Players are able to carry two primary weapons(up to 780 rounds), a side-arm, (which are the German Mauser pistol (only after Operation Varsity), and the M1911) and from 21 to 36 grenades (12 frag, 12 stick grenades, 19 Gammon when fully upgraded).

Airborne uses a weapon upgrade system, whereby the player is awarded with add-ons to their selected weapon as they become proficient with it. This feature is based on the idea that not every weapon in World War II was the same as every other one, soldiers had a wide variety of field modifications and upgrades that they could apply to them.

Every weapon in the game can achieve three upgrades e.g. the Thompson SMG evolves to resemble the infamous 1920's gangster weapon of choice "The Tommy Gun" after the addition of a forward pistol grip (for stability), a "Cutts Compensator" to divert the muzzle gas upwards (eliminating muzzle rise during rapid fire) and a drum magazine, increasing ammo holding capacity from 30 to 50. Some upgrades can increase accuracy (by replacing the barrel), increase ammo (by using a Satchel (bag), or even increase the melee effect. When wielding an MP40, the player will pull a dagger for the melee, and for the M12 Shotgun, a bayonet is attached.

Travers will be able to tape magazines together or install a special polished bolt (like on a Karabiner 98k or Springfield 1903) to increase rate of fire. Also less well known weapons are available as upgrades, such as the rifle grenade. A notification appears each time a headshot is performed, the player gains a number of kills in rapid succession, or performs a melee kill, all of which earns the player reward points. Even if the player drops their weapon, any others they pick up of the same type retain the upgrades.

Multiplayer
Airborne features a multiplayer mode for online play. Users can play as either the Allies or the Axis on six multiplayer maps, three of which have been adapted from the single player aspect of the game: Operation Husky, Operation Avalanche, and Operation Neptune. The remaining three maps are all adaptations of multiplayer maps from a previous Medal of Honor title, Allied Assault. While the basic design and layout of the maps are the same, they have been decreased in size, to further balance the two teams. These maps are Destroyed Village, Remagen and The Hunt.

Currently there are three gamemodes in Airborne. The first is "airborne deathmatch" where the Axis must defend against the Allies who are dropping in from the sky. The second is "team deathmatch", in which the Allies spawn on the ground instead of jumping from a C-47. In both teammatch modes, the side that gains the most kills after a specified time or frag limit wins. The third gametype is an objective-based mode where players must capture three neutral flags, similar to the main gamemode of Battlefield 2. The middle flag requires two soldiers to be near it, in order to capture it.

The winning team is the one who manages to control the most flags the longest, after a set period of time. There has been some criticism in the MOH community for the lack of a classic non-respawning "objective" gametype, of which many clans and competitive ladders of Allied Assault are based around.While EA has not commented specifically on this gametype, it has been said that all concerns within the community are noticed and those issues will be addressed with future patches.

Registration of an EA account is required in order to play online. Server admins will have the ability to set their servers as ranked or unranked in the future, however only unranked is currently available.The maximum number of players per server is 12 for the Xbox 360 and for PC listen servers, for dedicated servers the number is expected to be much higher, however has not yet been determined. More maps and gametypes have been slated for addition via downloadable content, although a date is unknown.

In an attempt to curb cheating in the multiplayer mode of the game, EA has included Punkbuster with Airborne, and said that they were investigating providing hooks for DMW as well.

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Windows Live Movie Maker is a video editing tool that enables you to transform images, audio files, and short clips into full-blown movies.

2012-03-20T06:15:00.001-05:00

With Windows 7 and Windows Live Movie Maker, it's easier than ever to create and share your own movies. It's part of Windows Live Essentials, a free download that also includes tools for photos, instant messaging, email, social networking, and more.

You might have noticed that Windows Movie Maker isn’t included in Windows 7. However, you can still turn your videos and photos into movies in Windows 7 by installing a video editing program from another company or by installing the new version of Movie Maker—named Windows Live Movie Maker.

The interface is very user-friendly, and you don't need a tutorial to get you through Movie Maker.

A movie needs a few elements to become a movie, right? In this software you can add your standard photos, videos, movies, and text. But the interesting part is that you have to mix them together somehow.

Windows Live Movie Maker lets you choose between AutoMovie themes (which are very nicely designed), transitions (which can be slightly configured), visual effects, and text for title, captions and credits.

Music can be attached to the entire movie or just to a portion of it. The movie itself can be "expanded" (i.e. a caption remains on screen longer before switching to another one) to fit the music if the audio track has a larger length.

Download

Note: Windows Live Movie Maker might already be installed on your computer. To find out, click the Start button , type movie maker in the search box, and see if it appears in the list of results.

Combine videos and photos.

With Windows Live Movie Maker, you can make movies from your photos and videos, whether they're already on your computer or still on your camera.

Easy to edit.

Use Movie Maker special effects and themes to make your movies stand out. Editing movies is now as easy as dragging and dropping the scenes, still photos, and transitions where you want them. You can even use AutoMovie to let Movie Maker create a film for you.

Share your movies online.

In just a few clicks, share your movies on your favorite social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook, or upload them to Windows Live Skydrive. Watch your movie with friends while chatting in Windows Live Messenger.

Here are some key features of "Windows Live Movie Maker 2011":

Add videos and photos:

Movie Maker and Windows Live Photo Gallery work together so it's easy to organize and select the photos and videos you want to use in your next movie.

Easy to edit:

Add text, transitions, effects, and more. Change as much as you want, or let Movie Maker do it for you.

Share online:

Post your movie to your favorite sites—including YouTube, Facebook, Windows Live SkyDrive, and many others, right from Movie Maker.

Requirements:

· Processor: 1.6 GHz or higher
· Memory: 1 GB of RAM or higher
· Resolution: Minimum: 1024 × 576
· Internet connection: Internet functionality requires dial-up or broadband Internet access (provided separately). Local or long-distance charges may apply. High-speed Internet access is recommended for some features.
· Graphics or video card: Windows Live Movie Maker requires a video card that supports DirectX 9 or higher and Shader Model 2 or higher.

Movie Maker can't start if your computer doesn't have Windows Media Player installed:

Windows Live Movie Maker requires some components of Windows Media Player. Movie Maker can't start if it's installed on a version of Windows Vista or Windows 7 that doesn't include Windows Media Player, and you haven't installed Windows Media Player yourself. To solve this problem, install Windows Media Player from the Microsoft Download Center.

Movie Maker doesn't support certain file types:

For a list of the file types you can use in Windows Live Movie Maker, see What kind of files can I use in Movie Maker? Support for using MPEG-2 and Microsoft Recorded TV Show video files in your movies is available only if your computer is running one of the following versions of Windows: Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, or Windows 7 Ultimate.

AutoMovie Themes.

With AutoMovie, it takes literally seconds to create a complete movie--including transitions, a title clip, and credits. Choose an AutoMovie Theme template from the Home ribbon and Windows Live Movie Maker will automatically insert transitions, dates and captions according to the tag information on your photos and video clips. All you have to do is put your name in the credits section.

Importing Photos and Videos.

Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 allows you to create near professional looking home movies from the photos and videos you already have in your Windows Live Photo Gallery or on your digital camera or phone. Click the Add videos and photos button to get started.

Editing Video.

Video editing features in Windows Movie Maker 2011 are rudimentary, yet sufficient for most home movies. You can speed up or slow down videos as well as split and trim them. You can also rearrange them by dragging and dropping them on the timeline.

Visual Effects allow you to apply effects directly to your photos and video clips. Give it a touch of nostalgia with a Sepia tone or get artsy with an edge detect or posterize effect.

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The Curious Case of Windows 7.

2012-03-14T06:06:00.001-05:00

Font Installation

I’ve gotten several queries in the past week regarding font installation in Windows 7.

It seems the old start menu route - the standard installation process going back to Windows v2 - is no longer in existence.

Luckily, the new process is actually a pretty big improvement, and is incidentally similar to the way that the system and Fontbook manage type on the Mac OS.

Under Windows 7, to install a font, simply double click on the font file itself. At the top of the resulting preview window, you’ll see an option to install that particular font (as well as a button to print a simple specimen); once activated, though, the font may not be available to currently-running applications right away - you might need to quit and restart your apps to have it available.

I’ve tested this process with TT, PS and OTF font files and all seem to install smoothly.

You can also manually manage your fonts in Windows 7. That particular process also works well - in reverse - to deactivate type.

The Curious Appeal Of Windows 7

I probably shouldn’t be saying this on a Mac site, but reputation be damned: I’m quite interested to see Windows 7. Let me explain why. (Hang on while I put on my flame-proof jacket. There.)

THING THE FIRST: I want a netbook. I want a cheap, tiny, low-power little computer that does text editing and web browsing. Something I can chuck in my bag and forget about, but be sure it’ll be there as and when I need it. I don’t want to play games on it. I don’t want to mess with my photos on it. I don’t want to make phone calls on it. It doesn’t need a lot of disk space. But it does need a keyboard.

THING THE SECOND: I cannot afford to buy a MacBook Air. And anyway, it doesn’t offer the battery life I’m looking for.

THING THE THIRD: I don’t think Apple’s going to be producing a netbook like this any time soon.

THING THE FOURTH: But I wish they would.

THING THE FIFTH: Windows 7 is on the way, it’ll run on netbooks, and – this is the important bit – I think it’s the first version of Windows that I might have a chance of getting on with.

Why?

Because it, ahem, borrows rather a lot of ideas from Mac OS X.

Let’s see now: it removes unnecessary icons from the Desktop. It makes the Task Bar more Dock-like. It adds a system-wide search box to the Start Menu, from which you can launch apps, open files, access preferences (sorry, options), much in the manner of the Spotlight menu.

What’s more, reports tell us that Windows 7 is less bloated than Vista, runs on more humble spec machines, is somewhat more secure, and runs faster too.

So, in summary: this is the first version of Windows I’ve seen that I’ve seriously considered actually using. And until Apple finds that string of DNA that enables it to make cheap, low-power computers, it will remain an option I’ll consider.

Or maybe I should just get a Linux-based netbook (and optionally install OS X on it regardless) and save myself the bother.

The Curious Case of Boxee Windows (& MCE/MS-DVR)...
I've been on this strange and mysterious journey to try to get my recorded TV shows(no DRM) to be recognized and categorized by Boxee to no avail.

I know that Windows alpha was late in the Boxee timeline, kind of like a baby but with an 'old man' inside. This little baby couldn't speak or understand Win MCE recorded TV unless force fed (via browse to the file and then it would play). BUT, that doesn't leverage one of the main niceties of Boxee's UI, TV Shows!

I'm Dying in the End Too

On this journey, I've tried to play by the rules and change the filename to Boxee's recognized TV show format, but this starts me down a strange, perplexing, frustrating, psychedelic journey.

Renaming to the recognized filename formats for TV shows: 1) This throws disk errors in MCE and 2) Boxee still doesn't see them anyway...So here goes...

1) Use MCEBuddy, a freeware MS-DVR converter, to convert to DivX AVI (you pick whatever other type you want), but that doesn't get things into Boxee yet. or use DVRMSToolbox.

2) I have to now take those files and use a batch file renaming utility to get to the S##E## format (or similar) BUT there's another hitch. MS-DVR files have only date and time stamp in the filename, which means a TWO digit series and episode # are not possible to organize some semblance of order (could use 2 for series - YY; need 4 digits for episode at least MMDD). And no, there are no series and episode # metadata available for ms-dvr's.

3) But the fun isn't over yet in this magical journey. While MCE (and other competent DVR programs) handle drive space quotas for recording pro-actively, now that I've ported my ms-dvr files, MCE can't manage and as new episodes are recorded/converted, the files list just grows and grows and grows.

4) To other DVR software fans, I like free, VMCE is a polished DVR solution, I like free, this is a Windows centric post.

So, Boxee team, please consider this curious case of simply getting my TV shows to appear in your beautiful application and consider a simpler method...

...adding native recognition of MS-DVR filenames, they are a constant,
There is a title tag and episode name tag that could be leveraged to help. (don't forget WTV extension for future Win 7 users) to your scanning routine and bring joyous cheers to your Windows fans :-))

Consider also, the Windows community, rather large install base , growing use of media centers, not having DVR aspirations yourself and the draw this would have to Boxee setting and (almost) forgetting MCE DVR and giving some lovin to Boxee!

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Microsoft talk about changes to the Start Menu.

2012-03-10T09:58:00.001-06:00

Microsoft described the thinking around changes being made to the Start Menu.

It's a good read and I advise everyone to check it out.

I have to say that in the blog post, Steven Sinofsky (I assume it's him) or Chaitanya Sareen, the stated author makes a very profound statement that to me is representative to the new way Microsoft looks at the evolution of Windows.

He says:

We recognize that to some people, any change to Windows is going to be disruptive, and so we want to make sure we continue an open dialog about those changes.

I love that statement. It (and the blog) is reflective of a very open and smart approach to Microsoft software evolution.

The article talks about the evolution of the start menu from Windows 95:

to Windows 7 (picture at article beginning).

They talk about how the stsrt menu is used today:

Their quote:

It is striking to see how dramatically different the use of the Start menu is in Windows Vista vs. Windows 7. Some of the Special Folders (what we call those items on the right side of the menu) dropped in use by over 50%. Likewise, people accessed pinned items on the Start menu half as often in Windows 7 than they did in Vista.

People also access All Programs and the MFU far less often. Finally, we see an 11% drop in how often people are opening the Start menu at all. While 11% may seem like a small number at first, across our hundreds of millions of customers it is eye opening to see such a drop for a universally recognizable element of the Windows interface. We’re not talking about some hidden setting that is tweaked by a minority of people—we’re talking about a fundamental piece of Windows that people are using less and less.

Apparently, the introduction of the start bar was responsible in large part for how people changed their use of the start menu.

They also talk about the difference in stats between the number of pinned apps on the Start menu (top) vs. on the taskbar (bottom).

Windows power users in particular use their Windows 7 taskbar even more than the Start menu. Pinning apps to the taskbar is popular but it's also increasing in popularity because you can now also pin websites to your taskbar with IE 9.

Basically, Microsoft are re-imagining the Start menu and want to make it more valuable.

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Nine Different Editions for Windows 8.

2012-03-09T07:56:00.003-06:00

If you were hoping for the next version of Windows to come in only one flavor, you’re probably out of luck.

Digging through registry entries of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, windows 8 beta found references to nine different editions of the OS.

The full list (which definitely may change before the final release, if Microsoft decides so) goes as follows:

Windows 8 Enterprise Edition

Windows 8 Enterprise Eval edition

Windows 8 Home Basic Edition

Windows 8 Home Premium edition

Windows 8 ARM edition

Windows 8 Professional edition

Windows 8 Professional Plus edition

Windows 8 Starter edition

Windows 8 Ultimate edition

For comparison, Windows 7 came in six different editions: Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate.

The difference is in Windows 8′s Enterprise Eval edition, which sounds like an evaluation sub-edition for enterprises (and thus not very important for consumers) and Professional Plus as well as the ARM edition. While we can only guess why Microsoft would decide it needs to split its Professional Edition into two flavors, ARM edition is probably aimed at tablets based on ARM processors.

When the Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) was introduced, Apple threw little jabs at Microsoft’s multi-flavored approach, claiming that with Mac OS X you only need one version which works for everyone.

Many tech journalists criticized the increasing number of editions, and now, the upcoming Windows 8 seemingly comes in even more flavors.

What do you think? Are nine editions of Windows 8 too many, too few or just right? Let us know in the comments.

Here is the screenshot of registry file from Windows 8 consumer preview:

And here is the image of same registry key from Windows 7:

We already knew that Windows 8 ARM would be released, but seeing Windows 8 professional plus in the list was definitely a surprise.

Download original Windows 8 Milestone 2 wallpaper

We have earlier shown the shhh.. let’s not leak our hard work wallpaper which appeared in Windows 8 Milestone 2, today AngelWzr has posted the original wallpaper on Deviantart.

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Windows 8 Metro style Reddit client.

2012-03-03T11:41:00.001-06:00

Recently though, there's been a lot of buzz about Windows 8 and the Windows Store for downloading third-party apps.

Microsoft's Metro design language, which was first introduced with Windows Phone 7, and will be the centrepiece of Windows 8, is a total rethink of how Windows looks, feels and behaves: so it's an exciting time for developers!

With the launch of Windows 8 only months away, we decided we wanted to get our feet wet and start developing an app for Windows 8. It had to be something that wouldn't take a year to develop, not too complex, but also something we would use ourselves.

In other words, what is the first app that we would want to download at the launch of Windows 8?

Well, we're all pretty big fans of Reddit and at least a few of us are hooked on the Alien Blue client for iOS (if you use Reddit and have an iOS device, go get it now and go PRO). So, we decided a great way for us to jump into Windows 8 development would be through a Reddit client!

After a few design sessions we came up with a vision for how it might be realized, and here are the resulting mockups:

Desktop Tile.

We toyed around with different ideas for tiles, but decided to go with a static, non-live tile for now. We could change this in the future, but we are a bit concerned about the possibility that too many active tiles might make your Windows 8 desktop look like a late '90s-era Geocities page. If this fear is misguided, let us know.

Front Page.

Taking our queue from Microsoft's Metro-style apps, posts are displayed as individual tiles. These tiles display an image (when possible), title, subreddit, post and comment counts. By swiping left and right, you can view the content based on the different filters (What's Hot, New, Controversial, Top, Saved).

Tapping/clicking on any tile brings you into a specific post view with a preview of the link (when possible) and comments. From here you can choose to open the link in Internet Explorer (see PDF below for more detailed mockups).

My Reddits.

When browsing "My Reddits", each page contains a different one of your subscribed-to subreddits with a selection of the first 7 posts. Tapping/clicking the subreddit name or "See more" button brings you to the subreddit view...

Subreddit.

... which is similar, but displays only posts from that specific subreddit on each page.

Photo/Image View.

There would be an option to browse image threads in a gallery format. Tapping an image would either show a larger preview (if possible) or open it directly in IE. Tapping the comment would bring you to the Comment view.

Managing Subreddits.

The Manage page allows you to easily search for new subreddits, and add or remove existing ones.

For a much more thorough overview of the design and interface navigation, you can check out our full design doc (PDF).

Keep in mind that this is a vision of how our Reddit app on Metro could look. Some features were left out, and we're admittedly newbies when it comes to Windows 8. If you have any feedback for us, please let us know in the comments or contact us. We welcome suggestions, questions, and best of all, brutal honesty.

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Mortal OS Kombat: Microsoft's upstart Windows 7 versus Linux.

2012-02-27T12:06:00.000-06:00

Mortal Kombat is a best-selling series of fighting games created by Ed Boon and John Tobias in 1992. Mortal Kombat began as a series of arcade games, which were picked up by Acclaim Entertainment for the home console versions.

Now Midway Games exclusively creates home versions of Mortal Kombat.

It is especially noted for its digitized sprites (which differentiated it from its contemporaries' hand-drawn sprites), and its high levels of blood and gore, including, most notably, its graphic fatalities—finishing moves, requiring a sequence of buttons to perform, which, in part, led to the creation of the ESRB.

The series itself is also known for replacing the rough c sound with the letter "K", thus deliberately misspelling the word "combat," as well as other words with the hard c sound within later games in the series.

Draw the line in the sand! It's the showdown the tech world has feared: Microsoft's upstart Windows 7 versus Linux. We've seen plenty of volleys back and forth from both camps over the past few days, thanks to the beta launch of the Windows 7 operating system. The new OS has a lot going for it--features that directly target the growing Linux base in the mobile PC market coupled with design elements that, honestly, look a lot like what we've seen in Linux desktop environments for some time now. But will that be enough to topple the best the open-source world has to offer? We dig deep into the arguments from both camps to find out whether Windows 7 is The Terminator... or John Conner.

Windows 7.

How could Microsoft pull off a victory and gain foothold against its open-source rival, Linux? It's already got the clear majority, with approximately 88 percent of the desktop market running Microsoft-branded operating systems. But Linux has been growing, with the netbook market helping to drive the platform out to new users. Microsoft is no stranger to this fact, tailoring Windows 7 to work smoothly on your average netbook configuration--we're talking about a 1.6 GHz, 1GB of RAM kind of netbook. Asus seems impressed already, as the company plans to offer Windows 7-branded Eee PCs later this year.

There are also the usual basic arguments as to why any Windows OS could top its Linux alternative: Windows 7 is easier to install, easier to use, simple to configure, compatible with a wide range of devices and software, and is the operating system for PC gaming, period. Windows 7 is also catering to admins with its tough little PowerShell utliity--a souped-up version of the command line that now allows administrators to remotely mess with machines via a powerful console-based scripting environment.

But really, the fight is in the netbook space. IT World's Preston Gralla puts it clearly: if Linux gains traction on netbooks, people will become more familiar with using the OS (already a significant issue plaguing Linux-based netbooks). If people become more familiar with Linux as a whole, they might consider adopting it on their desktop platform as well. Microsoft intends to nip this threat in the bud and, as the article correctly surmises, you can expect to see a tremendous marketing pushback as Microsoft goes after this developing, mini-notebook base.

The Case for Linux
Proponents of Linux argue that many of Windows 7's eye-catching features--from PowerShell to its Aero-based desktop interface--have been available in the open-source community for years. The Unix shell has had plenty of time to simmer to perfection, and desktop environments like KDE are almost picture-for-picture clones of the new direction Microsoft has taken Windows 7. Linux still enjoys a considerable gain in the server space, and that's putting it lightly. The new features of Windows 7 will not make a dent against the already existing features of the Linux operating system.

While Microsoft can try to inject itself into the netbook market, it's doing so against an established base. Netbooks are expected to achieve a growth rate of 60 percent up into 2010, reaching 29 million units sold. Of these, Microsoft has reached a base of approximately 70 percent--falling into industry expert predictions that Linux will sustain a market share of nearly 1/3 of all netbooks sold. Compare this to the desktop, where around one percent of users run Linux, and that's quite a difference. The large players don't fear Linux in the slightest -- HP, Dell, Asus, and Acer all ship Linux-branded netbooks.

And there's one qualification that's going to hurt Microsoft no matter what: the price. An open-source platform can be tweaked and modified in innumerable ways, often in parallel by a group of independent developers. The code can be stronger, the estimated development costs less than Microsoft's proprietary OS, and the overall product costs far less to incorporate ($5 to install on a netbook versus $100 for Vista) into a piece of hardware. At roughly $500 a pop for an average netbook, what computer manufacturer is going to want to cut revenues by $95 (or pass $95 on to the consumer) for an operating system whose features can be replicated for far cheaper?

There's no doubt that Windows 7 will make more headway into the netbook market than its failed attempts at capitalizing on this emerging sector in 2008. But the ultimate factor in the netbook space isn't the feature-set of the operating system. It's the cost. When two similar notebooks exist at a hundred dollar price gap, we can't envision a consumer adopting the pricier model just for the Windows 7 experience. The hype can't possibly be that much of a selling point... right? Consumers might be having a trickier time adopting Linux, but in a worsening economy, they might have a more difficult time sacrificing that extra cash.

Screenshots.

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Windows Vista has a different bootup configuration than earlier versions of Windows.

2012-02-23T12:11:00.000-06:00

Windows Vista has a different bootup configuration than earlier versions of Windows.

Instead of using a simple Boot.ini file as in Windows XP, Vista has a special Boot Configuration Data (BCD) database to hold all
the relevant bootup parameters, and to allow compatibility with new bootup methods. However this change also ma kes boot configuration and editing much more tricky.

Editing the boot configuration is particularly
important if you've installed a dual boot setup of Vista as covered in the previous chapter.

For the most part, you should not need to edit or alter the Vista boot configuration unless you're troubleshooting a system problem, attempting to use more than 4GB of RAM, or you want to alter specific parameters or repair a dual boot or multiboot setup. There are several ways you can view and modify your Vista boot configuration, and each is covered in more detail below.

BCDEDIT.

BCDEdit is a built-in command line tool for altering the boot configuration in Vista. To use it, open an
Administrator Command Prompt (see the Vista Usage Notes chapter). The full list of BCDEdit command line options is in this Microsoft Article. Given it is a more complex tool to use, it is not recommended that you edit the boot configuration this way - I recommend using the tools below at least to start with.

STARTUP AND RECOVERY.

The easiest method to alter your basic bootup options is to go to Control anel>System>Advanced System Settings, or go to Start>Search Box and type "systempropertiesadvanced" (without quotes) and press Enter.

Then click the Settings button under 'Startup and Recovery'.

In the Startup and Recovery box, under System Startup if you want a Boot Menu to be shown when your PC first loads with a list of all installed Operating Systems, tick the 'Time to display list of operating systems' box and in the box next to it choose how many seconds you want the Boot Menu to remain on screen before it automatically loads up the default OS. If on the other hand you don't want a boot menu to be shown at all, and wa nt the default OS to load up straight away, untick the box.

The 'Time to display recovery options when needed' box should be ticked, and a reasonable amount of time entered, such as 15 seconds or more. The recovery options menu will only appear if you run into problems with Vista, and its features (such as Safe Mode) are covered under the Backup & Recovery chapter.

MSCONFIG.
Another way to alter boot configuration is to use the Microsoft Configuration utility (MSConfig). Go to
Start>Search Box and type "msconfig" (without quotes) then press Enter. Go to the Boot tab of MSConfig and you will see under the 'Boot Options' section there are several options for altering the way your PC boots up.

These are primarily used for troubleshooting purposes. Highlight the install of Windows Vista you wish to alter then you can select one of these options to apply to it:

Safe Boot: If selected, the next boot will be into Safe Mode, as covered under the Backup & Recovery chapter.

Default Safe Mode is called Minimal; 'Alternate Shell' is Safe Mode with Command Prompt instead of GUI;

'Active Directory repair' is Safe Mode with GUI and Active Directory; Network is Safe Mode with GUI and Networking features enabled.

No GUI boot: Removes the default Windows Vista 'scrolling bars' startup screen when booting up, replaces it with the Aurora image. See the Graphics & Interface chapter for more details on how to customize the boot screen.

Boot log: Records all bootup information in a logfile stored under your \Windows directory as Ntbtlog.txt.

Base video: Boots up Vista using the standard Windows graphics drivers rather than the specific video driver for your graphics hardware.

OS boot information: Shows the names of all the drivers as they're being loaded during bootup.

The Timeout value in the box on the right is the same as the 'Time to display a list of operating systems'
setting covered under 'Startup and Recovery' further above - it controls how long the boot menu for
multiboot systems is shown.

If you click the 'Advanced Options' button you will see more advanced bootup options for troubleshooting:

Number of processors: If you have a multi-core CPU, you can tick this option and manually force all, some or
only one of the processors (cores) on the CPU be detected and used by Windows.

Maximum Memory: Allows you to manually force Windows to only use a certain amount of RAM on your system, up to and including your full physical RAM amount. Amount entered is in KiloBytes (KB).

PCI Lock: Stops Windows from dynamically assigning system resources to PCI devices. The devices will use the BIOS configuration instead.

Detect HAL: Forces Windows to redetect the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) in case your hardware is incorrectly being detected/reported.

Debug: Starts Windows in debugging mode.

Once done selecting which bootup options you wish to apply to the boot configuration, click the Apply
button then OK, and these option(s) will come into effect on next boot. Should you wish to apply any
permanently, I recommend using BCDEdit or VistaBoot Pro rather than leaving them enabled in MSConfig.

THIRD PARTY TOOLS.

Aside from the built-in tools above, there are a range of third party tools you can use to do what is covered above more easily.

VISTABOOT PRO.

VistaBoot Pro is a tool for editing the boot configuration in Vista using a graphical interface and does not
require detailed knowledge of how the BCD works. Upon installation you will be prompted to make a
backup of your BCD database, which is strongly recommended before you do anything else. Should
anything go wrong with the BCD, you can go to the Backup/Restore Center button and restore your backed up BCD files.

VistaBoot Pro has a wide range of functions, but we'll cover only the major ones here. On the main 'View Settings' screen in VistaBoot Pro you can see a summary of the data held in the BCD. If you have a dual or multiboot setup, you should see all the operating systems listed with the correct drives shown. You can expand this display by clicking the Detailed or All options at the top of the screen. This is useful for troubleshooting, and also gives you some idea of the kind of data held in the BCD.

If you want to alter these entries, click the 'Manage OS Entries'. Here you can set the default OS and the timeout, though these are best altered using the normal Vista Startup and Recovery options as covered further above. Most interestingly, you can rename the OS entries which show up in the Boot Menu. By default, Vista insists on calling your older operating system 'Earlier version of Windows' in the Boot Menu, and it calls Vista simply 'Microsoft Windows'. To help prevent confusion and make things neater, click on each OS listed and tick the 'Rename selected operating system' checkbox - new options will appear allowing you to provide a new name and also change the drive letter if necessary.

For example I've renamed my listed OSes so that one says 'Windows XP' and the other says 'Windows Vista'. You can also add a new (Windows) OS listing here by ticking the 'Add new operating system entry' option and filling in the details. Finally, you can change the order in which the OSes are listed by highlighting the relevant OS and using the up or down arrows to the right.

The 'Advanced Settings' include various advanced features which the MSConfig utility can also accomplish, and these are covered further above. Some useful features you can use VistaBoot Pro for are:

Allow use of Unsigned drivers: By default the 64-bit version of Vista only allows signed drivers to be installed.

Ticking this option attempts to override that limitation - has no impact on 32-bit Vista editions.

PAE Enabled: If ticked enables Physical Address Extension (PAE) in Vista. This is necessary for correct
memory detection if you have more than 4GB of RAM in the 32-bit version of Vista.

DEP On: Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is on by default, but can be turned off here. DEP is covered in more detail in the PC Security chapter and generally should not be disabled.

Finally, the Bootloader section of VistaBoot Pro allows you to attempt to fix any problems with the Vista
bootloader, or to uninstall it if you've removed Vista from your system and you had a dual boot
configuration. By default, simply deleting/reformatting/removing the Vista drive or partition in a dual boot configuration may cause problems since Vista's bootloader is still resident on the older version of Windows.

This option lets you to remove the bootloader so you can boot into your older OS as normal.

VistaBoot Pro is a very useful tool for BCD editing, however if in doubt do not alter any settings, and if you wind up damaging your BCD or any other Vista boot files, use the Startup Repair functionality of Vista to fix the problem (See the Backup & Recovery chapter), or see the instructions here.

EASYBCD.

EasyBCD is another free automated utility which makes editing the Vista boot configuration much easier.

However it is virtually identical to VistaBoot Pro in terms of its ma jor features and functions, so it will not be covered in detail here. You can use either utility to achieve much the same results.

BOOTDISKS.

As mentioned in this Microsoft Article, Windows Vista does not use Boot Disks any more; the original Vista DVD is effectively a boot disk. If you're having problems booting up Windows, you can boot up using the original Vista DVD then use Startup Repair to automa tically detect and repair any issue preventing proper Windows startup. You can also access the DOS Command Prompt in the Vista Recovery Tools if necessary.

Details of these functions are covered under the Backup & Recovery chapter.

If you still want to create a Vista bootup floppy disk, you can do so according to the details here. If you want to start up your PC in very basic DOS mode and the Command Prompt mode of the Vista Recovery.

Environment is not appropriate for some reason, there are a range of bootdisks you can download here.

Ultimately there really shouldn't be a reason to alter your boot configuration under normal circumstances so I would approach the use of the tools above with caution, and initially rely on the automated Startup Repair feature of the Vista DVD itself to troubleshoot any bootup problems before moving on to other methods of altering the BCD.

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Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts.

2012-02-18T12:22:00.000-06:00

Keyboard shortcuts are combinations of two or more keys that, when pressed, can be used to perform a task that would typically require a mouse or other pointing device.

Keyboard shortcuts can make it easier to interact with your computer, saving you time and effort as you work with Windows and other programs.

Most programs also provide accelerator keys that can make it easier to work with menus and other commands. Check the menus of programs for accelerator keys.

If a letter is underlined in a menu, that usually means that pressing the Alt key in combination with the underlined key will have the same effect as clicking that menu item.

Pressing the Alt key in some programs, such as Paint and WordPad, shows commands that are labeled with additional keys that you can press to use them.

Dialog box keyboard shortcuts.

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for use in dialog boxes.

Press this key To do this:

Ctrl+Tab Move forward through tabs
Ctrl+Shift+Tab Move back through tabs
Tab Move forward through options
Shift+Tab Move back through options
Alt+underlined letter Perform the command (or select the option) that goes with that letter
Enter Replaces clicking the mouse for many selected commands
Spacebar Select or clear the check box if the active option is a check box
Arrow keys Select a button if the active option is a group of option buttons
F1 Display Help
F4 Display the items in the active list
Backspace Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or Open dialog box
Windows logo key keyboard shortcut.

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts that use the Windows logo key.

Press this key To do this:

Windows logo key Open or close the Start menu.
Windows logo key +Pause Display the System Properties dialog box.
Windows logo key +D Display the desktop.
Windows logo key +M Minimize all windows.
Windows logo key +Shift+M Restore minimized windows to the desktop.
Windows logo key +E Open Computer.
Windows logo key +F Search for a file or folder.
Ctrl+Windows logo key +F Search for computers (if you’re on a network).
Windows logo key +L Lock your computer or switch users.
Windows logo key +R Open the Run dialog box.
Windows logo key +T Cycle through programs on the taskbar.
Windows logo key +number Start the program pinned to the taskbar in the position indicated by the number. If the program is already running, switch to that program.
Shift+Windows logo key +number Start a new instance of the program pinned to the taskbar in the position indicated by the number.
Ctrl+Windows logo key +number Switch to the last active window of the program pinned to the taskbar in the position indicated by the number.
Alt+Windows logo key +number Open the Jump List for the program pinned to the taskbar in the position indicated by the number.
Windows logo key +Tab Cycle through programs on the taskbar by using Aero Flip 3-D.
Ctrl+Windows logo key +Tab Use the arrow keys to cycle through programs on the taskbar by using Aero Flip 3-D.
Ctrl+Windows logo key +B Switch to the program that displayed a message in the notification area.
Windows logo key +Spacebar Preview the desktop.
Windows logo key +Up Arrow Maximize the window.
Windows logo key +Left Arrow Maximize the window to the left side of the screen.
Windows logo key +Right Arrow Maximize the window to the right side of the screen.
Windows logo key +Down Arrow Minimize the window.
Windows logo key +Home Minimize all but the active window.
Windows logo key +Shift+Up Arrow Stretch the window to the top and bottom of the screen.
Windows logo key +Shift+Left Arrow or Right Arrow Move a window from one monitor to another.
Windows logo key +P Choose a presentation display mode.
Windows logo key +G Cycle through gadgets.
Windows logo key +U Open Ease of Access Center.
Windows logo key +X Open Windows Mobility Center.

Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts.

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with Windows Explorer windows or folders.

Press this key To do this
Ctrl+N Open a new window
Ctrl+W Close the current window
Ctrl+Shift+N Create a new folder
End Display the bottom of the active window
Home Display the top of the active window
F11 Maximize or minimize the active window
Ctrl+Period (.) Rotate a picture clockwise
Ctrl+Comma (,) Rotate a picture counter-clockwise
Num Lock+Asterisk (*) on numeric keypad Display all subfolders under the selected folder
Num Lock+Plus Sign (+) on numeric keypad Display the contents of the selected folder
Num Lock+Minus Sign (-) on numeric keypad Collapse the selected folder
Left Arrow Collapse the current selection (if it’s expanded), or select the parent folder
Alt+Enter Open the Properties dialog box for the selected item
Alt+P Display the preview pane
Alt+Left Arrow View the previous folder
Backspace View the previous folder
Right Arrow Display the current selection (if it’s collapsed), or select the first subfolder
Alt+Right Arrow View the next folder
Alt+Up Arrow View the parent folder
Ctrl+Shift+E Display all folders above the selected folder
Ctrl+Mouse scroll wheel Change the size and appearance of file and folder icons
Alt+D Select the address bar
Ctrl+E Select the search box
Ctrl+F Select the search box
Taskbar keyboard shortcuts

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with items on the taskbar.

Press this key To do this:

Shift+Click on a taskbar button Open a program or quickly open another instance of a program
Ctrl+Shift+Click on a taskbar button Open a program as an administrator
Shift+Right-click on a taskbar button Show the window menu for the program
Shift+Right-click on a grouped taskbar button Show the window menu for the group
Ctrl+Click on a grouped taskbar button Cycle through the windows of the group
Magnifier keyboard shortcuts

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with Magnifier.

Press this key To do this:

Windows logo key + Plus Sign or Minus Sign Zoom in or out
Ctrl+Alt+Spacebar Preview the desktop in full-screen mode
Ctrl+Alt+F Switch to full-screen mode
Ctrl+Alt+L Switch to lens mode
Ctrl+Alt+D Switch to docked mode
Ctrl+Alt+I Invert colors
Ctrl+Alt+arrow keys Pan in the direction of the arrow keys
Ctrl+Alt+R Resize the lens
Windows logo key + Esc Exit Magnifier
Remote Desktop Connection keyboard shortcuts

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with Remote Desktop Connection.
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Press this key To do this:

Alt+Page Up Move between programs from left to right.
Alt+Page Down Move between programs from right to left.
Alt+Insert Cycle through programs in the order that they were started in.
Alt+Home Display the Start menu.
Ctrl+Alt+Break Switch between a window and full screen.
Ctrl+Alt+End Display the Windows Security dialog box.
Alt+Delete Display the system menu.
Ctrl+Alt+Minus Sign (-) on the numeric keypad Place a copy of the active window, within the client, on the Terminal server clipboard (provides the same functionality as pressing Alt+PrtScn on a local computer).
Ctrl+Alt+Plus Sign (+) on the numeric keypad Place a copy of the entire client window area on the Terminal server clipboard (provides the same functionality as pressing PrtScn on a local computer).
Ctrl+Alt+Right Arrow “Tab” out of the Remote Desktop controls to a control in the host program (for example, a button or a text box). Useful when the Remote Desktop controls are embedded in another (host) program.
Ctrl+Alt+Left Arrow “Tab” out of the Remote Desktop controls to a control in the host program (for example, a button or a text box). Useful when the Remote Desktop controls are embedded in another (host) program.
Note
Ctrl+Alt+Break and Ctrl+Alt+End are available in all Remote Desktop sessions, even when you’ve set up the remote computer to recognize Windows keyboard shortcuts.

Paint keyboard shortcuts.

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with Paint.

Press this key To do this:

Ctrl+N Create a new picture
Ctrl+O Open an existing picture
Ctrl+S Save changes to a picture
F12 Save the picture as a new file
Ctrl+P Print a picture
Alt+F4 Close a picture and its Paint window
Ctrl+Z Undo a change
Ctrl+Y Redo a change
Ctrl+A Select the entire picture
Ctrl+X Cut a selection
Ctrl+C Copy a selection to the Clipboard
Ctrl+V Paste a selection from the Clipboard
Right Arrow Move the selection or active shape right by one pixel
Left Arrow Move the selection or active shape left by one pixel
Down Arrow Move the selection or active shape down by one pixel
Up Arrow Move the selection or active shape up by one pixel
Esc Cancel a selection
Delete Delete a selection
Ctrl+B Bold selected text
Ctrl++ Increase the width of a brush, line, or shape outline by one pixel
Ctrl+- Decrease the width of a brush, line, or shape outline by one pixel
Ctrl+I Italicize selected text
Ctrl+U Underline selected text
Ctrl+E Open the Properties dialog box
Ctrl+W Open the Resize and Skew dialog box
Ctrl+Page Up Zoom in
Ctrl+Page Down Zoom out
F11 View a picture in full-screen mode
Ctrl+R Show or hide the ruler
Ctrl+G Show or hide gridlines
F10 or Alt Display keytips
Shift+F10 Show the current shortcut menu
F1 Open Paint Help

WordPad keyboard shortcuts.

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with WordPad.

Press this key To do this:

Ctrl+N Create a new document
Ctrl+O Open an existing document
Ctrl+S Save changes to a document
F12 Save the document as a new file
Ctrl+P Print a document
Alt+F4 Close WordPad
Ctrl+Z Undo a change
Ctrl+Y Redo a change
Ctrl+A Select the entire document
Ctrl+X Cut a selection
Ctrl+C Copy a selection to the Clipboard
Ctrl+V Paste a selection from the Clipboard
Ctrl+B Make selected text bold
Ctrl+I Italicize selected text
Ctrl+U Underline selected text
Ctrl+= Make selected text subscript
Ctrl+Shift+= Make selected text superscript
Ctrl+L Align text left
Ctrl+E Align text center
Ctrl+R Align text right
Ctrl+J Justify text
Ctrl+1 Set single line spacing
Ctrl+2 Set double line spacing
Ctrl+5 Set line spacing to 1.5
Ctrl+Shift+> Increase the font size
Ctrl+Shift+< Decrease the font size
Ctrl+Shift+A Change characters to all capitals
Ctrl+Shift+L Change the bullet style
Ctrl+D Insert a Microsoft Paint drawing
Ctrl+F Find text in a document
F3 Find the next instance of the text in the Find dialog box
Ctrl+H Replace text in a document
Ctrl+Left Arrow Move the cursor one word to the left
Ctrl+Right Arrow Move the cursor one word to the right
Ctrl+Up Arrow Move the cursor to the line above
Ctrl+Down Arrow Move the cursor to the line below
Ctrl+Home Move to the beginning of the document
Ctrl+End Move to the end of the document
Ctrl+Page Up Move up one page
Ctrl+Page Down Move down one page
Ctrl+Delete Delete the next word
F10 Display keytips
Shift+F10 Show the current shortcut menu
F1 Open WordPad Help
Calculator keyboard shortcuts

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with Calculator.

Press this key To do this:

Alt+1 Switch to Standard mode
Alt+2 Switch to Scientific mode
Alt+3 Switch to Programmer mode
Alt+4 Switch to Statistics mode
Ctrl+E Open date calculations
Ctrl+H Turn calculation history on or off
Ctrl+U Open unit conversion
Alt+C Calculate or solve date calculations and worksheets
F1 Open Calculator Help
Ctrl+Q Press the M- button
Ctrl+P Press the M+ button
Ctrl+M Press the MS button
Ctrl+R Press the MR button
Ctrl+L Press the MC button
% Press the % button
F9 Press the +/– button
/ Press the / button
* Press the * button
+ Press the + button
- Press the – button
R Press the 1/× button
@ Press the square root button
0-9 Press the number buttons (0-9)
= Press the = button
. Press the . (decimal point) button
Backspace Press the backspace button
Esc Press the C button
Del Press the CE button
Ctrl+Shift+D Clear the calculation history
F2 Edit the calculation history
Up Arrow key Navigate up in the calculation history
Down Arrow key Navigate down in the calculation history
Esc Cancel editing the calculation history
Enter Recalculate the calculation history after editing
F3 Select Degrees in Scientific mode
F4 Select Radians in Scientific mode
F5 Select Grads in Scientific mode
I Press the Inv button in Scientific mode
D Press the Mod button in Scientific mode
Ctrl+S Press the sinh button in Scientific mode
Ctrl+O Press the cosh button in Scientific mode
Ctrl+T Press the tanh button in Scientific mode
( Press the ( button in Scientific mode
) Press the ) button in Scientific mode
N Press the ln button in Scientific mode
; Press the Int button in Scientific mode
S Press the sin button in Scientific mode
O Press the cos button in Scientific mode
T Press the tan button in Scientific mode
M Press the dms button in Scientific mode
P Press the pi button in Scientific mode
V Press the F-E button in Scientific mode
X Press the Exp button in Scientific mode
Q Press the x^2 button in Scientific mode
Y Press the x^y button in Scientific mode
# Press the x^3 button in Scientific mode
L Press the log button in Scientific mode
! Press the n! button in Scientific mode
Ctrl+Y Press the y√x button in Scientific mode
Ctrl+B Press the 3√x button in Scientific mode
Ctrl+G Press the 10x button in Scientific mode
F5 Select Hex in Programmer mode
F6 Select Dec in Programmer mode
F7 Select Oct in Programmer mode
F8 Select Bin in Programmer mode
F12 Select Qword in Programmer mode
F2 Select Dword in Programmer mode
F3 Select Word in Programmer mode
F4 Select Byte in Programmer mode
K Press the RoR button in Programmer mode
J Press the RoL button in Programmer mode
< Press the Lsh button in Programmer mode
> Press the Rsh button in Programmer mode
% Press the Mod button in Programmer mode
( Press the ( button in Programmer mode
) Press the ) button in Programmer mode
| Press the Or button in Programmer mode
^ Press the Xor button in Programmer mode
~ Press the Not button in Programmer mode
& Press the And button in Programmer mode
A-F Press the A-F buttons in Programmer mode
Spacebar Toggles the bit value in Programmer mode
A Press the Average button in Statistics mode
Ctrl+A Press the Average Sq button in Statistics mode
S Press the Sum button in Statistics mode
Ctrl+S Press the Sum Sq button in Statistics mode
T Press the S.D. button in Statistics mode
Ctrl+T Press the Inv S.D. button in Statistics mode
D Press the CAD button in Statistics mode

Windows Journal keyboard shortcuts.

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with Windows Journal.

Press this key To do this:

Ctrl+N Start a new note
Ctrl+O Open a recently used note
Ctrl+S Save changes to a note
Ctrl+Shift+V Move a note to a specific folder
Ctrl+P Print a note
Alt+F4 Close a note and its Journal window
Ctrl+Z Undo a change
Ctrl+Y Redo a change
Ctrl+A Select all items on a page
Ctrl+X Cut a selection
Ctrl+C Copy a selection to the Clipboard
Ctrl+V Paste a selection from the Clipboard
Esc Cancel a selection
Delete Delete a selection
Ctrl+F Start a basic find
Ctrl+G Go to a page
F5 Refresh find results
F5 Refresh the note list
F6 Toggle between a note list and a note
Ctrl+Shift+C Display a shortcut menu for column headings in a note list
F11 View a note in full-screen mode
F1 Open Journal Help

Windows Help viewer keyboard shortcuts.

The following table contains keyboard shortcuts for working with the Help viewer.

Press this key To do this
Alt+C Display the Table of Contents
Alt+N Display the Connection Settings menu
F10 Display the Options menu
Alt+Left Arrow Move back to the previously viewed topic
Alt+Right Arrow Move forward to the next (previously viewed) topic
Alt+A Display the customer support page
Alt+Home Display the Help and Support home page
Home Move to the beginning of a topic
End Move to the end of a topic
Ctrl+F Search the current topic
Ctrl+P Print a topic
F3 Move the cursor to the search box

Windows Media Center in Windows 7, Chapter 2.

2012-02-15T12:34:00.000-06:00

Turbo Scroll also puts in an appearance for Pictures for a nice enhancement in large libraries – hold down the left or right buttons on the remote to transition into a user experience which allow you to fast forward through pictures – let go of the button to move to that point in the gallery.

I’ll take a moment to note the static screen captures here don’t really do Turbo Scroll justice – the animations are quite nice.

Picture Details bubbles up many of the simple photo editing features in Windows Media Center as well as allows you to rate the picture.

In prior versions the slideshow disappeared from view when you pressed the Green Button and the only way to return was to use the back button (if the slideshow was still on the backstack) or go back through the library to start fresh.

Now the slideshow is persisted as an experience in Now Playing including picture transitions – you can select to easily return back to the full screen slideshow. [That’s me taking on Ruby Beach taking pictures – shameless self-promotion, sorry.]

Videos.

I've elected to not take any screenshots for this section -- not much has changed visually for this feature, so I'll just enumerate what's new from a functionality perspective.

The Video Library, like Pictures, Music and Recorded TV gets the Shared Library feature so you can enjoy content from other computers on your network.
H.264 playback is now supported out of the box with Windows 7 -- including on Media Center Extenders – both standalone hardware implementations AND on the XBox 360 when in Extender mode. I know a few people on http://www.thegreenbutton.com who will rejoice.
Video Play All allows you to play all of the videos in a specific gallery in a continuous play list – you can now easily excite the neighbors with your vacation and home videos one after the other!
Videos now have parity with Recorded TV in the area of bookmarks – you can now resume previously played videos where you left off.

TV.

For starters, you get all of the enhancements made available with the TV Pack (including those for United States customers). For more information on the TV Pack check out this post at The Green Button: http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/282555.aspx. If you recall, the TV Pack was designed to enable TV standards in Asia and Europe. There are some nice additions in this area for Windows 7...

When you move your mouse you will notice the seek bar looks a little different. It's now 'clickable' which will take you to that relative position in the content. Many folks use the mouse with Windows Media Center and this feature has been wanted by that group for a while. [Note: This also works for content in the Video Library.]

When Recorded TV (or video) is playing and you press the right or left arrow buttons you get the Now Playing experience which bubbles up features and functionality previously buried behind the More Information button (like Zoom) or Settings (Captions) as well as information and details (like related content) from the guide. (Those of you with access to Internet TV in the United States may find this familiar -- an earlier incarnation of this approach was used for that experience.)

Not much has changed in the Recorded TV gallery from a look and feel standpoint, but this screen capture does show the new 'All Content' view available with Shared Libraries. If you have multiple Windows Media Center enabled PCs in the house you can now enjoy that content across the network on those computers without going to great lengths to hack registries and apply folder sharing voodoo.

Selecting a Recorded TV show will bring up the new Details experience -- as with other experiences in this shared feature, go left and right to switch between panes.

Here is the guide in Turbo Scroll mode (hold down the left or right arrow button on your remote control or keyboard). Note the correct high definition channel mapping from the TV Pack as well as the [ HD ] logo embedded in the grid entries.

Selecting an item in the guide also brings up the new details. Note the new [ HD ] logo which helps you identify high definition content. The slide and pane metaphor really begins to shine with TV (and movies) because it does such a great job of putting resources once buried across many screens 'closer' to you.

Movies.

You'll notice the Movies experience has now been given a strip of its own with a few enhancements.

The improved Movies Guide has an [ HD ] pivot which makes finding that visual fidelity much easier.

Movie Details again brings many layers of pages into a single location -- it's now much easier to jump around and find related content.

Extras.

We've listened to our developers and I'm happy to announce a new feature called 'Extras' which will be replacing Online Media. I'll have a post out in the next couple of days with more information on this 'still in the planning phase' feature. As part of the rethinking of this area of the produce we've greatly simplified the gallery to make it much more user friendly. Gone are the myriad of [seemingly random] pivots (which were really filters).

Now this gallery behaves much like the others in the product whereby the pivots are sorts and all of your applications are represented in each view.

I don’t really have a screen capture of this next one but it’s worth noting: Application developers (more for you folks in a separate post) will be happy to know we’ve increased the number of custom Start Menu strips to a maximum of 20 (up from only 2 in Windows Vista).

On Screen Keyboard.

Any time you need to perform text entry we've got a new on screen keyboard for your enjoyment. This feature alone will bring much 'Spousal Acceptance Factor' to your Windows Media Center experience. [Bonus: This same exact on screen keyboard is available for developers to invoke from their applications.]

Gadget.

This is the gadget in its default configuration allow you to play your favorite music, slideshow (3 stars or better) or both. You can click the green button to launch Windows Media Center.

If you've configured TV and recorded shows they will appear in the order they are recorded. The gadget can also include content from the Internet TV feature.

Here are the gadget settings. Turning off Internet TV and New Recorded TV will return the gadget to it's default, out of box configuration.

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Windows Media Center in Windows 7, Chapter 1

2012-02-09T12:33:00.000-06:00

Windows Media Center (codenamed "Freestyle" during development) is an application with a 10-foot user interface design to serve as a home-entertainment hub for the living-room TV.

It is included in Windows XP Media Center Edition, premium editions of Windows Vista (Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate), and Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate).

It is designed to be controlled by special remote controls which prominently feature the Green Button (similar to the logo to the right), but can also be operated with a mouse and/or keyboard.

This button is used to either launch Media Center from Windows or to return to the Start Menu from within the application. Media Center plays the computer user's pictures, videos, and music from local hard drives, optical drives, and network locations. It then categorizes them by name, date, tags, and other file attributes. Media managed through Media Center can also be relayed via a home network to standard TV sets via the specially designed Windows Media Center Extender or the Xbox 360.

Start Menu

The Start Menu gets a subtle refresh both in text treatment and iconography size. You can now see more items at any given time without feeling cluttered, and the readability has really improved. The new Start Menu is also designed to always overlay the current playing experience so it stays in one place. Another thing you will notice is it now remembers your last location strip between sessions (prior versions always launched to the TV + Movies strip).

We got a lot of complaints about the postage stamp size of the video thumbnail for Now Playing in Windows Vista. You’ll be pleased to note it has returned to its larger size in Windows 7 -- no more squinting! Another thing you will notice in this screen capture is the tile title has been moved out of the focusable rectangle -- we can now do much longer names as a result (a great usability enhancement for international versions of Windows Media Center where the languages make for really long titles).

Music.

The user friendliness and design ethos really moves a notch up, especially for those with large libraries. [Note: Some of the user experience enhancements transcend any singular Windows Media Center area – I’ll introduce them throughout this post and try to note when the feature is shared.]

Do you have obscure albums with no album art available? In prior versions all of these would have a blue background + white text. With Windows 7 we mix it up a bit with random colors for these which makes them ‘blend in’ with your other album art for the Music Library gallery.

Details is another shared feature throughout the product. You can think of details as a slide deck which puts much used features closer to your fingertips compared to prior versions. You move left and right to switch between panes and up and down to select items on that pane. This really bubbles up features which have been less than discoverable in the past.

Music Now Playing received a large makeover and I think you are really going to like it. When you start playback of music you navigate to the Now Playing page as in prior versions. After a while we fade out the action items and animate your album art into a slowly scrolling wall of covers and occasionally switch the currently playing album cover and metadata. When you press a button on the remote or move the mouse we bring back the action items and keep the wall of covers up in the background.

Rating your content has never been easier in Windows Media Center. By enabling Rating Shortcuts you can press the 1 through 5 buttons on the remote or keyboard to rate the music (or picture as this is one of the shared features) in real time.

Those folks with large music libraries will *really* like what we call ‘Turbo Scroll’ – another shared feature. When you hold down the left or right remote control buttons for a while we transition into an interface which presents the content in alphabetical chunks. Letting go of the button when you see the letter combination you want will immediately take you to that position in your library.

Shared Libraries are built on top of the Home Group features in Windows 7 and is a shared feature across Music, Pictures, Videos and Recorded TV. Folks who have been clamoring for ‘Softsled’ will very much enjoy this feature as it allows you to peruse and enjoy content from multiple computers on your home network. In this screen capture I’m demonstrating how I can select my local music library or that shared by another user on my network named ‘Ethel’ on a computer named ‘Laptop’. Once selected, I can browse Ethels content in Windows Media Center.

Pictures.

Photo enthusiasts have much to enjoy in Windows 7 in Windows Media Center – like music, the usability goes up a notch or two.

There is a new Ambient Slideshow which will launch as a screen saver as well as when you invoke the new Play Favorites on the Start Menu. This pulls from your pictures rated 3 stars or higher. This slideshow features some nice zoom out (first screenshot) and zoom in animations (second screenshot) as well as slideshows within slideshows (kind of hard to explain -- it makes sense once you watch this new feature in action). If you are a photography fan and want to enjoy your pictures in an unstructured way you are going to really like this feature.

Here is a view of the enhanced Picture Library. I'll draw your attention to the Ratings, Slide Shows and Shared pivots -- all new for Windows 7. Ratings allow you to sort by rating (0-5 stars) like you can with tags we added in Windows Vista. Shared inherits the Shared Library in common with Music, Videos and Recorded TV. On the Slide Shows pivot you can play back slideshows...

...created with the new Slideshow Creator -- one of my favorite features. You can choose pictures or music in the creator and save the results for later playback.

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7 of the world’s most powerful tech companies have been accused of forming an antitrust conspiracy.

2012-02-01T07:58:00.000-06:00

7 of the world’s most powerful tech companies have been accused of forming an antitrust conspiracy to suppress the compensation of their employees by entering into “no poach” agreements. Today, a San Jose judge heard a motion to dismiss a class action civil lawsuit in which former employees seek damages from defendants Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm.

The damning evidence against the defendants from a 2010 Department of Justice investigation that I first uncovered last week, as well as the plaintiffs’ opposition statement indicate there is more than sufficient evidence for the dismissal to be denied and the case to proceed towards trial. If the defendants lose to or settle, tens of thousands of full-time employees with the companies between 2006 and 2009 could be compensated.

[Update 4:30pm PST 1/26/2011: Judge Lucy Koh says "This case is moving forward...this case is going to survive the motion to dismiss." That means the defendants' motion to dismiss the case will almost surely be denied when the judge files her official ruling soon. Koh said she may dismiss some specific claims but the plaintiffs will be allowed to amend their complaint. She mentioned "It's hard to make the inference that there was no conspiracy". Read on to find out why and what that means for the companies. More details from the hearing at the end.]

Specifically, the senior executives of the defendants, including Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google’s Eric Schmidt, are accused of entering into a network of identical, interconnected illegal agreements not to recruit each other’s employees. Each agreement by itself may be a violation of antitrust laws including the Sherman Act, the Cartwright Act, and other California laws.

The plaintiffs also claim the agreements constitute an overarching antitrust conspiracy because each was made with knowledge of the other agreements, and relied on the other agreements to achieve a common goal of reducing compensation and mobility for highly sought-after skilled tech employees.

According to the plaintiffs’ statement (PDF), the chronology of some of the agreements is as follows:

January 2005 – Pixar senior executives (which include Steve Jobs) draft written terms for a no-poach agreement and send them to Lucasfilm

May 2005 – Apple and Adobe make agreements

2006 – Apple and Google make agreements shortly after Eric Schmidt joined Apple’s board of directors

April 2007 – Apple and Pixar make agreements

June and September 2007 – Google enters into agreements with Intuit and Intel that are identical to the agreements between Apple and Google, Apple and Adobe, and Apple and Pixar

Additionally, Steve Jobs personally contacted Palm’s CEO Edward T. Colligan to propose an unlawful agreement, writing “We must do whatever we can” to stop competitive recruiting efforts between the companies.” Colligan declined Jobs’ offer, writing “Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal.”

The plaintiffs request “The Court should deny the motion, lift the stay of discovery, and permit Plaintiffs ‘to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination’ of this action.”

The defendants claim that the agreements were isolated and not interconnected. They claim the agreements were pro-competitive parts of legitimate collaborations between the companies, many of which had executives on each other’s boards or started as the same company as with Pixar and Lucasfilm.

The defendants also claim “The alleged bilateral arrangement provide no support for the overall conspiracy that plaintiffs have alleged in order to name the defendants in a class action”. They motion for continuation of the partial stay of discovery and for the case to be dismissed.

However, my research and sources indicate the defendants’ claims are false, the plaintiffs case is plausible, and so there are no grounds for dismissal. Furthermore, the only reason more evidence about the interconnection between the agreements isn’t available is because they were made so secretively.

The case should be allowed to proceed because the plaintiffs have produced “smoking guns” indicating a deep conspiracy. Specifically, “Do Not Cold Call” lists which defendants used to implement the agreements, and the written terms of Pixar’s agreement with Lucasfilm. These signal that today’s joint motion to dismiss the case should be denied because if discovery is permitted to continue, there’s a reasonable expectation that evidence of illegal activity will be revealed.

Finally, the precedent is that motions to dismiss are “viewed with disfavor and are properly granted only in exceptional cases…A complaint satisfies Twombly [is only eligible for dismissal] if the allegations, taken as a whole, are not ‘facially implausible’” according to the plaintiffs’ statement. Therefore, it would take a very strong presentation by the defense for Judge Lucy Koh to dismiss the case.

If the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case is denied, the case will move towards a trial by jury in June 2013. Rather than leave an assessment of damages to the judge and jury, the defendants may try to settle the case, similar to how they settled with the Department of Justice’s federal case in 2010. In the defendants lose or settle, full-time employees of the defendants could be compensated for the 10-15% of lost wages estimated by the plaintiffs’ law firm Lieff Cabraser.

Update 4:30pm PST 1/26/2012: The judge has lifted the stay of discovery, saying “This case is moving forward…this case is going to survive the motion to dismiss.” Though her official statement hasn’t been filed, she’s likely to deny the defendants motion to dismiss the case. She also ordered Google to produce draft emails in addition to sent emails, and designate which are drafts and which were sent.

During the hearing, the defense argued against the conspiracy accusation and joint liability. It stated that plaintiffs don’t deserve compensation from companies they never worked for and that their employers didn’t have agreements with just because they were part of the so-called conspiracy.

The judge seemed somewhat sympathetic to this, and asked if the plaintiffs would consider breaking up the case to focus on each unlawful agreement separately. The plaintiffs maintained that the agreements were all interconnected.

Afterwards, The head attorney representing the plaintiffs, Joseph R. Saveri of Lieff Cabraser, told me the plaintiffs were comfortable moving forward with their single, joint antitrust conspiracy complaint. The plaintiffs will file an amended complaint that removes any claims dismissed by the forthcoming judge’s statement.

Next, another Case Management Conference is set for April 18th, where that amended complaint from the plaintiff will be reviewed. On June 28th, the court will convene to hear class certification to define what employees are eligible to be represented by the class action lawsuit. The plaintiffs plan to assess evidence surfaced during discovery and determine if only software engineers, software engineers and scientists, or all of the defendants’ employees will be represented by the class action lawsuit.

Following the hearing, Saveri gave reporters a conservative calculation of the possible damages that employees could be compensated for. He said software engineers make $100,000 a year (they make more), their compensation was “suppressed between 5 and 10%” and “tens of thousands of employees were affected”. That means for each year an entry-level full-time software engineer worked at one of these companies, they might be entitled to damages of $5,000 to $10,000. Higher paid veteran engineers could be entitled to much more. The total damages could therefore be at least $150 million if just 10,000 entry-level engineers were affected.

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10+ tweaks, tricks, and hacks to make Windows Vista fly, Chapter 2

2012-01-31T02:53:00.005-06:00

7. Add Internet Explorer to the Vista Desktop

For some reason known only to the Windows Vista development team, there is no easy option to add the Windows Explorer icon to the Vista Desktop.

You can add Computer, Recycle Bin, and the Control Panel --- perhaps someone can explain that to us.

In themeantime, if you want to add Internet Explorer you can do it with a Registry hack. Before editing the Windows Registry it is always advisable to make a backup of the Registry file.

Click the Start button
Open the Run dialog box (or type regedit in to the search box on the Start Menu)
Type in regedit and press Enter
Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel

Create a new DWORD 32-bit by right clicking in the key area (See Figure K)
Copy this as the key name including the brackets:

{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}

Close regedit
Right click on the Desktop and click the Refresh menu entry --- Internet Explorer should now appear.

Figure K

Regedit Internet Explorer

Figure L

o

Windows Security Center

8: Change Security Center notifications

One of the most often leveled criticisms of Windows has been its lack of security. To overcome that perception Microsoft had programmed Vista to complain loudly and often if it discovers your malware, firewall or virus protection software is off or requires

maintenance. For many users, the constant badgering to update your virus definitions is more annoying then effective. To calm Vista down a bit you can change the way you are notified of potential lax security.

Open the control panel and click the Windows Security Center as shown in Figure L.

Figure M

Choose you preference for notification

Click the link Change the way Security Center alerts me to reach the dialog box shown in Figure M.

9: Set Folder options

One of the first things experienced users change when they get a new Windows computer is change the Folder View options to a preferred setting. Windows Vista is no exception to this rule.

Open the Control Panel and click on the Folder Options icon
Click on the View tab (See Figure N)

Figure N

Folder options

Check or uncheck your folder preferences --- some suggestions:

a.Check show hidden files and folders

b.Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types

c.Uncheck protected operating system files

10: Adjust power settings

By default, Windows Vista sets the power options to what it calls a "Balanced" plan. While for many users this plan will be adequate, there are many who will want to make adjustments. For laptop users specifically, settings can vary greatly when operating on battery power versus plugged into an outlet. To adjust power settings:

Open the Control Panel and then click the Power Options icon (See Figure O)

Figure O

Power Options

Figure P

Power settings

Click on the Change Plan Settings under one of the default plans to make changes (See Figure P)

For additional fine tuning click Change advanced power settings (See Figure Q)

Figure Q

Advanced power settings

11: Reduce Desktop Icons

By default, the Windows Vista Aero GUI uses what it classifies as "Medium" icons on the Desktop. Medium in this case is really quite large. (There is also a Large icon setting, but we won't go there.) To bring the icons back to a less eye-popping size:

Right click on the Desktop
Choose the View menu item
Change to Classic Icons (Figure R)

Figure R

Classic

12 Add another time zone

For many of us working away from home offices at satellite offices, home or on the road, knowing the time across various time zones can be a necessary evil. Windows Vista will allow you to keep time in two additional time zones to the machine time.

Right click on the time display located in Taskbar System Tray
Select the Adjust Date/Time menu item
Click on the Additional Clocks tab (See Figure S)
Add clocks

Figure S

Choose a time zone

Click the checkbox next to Show this clock
Click OK

Now when you mouse over the time in the Taskbar System Tray you will get the time in your chosen time zones.

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The World of Windows

20 Windows 7 free apps to download today, Chapter 1.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview FAQ..

Windows 8 had just arrived and lots of buzz is going around related to the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, The Developer Preview was released by Windows Earlier for testing purposes which seemed to be a lot good and improved.

Some people also said that Windows 8 Developer Preview was better only for Tablet devices. But now Microsoft has now released the newer release of Windows 8, that is Windows 8 Consumer Preview. After the release, blogs are writing lots of tutorials about this new release.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview Wallpapers

Windows 8 Metro-UI Wallpaper.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview Wallpaper.

Windows 8 Beta Preview Release Wallpaper.

Windows 8 Wallpaper.

Black Windows 8 Wallpaper.

Maximize windows on the desktop using Snap.

To maximize a window

Tip

Notes

Top 10 changes to security in Windows 7.

1: Action Center

Figure A: The Action Center absorbed the functions of the Security Center.

2: Changes to UAC

Figure B: You can set when and how UAC notifies you with the slider.

3: Better BitLocker

Figure C: You can now encrypt removable drives, like the Lexar USB flash drive, with BitLocker.

4: DirectAccess

5: Biometric security

Figure D: Now support for fingerprint readers is built into Windows.

6: AppLocker

Figure E: AppLocker does the same thing as Software Restriction Policies, but does it better.

7: Windows Filtering Platform (WFP)

8: PowerShell v2

Figure F: Windows 7 includes both PowerShell v.2 and the PowerShell ISE.

9: DNSSec

10: Internet Explorer 8

Windows 7 consumer security software providers.

Windows Dev Center: Tools, samples and docs to build Windows apps.

Internet Explorer.

Desktop.

Hardware.

Windows Neptune is the project of developing the most famous of Microsoft operating systems that have never seen the light.

Nvidia’s GTX 680 emphasizes efficiency, pours on the speed

Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace will officially shut down on May 9.

Introduction to SQL Azure.

Using SQL Azure.

Editions & Pricing.

Using SQL Azure Databases.

SQLcmd

Management Studio

Visual Studio

Third Party Tools:

Omega Web Client

SSIS & SQL Azure.

Migrating From SQL Server to SQL Azure.

Not Supported on SQL Azure:

More Information.

The Windows Azure Platform is an application platform in the cloud that allows Microsoft datacenters to host and run applications.

Quake III Arena was specifically designed for multiplayer.

Medal of Honor Airborne is a World War II first-person shooter computer game and the 11th installment of the Medal of Honor series.

Windows Live Movie Maker is a video editing tool that enables you to transform images, audio files, and short clips into full-blown movies.

The Curious Case of Windows 7.

Microsoft talk about changes to the Start Menu.

Nine Different Editions for Windows 8.

Download original Windows 8 Milestone 2 wallpaper

Windows 8 Metro style Reddit client.

Mortal OS Kombat: Microsoft's upstart Windows 7 versus Linux.

Windows Vista has a different bootup configuration than earlier versions of Windows.

Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts.

Windows Media Center in Windows 7, Chapter 2.

Windows Media Center in Windows 7, Chapter 1

7 of the world’s most powerful tech companies have been accused of forming an antitrust conspiracy.

10+ tweaks, tricks, and hacks to make Windows Vista fly, Chapter 2