WLMM is something which is a separate download in the Windows Live suite of applications. It does not come bundled with Windows 7 but can be added in easily.

The last time I tried this software it was in beta form. Admittedly, I hated it. But now the software is finished so I gave it a go. It is far better than it was in beta and a truly completed product.

There is a video below this showing a basic tutorial of how to get simple thing done in WLMM, here’s a few questions answered up front.

Is it the same as the older Windows Movie Maker?

No. The way in which is operates is completely different. It has the ribbon interface seen in the updated versions of the Office suite, Paint and Windows Live Mail. This is an attempt by Microsoft to make everything look similar no matter what you’re using.

Is it better than the older Windows Movie Maker?

Yes. It supports the native import of more formats (like MOV, MP4 and M4A for example), has effects that are much more streamlined and useful and also has other useful bits, such as direct-to-DVD, direct-to-YouTube and so on.

Is there a learning curve with WLMM?

Yes. You will not take to it like a fish to water. But as stated in the video, once you start using it you’ll realize the way in which it works does make sense, and over time you will be able to edit videos faster and more efficiently. The only people who would purposely stay with the old Windows Movie Maker are robbing themselves of a truly good and useful video editor.

See video below for more details.

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Windows Live Movie Maker Tutorial (Video)

Something FloatLED does that your case light cannot is it can tell you want drive is actually working. If you have multiple disks in your system, this can be very useful as you can actually see the source of the ‘grinding’. Additionally, if you are working on a remote system (via Terminal Services, Log Me In, etc.), by firing up this application you instantly have access to this information on the system you are connected to.

While this is probably not for everyone (i.e. you have a laptop with one disk), for those of you who do have a use for it, FloatLED is a great utility.

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On Screen Hard Drive Activity LED

If you hadn’t heard, AOL will be splitting from Time Warner and will once again become an independent company. This will be occurring on December 10, 2009. ICQ happens to be an AOL property currently.

Know that ICQ has a huge presence basically everywhere but the United States. It is widely used in Russia and China and has somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 million users. This is something that would be attractive to capitalize on for many internet companies looking to expand their user base.

AOL has internet properties in 40 countries (I bet you never knew they stretched so far) and they are sure to sell off a whole bunch of those – ICQ being one of them.

Will ICQ be snapped up by an American company like Google or Microsoft? Highly unlikely. Microsoft already has a huge worldwide presence with Live (formerly MSN) and Google has Google Talk and Gmail which is also worldwide.

What will most likely happen is that  a non-U.S. internet company will make the purchase.

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ICQ For Sale, Only 300 Million (What A Deal!)

However, social networking is not a new thing anymore and does have tenure. And of course, any social networking site will claim that they sign up new users left and right on a daily basis and have millions of users.

But how many of those millions of users actually bother using social networking is the question. How many are "bouncers", whereas they signed up then never did anything with their social network stuff afterward?

Even though the numbers are rising as far as social networking usage is concerned, its definitely not the hot topic of conversation anymore. Has the popularity of social networking peaked? I believe it has. And there’s only one direction something can go after it peaks.

I don’t want to indicate that this style of communication is a fad that will go away, because it won’t. This is something that I believe will remain on the internet for a good long time. But it’s obvious there are more than a few that have become, said politely, disenchanted with the way it works.

How social networking works is its biggest downfall. Facebook for example has things in it that crash constantly. Even when you attempt to do something as simple as send a message to somebody else, you may get a server error. Twitter has had the same problem ever since it started. MySpace also has its bugs. None of them have ever been able to operate with 100% efficiency.

On top of that, these sites changes their interfaces continually. What you clicked on one day to get somewhere may get moved next week. And then moved again next month. It’s irritating to deal with.

The final blow that gets people disenchanted with social networking is that it can be nothing but a big ball of boring. Like it or not, all social sites act the exact same way, with the only differences being in what applications are available to you. But then there are those who don’t bother with apps, so what you do on Facebook is more or less the exact same thing you did on MySpace. Eventually it becomes tiresome and you just quit using it.

In the end, what you have is a medium where you add a bunch of people on a contact list, trade messages, photos and funny cat videos.

There should be no wonder as to why some people bounce from this. Some call it like it is: "Isn’t a social networking site just a big forum with some extra added crap in it nobody uses?"

Mainly, yes. People recognize this and move on to other things.

What do you think?

Has social networking passed its peak of popularity? Have you become disenchanted with it? Let people know by posting a comment.

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Has Social Networking Jumped The Shark?

One option you have for doing this in the Save As dialog box is changing the option in the “Files of type” drop down appropriately and then typing the filename. However if you simply put the full name of the file – including the extension – in quotes, this forces the specified filename regardless of what the “Files of type” drop down says.

For example in Notepad, if you type some text and then go to Save As, you will see the default extension is text files (TXT). If you type “myfile.zyx” (including the quotes) into the file name field, the file will save with the extension you specified instead of the default extension.

While this may not be a huge time saver, it definitely can save you some clicks when you need to use it.

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Force Saving A File With A Certain Extension

First, we have the “Good News” series (view it here), which features a young girl narrating her supposed artwork (created using Windows, no less) using “happy words” she has found regarding Windows 7. In short, Microsoft chooses the “cute” avenue to show off their press. But it doesn’t display any of the new features of Windows 7, and completely distracts you from the positive reviews on Windows 7. Moreover, it’s completely not believable. How many kids are creating artwork centered around editorial reviews?

Next, we have the “Windows 7 Was My Idea” (view). Microsoft is a little warmer. At least they’re focusing more on their intended audience, and hinting at the new features of the OS. Yet, overall, these commercials are vague, and you aren’t convinved that these people love or even use Windows 7. Further, who cares whose idea it was, does it do what we need? Yes, I understand they’re trying to say that it’s now meeting the user’s needs. Yet, they miss their mark. Emphasizing cool yet fringe features of the OS like Snap also doesn’t make me want to run out and upgrade.

Finally, we have the newest and best of the bunch, “7 Second Demo” (view). Microsoft is actually putting Windows 7 front and center, by showing several of the new features. This is where they need to go if they’re going to try to undo the damage Vista has caused. Yet these commercials are very quick. You need to see several of them for any lasting impression. So, I have a feeling we will be deluged with these over the next month.

It amazes me how Microsoft continues to get it wrong. Even “PC” people (of which I am one) have to admit that Apple has them beat hands down when it comes to advertising. In fact, there’s already a gang of anti-7 commercials from Mac that are way more convincing than any of the Microsoft commercials. Take “Broken Promises,” for example. Microsoft is going to have to do better than this if they want to make the Vista hangover disappear.

David Kennedy is a software developer and serves as IT administrator for a small business.

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What is Microsoft Thinking With The Windows 7 Commercials?

Quake Live is an FPS style game that’s completely in-browser, and that means it’s cross-browser/cross-platform compatible.

The plan here is to schedule an event to get a bunch of PCMech readers (yes, that means you’re invited) into the game to see if you guys and gals actually like it or not. Consider it a "mass review" to test out the game along with being able to play with an actual PCMech author, that being yours truly.

From the previous article, I’ve discovered a few things, with the biggest being that if you’re running things that block scripting and Flash such as NoScript or FlashBlock for Firefox, the game will not work. You will need to temporarily disable those for gameplay.

In addition there are several options you can set to make gameplay better per your computer’s specifications, such as adjusting texture detail, full-screen mode and so on. This is accessed in-game by pressing ESC on your keyboard and making the appropriate adjustments. The video below shows you how to do this, so be sure to watch it. Bear in mind you can go higher or lower, so even if you have an older computer, you can disable/downgrade enough stuff to make the game enjoyable and fluid on play.

Note on the video: My frame rate is crappy because my capture software isn’t designed to "grab" high-frame stuff like that. Believe me when I say the frame rate you’ll get will be a million times better and completely fluid.

This video makes note of my Quake Live ID:

http://www.quakelive.com/#profile/summary/frostedside

After logging in to Quake Live, you can add me in as a friend by going to the above link, or you can manually add by searching for the ID frostedside.

See video below for more details. There are also some scheduling notes below the video.

Scheduling notes

As for when I plan on getting everybody in on a game, it may happen this evening (as in today Wednesday November 18) during the PCMech LIVE broadcast from 8pm to 10pm EST.

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Quake Live (With Video And Scheduling Update)

However it may, if you can believe it, exist in the next edition of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) which will be published in May 2012. It is being debated whether or not to be listed there.

One who would suffer from IAD would exhibit the following four symptoms (source):

1. Excessive use usually accompanied by a loss of the sense of time.
2. Feeling withdrawal when not online.
3. Tolerance (as in increased tolerance), feeling the need for better more powerful computer equipment to spend more time online.
4. Negative repercussions, such as being more argumentative, feeling overly fatigued and exhibiting social isolation.

I’ve made mention of the site I’m about to link before, but yet again it rears its ugly head, www.wowdetox.com really drives home the fact that some people are truly addicted and need real help. And like it or not, most people point to gamers as the people who suffer from IAD (which once again I’ll mention is not officially classified as a disorder) the most.

My personal feeling on IAD is that yes, it will be classified as a real disorder at some point in the future. Will it be classified as such by 2012? Probably not, but then again it all depends on how many well-defined instances of serious mental health related issues – or death – are directly caused by excessive internet usage. And yes, there are instances of that unfortunately. And because internet addiction is so widely believed to be a true disorder, there’s even a center dedicated to helping people just for that.

My question to you is this: Do you personally believe IAD exists?

If the answer is yes, have you ever encountered anyone you think has it? Did they have the four symptoms mentioned above?

If the answer is no, do you believe it’s something that’s a result of a disorder or combination of disorders that already exist (a common argument against IAD)?

Before closing this out, I’m not trying to spread FUD. Not in the slightest. IAD is something that could very well be classified as a real disorder in the future.

What I want to know is if you think IAD exists.

Lastly, if it did exist, what would be the treatment? I have no idea other than my own personal recommendation, which would be: "Subject suffering from IAD is hereby ordered to get out of the house and see the sun once in a while. If subject fails to leave the house, administer a cold bucket of ice water over subject’s head, then run. Hopefully he or she will follow so you can get him or her get out of the house that way." It’s tough love, but it works. Or at least I think it would.

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Does Internet Addiction Disorder Exist?

While Virtual PC does not support hardware acceleration, you can see that it runs the FPS Quake 2 quite well using software rendering. That said, true legacy games should run fine in a virtual machine with little performance hit. You should, however disable Integrated Mode if you are using Windows XP Mode in Windows 7.

Does anyone currently play games in a virtual machine? If so, how is the performance?

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Gaming On A Virtual PC

Adesso’s CyberTablet comes provided with the tablet itself, a pen with replaceable tips, its own mouse and driver software. The tablet itself is connected via a built-in standard USB cable.

The first thing to note is that the provided mouse isn’t that great and you probably won’t be using it – but that’s fine since you didn’t buy it for the mouse anyway. Since it’s a USB device you can use it in combination with your existing mouse and use the tablet as the mouse pad when not drawing or writing with the pen.

The drivers and software it comes with are decidedly old, but do work in all versions of Windows including Windows 7. Upon first install you will be required to perform a system restart to gain full functionality.

The pen included does require you to change the AAA battery in it every so often, but not so much as it would prove to be inconvenient.

When I used the CyberTablet 6400, I found it’s much better suited for writing than drawing. It’s handwriting recognition is decent and the software allows you to “train” it if it makes mistakes when recognizing what you write.

In a few instances the tracking was slightly off, but then again I didn’t “train” it too much. With regular use the tracking issues would fix themselves.

Being this is an entry level tablet, it’s not the best for freehand drawing. This is not to say it can’t do it, because it can and does so easily, but it doesn’t have the super-sensitive tracking much more expensive tablets have. If you draw using point-to-point, you’ll get along fine with the CyberTablet, but for true freehand style you may need something larger with more sensitivity. This Adesso tablet has low sensitivity when it comes to writing or drawing.

If you use a Mac, you might have some difficulties with this tablet. When David (PCMech’s founder) tried this tablet on his Mac, the installation of drivers proved very difficult. The install routine got into an endless loop and David was forced to manually “force quit” the install program. Once the drivers were installed, it was hard to determine whether everything was working properly because no solid instructions were provided on how to actually go about USING the tablet.

Overall, the CyberTable 6400 gets the job done and works as advertised. However, as a tablet priced at $69.99 as of the time of this writing, don’t expect miracles in this price range.

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Adesso CyberTablet 6400 Review