PC Decrapifier
The PC Decrapifier is a program designed to remove or uninstall a specific list of unwanted software in an unattended fashion. It can be used to clean off most of the annoying software that is typically shipped with new PCs.

How it Works
Simply download the file and run the EXE. There is no installer. If you have anti-virus software installed, it may complain about this program because it is written with a scripting language. These warnings can be safely ignored. Please see the FAQ for more details.

Running the Program
After you run the EXE you will be guided through the process with a “wizard” style series of questions. You will have the choice to pick and choose what you want to remove. It will not begin removing anything without prompting you first!

The images below are a screen shot of various parts of the process.

Homepage:
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com

Download page:
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/download

I am pretty sure there is some occasion that you need to find out your motherboard chipset, or your graphic card model and brand which all of them hidden in your beautiful casing for years; be it a driver update or firmware upgrade. We just can’t remember everything that we bought isn’t? And sometimes your friend require some help for their computer driver, but they have no idea what they have inside their computer, especially for those ready-built PC. I have been in a few occasion that I wanted to upgrade my motherboard driver and I keep on forgetting the chipset of my motherboard, and I did the dumbest thing ever: searching back my motherboard manual/box. But no more! All thanks to the latest quality software written by Piriform which is their fourth free software after the release of their famous CCleaner, Recuva, and Defraggler – Speccy.

Speccy

Indeed, there is a lot of software doing almost the same thing, even in greater details than in the Speccy. But what make it different from them is that Speccy is lightweight, simple, easy-to- understand, and nice interface (does this count as one? Hehe). A normal computer user doesn’t need to know every single details that you can fork out from your hardware; it make no difference for them to see those information. Piriform’s Speccy is designed for everyone, be it a newbie or an expert in computer. Even though it doesn’t give you maximum information available from your hardware, but what it provided is very sufficient to do troubleshooting, upgrading, and even benchmarking.

Let’s check out the software interface (don’t look at my PC specs, I know it’s not so up-to-date ):

The interface is a little bit similar to CCleaner, which both look very nice and clean. The main page of the software will be the Summary page, where you can see a summarized version of your computer specifications: Operating System, CPU, RAM, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, and Audio. If you really go through the screenshot, you will able to see that there is also temperature information for the CPU, as well as the Graphics Card.

At the left side of the software, there is a list of options where you can explore more about your computer’s hardware. They will give you more detailed information regarding that particular hardware. One thing I find it quite awesome is that under Operating System, you will know when you get your Windows installed, which is quite useful for reminding me how long I has been using the Windows without formatting. You will find more interesting information as you go on by exploring all of the options.

Snapshot Feature

One of the very interesting feature in Speccy will be the ability to save a snapshot of your computer specification. You might think why it is so interesting? Think about this situation: You have a friend who is very new to computer, and he get his computer formatted by an irresponsible technician which doesn’t install hardware driver for him, and he seek for your help. But you have no idea what kind of hardware he had in his computer. So Speccy can play it’s role now. You can ask your friend to download it, install it, run it and save a snapshot of his computer specification. Then ask him to send you the snapshot file (which is in .speccy), and you are able to see what is his PC made of. And you could help him to solve the problem.

Editor’s Note

Speccy, undoubtedly is a good piece of software and it should be equipped in each and every computers in my opinion. While Windows are able to give you some of the information found in Speccy, but most of them are not, thus if you want to know more about your PC, without paying a single cent, go on ahead and download Piriform Speccy. All in all, another quality software from Piriform. It’s really good to have such software development company which doesn’t always think about profit only. Thanks Piriform!

Download Piriform Speccy here.

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เกี่ยวกับ ASP.Net กันสักหน่อย

สำหรับวิธีการนี้จะอ้างอิงบน Windows 7 RTM (Build #7600) เป็นหลักนะครับ

เอาล่ะ เกริ่นนำสักนิดส์

สำหรับผู้ใช้ ASP.Net ในการพัฒนาเว็บไซต์ หนึ่งในระบบ Manage บัญชีผู้ใช้ที่ใช้กันอย่างแพร่หลาย(?) ระบบหนึ่งก็คือ ASP.Net Membership

แล้วการใช้ตัว ASP.Net Membership Provider นี่ก็ต้องมีการเข้าไปแก้ไฟล์อย่าง Machine.config เพื่อนำมาใช้กับ Web.config บ้างเป็นระยะๆ

อนึ่ง… Machine.config จะเก็บค่าปรับตั้งอย่างละเอียดของระบบ ซึ่งเป็นในลักษณะ Default Environmen ซึ่งถ้าผู้ใช้ต้องการปรับใช้ให้เหมาะกับตัวเองก็สามารถ “ก๊อปปี้” tag เหล่านั้นมาไว้ใน Web.config เพื่อ override ค่า Default ได้จ๊ะ..

แล้วทีนี้ สมมติว่าเผลอมือบอนไปแก้มันซะผิดเพี้ยน จนไม่สามารถรันได้เลย จะทำไงดี?

วิธีแรกแรก Re- Install ตัว .Net Framework 2.0 ลงไป

วิธีนี้เขาว่ากันว่าใช้งานได้ผล
…แต่ใช้กับ Vista/7 ไม่ได้ เพราะมัน Built-in มา จะ Reinstall หรือ Remove ไม่ได้

วิธีที่สอง เรียกไฟล์ .default

ในเมื่อ Machine.config พัง ก็เรียก Machine.config.default แทนขึ้นมา

วิธีนี้พอจะใช้ได้ผล ในกรณีที่กำหนดค่าผิดเพี้ยนไปก็สามารถเปิดไฟล์ Machine.config.default ขึ้นมาได้ ซึ่งไฟล์นี้ก็อยู่รวมกัน Machine.config นั้นแหละ

Default Path ของไฟล์ดังกล่าวอยู่ที่
“C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG”

หรือ

“%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG”

วิธีที่สาม ในกรณีที่ “จนมุม” หลังจากพยายามแก้มาน๊าน..นาน หรือ “หาไม่เจอ” หรือ “ขี้เกียจจะแก้” เรามีอีกวิธีให้คือ “ServiceModelReg.exe”

พบกับไฟล์นี้ได้ที่!
“C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation“

หรือ

“%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation”

ได้ตามที่่ทานต้องการ!

วิธีการใช้ก็แสนจะเบสิกคอลลี่มว๊ากๆ

คำเตือน: ใช้ภายนอกเท่านั้น
วิธีใช้

1. จงเข้าไปที่โฟลเดอร์

    

   “C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\” หรือ
   “%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\”

    

2. จงกด Shift แล้วคลิกขวาที่โฟลเดอร์ “Windows Communication Foundation”
3. จงเลือก “Open Command Window Here”
4. จงพิมพ์ว่า “S” แล้วกด tab เรื่อยๆไปจนถึง “ServiceModelReg.exe”
5. จงวรรค 1 ครั้ง แล้วพิมพ์ว่า -r เพื่อสั่งให้ Reinstall

ที่จริงมันสามารถทำได้หลากหลายกว่านี้มาก แต่จงอ่าน Help เอง

เมื่อได้ดังรูปแล้ว ให้กด Enter
แล้วมันจะรันบ้าบ้าอะไรไม่รู้อยู่หนึงหน้าจอ

กระบวนการนี้ใช้เวลาไม่ถึง 1 นาที!!
(ซึ่งถ้ามัวไปงมโข่งแก้ Code อาจใช้เวลาเป็นชั่วโมง เป็นวัน เดือนเดือน เป็นปี บางคนอาจทั้งชีวิต!)

เอาล่ะ…เมื่อทำได้แล้ว จงระลึกว่าไว้อย่างนึงว่า
“จงแก้ไฟล์ระบบอย่างมีสติ(มากกว่านี้)“

จบแล้วจ้า!

ปล. ถ้าบทความนี้ช่วยอะไรไม่ได้ จง Google ต่อไป สู้ๆ!!

We have moved to TGN-Official.tk

Check it out ASAP to keep updated on Playstation news Xbox news and Nintendo News.

I believe most if not all of the computer users will use their computer (Facebook-ing, Messaging etc.) during the night time, and possibly until the very late night. And during the usage, you might not feel tired (Of course, who want to stop when you going to kill the boss in Mafia War?), but your eyes tell you that they are tired. Why? Most likely it is due to the inappropriate display temperature of your LCD/monitor, which makes your eyes feel tired after an hour or so of computer usage. This is because at daytime, the screen brightness/colour temperature has no problem for your eyes due to the adequate of lights, but when turned to nighttime, sunset happened, the same screen doesn’t work too well for your eyes anymore because you are now rely on the indoor light sources (Halogen, Fluorescent etc.), and the same screen tends to be too bright for you, thus stresses you eyes. Not only that, several studies shows that when an inappropriate display colour temperature exposed to a person’s eyes, he/she tend to have bad sleeping quality. 

F.lux

So What F.lux can do for you?

F.lux makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

It’s even possible that you’re staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.

F.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you’re in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.

So I guess you have some idea what F.lux can do for you. Basically it change the display colour temperature to a warmer one during night time to make one’s eyes less tired and able to sleep better after the computing session. Check out the screenshot below:

Above is the main interface of F.lux. A very simple one showing your sunset/sunrise time, the display colour temperature (shown is 4200K at night time which is the temperature suited for Fluorescent), as well as your location latitude and longitude. When you click on the middle section (a sine graph like chart), it will execute a preview for you to see how the display colour temperature change across time. At the bottom of the interface, it allows you to disable it for one hour when you require to do some colour-sensitive work, eg. Photo editing, Colour matching etc.  

Under Settings, you can adjust the display temperature that you preferred for daytime, and also for night time. Of course, for daytime it is always recommended to have the display temperature set at 6500K (Daylight), but for night time, it can be adjusted according to your light source in the room/place. If you think that the location F.lux detected is somewhat not accurate enough, you can always change it here. It will lead you to their website to look for the location latitude and longitude using Google map. As an extra option, you can change the transition speed between the daytime and the night time.

Editor’s Note

At the time of writing, I have F.lux turned on for my LCD. Since it is my first time using it, I would say it is quite hard to get used to it for the first time because everything seems dimmed, and a bit red-ish. But I do feel that my eyes doesn’t feel much tired compared to previous day, so I guess it really helps. During the startup of the software where the display colour temperature slowly changed, my computer seems laggy a little bit, but after the transition, everything back to normal. However, I do have an unstable moment with F.lux where the main interface doesn’t want to appear on screen even I call for it, probably it has some clash with my other software, but everything works fine after I restarted it. So, protect your eyes, get a good sleep after night time computing, and all of these can be done by installing F.lux.

You can download F.lux here.  

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Partition Wizard Home Edition is a free partition manager designed by MT Solution Ltd.
It supports 32/64 bit Windows Operating System including Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.
Home users can perform complicated partition operations by using this powerful yet free partition manager to manage their hard disk.

Functions include: Resizing partitions, Copying partitions, Create partition, Delete partition, Format partition, Convert partition, Explore partition, Hide partition, Change drive letter, Set active partition, Partition Recovery, Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk.

Partition Wizard Home Edition is designated for home user only, to use Partition Wizard in a business environment, Partition Wizard Business Edition is required.

Homepage:
http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

Download page:
http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

Windows ReadyBoost
With Windows ReadyBoost, you can use non-volatile flash memory, such as that on a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive, to improve performance without having to add additional memory “under the hood.”

The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard drive. Windows ReadyBoost relies on the intelligent memory management of Windows SuperFetch and can significantly improve system responsiveness.

It’s easy to use Windows ReadyBoost. When a removable memory device such as a USB flash drive or a secure digital (SD) memory card is first inserted into a port, Windows Vista checks to see if its performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, you are asked if you want to use this device to speed up system performance. You can choose to allocate part of a USB drive’s memory to speed up performance and use the remainder to store files.

This feature is included in the following editions of Windows Vista:

• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Ultimate

Homepage:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/readyboost.aspx

What’s the most wrongheaded conclusion anyone ever came to concerning computers? I covered three of the most legendary ones–”There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home,” “640K should be enough for anybody,” and “I think there is a worldwide market for maybe five computers” in The 25 Most Notable Quotes in Tech History. But there’s no evidence that IBM’s Thomas J. Watson said the first one, Bill Gates staunchly denies saying the second one, and DEC’s Ken Olsen and his defenders contend that the last one is him being taken out of context.

But here are a couple of seriously silly statements that can’t be disowned–because they appeared in columns in the New York Times in the mid-1980s. Both are by the same guy, Erik Sandberg-Diment (who certainly wasn’t always obtuse–he was visionary enough to found ROM, one of the best early magazines about personal computers). Between them, they add up to one of the least accurate takes on the future of computing that I’ve ever read.

Sandberg-Diment’s first memorably inaccurate piece is from Christmas Day, 1984.  It concerned the PC trend of windowing environments–front ends for DOS that let you run multiple apps in windows. He thought they were a fad that had already come and gone–and even spoke of them in the past tense.

Continuing to write about windowing environments as if they had already failed, he declared that they’d make sense only if computers gained displays as big as real desktops. (A quarter century later, a 30-inch screen still counts as humongous–but isn’t anywhere as spacious as a typical office desk.)

Now, it’s true that in late 1984, the best-known windowing environment that had actually shipped was VisiCorp’s Visi On, which was pretty much dead on arrival. Windows, which wouldn’t show up for another eleven months, was famous mostly as an example of vaporware. So Sandberg-Diment was only criticizing windowing as it existed as of the time he wrote his piece, right?

Well, no, he made sure to end his piece by issuing a pre-emptive declaration of “doom” for Microsoft’s Windows.

A little less than a year later, Sandberg-Diment decided that another computing trend had fizzled. This time it was the laptop computer. He noticed that nobody seemed to be carrying the once-hot portable machines anymore, and once again made plentiful use of the past tense in discussing them.

He argued that people didn’t really want to take computers with them everywhere–why would they, when it might cut into valuable newspaper-reading time?

Then he suddenly shifts course and makes a bold prediction: As laptops get cheaper and better, they’d become powerful tools for traveling salespeople and other mobile workers. Popular ones, even!

But just in case anyone thought Sandberg-Diment was a laptop enthusiast, he stated as fact that they’d remain specialty items. No matter how cheap and good they became. After all, who’d want to take one along on–drum roll!–a fishing trip?

After reading this, I did what I usually do when I need a quick reality check of typical computing habits: I turned to Twitter.

A bunch of folks reported back that they had, as I knew they would–these days, there’s no place that people don’t take computers.

Between the two Times pieces, Sandberg-Diment announced that both Windows and laptops were dead. For the record, as of late 2009, the vast majority of computers sold on the planet are…Windows laptops. (As far as I’ve been able to determine, he never wrote a column mocking the notion of online communications.)

The thing is, his conclusions weren’t completely irrational given the information he had at the time: Windowing environments available in 1984 did stink, and laptops were too pricey, bulky, and limited to serve as newspaper substitutes. It’s just that he didn’t have the imagination to see that the issues he saw would get addressed, and that people’s attitudes towards the technologies would shift. He also made the mistake of blithely issuing permanent, blanket rejections of Windows and laptops based on what he could see in 1984 and 1985, rather than being humble enough to acknowledge that computing was likely to evolve in ways he couldn’t possibly imagine.

Why am I bringing all this up now? In part because there’s nothing more entertaining than looking back at hilariously off-base pronouncements about technology. But there’s a lesson in here, too: It’s always a mistake to think you know where the hell technology is going to take us.

At the moment, for instance, some very smart people are utterly positive that Google’s Chrome OS will flop big time. But maybe anyone who’s about to write such a story should be forced to read pieces like Sandberg-Diment’s as a case study in the danger of certitude.

Ever since Windows Vista came out, Aero Glass has been one of my favorite features in the operating system. With the advent of Windows 7 which also included the Aero Glass, I has been looking out for multimedia player that fully utilize Aero Glass. (Personally I would like software developer fully utilize Aero Glass) Not to mention the nice looking eye candy, but it does make me feel that the software is an integrated part of the Windows, which is why I always prefer software that using Aero Glass.

With some deep searching and stumble upon, I have found two nice looking players (one requires mod) suitable to my taste, Foobar2000 (Audio player with mod) and Splayer (Video player).

Foobar2000 (with Foolars2 Glass mod)

I believe most of the computer users will not find Foobar2000 a stranger. Foobar2000 is famous for their lightweight, high quality sound output, and also their highly customizable interface. By default, Foobar2000 doesn’t have the skin using the Aero Glass. But after some findings, I have found one very nice looking mod for foobar2000. Check the screenshots below:

Isn’t nice and simple? This is actually a mod compiled and done by heroshade, which you can download it from his deviantart website here, which included all the components you needed for the skin. He also included an instruction note for installing the skin, so you can’t go wrong with it. Please note that the skin will only works on Foobar2000 version 0.9.5.3 and below, and I tried to install it in the latest version of Foobar2000, but it doesn’t work at all (something to do with the PanelsUI thingy), so if you wanted to try this skin on Foobar2000, get the older version of foobar2000 here (0.9.5.2).

SPlayer

Correct me if I am wrong but Splayer is developed by a chinese. I was once a codec pack fan, which I always get my computer installed with either Klite codec pack or Shark007 codec pack, which serves me well during the XP period. However, with the changing of operating system to Windows 7 64 Bit, I started to look for alternative because I wanted a player that can play-it-all without the need of installing codec pack. I tried shark007’s codec pack on my Windows 7, but it crashes my Windows explorer whenever it generating preview for all my videos, so I decided to put it away and give SPlayer a go.

SPlayer is a very simple, yet have a very strong codec supports, with of course, very nice interface. I am aware that VLC Media Player does support multiple video format as well, but I still prefer SPlayer due to the eye candies. (Who doesn’t like beautiful stuff?) With the very simple, half transparent control panel of the player (Screenshot below), SPlayer able to play almost all sort of video format, and give you the quite a lot of options for your viewing experience. It does have some pretty new experimenting features, including the Intelligent Normalizer (which help you to increase the volume automatically when it detected the voice/sound of the video is too soft), and transparent control (which make your whole video transparent) which I haven’t found a practical usage, but they are pretty interesting features.

Why Splayer? For me, I’d go for it’s simple and nice interface, with Aero Glass support, and bunch of video enhancements made available to us during the playback. Not to mention it does provide us portable version of the SPlayer, which can be used without installation, especially good for those computers that disallow installation without administrator permission. But don’t get convinced by me, check out their official comparison, and you will know why SPlayer.

So what are you waiting for? Throw away any codec packs or outdated skinned video player, and go ahead download SPlayer and see for yourself here!

Editor’s note

Hope my introduction of these two software match your taste as well. Both software works perfectly for me and they just totally replaced my pervious multimedia software (Codec pack, GOM Player, TTPlayer) without much problem. I do hope more and more software developer are able to make use of the Aero Glass as it doesn’t only let the computer user enjoy the eye candy, but it does give a feeling that the software is integrated to the Windows. All hail to Aero Glass!

Microsoft’s Surface tabletop computer team has graduated from being a pet project of founder Bill Gates to a group that stands up on its own, and contributes back into other parts of Microsoft.

That is the impression that I left with after meeting with Surface General Manager of Software and User Experience Brad Carpenter this week at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week in Los Angeles. Carpenter said that Microsoft had more than four times as many partners for Surface as it did a year ago, and that the team contributed technology to Windows 7, including applications that are installed by computer makers.

While it is true that Surface hasn’t revolutionized how the world interacts with computers yet, Microsoft is very serious about the touch-screen interface. To that point, every PDC attendee received a free touch-screen laptop to write touch-screen applications with.

Silverlight 4 also allows applications to invoke Windows touch screen interfaces, so that online puzzles can become much more interactive. And that’s just the beginning.

Carpenter said that Microsoft is working with partners in over 18 markets to help them design touch screen applications that have high payback on their investment. Some of its development partners have also begun to build components for Surface applications.

At PDC, Microsoft announced that students from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh designed an application that ported Dungeons and Dragons to Surface. A group of German programmers wrote an application that pulls up information from specialized designed business cards.

Some other recent deployments that he cited are with Hardrock Café, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, and Vodaphone, according to Carpenter.

Surface has momentum, and its tie into Windows 7 keeps it viable. It will remain a niche product, but its successes will help make it a much more common sight at your local mall.

Microsoft wants Silverlight to be optimized for every platform that it runs on, said Brian Goldfarb, director of developer and user experience platforms at Microsoft, during an interview at the company’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on Wednesday (Nov. 18).

Silverlight runs on Mac OS X and Windows; it is available on Linux through Mono Moonlight, an open source project that Microsoft supports. I also expect that Moonlight will be running on Android in near future. Goldfarb explained that it was not enough for Silverlight to “run everywhere,” but that it should “light up” specific platforms.

Microsoft needs to consider screen size and other aspects of a device, which is particularly relevant in the mobile space, he explained. There are also mobile platform features such as SMS, phone dialing, and address books that Silverlight could exploit, he added. That would allow Silverlight applications to be customized for smartphones.

Silverlight 4, which Microsoft announced at PDC, will allow applications to access Windows features, hardware, and the local file system. That allows devices such as Webcams to accessed by Silverlight. However, the same level of optimization is not currently being offering for other platforms.

Microsoft will give Silverlight “trusted” access local resources on Macs, meaning that all features work except for COM integration, Goldfarb said. More work is needed to extend Silverlight for non-Windows platforms, Goldfarb admitted, saying that the company was “thinking around” the concept of extensions.

COM is a Windows technology that enables applications that may have been written in different languages to communicate with each other. Microsoft Office makes heavy use of COM. “We are actively evaluating the best way to get COM like features on other platforms,” Goldfarb wrote in a follow up e-mail.

To that end, the company has started an open source project called Managed Extensibility Framework for .NET and Silverlight. The Mono team is working on an equivalent project, Goldfarb said. He expects that Mono will “accelerate dramatically” in the near future, delivering more features to Linux users.

I expect that anything but Windows will be a second-class Silverlight citizen for some time. But Microsoft is making strides toward delivering an optimized experience on other platforms, and in doing so, will gain a foothold on the Web beyond Windows.

New Google Inc software will start up a computer as fast as a television can be turned on, the search company said on Thursday as it showed off its Chrome operating system designed for PCs that do their work on the Web.

 Google gave the first public look at its Chrome OS four months after declaring its intention of developing the PC’s main software, a move that pits it directly against Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc.

 True to Google’s Internet-pedigree, the Chrome OS resembles a Web browser more than it does a traditional computer operating system like Microsoft Windows, matching Google’s ambition to drive people to the Web – where they can see Google ads.

 Google said the software will initially be available by the holiday season of 2010 on low-cost netbooks that meet Google’s hardware specifications, such as using only memory chips to store data instead of slower hard drives, the current standard.

 Netbooks running Chrome OS will only be able to run Web applications and the user’s data will automatically be stored on the Web in the so-called cloud of Internet servers, Google executives said at an event at the company’s Mountain View, California headquarters on Thursday.

 ”It’s basically a Web browsing machine,” said Altimeter Group analyst Charlene Li, referring to the netbooks powered by Chrome OS.

 Such a machine is made for a world of near-constant, extremely fast Web connection, without the type of software that made Microsoft famous, since most of the work would be done by big machines on the Web which take directions and send information to relatively uncomplicated devices like a Chrome PC.

 Sundar Pichai, vice-president of product management for Google’s Chrome OS, said that computers running Chrome OS will be able to start in less than seven seconds.

 ”From the time you press boot you want it to be like a TV: You turn it on and you should be on the Web using your applications,” Pichai said.

If you are thinking of buying a computer then you need to know every thing about it including its accessories. It has been seen that people know only a few details about computers. They are content by knowing only about its hardware, software and processing details, and never give a thought about the accessories that are needed or used along with the computer. The following paragraphs summarize the work of computer accessories experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of computer accessories. If you follow their advice you can avoid any confusion in buying computer accessories surprises.

Yesterday, we spent about three hours trying to convince a client of ours that brand new computers just don’t come equipped with the all things that most computers need in a PC. We tried to convince him that a fully functional computer is one that is personalized with specially selected hardware and software accessories – and that the computer purchased at the store doesn’t come with these things. Unfortunately, all of our convincing was to our avail. Our client insisted that he should never need more than what came with his boxed product and that we were just trying “bilk” more money out of him.

As computer consultants, it’s our job and mission to make sure our clients are 100% satisfied when they walk out our offices. But our job is unnecessarily made harder when people don’t take the time to learn about computer accessories and familiarize themselves with the limitations of store-bought computers. Hopefully by the time you finish reading this article, you’ll understand the lesson that we were trying to teach our client: “What comes out of the box is really just a starter kit.”

I trust that what you’ve read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.

The typical computer package comes with a CPU unit, keyboard, mouse, and speaker set. That may be just fine for some, but most people require more than that especially in today’s “connected” society. Today’s users require full multimedia capabilities, a wide range of graphics tools, and accommodations for the various portables we now enjoy. These extras aren’t included with “what comes out of the box,” and the only way to get them is to accessorize.

To illustrate the importance of accessorizing, we like to use the “plain dough” analogy. Let’s say that a brand new computer is a batch of plain dough – waiting to be flavored and baked into something useful. If we want to use this dough to make a delicious batch of chocolate chip cookies, we would need to “accessorize” this dough with chocolate chips and a little brown sugar. If we want to use this dough into in a warm loaf of sesame seed bread on the other hand, we’d need to “accessorize” the dough with yeast and sesame seeds.

Like “plain dough,” the brand new computer isn’t very useful by itself. It needs accessorizing.

Depending on what’s needed, accessorizing doesn’t need to be expensive.  In fact, you can get away with paying a minimal amount for extra software and hardware if these accessories are for children. It’s when these accessories are work requirements or when they’re needed to produce works of quality for any other reason that they can become rather expensive. And this expense applies to microphones, digital cameras, PDAs, scanners, video cams, and more.

Regardless of cost, it’s important to understand that accessories can become “necessities,” and that the best time to get them is the moment you buy a new computer. Waiting too long to accessorize can cause more problems than necessary because while you wait, manufacturers continuously develop new technologies – technologies that your computer won’t be able to accommodate in the future. Once you’re ready to accessorize, the new products on the market are too advanced for your computer and they just won’t work. This is a typical problem experienced by those who want to use hardware designed for Windows Vista on a Windows XP or Windows 2000 machine.

I hope that reading the above information was both enjoyable and educational for you. Your learning process should be ongoing–the more you understand about any subject, the more you will be able to share with others.

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Microsoft Online Services is the perfect internet solution to start your small business. Microsoft Online Sharepoint Services, Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft Windows Live Meeting, Microsoft Communications Services Online. Then add Microsoft Live Services for a free website, Microsoft Office Online,  Live Services for storing files and easy collaboration. MSN brings Small Business Startup info, stock info and anything else you could need. If you can’t find it there you will find it on Microsoft Bing. Free Business Templates for Accounting, Payroll, Inventory and various templates, clipart for your Small Business Start Up are available for Microsoft Office in the Online Help in each Help Menu for free download. Microsoft is a winning combination for any start up business bringing Enterprise tools to the small business start up.

If you use Windows 7 and haven’t taken our satisfaction survey yet, I beseech you: Please take a few minutes and tell us about your experiences. We’re going to close the survey shortly and can use all the real-world data we can get. Thanks!

Microsoft’s latest operating system is simply known as Windows 7. Though it won’t be available in stores until October 22, 2009, many people have had the chance to try it out through its open beta stages and Microsoft making the release candidate available to download for free. Windows Vista was very buggy upon release, so while Microsoft did fix it and make it very stable with Service Pack 1, it still got bad reviews from users and made inefficient use of resources. So, to try and remedy such problems, Microsoft is releasing its next operating system only two years after its last.

The Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Garry_Knight]Garry Knight

Microsoft’s latest operating system is simply known as Windows 7. Though it won’t be available in stores until October 22, 2009, many people have had the chance to try it out through its open beta stages and Microsoft making the release candidate available to download for free. Windows Vista was very buggy upon release, so while Microsoft did fix it and make it very stable with Service Pack 1, it still got bad reviews from users and made inefficient use of resources. So, to try and remedy such problems, Microsoft is releasing its next operating system only two years after its last.

From Windows ‘95 up until Window ME, the look of Windows didn’t really change. Windows XP saw a major overhaul in the desktop theme however, as did its successor Windows Vista. Windows 7 will also bring with it a new theme, that looks much more smooth and streamlined than even Vista does.

Of course, a new look isn’t the only big change in Windows 7. Windows 7 also runs a lot smoother, making better use of your system’s resources. In fact, many people have even said that it will run well on netbooks. That’s good news for Microsoft because before, Linux operating systems were a popular choice for netbooks and it will allow them to capture more of that market.

Other features of Windows 7 include brand new desktop shortcuts for managing open windows. One of them is if you have multiple windows showing on your desktop at the same time, then if you grab and shake on window, all of the windows in the background will minimize. Also, if you drag a window to the top of the screen, its size will increase to take up the entire screen. Likewise, if you drag a full-sized window from the top of the screen, its size will decrease. Another very helpful shortcut for managing the size of your windows, is that if you drag a window to one side of the screen, it’s size will change to take up that half of the screen, which is very helpful if you need to look at two windows at the same time.

Another excellent feature added to Windows 7 is its increased taskbar functionality from Vista. The way windows are grouped in it is vastly improved, and the window preview functionality has also increased, allowing you to close the windows now by clicking the “x” in the preview.

Another complaint that has been becoming more common as user move away from using Internet Explorer to alternatives such as Mozilla Firefox and Opera, is that you cannot uninstall Internet Explorer. Now Windows 7 will allow you to remove Internet Explorer, to the delight of many people.

As you can see, the improvements to Windows 7 from Windows Vista will possibly make it the operating system of choice companies and single users alike. Before now, while Windows Vista is very popular, many people still stuck with Windows XP. If Microsoft can indeed get those users to switch to Windows 7, then they will probably see a very nice increase in their market share.

Visit the [http://windows7news.com/]Windows 7 news website for more information about Windows 7. You find there interesting resources like the [http://windows7news.com/windows-7-theme/]Windows 7 themes repository.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Garry_Knight http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Microsoft-Windows-7-Operating-System&id=2991532

SkyDrive Explorer

SkyDrive Explorer adds 25gb of free cloud storage to Windows Explorer

A lot of people overlook Microsoft’s SkyDrive for free, web-based file storage and sharing. Still, it’s tough to argue with 25gb of free space for your digital goodies that you can access from anywhere.

SkyDrive Explorer is a free shell enhancement for Windows that makes it even better.

Once you install SkyDrive Explorer, you’ll see a new icon in My Computer (under “Other”). Double click it to open your drive, and a Live login window will appear. Sign in and you’ve got full-on access to SkyDrive right from Windows Explorer. Add files and folders, move things around, delete old junk – all as if they were stored on your local hard drive.

I’d like to see the app allow access to SkyDrive from open and save dialogs, but it’s a great addition to Windows even without that functionality.

SkyDrive Explorer runs on both 32 and 64-bit Windows.

Here’s a handful of Windows 7 Keyboard shortcuts!

Win + Up Arrow – Maximize

Win + Down Arrow – Minimize

Win + Left Arrow – Snap to Left

Win + Right Arrow – Snap to Right

Win + Home – Restore or minimize all other windows

Win + T – Press once to focus the first taskbar entry; press again to cycle through taskbar entries

Win + hold Space Bar  – Peek at the desktop

Win + G – Bring gadgets forward to the top

Win + any number key (1-9) – Open a program on the taskbar. (The number corresponds to the pinned program’s location.)

Win + + (plus sign) – Zoom in

Win + – (minus sign) – Zoom Out

Uranium Backup Free

Backup through direct copy or with zip compression on local/network hard drives, NAS servers, iOmega REV drives, external USB/Firewire/SATA hard drives, network computers, etc…
Limitations compared to Base version: it cannot make FTP backup, it hasn’t the possibility of delete old files in synchronization, it can’t be run as a Service, it cannot create zip files bigger than 4 GB (Zip64), there isn’t technical support.

Other versions:

• Base: Price ~80 € (VAT excluded)
• Pro Tape: Price ~150 € (VAT excluded)

Homepage:
http://www.uraniumbackup.com/index-en.aspx

Download page:
http://www.uraniumbackup.com/download-software-backup-freeware-en.aspx

**Updated 23/11/2009

Jeremy Thake (@jthake) advised me that this service is required for the ‘User Profiles Synchronization Service’ in SP2010 and that if you disable it then this won’t work. Decide whether you are going to need this feature before you disable this. I am not sure why it slows down the OS so much when booting up.

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I recently installed the betas of SharePoint Foundation 2010  on top of Windows 7 and full SharePoint Server 2010 on to Server 2008 R2. One problem I found is that after you have rebooted the machine a couple of times it becomes very slow to startup.

At first I thought it was just because I was running SP2010 on a machine with only 4gb of ram and that was just the nature of the beast. When I opened Task Manager though it told a different story – the service ‘FIMSyncronizationService (Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service)’ was still trying to start and slowing the whole machine down. Once this service was stopped the machine continued booting into windows.

The service never seemed to start properly and I am assuming this is only needed if you want to use the full Forefront product with SharePoint.

I have now disabled this service using ‘Services.msc’ and SharePoint 2010 is still working fine. I would recommend anyone with the same issue who is not using Forefront to stop and disable this service from loading.

Hope this helps

On November 20:

1620 – Peregrine White,  was born – first English child born in the Plymouth Colony.

1765  Sir Thomas Fremantle, British naval captain, was born.

1820 An 80-ton sperm whale attacked the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story).

1889  Edwin Hubble, American astronomer, was born.

1900 – Chester Gould, American comic strip artist, creator of Dick Tracey, was born.

1908 – Alistair Cooke, British-born journalist, was born.

1910 Francisco I. Madero issued the Plan de San Luis Potosi, denouncing President Porfirio Díaz, calling for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico, effectively starting the Mexican Revolution.

1917 Ukraine was declared a republic.

1925 Robert F. Kennedy, American politician was born.

1942  Joe Biden, 47th Vice President of the United States, was born.

1945 Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals started at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.

1947 Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey.

1956 – Bo Derek, American actress, was born.

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis ended: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ended the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

1975 Francisco Franco, Caudillo of Spain, died after 36 years in power.

1985 Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released.

1992 A fire broke out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.

2008 After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level since 1997.

1937 Parachuting Santa, George Sellars, narrowly escaped serious injury when he was able to sway his parachute just in time to avoid crashing through the glass roof of the Winter Gardens during the Farmers’ Christmas parade.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

At last, after a few days from PDC 2009, Microsoft has released their Microsoft Office 2010 beta as promised for public download. If you can’t wait to try the latest Microsoft Office, just go ahead and download and see for yourself. (Registration required) Below is the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/download-office-professional-plus/default.aspx

So before downloading the software suite, let’s have a look which software is included in this beta bits:

So more or less everything needed by either a businessman or a student are there. I am pretty excited to try them out since I am one of their Technical Preview participant, and it’s a good thing that this can be downloaded by everyone (like Windows 7 Beta and RC). I don’t know but I had respect more to Microsoft now as they started to listen to users, instead of doing what they like. Good job Microsoft! (and the little Mr. Gates)

Well I have just got out of a meeting with a few different people that are involved with different aspects of my new role, a meet and greet occasion if you will. I have come to the conclusion that with yesterday’s conclusions, I have hit the nail on the head. It would seem that the client wants to develop themselves both technically, and professionally. It would also seem that they want taking to the cutting edge of everything, without having to spend any money or put any effort in. The more time I spend thinking about this; the more it begins to look like a big tick-box exercise.

It is all too common for clients to want wonderful things doing on a shoestring budget – this is something that anybody working IT & Project Management unfortunately must get used to. However, this time, they seem completely unwilling to help their own progression whatsoever. For a while it would seem they have drifted along, fire fighting some issues, ignoring others all together, and not planning or developing anything. This is not acceptable and is something I must make every effort to change, once I have figured out a way to do it quietly – after all if I just let them know that they may have to start working for a living, I’m sure I would have a revolt to deal with!

After a very quick drink last night, I began to outline, for my own benefit, exactly the areas that I think need the most attention. As I did this, I became glad that I am not working on this project to make friends. This I feel would be uneventful. Here is what I came up with:

- Procurement: The current procurement procedures (and I use the term procedures very lightly you understand), are a complete mess. Nobody seems to know who is responsible for what, how things should be correctly ordered, audited, or integrated into the existing system. Speaking only on behalf of the IT Systems, this has led to a very fragmented network, with no standardisation or automated management ability.

- Staffing Structure: Again, the current state of the staffing hierarchy is a complete mess. I made this point very clear this morning and nobody could think of e decent argument – so I think I got my point across. When something new has been bought in without consideration or consultation (due to the lack of procurement procedure), a new job role is normally created along with it. People are bought in on the cheap with the hope that they may have the beginnings of a clue what it is they are doing. Nobody, again, is aware of who is exactly responsible for what, or even who. I can see about a 30% overhead on staffing that could be eliminated immediately. This is going to be a harder point to put across. The meeting his morning was a prime example of both unorganised structure and organisation, there were at least 3 people present who had no need to be there other than to get out of doing something productive themselves. Ironically enough, I did note that these three were the only ones with any real input (albeit irrelevant).

- SLA’s: There is little or no sign of any service level agreements (SLAs) that may greatly benefit the department and company as a whole. I have worked closely with several companies forming and implementing SLA’s (including for educational establishments with the FITS Framework), so this is a key area where I feel I will be able to improve upon.

As I mentioned earlier, I am so very glad that I am not here to make friends, and although now only working through my second day, know that hard times are ahead in the not so distant future. I have another meeting this afternoon with a few advertising specialists. Quite what this has to do with my role and how much use it is going to be to me I will wait and see.

Well it’s day one of my new contract, and I have been presented with a Dell Inspiron 1750. This is used, not as an example of the amazing technology I get to have experience with, but one of exactly how much of a challenge I believe I will soon be facing. The laptop is reflective of the current procurement procedures and management, and hence, exactly why I have been bought in to advise the IT Services department on their decisions, management, and operational procedures.

Let’s start with a quick overview of the laptop, before we get into the business trivialities it presents. It is the first laptop with a 17” screen that I have ever spent any real time with, and as predicted, it is far too big. It’s perfect for home use and if you never plan to take it anywhere further than to the other side of your desk. For corporate use, the benefit of the extra screen size is far outweighed by increased size, weight, and decreased battery life and portability. I can see this machine either staying at my desk in London, or at home. I plan to continue traveling with either my 15” MacBook Pro, or even my smaller 12.1” Sony Vaio.

Now down to the heart of the matter. The Inspiron is a strange choice to have made for a large scale corporate network, regardless of how big the screen is. Dell does a fantastic line in business machines (with the less aesthetically pleasing, but fantastic to use Precision and Latitude range). This would be where my money would have gone if buying a Dell laptop for a business environment. The strange purchasing decisions evidently did not stop here either, with the lower end of the range being bought (coming pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Edition). Not only did whoever put the order in, pay extra to have Windows Vista installed, rather than Windows 7, but having the Home Edition of an operating system will all but stop the laptop interacting with the company network correctly. The first thing I did was make my life easier, by installing my copy of Windows 7, and joining the company domain.

The exact thinking that must have gone into this purchase mystified and intrigued me, so I did a little bit of investigation. The results of my investigations were not quite what I was expecting them to be. The company is currently running with a Windows Server 2003 based infrastructure. I knew this part already, as one of the things I am here to oversee and project manage is the transition to a Windows Server 2008 based system.  However, some of the IT Management have been arguing that because 2003 cannot properly support Windows 7 as a member of a domain (which it can; but that’s another matter), there was no point in bringing any of the new mobile equipment onto the network. For a start, even if this was to be correct, why pay extra for an antiquated operating system? And secondly, a network incapable of properly supporting Windows 7, will usually be in a similar state for Vista as well.

I can see that the next 18 months is going to be a very interesting and time consuming experience. I’m sure that I am going to deeply upset a few people very quickly indeed – things need sorting, and soon.