You have Windows 7 operating system and want to enjoy your high speed Internet connection on many computers or you want to share it with your friends who live nearby you? Windows7News will show you how to use this functionality in Windows 7 with the help of Connectify. This software will indeed transform your computer into an internet access point, the only thing you need is a WiFi card. Here are the steps you have to follow to make this work:

Step 1: Make sure first that your WiFi card is enabled by going to Control Panel, Network and Internet, View Network computers and devices, right click on your WiFi card and then choose Enable. If you WiFi card is already enabled don’t change anything and continue to next step.

Step 1: Download Connectify for Windows 7.

Step 2: Run the installation file and accept the license agreement, the installation in simple and only takes a few seconds. During installation your computer will probably have to restart few times so don’t worry about that.

Step 3: Now once installation is finished, start Connectify. If an update for Connectify is available, make sure you download it and update the software. Then run the program.

Step 4: Your previously enabled wireless device is automatically detected. Then you must enter the name of your wireless network.

Step 5: A password of at least 8 characters is required. This will serve users to connect to your access point.

Step 6: Once the password is set, below password field you will have to choose which internet connection you want to share, click on dropdown men and select one.

Step 7: Then click Star a Hotspot button. It may take a minute or two until its setup.

Step 8: Once it’s done. Windows Security Alert may popup, choose Allow Access.

Here you are now with your own WiFi access point type WPA2-DSK. It is accessible from the list of wireless networks Network and Sharing Center, make sure you provide the password to people you want to share the connection with!

Note for those users with an Intel WiFi card, a simple driver’s update can in most cases, activate Windows 7 Virtual WiFi so you can benefit from the ability to turn your computer into an Internet Access Point without having to go through Connectify. Also make sure your WiFi network is secure, and always pay attention who is connected on your network and who is using your internet connection.

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A few blogs ago, I posted about Microsoft’s 10^th anniversary with their Trustworthy Computing. Now the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) format is clear. For Microsoft, whose challenge is to lead the software community in ways to combat cybercrime, the SDL is their way of introducing a rational plan to meet that goal.

Security managers and enterprises should follow six practices. Training involves secure design, threat modeling, secure coding and testing, and privacy. All software should meet these initial conditions in order to establish a baseline of operations.

Security Requirements

Then there are security requirements. Meaning that these issues should be upfront and not as an afterthought. If the security element is upfront, then the design will be different than if it occurred as an afterthought. Questions must be asked such as which portions of the project will require models or design reviews before release.

Design Practices

Next are the design practices. Here it is imperative that security managers establish design requirements. These include the creation of security and privacy design specifications, and a specification review, and specification of minimal cryptographic design requirements. How these get implemented and where in the program is important. So having a handle on the approach beforehand will be necessary to making the effort a success.

Implementation Practices

Implementation practices are important. After the development of the software, the development team mandates and enforces best practices to be followed for the duration of the project. This prohibits variation and presents consistency in the result. This way if there is a problem, they will know where it came from. If there wasn’t a best practices portfolio, then failures could come from more than part of the program, without the ability to zero-in on the fault.

Release Practices

Finally, release practices must be available. That means that the team must create the incident response plan, perform the final security review and archive all pertinent data for post-release servicing of the software. In this way they can anticipate issues and not be surprised if customers do complain. It also means having a standby system to correct the faults.

Source: Microsoft Security LifeCycle Fact Sheet

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There are E-mail Privacy Issues associated with Google. If you didn’t know this, Google Chrome and Gmail, and Google Apps read everything that you put in there. If you are worried about your privacy, then Google’s apps are not what you want to use because they get information from you. If you use Gmail, be aware that they actually read the contents of your mail (both sent and received, even if you aren’t a Gmail user but just sending to someone who is) in order to decide what kind of ads to serve up to you.

And their search engine, Chrome, interacts with the e-mail, which most of the time is up all day long. This ties the searches to your email account, and they read that too.

Furthermore, if you visit YouTube, they get connected to the same e-mail profile and once again that information is stored on Google’s servers.

Hotmail and Office 365

If you don’t like those scenarios, then you should give a second look to Hotmail of Office 365. Hotmail doesn’t deliver adds to you based on your content, nor does it change search results based on your email content, and your video watches don’t come into a database at Microsoft. In other words, your stuff is your stuff, not Microsoft’s.

The same goes for Office 365, which is Microsoft’s answer to app operations on the Cloud.  On Office 365, you can create

Word, or Excel information and access it from anywhere in the world. Since the information is stored on a Microsoft Data Center, it would be easy for Microsoft to access it. But they don’t. Once again, your stuff is your stuff.

This is in sharp contrast to Google’s view that they can use your content to send you ads targeted specifically to your search quests. Will this get Google into trouble? With the law? At this point concerns have been raised about what will Google do with the information, and they are trying to back stall some of the criticisms. But Microsoft doesn’t have those issues.

Download Hotmail

Download Office365

Source: Microsoft Blog

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In this article you’ll learn how to use Windows Live Mesh and share folders in SkyDrive. As well, you will learn how to personalize each computer in your Live Mesh setup by changing their name and picture symbol for easier identification.

But first let’s take a closer look at Sky Drive.

What is SkyDrive?

• Sky Drive is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services, and uses Windows Live ID to control access to files, allowing users to create files, store files, and make them publicly available.
• SkyDrive allows users to upload files to Cloud Storage on the Web and then access them using a Web browser. It is directly accessible via Live Mail and Hotmail or using Windows Live Mesh. 
  
  

  SkyDrive in Action

• SkyDrive allows users to store Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents within the Web browser.
• SkyDrive provides 25 GB of free personal on-line storage, with individual files limited to 100 MB. Files are listed as private or public and can be shared with contacts.
• SkyDrive files can be viewed and edited in Microsoft Office and new files created within this environment.

Sharing folders on the Web (using SkyDrive)

Here’s how you go about storing a folder on SkyDrive.

1.      Open Windows Live Mesh.

2.      In the opening screen, select the folder to be synced.

Selecting a folder to Sync

3.      This expands the synced folder showing more information. On the right-hand side, click Select devices.

Selecting Devices

4.      A new window “Where do you want to sync …” opens.

5.      Check the box against SkyDrive synced storage and then click the Ok button.

Selecting SkyDrive

6.      In the next screen, the Folder is synced with SkyDrive.

Folder synced with SkyDrive

Checking the Synced Folder in SkyDrive

Checking Up

Fine Tuning Windows Live Mesh

To save confusion and to show their type you can change the name and picture symbol for each computer you are using Windows Live Mesh. It is a simple matter to change the name and the picture for each computer.

1.      Set all your computers running, in the main computer select Go to Windows Live Devices.

Accessing Windows Live Devices

2.      Windows Live opens showing all registered Devices.

Note: In this illustration there are four computers all listed and running under Windows Live Mesh. Each has the same name and the same picture associated with each it. Confusing!

Four Computers looking alike!

Well, Windows Live Mesh allows you to customize the registered computers so you can create a meaningful name and have a more suitable picture associated with it.

3.     You can personalize each one changing the Name and the picture symbol. To do this select one and click Personalize.

4.      Enter a more appropriate name and change the illustration to suit.

5.      Click the Save button. Do this for each one in turn.

The Personalize Window

6.      Once you make these changes the new-look Synced Computers will be easily identified.

Newly Personalized Computers

So there you have it, You have changed to look of the computers in Live Mesh so they are easily identified.

Windows Live Mesh is well worth taking a closer look!

Latest Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 3 – Using SkyDrive is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

In my previous article, Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 1, I dealt with installing Windows Live Mesh and left it at that.

Using Windows Live Mesh

Now it’s time to put Windows Live Mesh through its paces sharing some folders/files with other computers in a network.

Starting Off

1.      Open Windows Live Mesh.

2.      The computer you are working on is identified.

3.      Your next task is to include any other computers on your network. To do this, select “Go to Windows Live Devices”. By the way, Sky Drive (Microsoft’s Cloud feature) is active once you log on and ready to go but more of this in my next article.

Go to Windows Live Devices

Note: To access other computers within your home network you must have installed and added Windows Live Mesh from Windows Live Essentials. This requires you to have either a Hotmail or a Live Mail account and to be signed in on the other computer(s) too. When you have done this Live Mesh will open showing your base computer, the one you are working on, and the target computer(s).

Computers for Live Sync

You are now ready to sync a selected file on your base computer which will appear on the target computer.

Syncing folders between Networked Computers

1.      Turn on your second computer. This will be the one you want to share folders with.

2.      Next, activate Windows Live Mesh on both computers.

3.      On your second computer you’ll be asked to log on, use Windows Live or a Hotmail account.

Note: If you haven’t got either you’ll need to create an account.

4.      Now back in the main computer, select Sync a folder.

5.      Windows Live Mesh displays all available locations on your computer.

6.      Double-click My Documents folder and select the sub-folder you want synced. 

8.      The Select Devices window opens.

9.      In the “Where do you want to sync . . . “window check the locations and click the Ok button.

10.   Windows Live Mesh reappears displaying the newly synced folder.

 11.   Now move to your second computer and check to see that Windows Live Mesh has done as you wish.

Note: When syncing a sub-folder within My Documents folder on your second computer, the newly synced folder will be added to My Documents folder.

You have successfully synced a folder on a computer network.

Un-syncing a folder

If you want to stop synchronizing a folder in any of the networked computers or SkyDrive do the following:

1.      Click the folder to be unsynced. This shows its details.

2.      In the expanded view, click Select Devices. 

3.      The Select Devices window opens. Uncheck SkyDrive and click the Ok button. 

4.      Back in the Windows Live Mesh window when you re-select the synced folder, you’ll see SkyDrive is no longer listed in Sync On. 

Now you know about Windows Live Mesh and its features sharing files and folders is a breeze. Happy synching!

In my final article, I’ll show you how use the web storage facility, SkyDrive, another location to sync folders. In addition you’ll learn how to personalize the synced computers in a network. 

Latest Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 2 – Windows Live Mesh is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

When you have two or more computers and you want to share important files between them there are several ways you can do this.

Method 1 & 2     Using your Wireless Connection

Providing you have a wireless connection you can use either HomeGroup or Network connections.

HomeGroup

Network

Method 3            Purchase a Belkin USB File Transfer Cable

Another way is to buy a Belkin USB Transfer Cables. This allows you to quickly transfer files from one computer to another.

The beauty of this cable setup is you can copy folders/ files from PC to PC without the need to install drivers for the operating systems. It is particularly useful for mobile users wishing to transfer files such as photos, music, videos, documents and many other files from their main computer to their laptop and vice versa. Once you make the connection it is a simple drag-and-drop operation.

Despite the high-speed transfers this equipment provides, it is a pain to have to do this if you have two or more computers as I do. So this takes me to the next option – Windows Live Mesh.

Belkin USB Transfer Cable

Method 4            Using Windows Live Mesh

This in my opinion is the most efficient way of keeping all your computers up-to-date. When you make changes to files in a Synched folder on the main computer the file is automatically updated in the target computer(s).

Windows Live Mesh in Action

A Brief History of Windows Live Mesh

Curious about its origins I checked it out in Wikipedia. This is a brief summary of the developmental history of Windows Live Mesh.

• November 3, 2005 – Microsoft bought FolderShare from ByteTaxi Inc. on, making it part of their new Windows Live feature.
• March 10, 2008 – Microsoft released its updated version renaming it Windows Live FolderShare.
•  April 23, 2008 – Microsoft released the Live Mesh technology preview. The data synchronization system allowed files, folders and other data to be shared and synchronized across PCs and up to 5 GB on the web.

Note: The Live Mesh software was made available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and other platforms. It included a cloud storage component, called Live Desktop, an online storage service, allowing synchronized folders to be accessible via a website.

• June 24, 2010 – Microsoft released a beta version Windows Live Sync “Wave 4″.
• August 17, 2010, – August 29, 2010, after some more updates, the service was officially re-branded, Windows Live Mesh. The cloud-based SkyDrive synced storage was increased to 5 GB.
• September 30, 2010 – The final version of Windows Live Mesh 2011 (Wave 4) was released on as part of Windows Live Essentials 2011.

 Installing Windows Live Mesh

1. As Windows Live Mesh is part of the Windows Live Essentials package you need to go to this Microsoft website: www.explorelive.com/windows-live-essentails
2. When the website opens look for the small box labelled “Get Windows Live Essentials and select “Download now”.
3. Select Run.
4. Your UAC will most likely intervene, select Ok.
5. In the “What do you want to install” window choose which components you want. Check Windows Live Mesh and select Install.
6. When the installation is complete in the “Done!” box, click Close.
7. In your All Programs menu you will find Windows Live listed. Select it. pic 7

 Note: If you are using Windows 8 Preview Windows, Windows Live Mesh will be featured on the Metro menu.

Note:  If you are running Windows 7 or earlier you will find it listed within Windows Live Essentials under All Programs.

Tip! Windows 8 Preview

In the Metro menu, right-click on Windows Live Mesh’s button and in the lower section of the Metro screen select Advanced button. When the pop-up menu appears, choose Pin to the Taskbar. In future when you want to use it click this icon on the Taskbar.

Tip! Windows 7

For easy access to Windows Live Mesh, open All Programs menu, select Windows Live Essentials and in the sub-menu right-click on Windows Live Mesh and in the pop-up menu choose, Pin to Taskbar. In future when you want to use it click this icon on the Taskbar.

In my next article I’ll deal with setting up Windows Live Mesh with my other networked computers and saving data on Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

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I’m sure many of you are familiar with the features in most browsers which let you reopen tabs that you may have accidentally closed. However such a feature doesn’t exist in Windows 7 for reopening programs and windows that you may have accidentally closed. UndoClose is a great little application that will add that feature to Windows 7 for you.

This great little program is from Addictive Tips and logs all the programs that you’ve closed on your computer. And then it’s got hotkeys assigned that lets you reopen these windows, in the same order that you closed them. It runs in the background the whole time and uses 35 MB of memory, but if you’re running a large number of apps and folders this will increase so it’s worth taking that into account.

The program also knows to distinguish between explorer windows and actual program windows. It’s got two different hot keys for restoring the two different types of windows

Ctrl + Shift + F = Reopen folders
Ctrl + Shift + P = Reopen programs

This really is a very handy little program, the only drawback with it is that it can’t distinguish between different windows within a program. For example if you have you IM client running and have a few different chat windows open, it will only be able to identify the main IM clients window and not the extra chat ones.

All in all it’s a nifty little program and if you’ve got a high powered machine and aren’t worried about using up a tiny bit more memory I think it’s well worth having.

You can see a detailed video explaining how to use it below as well as the download link

You can download it here

Source:

Addictive tips

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Android 4.0 is the most recent operating system from Google that’s been dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s a slick looking UI that’s becoming quite popular on tablets as of late. Well Flickr user David Molina wanted to bring the beauty of Ice Cream Sandwich to his desktop. So he set about tweaking a few things and downloading a few bits. The final result is a very Ice Cream Sandwichy looking desktop as seen below

Unfortunately it’s not that straight forward a process. It’s not as simple as downloading and installing a Windows 7 theme. Instead you’ll have to download and set up the following wallpapers, fonts and applications

• The Ice Cream Sandwich wallpaper from WallBase
• The APPOWS2010 theme for Windows 7 from DeviantArt to tweak the taskbar
• RocketDock with a blank theme to create the dock on the left side
• The Ice Cream Sandwich Icon Pack from DroidPirate
• The Rainmeter system monitor and configuration tool for Windows
• The Minimal Bar skin for Rainmeter to display the time and date
• The Lexis skin for Rainmeter to display the weather
• Simplesentencethree for Rainmeter for the currently playing music display in the lower-right corner
• The Google Search Bar for Rainmeter
• The Roboto Font (specifically Roboto Light)

(Thanks to lifehacker for putting together that list)

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We’ve heard about the recent attempts by the US Congress to pass legislation regarding downloads. It seems that the legislation is on hold after an outcry that surprised most Congressional leaders. One of the larger issues involved is privacy because, users expect a certain amount of privacy while they surf the net. And going to websites for download purposes would expose that user. In a larger sense, privacy also involves data protection and application protection. In that vein, Microsoft has recently been involved with this issue.

Data Privacy Day

On January 28, Data Privacy Day will be celebrated. This is an international holiday with the purpose to raise awareness and promote privacy education. The National Cyber Security Alliance is coordinating and promoting the event within the United States and Canada. Given some of the recent events, involving Anonymous and potential Congressional legislation it is good to harken back and look at the environment. At the event Microsoft speakers will be addressing Microsoft’s Tracking Protection software.

Tracking Protection

Tracking Protection lets you filter out content in a page that may have an impact on your privacy. As you know, many webpages include content from other (third-party) websites. This program helps you identify different types of content.

How it Works

When content is loaded from a third-party site, standard information, including your IP address and the address of the webpage you’re viewing is sent to each of the third-parties that have content in the page you’re viewing. If the website you’re visiting has a business relationship with the third party, then more information about you may be sent. Then over time, these third parties can build a profile of your browsing history by using “cookies” and other techniques.

But now, you can filter out content from any website by using Tracking Protection Lists. So, you can have “Do Not Call” lists for content. When you add a Tracking Protection List, Internet Explorer will prevent your information from being sent by limiting data requests to websites in the list.

Tracking Protection and Do not track

Tracking protection is not the same as do not track. They are complimentary. The most important difference is that the Do Not Track protocol is an honor system. When a consumer attaches a “do not track” imperative, they hope that sites will honor their request to contain tracking. But this is an ongoing issue. Because what sites must do to in order to honor that request is still under discussion. Also, it is not clear who is to monitor and enforces that, and how. There is a sort of honor’s pledge that sites make, but it is not enforceable. Consequently for some people that that’s not enough. That being the case, if an honor system can’t resolve the issue, then perhaps put the focus on the consumer to derail any information from being perpetrated. That said, that is why Microsoft is advancing Tracking Protection. Microsoft’s trusted data tracking protection only works with IE9.

The Tracking Protection Working Group Charter

Tracking Protection is now a standard under development at the W3C and the momentum over the last year has been encouraging. Indeed, according to Microsoft, when they released IE9, there were only five tracking protection lists available. However, several months later, there are over twenty lists worldwide from six different groups.

One group, EasyList is an open community effort to help filter unwanted content. It is available as a Tracking Protection List. They have had over 250,000 subscriptions to their list.

Another list comes from TRUSTe who is one of four preferred providers of TPLs used for the new IE9 Tracking Protection feature. Their Data Collection is a new program for ad and data companies that collect consumer data on other company websites or use data collected to show more relevant ads. This program certifies the notice, choice, and privacy practices around data collection and usage.

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Now the holiday period is over hacker attacks on popular services on the Internet are beginning again. For example Ghacks.net website reports an attack on the popular Web Hoster Dreamboat while here in Australia BigPond.com copped a serious attack on 9 December. It involved a password breach in their customer’s email accounts causing them to shut down the system. This involved up to 60,000 Telstra customers who had to change their account passwords as their personal details were exposed on the internet. The lockout lasted over 24 hours and affected more than one million users. Such attacks are commonplace and this leads me to suggest you regularly change your password for important accounts and email access.

Internet Explorer also can be a problem as it offers you the option of saving your password which I reject not wanting to compromise my computer system.

Nagging reminder!

Delete Browsing History

Windows Internet Explorer 9 stores seven types of information when you browse the web. Some of this can prejudice your computer’s security. These are the areas of concern:

• Cookies
• History
• Form Data
• Passwords.

I regularly use the Delete Browsing History option in the Tools menu of Internet Explorer. Of the four areas of concern the most important option to check is “saved passwords”. Do this at the very least!

Generally, I err on the side of caution and check all boxes before selecting Delete. Now some will say this is unnecessary as you lose useful information but this does not bother me. I prefer to give my computer the full treatment and not suffer the consequences of a cyber-attack. I do this at least once a month.

Browsing History Options

Change Your Password Regularly

Good advice from most computer experts and online security professionals recommend that you change your Internet passwords and account login information at least once every three months. If you surf the web regularly it makes sense to follow this advice. For an infrequent surfer it may be safe for you to wait longer, but everything depends on your computer habits, the how and where you go on the web. Not all sites are safe!

Microsoft provides a useful service allowing you to check the level of security when you decide on a new password. Remember, a strong password is an important protection for safer online transactions.

The website is as follows:

www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/passwords-create.aspx

This is the advice they offer.

To create a strong password, consider these aspects:

• Length – ensue your passwords contain eight or more characters.
• Complexity – include letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers. The more variety of characters in your password, the better.
• Variation – to keep strong passwords effective, change them often particularly for your email, banking, and credit card websites.
• Variety – never use the same password for everything.

Some Pitfalls in Password Creation

Avoid creating passwords using:

• Dictionary words in any language.
• Words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and abbreviations.
• Sequences or repeated characters. Examples: 12345678, 222222, abcdefg, or adjacent letters on your keyboard (qwerty).
• Personal information. Your name, birthday, driver’s license, passport number, or similar information.

Password Security Checker

This website also has a Password Security Checker which rates your new password. Use it to test its level of security.

It is available from this web address:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx

Here are two examples of this password checker in action.

Password Checker in action!

So there you have it, food for thought  if you value your computer’s security.

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Microsoft had a very bad reputation in the area of security. It’s programs were easily infected with viruses, corrupted, and otherwise compromised. But 10 years ago, Bill Gates sent an e-mail to all Microsoft employees announcing that software security was going to be a priority for the company. He announced a new initiative called Trustworthy Computing (TwC).

His e-mail in part said: “Every few years I have sent out a memo talking about the highest priority for Microsoft. Two years ago, it was the kickoff of our .NET strategy … Over the last year it has become clear that ensuring .NET is a platform for Trustworthy Computing is more important than any other part of our work. If we don’t do this, people simply won’t be willing – or able – to take advantage of all the other great work we do. Trustworthy Computing is the highest priority for all the work we are doing….”

At the heart of the Trustworthy Computing dictum were three core attributes necessary for making it work, security, privacy, and reliability. In other words, Microsoft’s software must incorporate these features in order to satisfy the customer base, and assure them that Microsoft’s security element is in full gear.

The Security Development Lifecycle

The Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) incorporates privacy development practices. It lead to the development of Microsoft products, which delivered more secure and private computing experiences for customers. This raised the bar for potential attackers making it more difficult to go after the software.

Reliability

There was a progress in reliability with the Windows Error Reporting tool. It has led to fewer system crashes, which meant an increase in productivity and reducing user frustration. They also published privacy standards for developers and gave consumers layered privacy notices when using certain software.

Cloud Computing

Microsoft’s next challenge will be the Azure Cloud service. Cloud computing is expected to grow dramatically in 2012, with more enterprises moving some operations to that environment, with Microsoft offering Office 365, a cloud based service, security is of utmost importance.

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How did CodeFlow Develop?

CodeFlow? Yes, a developers code analysis tool. As most programmers will tell you, it’s not just developing the code, it is testing it and seeing it work correctly. It’s not like the old days of Cobol, or Pascal, coding is very sophisticated now, and the penchant for making mistakes is very high. So code analysis is important, and has to be done whenever a program is set for distribution.

How CodeFlow Started

Back in 2009 two coders at Microsoft, Clark Roberts and Mike Cook, went to a bar after work, and one of their discussions finally fell on the problem of code review.

They took their ideas and began to develop a project which would ultimately help other coders at Microsoft find it easier to review their own programs.

At the grassroots level, they began to discuss their ideas and made proposals to their managers about what they were doing and what they wanted to accomplish.

Good was the answer, enter the Developers App Idol code contest. They lost the first time but won first place the second time.

What is CodeFlow?

Thousands of software engineers at Microsoft do code reviews every day. The systematic analysis of lines of code helps find and fix bugs and improves the quality of software. Both CodeFlow developers agreed that the process was necessary and beneficial, but it was also tedious and time consuming.

CodeFlow is a systematic way of doing code reviews, and it is integrated into Visual Studio. This way, it becomes easy and a second nature to programmers.

Success at Microsoft

CodeFlow has improved the Visual Studios team’s day-to-day life, because for starters reviewing code isn’t such a pain anymore. Moreover, programmers learned skills they’ve wouldn’t have in their day jobs. Roberts and Cook have had broad exposure with senior engineers across the company. Now, over 28,000 programmers at Microsoft use CodeFlow.

Over a year and a half, developers from every division at Microsoft launched more than 2 million code reviews in CodeFlow.

Developers can expect to see the next version of Visual Studio have the CodeFlow application built in.

Source Microsoft

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Some examples of Microsoft OneNote and how it has helped users

OneNote in Education: Oulujoki Comprehensive School in Finland

In 2008, Oulujoki became one of 12 schools participating in a pilot program sponsored by the Ubiquitous Information Society, a national organization that aims to transform Finland into an internationally recognized, competitive service society by using ICT in teaching and learning. During a recent project, some students were painting pictures while others were playing a traditional instrument. The class put all the parts of the story together to make an animated film, using Windows Movie Maker. There was collaboration as students who were interested in painting made the pictures, while those who were interested in music and computers played different roles. To make the system systematic and easy to use they began working with Office OneNote 2007, and used it to track the Microsoft Office Word 2007, Office PowerPoint 2007, or Windows Explorer documents that they took notes from.

Graduate Studies

Another case study involves a Graduate Student at MIT who uses OneNote to keep track of ideas and notes for use in the Ph.D. program he is involved in. He uses OneNote on a Tablet PC for several important tasks that include gathering research, brainstorming and creating design documents, taking lecture notes, and recording experiment data in the lab.

Northern Ireland Assembly

The Northern Ireland Assembly is the legislature responsible for making laws. The Assembly works with a significant amount of information, and it must make sure its members have the most relevant information. Paper notes systems were used, but they were inefficient. So after moving some of their services to Microsoft Office 365, they decided to make some other changes as well.

By using Office 2010, the Assembly collaborates and communicates more effectively among its members, and it can move toward its goal of a paperless office. Next, the Assembly began using Microsoft OneNote 2010 to pull together disparate information into a single notebook, making it easier for lawmakers and staff to have all relevant information in front of them while making legislation decisions.

Microsoft OneNote is a new collaboration tool, but it is a convenience program that can help keep track of information in one location, a OneNote location.

Learn more about OneNote see: OneNote Demo 

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Examples of Microsoft OneNote in use is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

As the world gets smaller, i.e., as it gets easier to go from continent to continent, from country to country, one thing has  changed, there are different languages around the world. So navigating around them with a translation dictionary is important. But Microsoft’s translator program, which is part of Bing can make that easier.

The Microsoft  Translator program offers different features for different types of users, including developers, webmasters, and language labs.

Developers

Microsoft’s approach to translation is that it is “a tool, not a destination.” Following up on this philosophy, developers can use the Microsoft Translator system to provide a wide spectrum of translation and language APIs for integration into their applications and services.  There is an AJAX, HTTP, and SOAP interface. Microsoft also provides a translator API without having to write any code. Developers new to this approach also have a getting started guide to learn how to enable translation features into ASP.NET applications. For commercial licensing information, is available at mtlic@microsoft.com.

WebMasters

Another area of interest occurs at web sites, where translations may be needed immediately. The translator offers a widget for websites, and a developer AJAX API for widget development. The Microsoft® Translator webpage widget allows you to bring real-time, in-place translations to your web site. The collaborative translation features combine automatic translation technology with the power of your community.

Language Labs

There is also a language lab site where you can play with experimental new features and research prototypes.
The nice thing about this is that like any new experiment,  things may not always work as expected, a sort of Murphy’s law section. Try it before you implement it.

There is a contextual thesaurus where you can translate English to English where you can find different ways to express the same idea. Then there is a translator bookmarklet, for translating using a bookmark. Finally, there is a universal text input where you can translate using only Roman characters.

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Microsoft’s Translator Program for Bing and Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Even though Windows 7 has been out for over 2 years now, and I’ve probably written several hundred posts on this site about it now, there’s still new little things that I learn every day with it. This latest little trick I’ve discovered is how to quickly get to properties.

Normally if you want to access a folders properties, you have to right click on it, the select properties from the context menu. But not anymore! Now all you have to do is hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and double click the folder.

It’s just as simple as that!

It works with pretty much everything that has a properties menu and it also works within other programs as well. In fact it turns out that this isn’t unique to Windows 7 even, it actually works on all Windows operating systems back to Windows 95.

Well that’s my last little trick for 2011, I’m sure many of you already knew about it, but for those of you who didn’t at least you can say I taught you something this year!

Happy New Year to you all and hopefully I’ll be back in 2012 with more Windows 7 news/guides/tips/themes etc.. for you!

Use the Alt Key To Access Properties In Super Quick Time! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

As the author of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” I get asked all manner of questions all the time on how to fix or diagnose problem A, B or C.  To help with this I run a regular series of live webcasts through the O’Reilly website.  The latest of these is by far the most popular and requested.  Diagnosing and Repairing Difficult Problems in Windows 7.

Windows 7 is by far the most stable and reliable version of the OS that Microsoft have ever produced, but as a piece of software it contains millions of lines of code and it’s a huge and extremely complex beast.  This can make diagnosing any difficult problem an extremely daunting experience.

In this live webcast, which if you miss it you can view afterwards if you have pre-registered, I’ll show how you don’t even need third-party tools to complete complex diagnostics, with a tour of a plethora of helpful diagnostic utilities that are already a part of Windows 7.

The webcast is completely free, live and starts at 10AM PT – San Francisco | 6pm – London | 1pm – New York | Fri, Jan 13th at 5am – Sydney | Fri, Jan 13th at 3am – Tokyo | Fri, Jan 13th at 2am – Beijing | 11:30pm – Mumbai on January 12th 2012.

It can be difficult enough finding out what’s gone wrong with windows 7 or a program, but some problems can be a nightmare to diagnose. In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through how to diagnose really stubborn and hidden problems in Windows 7, and explains how you can go about fixing them.

The webcast will last for approximately 60 minutes and is part of a regular series that, from February, will return to its regular First Thursday spot.  You can register for this free webcast here.  The next webcasts will be…

February 2^nd 2012 – Using Virtualisation in Windows 7

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, Windows 7 won’t run every piece of software and some of it you might really want or need.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out explains how you can use free virtualisation tools in any edition of Windows 7 to keep valuable and useful older software working in a safe and secure way.

March 1^st 2012 – Building a Bomb-Proof Backup Strategy

Backup, Backup, Backup is a common mantra, but often it’s easier said than done maintaining a good backup strategy due to the time and effort involved long-term.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through how you can build a simple, hands-free backup strategy that is quite literally bombproof.

April 5^th 2012 – Manually Removing Viruses and Malware from Windows 7

Getting a virus on your computer is a pain and they’re becoming ever more difficult to remove.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through the process of manually and safely removing viruses and malware from your computer without damaging your files or Windows itself.

May 3^rd 2012 – Building and Upgrading a PC

With computers now more powerful than ever before, and with wallets being squeezed, there are more and more reasons to hang on to your existing equipment.  But how can you breathe new life into an ageing PC on a tight budget?  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out shows you how to quickly and simply get extra life and performance out of your PC, fix common hardware faults and what to look for to build a fantastic new PC from scratch.

June 7^th 2012 – Managing Family Safety in Windows 7

The Internet is a dangerous place and every parent worries about what their children might be doing, and what they might be exposed to online.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out walks you through the process of keeping your children and your family safe online from viruses, criminals and inappropriate content with simple to use free tools.

Diagnosing and Repairing Difficult Problems in Windows 7 Free Webcast is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Christmas is traditionally the time to give and receive technology, at least it is these days, so a few days ago I posted a free eBook guide to setting up and configuring a new PC which I hope you’ll find helpful and pass on to friends, family and colleagues.  Many people will get a new Windows Phone for Christmas, this includes myself as Nokia have just sent me a Lumia 800 for review.  Any new operating system presents its challenges though and so here I thought I’d publish a quick guide to getting started with your new WIndows Phone handset.

Setting up Accounts

You can set up all your online accounts, Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc in the settings panel from the main screen.  To get here, swipe from right to left on the screen and swipe your finger up the screen to scroll the all programs list until you see Settings.  These accounts are found in the Email & Accounts panel.

Here you can set up and manage all of your accounts.  Click Add an account to add additional accounts your your phone.  Remember you can have as many email accounts set up as you wish and each one will display its own live tile on the Start screen (there’s no integrated inbox feature yet).

You should click on your email accounts and select what content is synchronised (you may see Calendar, tasks and other options here that you can select) and how often you want the phone to check for new email.  If your data plan is tight you might want to set this to just hourly or perhaps even manually.

Managing Contacts

When you set up different accounts in your phone the handset automatically shows every contact you have on all those accounts in your contacts list.  In the People hub you can set the phone to only show you contacts from people who want to see and call.  To get to these settings swipe your finger up from the bottom of the screen in the people hub and you will see the Settings option displayed.

Here you can press the Filter my contact list button to show and hide people from different accounts.  If you want to choose who you keep up to date with though in the feed you can also tick the Only show posts from people visible in my contact list option.  This means then that you’ll only see Facebook, Twitter etc updates from the people you have chosen to appear in your contacts list, and from nobody else.

Other useful settings

A couple of other useful settings you might want to activate are the Battery Saver which can help conserve your battery when it begins to run low by automatically switching off data features (except for SMS which will still work).

The Find my Phone option is also extremely useful.  By using this you can log into your account at Live.com and track your phone, remotely ring it or even lock it and wipe it if you lose it.

Customising the Start Screen

You will certainly want to customise the Start screen on your handset and it’s not immediately obvious how you can do this to many people.  If you tap and hold on any Live Tile you will see an unpin option appears on it.  If you click this pin you will remove the Live Tile from the Start screen.

You can also rearrange the tiles on the screen and place them where you want.  Tap and hold the icon you want to move and then you can drag it around the screen to place it somewhere else.

You can also add other programs from your installed apps list to the Start Screen in the same way.  Just tap and hold on the app and a menu will appear giving you an option to pin it to the Start screen.

Lastly you will want to secure your phone with a password and I’ve written a guide to how you can do this on our sister site gHacks.net.  I hope you’ve found this short guide helpful and I really hope you enjoy using your new Windows Phone.

How to Set up a New Windows Phone is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Under the regime imposed by Windows 8 there are two ways you can Search your computer. You can use the new Metro UI environment calling up the Charms menu or alternatively, and this is far better, search using through Windows Explorer. More of that in a later article where I’ll investigate the new Search features of Windows Explorer.

Like its predecessor in Windows 7 the new Search is pretty powerful and searching using Charms menu is mostly satisfactory.

A note about Charms: In an earlier article on Windows 8 Preview I queried Microsoft’s usage of the term “Charms” to describe the menu in the Metro UI interface. Since then I have found the answer. On this website www.neowin.net/news/ the explanation is as follows: “Microsoft describes “charms” as the menu of icons and commands invoked by flicking from the right edge on tablets . . .” I still reckon this is a weird name for it. Some users find no charm in it at all!

Searching using the Charms menu

The Charms menu is not always readily accessible. Usually you can get the it by pressing the Windows key but if this fails press Win Key + C.

Once the Charms Menu pops up, select Search. Search opens, displaying a list of locations where you can search. They are Apps, Settings, Files and Internet Explorer. Searching in the latter is a new and interesting way to find information on the Web. When Windows 8 Beta arrives, I’m sure you will be able to search for Apps in Microsoft’s App shop. Who knows!

Searching Apps

These are my observations about using the Search feature within the Metro UI. Search worked fine for Apps displaying all of them listed alphabetically. Pressing the Esc key closes the Search box on the right and displays all available Apps in full screen view. 

To find a specific App on this extensive list, use the mouse to access the scroll bar on the lower part of your screen. If you are fortunate to have a touch screen, flick to move across the list.

 Next, I decided to look for a specific App, Paint. In the search box as soon as I typed paint, I immediately got a result displaying the  Paint’s icon.

Tip! Search is useful if you have heaps of Apps loaded and haven’t bothered to add them to the Metro UI screen or to pin them to the Taskbar in Windows Explorer.

To do so, right-click on the App icon you want. A toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen containing two buttons – Advanced and Pin. Selecting Advanced displays four options including one to pin the App to the Taskbar. If you choose Pin this adds the App to the Apps listed in Metro UI.

Back in the Metro screen you can unpin any App at any time by right clicking it and selecting Unpin. The other options include making the App smaller or larger!

Searching Settings

Settings cover a wide range of topics about various Windows features. I used it to find out information on Homegroup. When I typed in Homegroup I received some useful information about it including Trouble Shooters. To open one, simply click on the item.

Searching Files

When I first tried Search in Files I thought I’d be clever and see if I could find all my “doc” files. I typed in *.doc and clicked the magnifying icon. This drew a blank. Next I tried *.jpg. Same result!

Desperate I tried an individual name, “Charms” and finally got a result. This included a range of files, docx files,  jpg etc. It was rather a hit and miss affair. There appears to be a bug in this aspect of Search.

Thinking back on my efforts I realised I should have been more patient to give Windows 8 time to find the files. It is certainly slow!

Searching the Internet

Within the Search menu is an options to search the Internet. I tried it out typing “charms” in the Search box. Internet Explorer opened displaying numerous topics on my chosen subject.

Now this is really neat as you can be working away in various projects, decide you want that bit of information and quickly grab stuff from the Web.

Conclusions: Microsoft obviously still have to sort out “bugs” when searching for Files but in my case it may have been just bad luck. It would be interesting to hear other user’s experiences when searching for files.

Given the imminent and advertised release  of Windows 8 Beta for February 2012 I’m hopeful all will be running smoothly.

Putting Windows 8’s Search through its paces (Part 1) is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

It’s Christmas, that traditional time of high PC sales when people give and receive new computers.  To mark the occasion I’ve written a short eBook on how to set up and configure a new PC.  In this completely free 25 page printable guide I deal, first and foremost with the age-old problem of the missing Windows 7 installation DVD and what you can do about it.  Other subjects covered include creating your own backup and restore disks for Windows 7, how to secure your files, photos, music and video away from Windows 7 to prevent a disaster wiping them out, and how to deal with bloatware and trial versions of anti-virus software.

There are always issues surrounding new computers, not the least of which is the missing installation DVD.  Others include the sheer amount of useless software that’s commonly pre-installed on them.  This software is commonly set to run at start-up and can slow down your computer.  Another issue is that the anti-virus software instaled on new PCs is commonly a time-limited trial that expires, and stops protecting your computer, after a few months.

As with all things technical if you’re a complete novice I do suggest that you follow the instructions very carefully and have a technically-minded friend with you if possible.  This is because creating a new disk partition in Windows for your files is simple yet not without its risks.

You can download this eBook completely free from our download page here at Windows7News.

free eBook, Setting up and Configuring a New PC is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Within the Windows 8’s Control Panel, under System and Security are two new tools, Refresh and Reset. The former, Refresh, allows you to completely re-store Windows 8 Developer Preview to its original state including all your files. The latter, Reset, is useful if you are disposing of your computer as it removes your files and applications..

Metro Controller

I read Robert Boland’s article – “How to: Disable Windows 8 Metro UI and Ribbon UI” (9^th September, 2011) on www.windows8news.com. In it he describes Metro Controller, a useful tool allowing you to disable unwanted Metro features in Windows 8. It can help you take some of the annoyance out of Windows 8.

Metro Controller options

Personally, I’m quite happy with Windows 8 as it is, but I wanted to disable the new Metro ribbon interface. Once I downloaded Metro Controller and installed the application, I selected the second option, “Disable only Metro features”.  The UAC intervened as usual, so I clicked Yes. Next, I was asked to re-boot Windows 8 which I did. After going through the logging in process I was presented with the Ribbon Explorer.

Gone were the Metro features! My screen displayed the conventional Desktop including the ubiquitous Start button. Clicking it displayed the conventional Start menu from the earlier Windows 7. In addition, all my Taskbar shortcuts were still available on the Taskbar.

To all intents and purposes it all looked just like Windows 7, except for Windows Developer Preview identified in the lower right-hand corner of the Desktop screen.

Windows 8 Developer Preview - Desktop View

So far so good! I was able to enjoy being back in familiar territory with the extra bonus of having the Ribbon Menu available when I accessed Windows Explorer.

Restoring Windows 8 Developer Preview

Though the Metro interface takes a bit of getting used to, I don’t really mind it, but I wondered how I could get it back. This was when I came across a new Windows 8 feature, Refresh, in the Control Panel. The other option is Reset. The second option “Reset” is much the same as “Return your computer to factory condition” in Windows 7.

To get to these options, open the Control Panel and scroll down to More Settings. This opens the more conventional view of the Control Panel, aka Windows 7 et al.

Accessing More Settings in Control Panel

Accessing Refresh

When Control Panel opens, select System and Security followed by “Restore your computer to an earlier time” and then Refresh. (See illustration for sequence)

Accessing Refresh feature

Refresh is a handy tool, allowing you to restore everything the way it was, well not everything as all your installed applications and settings outside the original Windows 8 installation are lost. This is just a small price to pay for getting things back to normal. As you can see in the next section at least Windows 8 advises you about the removed applications.

Removed Apps List

When you have refreshed your installation of Windows 8 and restarted your computer, Windows 8 displays an Internet Explorer icon, called Removed Apps, on your Desktop. This can be handy as it provides a useful list when you decide to re-install your favourite missing applications .

Apps Removed List

Note: A similar feature under Advanced Recovery Method is available in Windows 7. In Windows 7, there are two options – “Use a system image you created earlier to recover your computer” AND “Return your computer to factory condition.” The Windows 8 version is more advanced.

Windows 7 Options

The first option states categorically “If you have created a system image, . . .” If you haven’t done this in advance you are stuck!Now this is where Windows 8 steps into the breach and provides you with its better updated tool, Refresh.
The second option requires you to have recovery disk from your computer’s manufacturer.  If you haven’t got this or made one early on, you are also stuck.

Windows 8 Reset saves the day. Its big plus is that all your files – photos, music clips etc. remain intact!  I have found Reset a useful tool  though it was slow to complete its task.

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Normally when you want to switch users in Windows 7, you have to go to the start menu, then go to the shut down options and select switch users. That’s a 3 click process for something that should be very simple and quick to do. But today, I’ve stumbled across a little tip courtesy of helpdeskgeek which shows you how to make a desktop shortcut so you can switch user with one click.

All we need to do is create a desktop shortcut that points to c:\windows\system32\tsdiscon.exe

1.Just right click on your desktop and select new shortcut. In the window that pops up enter c:\windows\system32\tsdiscon.exe (please note that there has been some reports from people that this link doesn’t appear to exist for all users)  and then add a name to the shortcut (like “Switch User”)

2. Now that you’ve made your shortcut, it should work as it is. But you might like to add a better icon to it. To do this, right click on it then go to properties.

Then simply click change icon, be default the Windows icon library should load and there’s plenty to pick from – here’s the one I got

That’s all there is to it now. Technically speaking it will require a double click to execute this shortcut so I guess that’s two clicks. But if you just drag it into your taskbar and add it there then you’ll only have to click it once.

(again can I just point out that some users don’t appear to be have a file in c:\windows\system32\tsdiscon.exe for some reason unknown to me, apologies if you don’t)

How To Switch Users With 1 Click is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Today I was messing around with Windows 7 and discovered a brilliant little feature that I’d pretty much ignored in the past. The Windows 7 Magnifier. Of course, I always knew that Windows 7 had a magnifier built into it, just like all the previous versions of Windows, but I never bothered to give it much thought. However, today I accidently hit a shortcut for it and I’ve spent the last 2o minutes or so messing around with it. (I probably should be doing an assignment I have)

Let me explain

As I said above, I never really bothered with the magnifier in Windows 7. I always felt it was for people who had forgotten their glasses or something, and not for someone like me who is still lucky enough not to require them. However I’ve suddenly realised that I like to be able to zoom in on certain parts of the screen at will. Of course I’ve always known of the zoom features in Word, IE etc.. and I did use them from time to time, but never have I used magnifier.

But from now on I think I’ll be using it a bit more. I’ve got together a list of shortcuts which are incredibly handy to use with it. I never knew until today how much you could actually do with magnifier.

Maybe I’m just a bit too bored, and that’s why I was so intrigued by the Windows 7 magnifier, but I’ve only realised how handy it is today. Microsoft have actually put a bit of time and effort into developing it, and I feel that not enough people know about it.

As I mentioned in the table, my favourite shortcut is the one that Inverts the colors. The reason I like it is because it looks super cool and could be a great little trick to play on your friends computer at some stage!

The invert color function!

A Hidden Gem – Windows 7 Magnifier Shortcuts and Features is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

One of the new features that’s been introduced in the Windows 8 Developer Preview is a new ribbon interface in Windows Explorer which is quite similar to the ribbon interface that you find in Microsoft Word, Powerpoint etc.. Some people don’t really like it all, while others prefer it to the traditional interface. There is a bit of a learning curve associated with using it, but I find that once I get used to it, it’s quite helpful.

So if you want to get this new explorer ribbon on Windows 7, there’s a handy little program which will help you get it.

There’s a program called “Better Explorer” which will do the job. However it’s still in Alpha stage, so don’t expect it to work perfectly. There’s been reports that sometimes the icons won’t be sized properly and the odd button doesn’t work yet either. What’s more, it doesn’t actually replace the existing Windows 7 explorer. When you go to use your explorer, you have to use the “Better Explorer” one so as to get the ribbon bar.

It’s also worth noting that this doesn’t work on Windows Vista or Windows XP. To implement it, simply download the latest release from here. It’s constantly being updated and improved all the time so it’s worth checking back for updates every so often.

Once you’ve installed it, you’ll probably want to pin it to your taskbar so that you have quick access to it. The taskbar icon for it is the same as the current Windows Explorer one so it’ll be easy to recognise.

Then every time that you want to use the new ribbon interface with your explorer, you just use the “Better Explorer” shortcut instead of the normal one.

Of course, since this is only in the Alpha stage of development and there’s still a lot of work to do, it doesn’t become the default explorer on Windows. There’s also a couple of known little bugs and issues with it every so often which you can read up about on the site.

How To Get Windows 8 Explorer Ribbon On Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

I’m sure not everyone has this little gripe with Windows, but it annoys some people. Every time that you go and create a new shortcut in Windows, it adds “shortcut” after the file name. While I suppose this is fine if you’re creating a shortcut of a file in the same location, but most of the time the reason you’re creating a shortcut is because you don’t want to navigate the long way to it. Hence the name “shortcut”.

If you’re one of these people who gets fed up with having to constantly rename all your shortcuts, this quick registry fix will sort it out for you.

First off go to your start menu, and then type in regedit to access your registry editor. Now you’re going to want to navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer.

Now as you can see from the screenshot below, there’s a item called “link” in the right hand side. The current value of this is set to 1e 00 00 00

You want to change this to 00 00 00 00. Do this by right clicking on “link” and select modify.

Now exit the registry and either restart the explorer or simple log off and then log back on. You’ll now find that all your past shortcut files will no longer have “shortcut” at the end if you haven’t already got rid of them. You’ll also find that any future shortcuts you make won’t have “shortcut” added to them either.

Stop Windows From Adding “Shortcut” To Your Shortcuts is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

With Windows 8′s developer preview making its rounds on a number of PC’s, we figured it was just a matter of time before someone figured out how to bring the fullscreen/tablet flavoured apps to the Windows 7 desktop.

It appears that the first app to be ported over to Windows 7 is the metro Internet Explorer 10 browser found in the dev preview of Windows 8. You may be familiar with the look of the browser in Windows 8 if yo have used a Windows Phone device. The browser is limited in chrome, bearing only one toolbar which combines all of the buttons and address bar. You can also invoke a tabbed browsing slide down drawer from the top by right-clicking on the screen. The version of MetroIE available right  now supports only single tab support, but multiple tabs are coming soon. It’s a work in progress.

To get the MetroIE browser working in Windows 7, you’ll need to have the latest Internet Explorer 10 developer preview installed and also download a small file from the devs Deviant Art page. Keep in mind that this is a small hack that will give you only the metro version of IE, so if you prefer to use regular IE for browsing, you may want to avoid installing the software. I’ve had no issues with the download, but you will be downloading at your own risk.

You can download the MetroIE browser file here.

MetroIE Lets You Bring Metro Internet Explorer to Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

I’ve reviewed a few desktop replacement laptops in the last few months that span the entire gamut of price, performance and build quality.  Desktop replacements can be extremely useful, especially for IT Pros or people who are just unwilling to banish the trusty old desktop PC from their living room, but know that sooner or later it just has to go.

Let’s begin by discussing the benefits of a desktop replacement laptop.  These machines simply aren’t about being big and powerful any more.  Sure they come with full HD screen sizes of 17 inches and upwards and new Core-i7 processors that are a match for anything found in a modern desktop.  Both of these are relatively new innovations and they make the desktop replacement truly compelling for the first time.  Having used some though I quickly came to realise that there’s so much more to it than that.  Storage is critical and all the machines I’m going to talk about here come with dual hard disks; with one even having space for a solid state mini card as well.

Then there is build quality.  If you are going to spend workstation money on a laptop you want to guarantee that it will take a few bumps and scrapes.  You want to be able to drop it, or in my case stick it under a running tap accidentally (don’t ask, it still worked thankfully) and know that you can carry on working.

Finally there’s security and you want to feel reassured that your data will be safe and secure from prying eyes and thieves.  So which of the three main contenders for this prize do I believe will come out top?

The Samsung RF711 is our first contender and it’s by far the budget model of the three costing only around $1,000.  When you compare this to a desktop what you’re getting seems quite incredible value for money.  A 2GHz Core-i7 processor and 6Gb of DDR3 ram backed up with an nVidia GeForce GT540M graphics chip with it’s own 1Gb of memory.  It’s a very pretty machine too, though in fairness all the laptops in this review are head-turners.  What is lacks however is all that you need for security peace of mind.  There’s no TPM chip, no fingerprint reader and no smartcard reader.  Finally the budget for this machine stops at a 1600 by 900 not-quite HD screen.

Moving up to the Acer 8951G at around $1,400 does give you a fingerprint reader but still no TPM but you do get a full HD 1920 by 1080 screen, a slightly faster Core-i7 processor running at 2.2GHz and more ram at 8Gb.  There’s an nVidia GT555M graphics chip with 2Gb of dedicated memory and the biggest screen I’ve ever seen on a laptop at 18.4 inches.  Style is also the order of the day here with the extra $400 buying you a brushed metal case, upped from the plastic of the Samsung.

Finally, and really at the very top of the tree stands the hefty Dell Precision M6600 workstation which those of you who read my reviews regularly will know is actually my own machine.  This is a monster with a 2.5GHz Core-i7 processor, 8Gb of ram and an nVidia Optimus 4000M graphics with 2Gb of GDDR5 dedicated memory, up from the DDR3 of the other machines.  It’s configurable to an almost comical degree too with mine sporting a TPM chip, fingerprint reader, contactless smartcard reader, GPS, SIM card slot for mobile broadband and a four-point multi-touch screen.  The metal case is completely bomb proof with the most solid construction I’ve ever seen on a laptop.  All this comes at a hefty price though of around $4,000.

All three of these machines are very well equipped and all come with Blu-Ray, USB3 and huge numbers of ports.  This isn’t the only place where they’re similar too.  Battery life on all three is remarkably similar as is performance.  It really is difficult to tell these three machines apart in day to day use to see which is faster.

This ultimately becomes the crux of the argument over which is best.  The Dell has all the security features and the rock-solid build quality that any any IT Pro would ever need.  The price premium for all this over the other two though just doesn’t make it worth all the extra cash.  The addition of the fingerprint reader, which is fairly useless without a TPM chip in my opinion and the brushed metal not really adding anything to overall rugedness also rules the Acer out of the running.  It’s just not good enough to pip the Samsung to the post.

Having used all three and realised there’s actually very little, if anything at all, in it in terms of performance differences it just has to be the Samsung that wins.  Desktop replacement power, twin hard disks and powerful graphics coming in at under $1,000 is just too good not to win.  My recommendation if you’re looking for a desktop replacement laptop is certainly the Samsung RF711, and you can use the $3,000 you save to pay for a decent case, a good insurance policy and a foreign holiday.

Which is the Best Desktop Replacement Laptop? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Internet radio stations abound providing all types of musical genre. In my search for another Internet Radio tool I came across one called RadioPI. To download this tool here is its website address: http://radiopi.com/download/

Once you download it and install it RadioPI creates a toolbar on Internet Explorer. Be aware like many freeware applications it offers all sorts of inducements to allow it to take over Internet Explorer. This involves taking over your Search Engine and controlling your Homepage. Well, it’s up to you whether you let them (at least they ask for permission). So read the installation screen carefully and make sure you are in control.

Once you install RadioPI, it adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer. As you can see RadioPI’s toolbar contains its own version of Search.

RadioTI Toolbar

Now to get to the ‘nitty-gritty’ of accessing the internet radio,. Here’s how you go about it!

When you click the down arrow button on the radio tuner another toolbar opens. It contains six locations, four of which are to do with radio stations – Featured, Local, Locations and Music. The default window, Featured, lists any local internet radio stations.

In the Featured screen RadioPi adds any available local stations. It is very intuitive. It has selected four available Australian radio stations listed. If this screen displays the station you want, click on the Radio Stations icon and begin listening.

Local Internet Radio Stations

Searching For Opera

My partiality in musical terms is opera. This requires accessing the Music option. Clicking its button opens the Music screen.

Choosing the Music Option

If you are after a particular genre, selecting the Music button on the toolbar offers a series of different screens allowing you to narrow down your search. The next screen picture show you the sequence required to find my favourite opera stations, Otto’s Opera House. This involves quite a bit of searching going from screen to screen. Again once you find the station click on it and the music begins.

Searching for Opera

I’ve found this Internet Radio tuner useful and can recommend it to you if you are keen to access all those thousands of Internet Radio Stations that abound.

RadioPI – Another Good Tool for Accessing Internet Radio is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

You, as the owner and user of your computer are supposed to be in charge of the situation but in reality unless you take certain precautions such as setting up a firewall and installing a decent antivirus program the hidden nasties – virus programs and other forms of malfeasance, will take over your computer unbeknown to you.

Having said that remember that there are other less hostile threats around. These sometimes occur when you download and install a new application. Some by design want to wrest control of certain vital functions on your computer such as add their version of Search or their own special Toolbar in Internet Explorer, while others are harmless.

While many of these freeware applications appear to have great potential, say an Internet Radio Player or something else, you are well-advised to keep your wits about you when installing the program to make sure you only let in what you want. Otherwise the damned thing will take over your computer.

Here are two examples of useful applications that try to take over the controls of Internet Explorer. The two are RadioRage and Crawler Radio. Both during the installation phase want to take over as your Search Engine and control your Homepage. Well, it’s up to you whether you let them (at least they ask for permission).

RadioRage Installation Options!

Radio Crawler Installation Options!

If you decide in their favour you could end up with your Internet Explorer looking somewhat cluttered with Toolbars all over the top!        

Toolbar's Galore!!!

Both RadioRage and Crawler Radio applications are great for listening to Internet Radio stations but all free applications come with add-ons you may not want. So always read the information in each installation screen, “keep your wits about you” and uncheck any options you don’t want.

Now there’s nothing wrong with trying out different applications BUT you can take precautions by performing a System Restore prior to taking the plunge.

Pre-Installation Safeguard

1.      Click the Start button.

2.      In the Search box, type “Create a system restore point”.

3.      The System Properties window opens. In the lower section, labelled “Create a restore point right now . . .”, click the Create button.

Creating a Restore Point

 4.      The System Protection window opens. In box, type in a suitable recognizable name.

Naming your Restore Point

5.      Next, click the Create button.

6.      Windows 7 gets cracking and creates a Restore Point.

Restore Point Created!

Coping with Post-Installation Blues

Well, you’ve installed that great new application and suddenly find it is a proverbial pain in the neck. Your next step is to get rid of it. Well there are two options. First of all you can uninstall it but you may find it leaves its imprint still on your computer. The second option is to Use System Restore. This is where it pays dividends to have taken this initial precaution.  Creating a Restore Point saves the day.

1.      Click the Start button.

2.      In the Search box, type “System Restore”.

3.      In the Search Results box, select “Restore your computer to an earlier time”.

Reversing the Installation!

4.      The System Restore Recovery window opens. Choose “Open System Restore”.

5.       The Restore System Files and Settings window opens, click the Next button.

6.      The System Restore window opens. In it you’ll see the Restore Point you created. Choose a point previous and click Next.

Choosing a previous Restore Point!

7.      System Restore gets to work repairing the error you made when installing that aberrant application.

Warning: When System Restore is at work don’t turn off the computer. Leave it to its own devices.

Whose Computer is it! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Bringing down botnets, as Microsoft has been successful this year, underscores how important it is to keep your security elements up to date. This is why the amazing announcement by Microsoft that 340 million PC Browsers are out of date underscores one problem: users themselves leave the door open to malware infections.

Here are some statistics. That 340 million number is the equivalent of almost 24% of all browsers running on old code. In a blog post on Tuesday Microsoft made the point that a large number of attacks are directly linked to the use of an out-of-date browser. Internet Explorer, versions 6 and 7, account for 15.2% of all out of date browsers. Google’s Chrome, one the other hand, by using automatic updates pushes users onto new versions, accounts for just 1.7% of all old browser versions.

Browser Assistance

To make the point about how important keeping your browser up to date, Microsoft is launched YourBrowserMatters.org on Tuesday. The focus is to highlight the risks of socially engineered malware in old browsers. In addition, Microsoft has been working with several organizations to raise awareness about the security problems caused by outdated browsers. Those organizations are the Anti-Phishing League, Identity Theft Council, and Online Trust Alliance.

 Identity Theft Council

That’s our secret recipe. We match trained and supervised volunteer counselors with victims of identity theft and help them get through it. No matter how long it takes. They have a support hotline, to assist users if they’re victims of identity theft. Free help is available at no cost, by calling the Victim Support Hotline at 1-888-771-0767.

The Anti-phishing League

The Anti-Phishing Working Group is a non-profit global pan-industrial and law enforcement association focused on eliminating the fraud, crime, and identity theft that result from phishing, pharming, malware, and email spoofing of all types.

 The Online Trust Alliance

This organization works to develop and advocate best practices, training, and public policy, which mitigate emerging privacy, identity and security threats to online services, brands, government, organizations and consumers. Their goal is to improve consumer protection and control of their data, as well as provide security for online activities and transactions. The end-result is to enhance online trust and confidence and the long-term vitality and innovation of Internet based services.

With these organizations in the backdrop, consumers, IT Managers, and any computer user can find assistance for a range of security problems or issues that may develop.

Source: WinRumors

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We all know how important it is to have an anti-virus program on our computer to catch viruses, malware, prevent identification theft and so on. Unauthorised access to your computer via the Internet is commonplace, just read the headlines about hackers accessing and corrupting files in government and military computer systems. Private individuals are also fair game!

It is unfortunate that some users still live in a fool’s paradise and fail to install an AV program and jeopardise their computer’s security. Often their answer is to say they never log onto the Internet and never let anybody access their computer. If this is true they’ll probably get away with it. Others say they’ve got an anti-virus program but when you ask if they update it regularly they’re not sure.

Besides having your computer compromised and the files corrupted, the worst thing that can happen is to have your personal information stolen. If you fail to take basic precautions by installing a reliable anti-virus software application you are indeed taking a serious risk.

Installing a reliable Anti-virus application is perhaps the most single and cost-effective action you can take for your computer’s health and safety. It is essential to have a reliable AV program and to update it regularly.

Initially, when I started using computers and knowing full well the dangers that lurked on the Internet, I purchased Norton anti-virus program. At first I was happy with its ability to detect and remove the “nasties”. As each subsequent version came out Norton became more and more complicated. It became too intrusive in my opinion. Removing it from your computer was a work of art indeed. Others may well disagree with my negative attitude towards Norton.

When you buy a new computer you will find a 30 day trial of Norton ready for you to install it. My advice is don’t! I’ve purchased several computers over the years and remembering my earlier experience with Norton never took up their offer. Some of my friends who have done so and later decided against using Norton, had the devil’s own job removing it from the computer.

If cost is a factor well there are several free AV programs available. Here is a list of good reliable ones.

• Avast! Free Antivirus
• Avira AntiVir Personal Edition
• AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Panda Cloud Antivirus

All of the above, with the exception of Microsoft Security Essentials, all of those listed come with an advanced version that you have to purchase.  The free versions, excluding Microsoft Security Essentials, are a cut-down version, just providing minimal support. For enhanced security you may need to purchase the full version. All these free AV applications encourage good computer security at no cost to users. So why spend good money on an expensive anti-virus program when there are a number of free versions available all of which are just as effective.

These days I use Microsoft’s free program, Microsoft Security Essentials. This runs nicely with Windows 7 and suits my needs completely with its regular automatic updates and its ability to scan my computer for viruses etc.

It is available from Microsoft’s website at the following location –

  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security_essentials/default.aspx

Once you install Microsoft Security Essentials, its icon is added to the Notification Area. Its easy to-use interface allows you to scan you computer for virus etc. Normally its icon is hidden on the Notifications Area but you can check it out by clicking the up arrow button.

Tip! Should you wish to see Microsoft Security Essentials on the taskbar, access the Notifications Area window by clicking the up arrow button. Scroll down  to find Microsoft Security Essentials and select “Show icons and notifications”. 

Microsoft Security Essentials

If you are in the market for a reliable cost-free AV program, give Microsoft Security Essentials serious consideration!

The Why and Wherefore of Anti-virus Programs is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Listening to Internet Radio Stations using Windows Media Player

In my previous article on listening to the Internet Radio on your computer, I extolled the virtues of MediaU Player Mercury.  It may seem curious to some that in my earlier search for a good radio player for listening to Internet Radio stations I, not only overlooked one of the features of the Windows Media Player, but also didn’t know it included an effective player too. This makes me wonder how many other users of Windows 7 know about and use Windows Media Player to listen to live audio streams from Internet Radio Stations?

With Windows Media Player you can:

• Browse stations by genre
• Search for specific stations

Well, here’s a quick guide about how to use it!

1.      Open Windows Media Player.

2.      Click the Media Guide button in the lower left corner of the Player Library.

Opening Media Guide

3.      Next, click Internet Radio at the top of the Windows Media Guide webpage.

Opening Media Player

4.      Now you have two choices. You can – Browse for a station by Genre or Search for Radio Stations.

Option 1       Browsing by Genre

There are 36 genres available.

1.      Select the Genre, for example select “Classical”.

2.      Next, a list of classical stations appears.

3.      Choose a station and click Listen.

Choosing a Genre

Option 2              Search for Radio Station

You can use Search to filter your search results by clicking drop-down menus in the Search box, and then select values for genre, language, and country or region.

1.      Click the button labeled “Search for radio stations”.

Searching for Radio Stations

2.      Next, the Search Box opens. There are three choices available. Choose the Genre, Language and Country/Region.

Search Options

3.      Depending on your choice you’ll get as result but this is not always the case. (See: Bad Result below)

Searches Results

Bad Result

I have found using more than selecting more than two options often results in a “no win” situation. In the next screen picture I chose these search options – English (United States), Jazz and Australia with no result. The result seems to imply we don’t speak English here! However, I’m sure this was only a minor glitch!

Inconclusive Search Result

Good Result

The criteria I used for this search was – English (United States), Jazz and United States. No complaints about that!

Successful Search

Listening to Your Chosen Station

Once you have made a successful search select the Station and click Listen.

Listening to selected Station

Now enjoy!

Stored Stations

One final point to keep in mind! As you seek and find stations you like, Windows Media Player keeps tabs on where you’ve been. This information is stored on the right-hand side of Windows Media Player’s window.

Stations previously visited

I’m sure most users will appreciate having a useful Internet Radio Player, as found in Windows Media Player, within their grasp and thus not have to search the web for a suitable player.

Hindsight View!

While I find it handy to have Window Media Player’s Internet Radio Play so convenient, I consider mediaU Player Mercury the better proposition for several reasons. Firstly, it has a wider selection of Radio Stations such  Swiss Opera and Radio Swiss Classic. These are two of my favourite stations free of the advertisements that pester you on American Internet Radio stations.  You can also access available non-internet stations such as FM Radio stations here in Australia. Secondly, I like the way you can pre-program it to listen to your favourite stations. As usual, everything comes down to personal preferences!

So what do you think!

Internet Radio on Your Computer – Part 2 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Some of you may love the new Metro UI for Windows 8, others may hate it, but either way I bet you all want to try it out at some stage. Of course the only way to experience it properly is to grab yourself a copy of the Windows 8 Developer Preview and then install it. I’ve put together a nice little guide to install Windows 8 in a virtual box on your existing Windows 7 machine which you can find here. However the issue with installing Windows 8 in a virtual machine is that unless you’ve got a fairly high spec system, it’s not going to perform very well.

So for those of you who want to try out the new Windows 8 UI, but don’t fancy installing the developer preview, here is another option for you. This free Windows 8 UX Pack will bring the Windows 8 UI experience to your desktop without any modifications to your registry or system files.

It’s quite simple to use. All you have to do is download the UX pack from the link at the end of this post. Then you extract the folder.

Next you want to run the executable file that’s contained in the extracted folder. You will then be presented with various different options which allow you to select what theme it is you want to use. You’ve a choice between Windows 8 Aero, Aero Lite or the full blown Metro UI theme.

There’s also a couple of other options like selecting the wallpaper and log on screen as well as changing the start menu ‘s icon.

It’s all quite self-explanatory and to undo any changes you simply just run the .exe file again and hit uninstall.

It does actually work quite well, however low powered machines will probably find things aren’t quite as fluid and smooth as they should be. But it’s definitely a good alternative to downloading the Windows 8 developer preview if you only want to get a feel for the UI

Windows 8 UX Pack

Download

Source:

WindowsX

Windows 8 UX Pack for Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

In my previous article, “Working with Dragon 11.0 – Part 1“, I explained various ways in which you can control Dragon’s microphone.

Now it’s time to look at two important features of Dragon. They are the relocatable DragonBar and the interactive Dragon Sidebar. The latter’s contents change when you switch programs or tasks.

We’ll start with Dragon’s DragonBar. For some users they may find the default location at the top of your screen not to their liking. Fortunately, you can change its location either by activating a command within its menu or using voice commands.

We’ll look at the first option – using the Dragon menu. This involves clicking the Dragon icon on the extreme left hand side of the DragonBar. In the drop-down menu there are five options allowing you to move the DragonBar to another location. The illustration below shows you how to access this menu and lists the five alternative locations.

Dragon Bar Options accessed through Menu

Using Voice Command

There are three voice commands you can use to relocate the DragonBar. Note: For this to be effective you need to hold down the CTRL key before issuing the command, otherwise Dragon will assume you may be dictating text.

Here’s what you can say:

• “Switch to Floating Mode”
• “Switch to Docked to Top Mode”
• “Switch to Tray Icon Only Mode”

The illustration below shows Dragon in Floating Mode. When Dragon is in this configuration you can move it anywhere around the screen. For some this is a useful option but for myself I prefer Dragon securely located at the top of my screen. It’s really a matter of personal choice!

DragonBar and Sidebar

Note: it is worth pointing out how intuitive Dragon Sidebar is, in that it automatically provides a set of commands relating to the task in hand. This in my opinion is really clever!

Dragon Sidebar

Let’s look closer at Dragon Sidebar.

As mentioned before an obvious in the illustration above Dragon Sidebar automatically responds to switching applications by providing appropriate speech commands suited to the new application. While this does not work with every application it certainly works extremely well with word processors such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. Similarly it works with Microsoft Excel.

Below are two screen pictures illustrating the point.

The first illustration shows you speech commands pertaining to Word and WordPerfect. Note the different sets of commands –

• Working with Documents
• Cutting, Pasting, Inserting, Undoing
• Moving and Selecting
• Formatting

           and so on!

Note: you can scroll down the Dragon Sidebar to see additional speech commands.

Dragon's Speech Commands for Word

In the second screen picture you will see DragonBar again response to the changing environment and supplies a set of appropriate speech commands relating to Microsoft Excel.

Dragon's Speech Commands for Excel

If you wish to put this interactive feature to the test, click on the following applications stored on the Taskbar. While it does not work with all applications it is very useful for Dragon Sidebar to provide these voice commands for the applications listed below.

• Internet Explorer
• Windows Live Mail
• Libraries (Desktop Explorer)
• Windows Media Player

Closing Dragon

You can use a voice command to shut down Dragon. All you need to say is “Close Dragon” and the Exit Dragon dialogue box opens.

Closing Dragon

Say Yes and Dragon commences its shut down proceedure.

Its final act before closing is to ask you if you wish to save your speech profile files. This final stage requires you to click the Yes button. Click the Yes button and Dragon saves the changes to your User Profile and then closes.

Dragon saves speech profile files

Now how easy is that!

Of course, you can shut Dragon down by clicking its icon (top left-hand side) on the DragonBar and clicking the Ok button. Whichever method you use Dragon seeks permission to save your speech profile files before shutting down. This way you update them every time you use Dragon. Well done, Dragon!

In my next article we’ll explore other features of Dragon 11.0. 

Working with Dragon 11.0 – Part 2 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Just to show how seriously Microsoft takes us here at Windows7News.com (and our sister sites), they have selected five of my Windows 7 Troubleshooting videos to appear on the official Microsoft support website at support.microsoft.com.  The videos were made to promote my Microsoft Press book, Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out late last year and are the only Windows 7 video content currently on the site.

Microsoft have given them a prominent position, listing them third out of the 16 help sections for Windows 7 help and support, and personally I think they’ve done a fabulous job in the way they’re presented.  Microsoft does occasionally feature help and support content from MVPs but I am delighted that they invited me to submit my videos.  I will also be making new videos them into the future to include Windows 7 and Windows 8 among other subjects, which could yet include Windows Phone and, as you’ll read below, Office 2010 and Office 15 (when it is released next year or during 2013)

The videos cover the subjects, Using the Automated Troubleshooters, Repairing Corrupt Boot Files, Using the System File Checker, Using the Windows Event Viewer and the ever-popular Using Windows Startup Repair which has already had over 4,500 views since going live on YouTube a few months back.  These videos differ slightly from the YouTube versions in that they don’t include the music that accompanied them originally, this is due to licensing constraints.

Image only, no playable video

But the news doesn’t just end there!  There are advanced negotiations currently underway between Microsoft and my publisher to host the Step by Step tutorial videos I made, and that have now been released for free on YouTube on the Microsoft support site as well.  These videos include Windows 7 and Word 2010 but also includes the as yet unreleased PowerPoint 2010 and HTML5, and any tutorial that helps teach people how to use PowerPoint responsibly has got to be good thing    There’s over ten hours of free tutorial videos for Windows 7 and Word 2010 alone.

And there’s more!  My next eBook has been confirmed will be released in November by US publisher Fair Trade Digital Exchange (FTDX).  Need2Know Office 365 Security for Small Business will be around 100 pages and retail for around $5 (to be confirmed).  There’s no cover artwork as yet (and to be honest I have to crack on with writing it!) but I’ll share this with you in a couple of weeks.  The ebook will cover all aspects of maintaining good security, not just within Office 365, but it will also look holistically at every aspect of your computing infrastructure, covering everything from your web hosting and broadband connection to your PCs, laptops, smartphones and your approach to mobile working.

Then by November will come the big announcement!  For now all I can do is tease you with a statement and a picture and let you figure it out for yourselves; which shouldn’t be that difficult.

The statement… “I will definitely NOT be writing a Windows 8 Power Users Guide as a follow on to my similar guide to Windows 7”
And the image…

…have you guessed yet? 

Windows7News editor’s videos go live on official Microsoft support website is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Working on a slow, disorganized computer can be maddening, and it is a common problem for many of us. In an attempt to resolve this annoyance consider using two of Windows 7’s utilities – Disk Cleanup and Defragmenter. Both tools can restore your computer to good health!

Let’s take a quick look at Disk Cleanup. This utility found in System Tools, first searches and analyzes the hard drive for files that are no longer of any use, and then offers you the choice of removing them.

These are the different file categories that Disk Cleanup targets when performing its initial disk analysis:

• Compression of old files
• Temporary Internet files
• Temporary Windows files
• Downloaded Program files
• Recycle Bin
• Removal of unused applications or optional Windows components
• Setup Log files
• Offline files

Now let’s see what Disk Defragmenter does! This utility, also available from System Tools, is designed to increase access speed by rearranging files stored on a disk to occupy contiguous storage locations. I always have trouble getting my head around the word “contiguous”. A better choice of word would perhaps be “adjacent” or even “adjoining”.

The process is called defragmentation. Defragmenting a disk minimizes head travel, which reduces the time it takes to read files from and write files to the disk.

Clean Up Your Programs

How many of us collect applications, often downloaded from the Internet that we may or may not use. If you haven’t used that application in a long time, ditch it!

Take a quick look at the applications listed in All Programs. I bet you’ll see one or maybe more you haven’t used in ages. If this is the case don’t beat about the bush, uninstall them.

Often when you uninstall an application, remnants of it remain behind in the Registry. To remove them, consider using the freeware program, CCleaner, which has a complete set of cleanup tools — Cleaner (a similar utility to Disk Cleanup) and Registry (an alternative to Disk Defragmenter).

Spring Clean Your Files Regularly

After you have produced a viable file system, inspect and clean it regularly. Routine maintenance tasks include deleting old or duplicate files and folders and seeing that important files are within their correct folders. This can save you time and reduce frustration.

Cleanup your Email, Address Book and Favorites

These are three other areas where a little pruning is required. Consider these questions!

• How often do your delete old emails?
• Is your Address Book full of old redundant addresses?
• Do you need all those websites listed under Favorites?

Do a bit of spring cleaning here too!

Look at Your File Storage

Once you have performed these maintenance tasks the problem may be where you store them. The longer you use your computer the more document files, MP3 clips, and digital photos you accumulate. Just saving these items within the Libraries – Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos Libraries is not enough!

Are you accumulating too many files? Perhaps you should consider buying an external hard drive and shift some of this material there. Too many photos, songs and videos can slow your PC down.

Organize Your File Storage

A little planning goes a long way, think it through and take the time to plan the best way to organize your files. Here are a few questions you could ask yourself:

• What sort of files do you create?
• Where do you want to store them?

After you work out the kinds of files you produce and need to save, the folders can be tailor-made to indicate the kind of data contained in each file.

Create Folders and Sub-folders within each Library

When creating a new folder, be logical, and use an easy-to-understand name. For example, when working in My Documents create additional folders on specific subjects for example Garden Projects, Budget, Letters, and Trips etc. Then as your files expand create sub-folders. Within the Garden Projects folder you could create sub-folders for different projects – Watering Plan, Deciduous Shrubs, and Fruit Trees etc.

• To create a new sub-folder with Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP, right-click anywhere in the folder, click New, and then click Folder. Type the name for the new folder, and press the Enter button.
• To create a new folder in Windows 7, in Widows Explorer, click New Folder at the top of any folder or library. Type the name for the new folder, and press the Enter button.

So there you have it. These are just a few ways you can make your computer run a little faster!

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In Part 1, Fast Duplicate File Finder you learnt how to find duplicated files. In this article you’ll see how to remove them or store them somewhere else. However, before doing either it’s time to look at another useful feature of Fast Duplicate File Finder. This is the Preview Option.

Using the Preview Feature

This feature allows you to see what the file looks like. It’s a simple matter, all you do is select a file from the file list, this can be either a checked file is its twin and “hey presto” its image appears in the Preview window.

Using this feature is a good way to ensure you are not disposing of an important file. This is very useful if you are checking picture files.

Previewing a Duplicated File

Removing the Duplicates

After the scan the duplicate files are checked!

Duplicated Files Identified

Your next option is to decide whether you want to move them or delete them.

• To delete press the “Delete Checked Files” button.
• To move them press the “Move Checked Files” button.

You can delete the checked files to the Recycle Bin if you checked “Delete files to Recycle Bin” option. Otherwise the files will be deleted permanently.

Deleting Checked Files

1. Click the Delete Checked Files button.

Choosing the Delete Option

2. You will be asked to confirm this. Click the Yes button.

3. Fast Duplicate File Finder advises you the job is done.

The selected files are no longer cluttering your computer’s storage space.

Moving Checked Files

This process is not so straight forward. You can move the checked files to a custom destination folder. Duplicates folder structure will be maintained in the selected folder.

1. Create a destination folder, on say your Desktop. Call it Spare Files or a name of your choice.

2. In the After Scan Actions box, click the access button indicated in the next illustration.

Taking the Move Option

3. This opens the Browse for Folder window.

Browsing for the Target Folder

4. Select the named folder you have created, say Spare Pictures folder, and click the Ok button.

5. The named folder appears in the Move checked files to . . .

6. Click the Move Checked Files button.

Moving the Checked Files

7. A Warning Box dialog box opens. Click the OK button.

8. The Confirm dialog box opens asking you to confirm. Click the Yes button.

9. Fast Duplicate File Finder informs you the files have been successfully moved.

10. To complete the process, click the Close button.

You have saved the duplicated files.

If you choose Fast Duplicate File Finder it will fulfill all the requirements to rid your computer of duplicated files. Give it a go!

Introducing Fast Duplicate File Finder (Part 2) is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Is your computer becoming cluttered with duplicated files scattered here and there across your folders?

Well, here’s an answer to the problem!

There is a useful application available from Mind Gems website. It is called Fast Duplicate File Finder and it is FREEWARE. You can download it from this website: http://www.mindgems.com/products/products.htm

This product will help you find all duplicated files in folder and their sub folders on your hard drive. The application will compare the content of your files so it will find duplicates even if they are using different file names. There is a Professional version too which is more sophisticated but this will cost you!

The duplicate remover uses fast binary comparison algorithm and has internal preview supporting most images, videos, music and text file formats. You can also preview the files before giving them the “chop”.

As a safeguard, Fast Duplicate File Finder includes an option to protect system files and folders. This is ON by default.

Setting Fast Duplicate File Finder to Work

The first thing you need to do is to select the folders where you suspect the duplicated files reside.

1.       Start the program. The main window opens. Spend some time checking out its features.

Opening Screen

2.       Before selecting folders to scan, ensure the box labelled Scan Folders in the Scan Box is checked.

Make sure Scan Folders is checked!

3.       Click the button labelled Add Folder in the Scan Box or the same named button on the Taskbar at the top of the window.

4.       The Browse for Folders window opens. Select a folder or folders to scan.
Note: Make sure you check the small empty box alongside the selected folder.

Selected folders for scanning

5.       Click the Scan Now button either on the Taskbar or in the Scan Box.

           Note: This can be the button in the Scan box or on the Toolbar at the top of the window.

6.       The program then issues a warning informing you the System Files and Folders are protected. Click the OK button to continue.

7.       The Scan commences.  When it finishes another window opens indicating the results of the scan. Click the Ok button to continue.

Preliminary notice of Scan Results

8.       After the scan process finishes the program shows you all found duplicate files in groups and automatically marking checking the duplicated file thus marking them for deletion.

Scan completed showing duplicated files

You have completed your first task. You have found those “pesky” duplicates. In my next article, Introducing Fast Duplicate File Finder (Part 2)  you’ll find out what to do next to get rid of them.

Introducing Fast Duplicate File Finder (Part 1) is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

As most users work with their computer they create large documents, pictures, images, video files and audio files. The time will come when you will be hit by a sudden realisation that your system has slowed down due to the accumulation of duplicate files scattered throughout your hard disk.

The answer to this problem is to utilise duplicate file finder software to find duplicate files on your computer and eliminate them thus freeing up clogged hard disk space. This has an additional benefit of increasing the speed of your computer system.

To ensure you have a healthy operating system consider running duplicate file finder software.

After researching the Web, I have come across five free Duplicate File Finders that will find duplicate files on your hard drive. Some, in my opinion are better than others but nevertheless here is the list.

•  Duplicate Cleaner
• Fast Duplicate File Finder
• CloneSpy
• Duplicate File Finder
• DoubleKiller

Here is a brief summary of what each of these applications do.

Duplicate Cleaner

This application helps you painlessly remove duplicate files from your computer. It has a well laid out easy-to-use interface.

This application is available from the following website:

http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/20/windows/system-utils/duplicate-cleaner-find-duplicate-files-by-content.html

Fast Duplicate File Finder

This efficient and easy-to-use free application help you quickly remove duplicate files from your computer. It is well laid out easy-to-use interface is a good choice.

This application is available from the following website:

http://www.mindgems.com/products/Fast-Duplicate-File-Finder/Fast-Duplicate-File-Finder-About.htm

CloneSpy

If you indulge in a lot of Internet downloads the chances are you will duplicate files unwittingly. This application can be used to delete redundant files or move them to a specific folder or export them to another location.

This application is available from the following website:

http://www.clonespy.com/

Duplicate File Finder

This application has a friendly interface suitable for computer beginners. It searches for duplicate file contents irrespective of the file name. Once found duplicate files can be deleted or moved or copied.

This application is available from the following website:

http://www.ashisoft.com/

DoubleKiller

This application is fast, compact and easy to use. It removes people that files from your system. It finds files using the following criteria – name, size, modification date and content.

This application is available from the following website:

http://www.bigbangenterprises.de/en/doublekiller/

So there you have it, the choice is yours!

Having said that, my particular choice is Fast Duplicate File Finder. In my next blog, I will explain why I have chosen this one and will explain how it operates.

It will be interesting to hear other users’ opinions about finding and removing duplicate files from your computer system.

Duplicate File Clutter – How Do You Deal with It! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Can you improve performance of your PC? Try Readyboost from Microsoft. Just plug in a USB flash drive or card and let ReadyBoost borrow it. ReadyBoost is designed to help when your PC’s memory is running low. Low memory can make your computer perform poorly because Windows, which needs a place to stash data, turns to the hard drive. Flash memory offers a speedier alternative.

Administrative Tools

ReadyBoost works with flash storage devices. In Windows 7, it can handle more flash memory and even multiple devices—up to eight, for a maximum 256 gigabytes (GB) of additional memory.

Computer Management

Using Windows 7 ReadyBoost to Improve memory caching allows Windows 7 to service random disk reads with performance that can be up to 80-100 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives. This caching applies to all disk content, not just the page file or system DLLs. Flash devices typically are slower than a hard disk for sequential I/O so, to maximize performance, ReadyBoost includes logic that recognizes large, sequential read requests and has the hard disk service these requests

Performance Monitoring Tools

When a compatible device is plugged in, the Windows AutoPlay dialog presents an additional option to use the flash drive to speed up the system. There is an additional “ReadyBoost” tab added to the drive’s properties dialog where the amount of space to be used can be configured. You can work with 250 MB to 256 GB of flash memory. ReadyBoost compresses and encrypts all data that are placed on the flash device; Microsoft has stated that a 2:1 compression ratio is typical, so that a 4 GB cache could contain upwards of 8 GB of data.

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The core idea of ReadyBoost is that a flash drive has a faster seek time than a typical magnetic hard disk (less than 1 ms).

Ready Boost

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This allows it to satisfy requests faster than reading files from a hard disk.

Using Windows 7 ReadyBoost to Improve your PC Performance is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Many companies are making the move to Windows 7. In large part this is happening because using older operating system, like XP, 2000 Professional or Windows 98, is now really old. Too many changes have occurred at the hardware level, and also at the software level. Even if an IT manager would only like to upgrade applications, trying to take advantage of the application suites will not be possible with some of the older hardware or Operating system technology.

That said, migration to Windows 7 is not a straightforward path. It holds many potential rewards, nevertheless there are many questions and challenges. So here are some Tips on Deploying Windows 7 because there are some issues that may present themselves and an IT manager would do well to be acquainted with them and prepare go a rounds.

• You should investigate application and user profiles or the data, application configurations and settings that make up a user’s desktop environment before any deployment takes place.
• Applications or the core purpose of using a PC: running tools that support your organization’s business operations must be well established to perform under the new environment.
• User skills or the ability of your users to work with and operate a desktop to fulfill their daily task
• User upgrades vs. clean installs. The issue here is that since it is not possible to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, you must take precautions to provide protection for end user data.
• Complications of XP mode. If you decide to use XP Mode in Windows 7, you have to remember to build and deploy a Windows XP virtual machine onto target computers. Additionally, you must install applications that are incompatible with Windows 7 into the XP Virtual Machine.
• Installing or virtualizing applications. Microsoft has made tremendous efforts to add application compatibility support within Windows 7; however, you must test and possibly convert some of your applications before moving them to the new OS.

Tips on Deploying Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Accessing the System Configuration window

With all the current hype about Windows 8, I wonder whether the average user fully comprehends and uses all of the features of Windows 7.  I have been using Windows operating systems, from Windows 3.1 right up to the present time.  As far as I am concerned Windows 7 is the ‘bee’s knees’ of operating systems. Windows 8 will have to go a long way to convince me to change.

While I am a confirmed Windows 7 fan, I still enjoy exploring its potential and regularly come across something new. 

This leads me to the topic of this article – Accessing the System Configuration window.  This feature is one of the most useful windows available in Windows 7.  I know it had its antecedents right back to Windows XP and beyond, but its current features are superior to those earlier versions. 

Access to the System Configuration window is easy.  The simplest and quickest way is to open the Start Menu and in the Search box, type “msconfig“.  Immediately the Search feature displays this command at the top of its box.  Pressing the Enter key opens the System Configuration window.  This window contains five tabs, all of which have useful functions but I want to draw your attention to the last one , the Tools tab.

When you access this tab, in its window you will see a list of available System tools together with a description of their function. Scroll down the list and you will see there are eighteen tools in all, each one allowing you to make system changes or access specific system tools. 

One Stop Shop Tools

With the Tools Tab on the System Configuration window open to activate one of the tools on the list, and click the Launch button.  The selected tool opens immediately allowing you to get on with the task.   The System Configuration window remains open in the background, so after you complete the task, you can return to the tools list and perform another one.  This saves you an awful lot of time.

Activating System Tools

With this set of System Tools now at your fingertips, you can get straight on to the task.  I’m wondering whether this feature will be retained in Windows 8? Maybe it can be made even better!!

The One-Stop Shop is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Well at last Microsoft has released a Windows 8 Developer Preview for us all. You can download it for free now here. Over at Windows 8 News I’ve put together a guide on how you can run Windows 8 on your Windows 7 machine in a virtual box.

The guide is very clear and straight forward so anybody should be able to do it. It allows you to play around with Windows 8 without actually using it as your main OS or dual booting. Windows 8 is still only at the developer preview stage so this is advisable as it’s still got a fair few things that need to be sorted out in it.

So if you can’t wait to get your hands on Windows 8 and start playing around with it, head over to Windows 8 News to read my guide on installing Windows 8 on your Windows 7  machine

Click here for the guide

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I’m used to working with Microsoft Word for many posts and other operations. I used to work with font size 12, which is normal, but for me it is quite small. I don’t have 20-20 vision so I need to make the text on my screen bigger. When I work with Microsoft products I jump the font size to 16 or 18, then it is readable. But there is a more universal way to make your text appear larger. You can scale the size of your text.

Windows 7 Screen Scaling

Windows allows you to use scaling to increase the size of text and other items on the screen. When you use scaling in this way, Windows magnifies the size of text and user interface elements to the scale you choose. Each account on a computer has a separate setting for scaling.

You can specify the scaling to use for text and user interface elements by following these steps:

1. In Control Panel, click Appearance And Personalization.

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2.Under the Display heading, click Make Text And Other Items Larger Or Smaller.

3.The default scaling options allow you to choose a 100-percent scale (the default), a 125-percent scale, or a 150-percent scale. To use one of these scaling options, make a selection, and then click Apply.

4. To choose a custom setting of between 100 and 500 percent, click Set Custom Text Size (DPI) in the left pane, and then use the Scale combo box to select or specify a scale.

5.You need to log off the user and then log on the user again for the changes to take effect.

Be careful, however, because if you choose a setting higher than 200 percent, the user interface elements and text may be scaled so large that you cannot work with the computer. In such a case you may not even be able to get back into Control Panel to restore the original scaling setting.

However, there may be a way out under these circumstances. Go to the command prompt and enter dpiscaling or alternatively go to the Search box on the Start menu. This will open the Display page directly, which will let you to reset the scaling setting.

Another problem may develop when you’ve enabled scaling and the text in an application is blurred or unreadable. In this case you may want to disable display scaling for that particular application. You can do this by right-clicking the application’s shortcut and then click Properties. On the Compatibility tab, select Disable Display Scaling On High DPI Settings, and then click OK.

How to use Windows 7 Screen Scaling to Increase the Size of Your Text is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

It’s too easy to accumulate Gunk. Unfortunately, one of the beauties of Windows 7 is its ability to add shortcut icons of your favourite programs to the Desktop, the Start Menu and the Taskbar. Unless you are disciplined user you can end up with excess baggage in these three locations – the Desktpp, the Start Menu and the Taskbar.

The illustration below is a good example of Desktop clutter and excessive use of the Taskbar.

A Cluttered Desktop and Taskbar

Fortunately, you can quickly undo this accumulation of space wasting and memory consuming gunk.

Cleaning up Desktop Unnecessary Icons

The only way to tackle this problem is to manually remove each unwanted icon from the Desktop. It’s no good dropping in the Recycle Bin as this still takes up valuable memory.

Select an icon, hold down the Control key and select each individual icon you wish to remove. Then, hold down the shift key and press the Delete key. Windows will then ask you if want to get rid of these icons permanently. Click the Yes button.

Removing Desktop Icons

Tidying up the Start Menu

By default, Windows 7 automatically displays recently opened programs on the Start Menu. This is another form of gunk.

A Cluttered Start Menu

To stop this happening, right click the Start button and in the pop-up menu select Properties. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window opens. In the Privacy section, uncheck each of the two boxes and click the Apply button followed by the OK button.

Cleaning Up the Start Menu

The next time you open the start menu only the permanent applications are listed.

Ridding your Taskbar of Unwanted Icons

In the example below you can see it Taskbar overwhelmed by icons. So many items have been added that the taskbar has automatically expanded to cope with this influx.

A Cluttered Taskbar

There is only one way you can get rid of the skunk and this is to individually unpin each icon. To do this, right click on the offending icon and in the pop-up menu select unpin.

Unpinning Taskbar Icons

So there you have it, you have successfully removed gunk from these three locations – the Desktop, the Start Menu and the Taskbar. Your computer will now run more efficiently.

Purging Your Computer of Gunk (Part 2) is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Have you ever wondered why your laptop battery doesn’t seem to be lasting as long as it was when you originally bought it? It’s inevitable, as your laptop battery gets older and is constantly being charged and drained, it will weaken and lose its capacity. Now there doesn’t seem to be any obvious feature in Windows 7 which displays your batteries health. However, there is, you just need to know where to go to find it. And that’s just what I’ll show you in this guide.

1. First off you’ll need to open up a command prompt window. You’ll need to run this as the administrator, otherwise it won’t work. To do this, type cmd into the start menu, then right click on cmd and choose Run as Administrator

2. Now that your command prompt window is open, you’ll need to type the following

powercfg -energy

and then hit enter.

3. You’ll then be presented with the below screen. Just hang in there for 60 seconds while Windows does some tests.

4. Once Windows has performed these tests, you’ll see the following appear (or similar)

5. Now the line that I’ve highlighted in yellow above is what you need to take note of. Navigate to that file and then open it up. ( Note: If you search for energy-report.html in your system32 folder you have to copy it to the desktop first then open it otherwise you won’t be able to open it)

6. Now that the HTML file is open, scroll right down to the bottom and it’s around the 5th last item.

Now you will be able to see all the information about your battery. Now the figures you’re interested here are the Design Capacity and Last Full Charge.

Design Capacity is the maximum charge your battery can hold. Basically what it was new. Last Full Charge is what you battery was able to hold last time it was fully charged. Chances are, this figure is now less than your design capacity figure if your laptop is more than a year old and you haven’t changed it’s battery since you bought it.

Now you’re probably looking at the screenshot above and saying “both those figures are the same”. Yes they certainly are, and I took this screenshot from the energy-report that was generated for my 2 year old laptop! I have no idea how my battery is still in perfect condition, or at least it is according to this report. When I think about it though, my battery doesn’t really last for any less time than it did when I bought it. I only get a miserably 1 hour to 1.5 hours from a full charge, that’s all I ever got

It’ll be interesting to see what your batteries are like, please do comment below with your results

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In my last article “Degunking Makes your Computer Run Faster, I made reference to a great book on the subject by Joli Ballew. Her book is called “Degunking Windows 7″. This provides useful information on how to get rid of accumulated gunk on your computer. To put some of her ideas into practice here are a few tips.

When you decide to take the plunge and set about turning your computer into a mean clean machine you need go further than Windows 7 itself. Here you will find two useful tools, Disk Cleanup and Defragmenter. Both reside in System Tools, a sub-folder of Accessories. These tools go a long way to cleaning up the mess on your computer.

Using Disk Cleanup

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In the Search box type, Disk Cleanup.
3. Select the drive and click the OK button.

Note: If you have more than one hard drive, click the down arrow button and select the drive you wish to clean up.

4. Disk Cleanup calculates how much space it can save.

Note: By default, Disk Cleanup displays a list of checked locations where redundant files reside. These files are fair game so you can delete these files with impunity. However, there are also some non-checked locations. Treat these with caution.

5. To see what you may be in them, move the mouse pointer onto each listed item. In the lower section of the dialogue box you will see the following information – the amount of disk space you will save and a description of what you are deleting. The golden rule is “Always check before you delete“.

The illustration below shows you the sequence to follow.

Using Disk Cleanup

Why do you need to defragment your hard drive?

Your computer when running contains hundreds and hundreds of files. The more programs and more files you had the greater likelihood is that they will be scattered across your hard drive in fragments.

Fragmented files degrade the performance of your computer. As the clusters of files become fragmented they grow further apart and it takes longer for your computer to find and assemble all the pieces necessary to run the program or to access the file.

This is where the process of defragment it comes in. It rearranges the files on your hard drive putting them back in order last cutting down the time it takes to access them.

Now you know why you need to defragment your hard drive on a regular basis.

Using Disk Defragmenter

The other useful tool for tidying up your hard drive is Windows 7’s Disk Defragmenter. This is located in System Tools. The quickest way of accessing it is to open the Start Menu and in the Search box type, “defragmenter”. Windows search quickly find see operating command. Press the Enter  key. The Disk Defragmenter window opens.

There are two important options in Disk Defragmenter. The first is to analyse the disk you wish to defragment and the second option is to go straight into the defragmentation process.

Windows 7 Disk Defragmenter

Tip! Windows 7 is not the only provider of a good defragment program. Consider these two alternatives –

• Piriform’s Defraggler   http://www.piriform.com/defraggler
• Auslogics Disk Defrag  http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/

Both applications are freeware and are excellent applications.

You have made to positive moves in the process of cleaning up the gunk on your computer. In my next article you will learn how to continue the process.

Purging Your Computer of Gunk (Part 1) is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

The font manager is a tool that will let you easily change the fonts you use on your system. The Add Fonts dialog is history, and in its place is new functionality within the Fonts folder itself. Access to the font manager is from the control panel. Then select Fonts

From the Control Panel, then select Appearance and Personalization

First, the folder now shows font previews via each font file’s icon (visible with Large or Extra Large icon views).

Second, fonts from a single set will no longer show up as different fonts; they’re now combined as a single family, which can be expanded by double-clicking the icon.

Similar Fonts are put into a family unit

Third, you can now toggle fonts on and off by right-clicking a font icon and selecting the Hide option. This prevents applications from loading the font (thus saving memory), but still keeps the file retained in the Font folder.

Hide or preview fonts

Finally, Windows 7 includes a new fancy, free-flowing font called Gabriola that shows off the advanced antialiasing, text rendering, and “stylistic alternate” font flourishes afforded by DirectWrite (Microsoft’s API for 2D text rendering) and OpenType.

The Gabriola Font

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Other Features

Clear Type

You can make your fonts appear in a clearer format with a check

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Step 1:

Allow Windows 7 to check your display

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Step 2

Find the right sample

Step 3

Focus on the right font format and select it

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Step 4

Make Final Font adjustments

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Verify

Verify

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Font Settings

You can make specific adjustments to the font settings with the selections listed below.

Use the Font Settings feature to make special adjustments

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Character Map

You can also pull up specific characters from the character map.

Use the Character Map to find and add extra characters to the font scheme. Based on font type.

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Recently, I purchased a new computer book on Windows 7 called “Degunking Windows 7”. The author is Joli Ballew and the book is published by McGraw Hill.

The Degunking Book

This well-written book offers sound advice on how to “degunk” your computer and get it running faster and in good condition.

What is Gunk?

Gunk is all the unnecessary junk you gradually accumulate. There are many types of gunk and numerous places where this gunk mounts up.

Here are a few examples.

• Out of date photos
• Old e-mail messages
• Redundant applications you thought you might need
• Hidden programs that launch themselves on start up
• Icon Clutter on your Desktop, your Taskbar and your Start menu
• Duplicated files

Your Gunk collection develops without you realising it and it causes your computer to slowdown. It may eventually cause system malfunction. Many people do not realise that their computer needs some free hard drive space as virtual memory as this ensures your programs run faster and more efficiently.  So the less hard drive space you have, the harder (and slower) your computer as to work.

I can remember when my children were living at home and they kept adding new games to my old XT computer, it just stopped working. The cause was an overloaded hard drive.  Many adults are not much better in that they are unwittingly collecting this wasteful gunk.

The 12-Step Degunking Program

The author suggests you follow her 12-step program to degunk your computer.  The procedures to follow are described below.

1. Get rid of files and programs that you don’t need.
2. Organise the remaining files and folders.
3. Clean up your Desktop, Start Menu and Taskbar.
4. Optimise your hard drive and limit the programs running in the background.
5. Cleanup and secure Internet Explorer and give consideration to alternative web browsers.
6. Reduce your e-mail spam, learn to back up your e-mail and organise it.
7. Install Windows updates and reconfigure anti-virus, anti-malware and anti-ad aware program.
8. Clean up your network and create a home group.
9. Fix problems with media, including duplicate files, files that won’t play and files that take up unnecessary hard disk space.
10. Optimise syncing with mobile phones, music players, iPods, iPhones, netbooks and laptops.
11. Get rid of errors for hardware, the operating system and any third-party programs.
12. Create a working, reliable and foolproof backup system.

I have followed the advice described in this book and now find my computer is running much faster. I have got rid of the lot of unnecessary clutter.

Maybe it’s time to spring clean your home computer?

Degunking Makes Your Computer Run Faster is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

If you want to get a handle on the power consumption of your PC, then use Powercfg  to fix energy related problems. This program on Windows 7 is for you.

You can configure your Windows 7 power management policy with Powercfg. It is a command-line utility and it exposes all power management settings, including those that are not available in the UI or from Group Policy.

Normally, the operating system represents power management settings by GUIDs. And in this case to use the program you have to know the GUIDs for the settings you want to modify. However, you do not have to worry because Powercfg also supports aliases for most common GUIDs. Just type Powercfg –aliases

Energy Analysis

What if you want to detect some common energy-efficiency problems, such as excessive processor utilization, or increased timer resolution? A new enhancement now exists for the utility operating with a new command-line option: /energy. This can be used to detect common energy-efficiency problems. It can also be used to detect inefficient power policy settings, ineffective use of suspend by USB devices, and battery capacity degradation. Plus you can use this option to validate a system or configuration prior to deployment, provide support to users who encounter battery life or power consumption issues, or even diagnose energy-efficiency problems on your personal system.

If you open the command window and type Powercfg /energy you will get the following.

Then when you open the html report you can see something like:

Specialty options

Finally, a new /requests option lets you list application and driver requests that prevent the computer from automatically turning off the display or entering Sleep mode.

Meanwhile new /requestsoverride option for the Powercfg command lets you override either individual availability requests or all availability requests.

This selection allows you to have greater control over how this feature will be implemented.

Use Powercfg to fix Energy Problems on Your PC is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Copying files is one of those core operations you are bound to perform in your daily interaction with a PC. It doesn’t matter if you’re using a basic file or a sophisticated one. But there’s a problem. There are limitations in the traditional “copy and paste” functionality that is built into Microsoft Windows 7. It works well enough for simple tasks (moving a document from one directory to another, and so on), but it lacks the advanced functionality an IT professional needs in the workplace. For example, the copy and paste operation doesn’t include any kind of advanced features that would allow you to recover from a brief network disruption. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition, which can be a problem especially particularly when copying complete directories. Through the UI, you can’t choose to copy only those files which are new or have been updated. You either copy individual files, entire directories, or nothing at all.

So this sets the stage for Robocopy. This powerful tool, included with the Microsoft Windows Server, allows for all of those advanced functions and more.

You can perform more serious file replication tasks with RoboCopy. The biggest benefit is that it provides ability to create full mirror duplicates of two file structures (including all subdirectories and files, if you choose) without copying any unnecessary files. Only the files that are new or have been updated in the source location will be copied. You can also preserve all of the associated file information, including date and time stamps, and security access control lists (ACLs).

You can specify your source and target paths, as well as any custom options or filters you’d like to apply, whether or not you’d like to create a drive mapping, or where you’d like to store the resulting logs. These are all features you can  execute with traditional Robocopy command line functionality, but for many, having the options consolidated in a graphical interface may really simplify the process.

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Download Gui Version 3.1

Using RoboCopy is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.