Windows 7: A Bit About Windows 7 Part 1

Windows 7 is coming soon, how soon October 22nd at 12:01 AM you can get your copy. If you pre ordered it will be shipped that day. The family pack will be available that day too. Now lets face it most people will not get windows 7 by going to a store and buying a upgrade copy of windows 7. They will get it with a new computer.

If you are going to buy it you need to think witch one will suet your needs. The ones you have the choice of are Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, and Windows 7 Ultimate. There is a good chart to figure out witch one is for you on Paul Thurrot’s Supper site for Windows. The other thing you might want to decide on is 32 bit windows or 64 bit windows. You might wonder which one is should I get. Well it decides what you want to do. If you do a lot of video editing or Photo editing then you might want more then 4 GB of RAM you should go to 64 Bit windows then your limit is up in the hundreds of GB’s of RAM. Though if you are going to do 64 bit you might want to make sure there is drivers for thought's devices. If they were bought in the last year or two most likely they do and if they have the compatible with windows 7 sticker on the box like this

 

To read more about the windows 7 logo program click here. If you go with 32 bit everything that worked in Vista 32 should work just fine. But just remember if you want more then 4 GB of RAM you need 64 bit windows.

Windows 7 has a lot better interface with a redesign start menu. The quick lunch bar that has become more important. Think of it like a favorites for your applications if you always use firefox pin it to the task bar and it is always there. Windows now minimize into there icon on the task bar to make it easier to find the window you are looking for much like OS X. The start search is improved as well in windows 7. If you have XP you may have never herd of this. For me that's what one me over to get Vista. Start menu search makes it so much easier to find things in you computer you just type what you are looking for and it finds it (as long as it is in your computer or network).

If you install Windows 7 on an existing computer like a laptop you might see a speed increase and a an extra bit of battery life. This is because Windows 7 uses less rescores then Vista or even XP so if you are looking for a reason to upgrade I think that is more then enough reason to upgrade to windows 7.

Wile I'm sure everyone will not probably go out and buy windows 7 and will most likely get it with a new PC it should be noted that if you are not looking into a new computer but want to get a bit of performance out of your current computer get a upgrade copy of windows 7. Just remember to format the drive and install windows 7.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Windows XP,Vista,Start menu,Windows 7 Logo Program,64 bit,32 bit

Another Tip

Spyware is every ware and it can be nasty it can slow down your computer and do what its says spy on you. Witch is never good cause I'm sure like most people you probably use your computer to check your banking and pay your bills. Well wouldn’t it be nice if you had a program on your computer that you could just run and check for that stuff and even better get rid of it too? Well you do and you probably don’t even know it. Its called The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. You may have seen it talked about in your windows update. But Microsoft hides it. But there is away to use it your self when ever you want. Here is how you do it:

From your desktop go to the start menu type in the start menu search MRT and it enter (on XP hit the windows key and “R” and type MRT.EXE and it enter).

You should get a the UAC pop up just hit continue or yes and MRT should pop up just hit next.

You should see a screen giving you some options to do a quick scan, full scan, or a custom scan. If you don't have much time and just want to know quick if you got something or not then do a quick scan just know it will miss something's. If you want to make sure there is nothing on your computer do the full scan that will check every file and every folder on your computer. If you think a file you just downloaded is infected with spyware use the custom scan and check just that file.

Just hit next when you know what kind of scan you want to do and it will start the scan.

When its done it will tell you if you have something or not and will get rid of it.

Well I how you enjoyed the tip if you have any questions e-mail me at themegatechblog@live.com.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Windows Vista,Windows XP,MRT,Mircrosoft,Spyware,Remove

Windows 7 Tip

With windows 7 only about a month way I thought I would share a tip that I think everyone will find use full. I Windows Vista UAC (User Account Control) was added to windows this is that annoying thing that asked you if you wanted to do something that most of the time you told it to do. In Windows 7 it is still there but they have made it less annoying but some people it might still be annoying or they might want it how it was in Vista. So here is how to change it:

Go to the start menu and type UAC in the start menu search.

 

 

Hit enter and UAC will pop up and ask if you want to do this just say yes and a screen with a slider will a peer. Just move the slider up to make it more annoying (more Secured) or move it down to make it less annoying (less secure).

I hope this was hopeful if you have any tips e-mail me at themegatechblog@live.com.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,UAC,Tip

Is The Cloud Good?

You may have herd allot of people talking about the cloud or cloud computing. No there not talking about a computerized cloud there talking about the notion that everything we do now that we need software running on our local computers being a thing of the past. What will replace that well what elts the internet there are examples of this now even. about 5 or 6 years ago if you wanted to mange your money using your computer you would go to Wal-Mart or what ever store near you that sold computer software and buy Quicken then you would go home and install it. Well now if you want to mange your money with Quicken you go to the Quicken website and sign up for a free account with them and set it up with your bank. There is no downloading of any software on to your computer its all in your browser now. That is the idea of cloud computing. You no longer have to go to a store buy software and install it on your computer it is all on a server on the internet.

No this has caused some alarm there are people that are not that trust worthy of the internet. No matter how good your code is and no matter how secure you think you made your program there is always going to be a vulnerability in it. Lets face it when the internet was made there was no need for security it was just scientists sending data to each other and they knew each other so there was trust. But now there some many people on it that you don’t know who is who now. So back to example of Quicken if hacker wanted to they could hack your computer and see what you are doing or they could hack your bank and see it that way too. So it is not perfect yet it is as secure as they can make it cause of how it gets the information but there some variables that have to come into play. The security of your computer and the security of your banks network. But for most cloud computing applications its the security of your computer and the security of the site you are on. You can make sure you are secured but you never know about the site you are on. I guess I would say just use cloud applications from brands you know like Quicken and Adobe.

Cloud computing can save you money as well.  Lets use Photo shop Express it is a simple photo editor that runs in the cloud.  why should you go out buy Photo Shop CS4 or Photo Shop Elements when you will never use most of what they can do. Most people want to play with the color add some text maybe and crop some photos. Well you can sign up for photo shop express and you can do all that right from your browser now installing needed. Also Photo Shop is a RAM hog it uses lots of RAM and doesn't work right on older computers. Well as long as your computer can run Flash and your browser of choice then you can use photo shop now. You don’t have run out and buy more RAM for your computer and then open the case and put it in photo shop just works.

With cloud computing what operating system becomes less and less relevant. The question will be what browser are you using will become the new question. I do think the big players will be Google chrome and Mozilla Firefox. That will be the new Microsoft VS Apple but witch one will be witch. Out of the two Mozilla has a bigger market share but I do think that Google can catch up. Who knows what the future will have in store for us maybe cloud computing will not take off maybe it will be something different. For now companies are looking towards the cloud. Now you have to ask your self “Do I trust the cloud?

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Cloud Computing,Qucken,Adobe,Photo Shop,Express,CS4,Wal-Mart,Mozilla,Firefox,Google,Chrome,Security,Microsoft,Apple

Aww Look How Cute 7 Is

A few days ago I saw the first Windows 7 ad. But I had to take a double  take and watch it again. Its this little girl going threw her dads computer and seeing all the reviews for windows 7. I should also ad the computer is running windows 7. Then she puts them in a slide show and it shows blurbs form places like CNET and the New York Times about how good windows 7 is. Now the reason I had to take a double take is this ad is just like I’m A PC ads. I just feel like they could have done the first ad some how different its cute ad and will get people attention. But I feel it could be done different buy pointing out some thing people might find use full. They could pointed out things like start menu search (not new in 7 but I think that would get people to move from XP). The ad should do the job. If you have not seen the ad here it is enjoy.( I cant put it here cause I’m having a bad tech day).

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Ads,CNET,New York Times

Is a iPod Touch a Good Netbook?

Yesterday Apple had there event and gave us a new iTunes, iPod nano’s, and a 64 GB iPod Touch. When they talked about the touch they showed a photo of someone trying to but a dell mini in there back pocket and and then said you can’t put your computer in your pocket. That made me think is the iPod Touch a netbook? I came to the conclusion that no its not… its better. Let me tell you why.

Mom for her birthday got a Dell Mini and well guess who had to set up for her and install all the updates and lock it down. As I did these thing’s I notice some things were going off the screen and there was nothing that could be done screen was set for 1024 X 768 and if I went to 800 X 600 there was even less room to do things. But the iPod Touch has a much smaller screen but nothing ever goes off screen when I’m looking at photo or writing a note. Why is this? Well it is because iPod Touch is running the iPhone OS or Mobile OS X what over you want to call it. This means that the operating system was made with such a small screen in mind when they made the OS. Most netbooks like the Dell Mini runs Windows XP witch never was intended for a 10.1 in screen so things just go off screen.

Now a netbook is a low performance laptop so your not going to be playing World of Warcraft on it or Halo. What they are met for is doing things online witch ware netbooks fail again. Lets say you want to go to Facebook you have to open up your browser and type in facebook.com and it takes you to the Facebook web site and it looks just horrible netbooks. Everything is vary scrunched together and content is over lapping on other content it just looks bad. Now if you want to go to Facebook on your iPod Touch there are two ways to do that you can type in facebook.com i Safari on the touch and it will take you the mobile page for Facebook witch looks allot cleaner then it looks on a netbook. The other way you can get to it is go to the app store on the touch and download the free Facebook app witch makes Facebook look even better and easier to get to on the touch and you can do everything you could do on the normal page.

Another thing that makes the iPod Touch a better netbook is the fact that it fits in your pocket. Now I do know of some people that have pockets big enough that they can put something like a dell mini in there pocket for most of us with normal pockets something like the dell min in your pocket is just not going to work. The iPod Touch just fits in your pocket and if I need to take notes or I need to add something to my calendar I just take it out of my pocket and do what I have to do save it and put it away. A netbook would take forever to start and take wile to load what you need to do. Not to mention the iPod touch can have your movies, music, podcast, and so much more on it and it works quickly. a netbook not as easily.

Netbooks should be renamed or something because they fail at there purpose of having a computer that you do things online with. Wile the iPod Touch it dose just that you got got somthing to do you do it and it is quick and easy and pain less. Wile with a netbook there's allot of pain to them. Now some of you might be thinking well wait you need a computer to use a iPod Touch something to sync it with and that is true but a netbook is a person’s second computer and shouldn’t be the only computer someone owns.

Now if you wish to e-mail me you may do so by e-mail me at themegatechblog@live.com or you can leave a comment on the blog.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: iPod Touch,netbook,Windows XP,moile OS X,Iphone OS,Facebook

What Did Apple Have To Say?

Today was apples event today and let me get the one question everyone has been wondering. No the Betals were not there and there not on the ITunes store as of today. But there was a person there that people were also wonder if he would be there and that was Steve Jobs. He looks a little thinner form the last time we have seen him but he seems healthy and ready to talk about new iPods. Witch we kind of got.

One of the first things they talked about was iTunes 9 witch adds things like family sharing, better syncing, iTunes LP, and extras for downloaded movies. The thing I've wanted that comes in iTunes 9 is you can organize all your apps on your iPhone and iPod touch so much better now. You can get iTunes 9 now.

 

The next thing they went into was the iPod touch. They then announced a 64 GB touch for $399 then went on about how its good for gaming and had some people up on stage form EA talking about some games coming out for the touch and iPhone. Then they showed an Ad for it. That was it no cam for the touch witch made me vary sad I have been putting off getting a new touch thinking they would add a camera or they would have something worth upgrading to the new touch but there is not.

They did have two surprise though the first one was they did not kill the iPod Classic. They came out with a 160 GB model one for $249. Now the other one was they gave the nano something new and that was a video camera and mic. Steve talked about the Flip for a bit and then said that apple wanted to try and do something simpler but offer it for free. Then went into talking about the nano and there it was the nano with a camera and mic right in it.

 

They also kept the iPod shuffle gum stick witch is now available in a few different colors now. But over all I don’t think that today's event really lived up to the hype that others were giving it. No cam in the touch, no tablet, and no Betals. If I had to pic something that was a big surprise I would have to say it is the new nano’s with the camera in it. I will have screen shots of the new iTunes when I can get it right now I'm sure apples servers are swamped right with people trying to get it.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Apple,iPod touch,Nano,iTunes 9,iPod Shuffle,iPod Classic

The Importance of Windows Live To Windows 7 Part 2: The Web

In first Part I talked about how the Windows Live for the desktop completes Windows 7. Now how dose the web complete the desktop programs. There are a few key services that work with the desktop programs. Windows Live Mail, Live Skydrive, and Spaces come together.

Lets start with Windows Live Mail if you have ever used Outlook then the Windows Live Mail will look almost like a simplified version of Outlook to you with your e-mail contacts and a calendar. All the things you need and nice thing is anything you do on the online Windows Live  Mail will be changed in the desktop program as well. Add a event to your calendar online when you go to the desktop program and hit sync and it will be added to the desktop calendar or you can do it the other way as well and it will work.

Windows Live Skyedirve is another part of the online service. Skyedive is basically like having your own hard drive online for what ever you want and its 25 GB free. Now anything you do with windows live spaces is added to your skydrive so keep that in mind. A good way to use it is for a online back up of small files there is a upload limit of 50 MB. So word files and photos it is good for backing up.

Windows Live Spaces is Windows Live social network ware you can add your photos that you want to share with your friends and family. You can start a blog and keep everyone you care about up to date with your life and parties you maybe planning.

The online parts of Windows Live keeps your desktop up to date with you or the other way around. No matter ware you are you can always have your e-mail, photos, calendar, contacts, and your life ware ever you are. If you are if you want to try this stuff this go to home.live.com. Well now there is only one more part, part 3:mobile Windows Live witch I will already say it will not be that long.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Windows Live,Online,web,Windows Live Mail,Windows Live Skydrive,Windows Live Spaces,e-mail

Iphone OS 3.1 Coming Tomorrow?

I was just syncing my Ipod touch and saw that the next day it will check for updates is 9/9/09 witch makes me think one of the things on announcements will be Iphone OS 3.1 what will it fix or add I have no idea.

-Mike

The Importance of Windows Live To Windows 7 Part 1.5

When I did the first part of this series I talked about the windows live suit but I forgot about one part of it that I cant be leave I forgot about. That is Windows Live Photo Gallery. Witch is something I use everyday. I really cant be leave I forgot about this. Photo Gallery is vary use for organizing your photos. It a louse you to import photos from your camera or SD card easily name the album and tag your photos before they are even imported. Once you have your photos imported you can tag each photo even more by tagging people. The program is smart enough to say hey there is a face here who is it? Form there you can click on it and it will bring your contacts list form your windows live mail account and you can use that to tag who it is. Photo Gallery also has simple editing tools to crop, color adjust, and straighten your photos. If you want to get your photos online you can upload them to your Spaces account (witch uses your sky drive) and you can upload to flickr. There is also addon’s so you can upload to Facebook and a few other social networks. I feel that Windows Live Photo Gallery plus Movie Maker will be something everyone will need and use once windows 7 comes out. But if you have Vista or XP you can get all this now at download.live.com. Just a note to XP users the new version of Movie Maker will not work.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,XP,Vista,Photo Gallery,Movie Maker,Flickr,Facebook,Skydrive,Spaces,Windows Live

The Importance of Windows Live To Windows 7 Part 1

Over the last few years Microsoft has been working on there Windows live brand of produces messenger, mail, Photo Gallery, Writer, Movie Maker, and others. When you install Windows 7 there is no mail client and no movie maker unlike in vista and XP ware you had outlook express and windows movie maker. Now most people most likely will not notice this cause Windows Live Essentials will be already on there computer because Microsoft made deals with most of there OEM’s to have it already on PC made by these OEM’s like Dell.

The Windows Live Essentials suit makes things a lot easier if you are using hotmail or what is now called Live mail now. The Windows live mail desktop client makes live mail so much more useful then the web client. With things like a built in calendar, RSS feed reader, and your mail you now have one stop place for all your news and your day ahead. The mail client just takes your mail form your hotmail or live account and pulls it to your desktop like Outlook Express use to do. One thing it never could do is pull your contacts out of hotmail and add it to your desktop Windows Live Mail dose this and any changes it makes it just pushes the changes back to the web so you always have a up to date contact list.

Now one of the other things that this mail client dose well is keep you more on top of things. I used the calendar when I was in school to make sure I remembered when to have projects done and other events happening at school it worked grate and having the desktop client made it even better. I ran it on my laptop I would go to my study hall and open up my laptop and take a look at what needed to be done. If I needed to change something I changed it and it would sync to the internet and when I got home the calendar on my desktop was up to date as well. There is one thing though you should know the calendar only works with the windows live calendar. This means if you use Google Calendar it will not sync with it.

Windows Live Messenger well what can I say about that other then its still around. Ok ok ok there are good uses for it and frankly it is my favorite messenger out there I just wish more of my friends used it. I love cause I like most people now are close with people that don't liv near me and its nice to see and hear them once and awhile witch Windows Live Messenger grate just hit one button I can now see and hear them (as long as they have a cam and mic) so there something to say about messenger it lets you keep everyone important to you close as long as they use Windows Live Messenger.

For years now the most popular editing program for youtubers has been windows movie maker witch never really all that grate it was fine for YouTube but your not going to edit a movie like you would on the make with IMovie. Well the Window Live team knew this and revamp movie maker to become Windows Live Movie Maker witch added the Ribbon UI to movie maker. They also simplified movie maker to this kind of drag and drop editing style since it is a Live product it has an web aspect witch is you can save right to YouTube right from movie maker. You have a slide show you need to make windows movie maker with all its transitions it makes that so easy I have done it my self even it took no time at all. (just wish I could find it)

 

Another program that come with this suit that I use allot is Windows Live Writer. If you have a blog this makes, making updates to you blog so much easier then the web interface most blogging platforms have. Writer makes adding video and photos to your blog so much easier and makes your blog looks much better. There are other add-ins too that makes adding a Digg button much easier. Also have you ever wondered what your post will look like once it is done on the web there is a view option that lets you do that. If you are a blogger and use blogger or live journal as your host service this is a must have.

There are other things part of this suit that I did not talk about like the Windows Live Tool Bar and the Windows Live Family Safety. This is cause these are things that I don’t find necessary to a good windows 7 experience and I feel just drag it down. I also feel most people will never use them so there is no point in talking about. If you do need these thing there, there though. Now there are also other parts to Windows Live such as the online parts and mobile parts. Witch I will be adding to this Tuesday for the web and Wednesday for Mobile. until then have a good Labor day.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Windows Live,Messanger,Writer,Mail,Part 1,Photos,Digg,Blogging

Windows 7 Enterprise RTM

I just downloaded and installed windows 7 Enterprise RTM I haven't really used it yet but I do have some screen shots form the install enjoy =]. Just click the thumbnail to make them bigger.

Just as a note I installed it as a VM so that is why Arose is not turned on.

-Mike

Technorati Tags: screenshots,Windows 7,RTM

No More Classic?

This Wednesday September 9th Apple will be holding a press event witch more then likely they will be revealing new IPods and maybe a tablet. But my focus right now is the IPods and what they might announce. For years there have always have had new IPod classics my feeling is just like the Power PC  Apple is going to cut the classic for the line. You might think this is crazy but there are good reason why they might do this.

One reason might be that the IPod classic is really more space then what most people need. Not every one has a music collection that is a 160 GB or more most people (me included) have 8 GB or 16 GB IPod that is more then enough room for music, videos, and other things. Most people that have collections bigger then that already have a classic have found other ways to get there music around.

My other reason to think they might be getting rid of the classic is that the touch will be the top IPod and the other iPods will be modeled after it form now on. I think that they will all have a touch screen interface or they will have a way to use the mobile OS X 3.0 with the click wheel. Now you may be thinking well why couldn’t the classic run that then? Well my answer is they want all there IPods to have soled state drives and right now to get a 160 GB or more soled state drive you are looking at around $600 witch means you would be paying allot more for a classic then the rest of the IPod line.

I do think that Wednesday they will get rid of the Classic. It is just unnecessary to have it any longer. Though this is all speculation so for all I know they could come out with a new and it will do everything the touch can do but with the click wheel. I just don’t know it but it is fun to guess. I just want this to happen I think more then anything. If you have an idea what might happen send me tweet on twitter samliikecoke or leave a comment =].

Technorati Tags: Ipod,Classic,Apple,Touch,Click wheel,Mobile OS X 3.0,SSD