My Piece of the Inter(.)net » Windows Vista

Twitter Explorer: Twitter Desktop Gadget

David McGrath — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:03:05 +0000

I just found a nice Twitter gadget for my desktop. It’s called Twitter Explorer, and it’s really simple.

As you can see (above), it shows updates from all of the people you follow, and (below) it’s really simple to post an update.

And thanks to the Twitter application on Facebook, the update instantly shows up on my Facebook profile as a status update.

Twitter is simple, and so is this gadget. Thar ya go.

Gadgets work with Windows Vista and Windows 7.

A thought about skipping Vista

David McGrath — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:29:32 +0000

I read Gizmodo on a regular basis, and I just came across this article noting how “Add/Remove Programs” has disappeared form the control panel. In 7 the item is in the programs section, and the user can get to the list of programs to uninstall by clicking “Uninstall a program” in the main control panel window. More over, he obviously has been using Windows XP for the three years that the release version Windows Vista has been available to consumers. (To be fair that time range should start when Vista went out into public beta since Windows 7 isn’t even released yet, but I’ll underestimate.)

Let us compare:

Windows XP Control Panel:

Windows Vista Control Panel:

Windows 7 (beta) Control Panel:

This behavior hasn’t changed in three years and this guy was caught off guard by it. Lots of people are deciding to simply skip Vista and go straight to 7, but I think that the majority of them don’t realize that Windows 7’s base code was Windows Vista, not Windows XP. The transition from Vista to 7 is pretty smooth, but I think those who stayed with XP will be in for some growing pains as they upgrade. Just a thought.

Windows 7 has a new Windows Experience Index scale

David McGrath — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:38:09 +0000

Vista’s ratings for the Windows Experience Index were are capped at 5.9, and it seems that Windows 7’s ratings are capped at 7.9. I thought it would be interesting to compare how each operating system rated my computer, so I dug up a screenshot of my computer’s Windows Experience Index and snapped a shot of the rating in 7. Draw your own conclusions about the significance of the change.

Windows Vista:

Windows 7:

Windows 7 Screenshots from PDC

David McGrath — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:05:19 +0000

I was browsing on10.net, and I came across this post with a list of new features included in Windows 7, Microsoft’s up-and-coming operating system to replace Windows Vista, along with screenshots. The screenshots look promising, though I’d like to try out that task bar before I pass judgment on it. From what I can tell there will be even more rich features for developers to plug into. I really like Windows Vista, but Windows 7 is shaping up to be as Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft said, “Vista, but better”.

For more information, I highly recommend reading this article: http://on10.net/blogs/sarahintampa/New-Features-In-Windows-7/

MOAR STORAGE!

David McGrath — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:03:13 +0000

I just got a 1.5TB hard drive in the mail today, along with a 4-drive eSATA enclusure and eSATA card. More on that later, but just look at Computer viewed through Explorer.

I finally gave up on naming drives based on what I use them for…

Yeah, I get all the ladies.

Quiet Vista: How to disable the Windows startup sound

David McGrath — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:22:05 +0000

If you want to be polite in a quiet place while using a computer, you will mute the sound, but what if you need to restart your notebook there? For mobile computers that have a hardware sound controller, preventing the startup sound from breaking the silence is easy, but what about the rest of us? For this problem, Windows has an easy option to disable the startup sound. How nice!

First open the control panel.

Next type “sound” in the search box, and click “Change system sounds”. (If you have the control panel set to “Classic View” open “Sound” and click on the “Sounds” tab. Alternatively just click “Control Panel Home” and follow the previous directions.)

A “Sound” window will open with the “Sounds” tab selected. Uncheck “Play Windows Startup sound”.

Click “OK”.

That’s it… Congratulations!

(Note: This tutorial does not apply to Windows XP.)

Just a thought…

David McGrath — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 03:14:32 +0000

People Don’t Seem to Like Windows Vista

David McGrath — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:14:30 +0000

One of my professors gave an off-handed remark about how Vista works sometimes, and sometimes not. He also had a weird problem with his Windows XP computer during class. There was also another occurrence where a professor didn’t know how to change the display resolution of his Vista-based Tablet PC, and proceeded to take a poll of who "decided" to stick with XP. (I put "decided" in quotation marks, because the default operating system on the default Tablet PC made available to Virginia Tech engineers has Windows XP on it.) Bashing Vista seems to be a common occurrence as well. That made me think of this flow chart, which I created. All in good fun, people…

Ping from the start menu

David McGrath — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:07 +0000

I accidentally stumbled upon a Vista feature today. It seems that "ping" is a keyword in the Vista start menu, like "control". So if you type "ping 192.168.1.1" it will open up the command prompt ping that computer three times.

the only trouble is that the window closes right after the third ping, but you get at least enough information to tell if the remote computer is responding.

You can also type in the Windows Network name of the computer.

And, of course, you can still find "the ping pong song":

Internet Anywhere Through My Cell Phone

David McGrath — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:44:07 +0000

This image really does represent ultimate sadness for someone (like me) who is addicted to the internet. This icon in the system tray means means that the computer isn’t connected to any network. That means (dare I say it) no internet! I am proud to say, that this icon has no effect on any more. Is this because I’ve kicked the internet habbit? Hell no! I have grown contemptuous of the “no networks” icon, because I can connect my laptop to the internet through my cell phone. It my sound complicated, but the process is actually very straight forward. Here’s what I do:

First, I click on the network icon in the system tray.

Next I click on “Connect to a network”, and I see this window:

Next I click on “Razr Net Access”. and click connect. So I see the next screen.

I wait a few seconds, and that’s it! I have access to internet that, while slow, is still twice as fast as dial-up, and it only costs minutes on my cell phone. The best part is that when calls are free, so is the internet access, meaning “surf’s up” on nights and weekends. Also, while I can not initiate calls, I can still recieve calls normally wile connected.

There. In four clicks I’m connected to the net. How is this possible? Well, it took some initial hacking of my Motorola Razr V3m that I got from Verizon. Some of the steps in setting it up initially can get a little complicated, but since the end result is so elegant (and free) I don’t mind. In a later post I’ll explain how to set this up.

Remote Desktop

David McGrath — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:17:24 +0000

If you were to look up “amazing” in the dictionary, you would find a picture of this icon. Simply put, Remote Desktop allows you to get to the stuff from anywhere in the world. By “stuff” I mean your files, your programs, and even printers. That’s because Remote Desktop, a program included in all editions of Windows XP and Vista, gives you remote access to your computer’s screen. It isn’t some cheap stream of what’s on your screen like what logmein.com provides. No, Remote Desktop is deeply integrated into the OS to provide a responsive interface. Sometimes I forget that I’m even using a computer that is miles away!

There are a few caveats to Remote Desktop, though. For one thing, while all editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista have Remote Desktop built in, only the “elite” versions have the ability to allow to be connected to. That means that if you want to connect to your desktop computer at home, it better have Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Media Center and Tablet Editions, Windows Vista Home Premium, or Windows Vista Business installed on it. Reasonably so. Setting up Remote Desktop is not for the faint hearted, certainly not for someone who uses a computer with Windows Vista Home Basic on it, anyway. Getting Remote Desktop up and running around a home network is easy enough, but the hard part is getting it accessible to the world. This is because of limitations in networking technology.

Nevertheless, once Remote Desktop is set up, it can be as easy as double-clicking an icon at your work or school computer to gain access to your home computer.

A while back I made a video showing how to set up Remote Desktop, so I think I’ll put it in here.

Are Tablet PCs ready for the masses?

David McGrath — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 20:20:21 +0000

The other day I was using my Tablet PC at school to work on a project for my debate class. As usual, my little HP turned some heads. Someone wanted to try out the pen input, which from a demo standpoint I am usually a little worried about, because the hand recognition is supposed to be tailored to the individual user’s writing style. (So while it might not work for someone the first day of using it, over time it becomes much more accurate.) However, I was pleasantly surprised that when this guy was done making chicken scratch on the screen, the computer recognized every word correctly.

Sure, it did capitalize “am” incorrectly, but I am amazed that my computer didn’t explode when trying to decipher “smar + very rice”.

So are Tablet PCs ready for the masses? I think so. The problem is that until recently Best Buy only offered one model. Now it offers two. A quick search for “Tablet PC” at CircuitCity.com reveals that it doesn’t offer any. CompUSA fares the best with five, plus an ultra mobile PC.

For those aching to have a Tablet of their very own, the best option is still NewEgg.com, which gives Tablet PCs their own section and powerful search features to enable customers to easily find the Tablet that is best for them.

Sadly, until brick and mortar stores start to embrace Tablet PCs more enthusiastically, I don’t see Tablets gaining any real popularity.