Keep Computer Awake With Insomnia

By DustinPosted on

Microsoft has released a program called Insomnia, including source code. Many times when watching a movie, a PC will try and go to sleep, interrupting the movie. Insomnia fixes this issue by making the computer appear “busy” so that it does not go to sleep.

But what about those times when the computer is busy doing something and the relevant program doesn’t suppress the default sleep behavior? For example, it might be downloading a large file, re-encoding a music collection, backing up the hard drive, or hashing the entire contents of the disk. You don’t want the machine to go to sleep for now, but are otherwise happy with the default sleep behavior. Unfortunately, the easiest way I know of to temporarily suppress sleeping is to go to Control Panel, open the Power Options page, change the power plan settings, commit them – and then remember to undo everything once the task is finished. It’s not hard; but it’s kind of annoying…

Download Here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/delay/archive/2009/09/30/give-your-computer-insomnia-free-tool-and-source-code-to-temporarily-prevent-a-machine-from-going-to-sleep.aspx

Hotfix: Computers that are running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 stop responding at a black screen if a screen saver is enabled

By DustinPosted on

Microsoft has released a new hotfix that fixes a problem with Windows staying at a black screen when coming from a screen saver and a sleep option. This appears to be that the computer just doesn’t wake up after going to sleep. Make sure you apply this patch if you suffer from the issue.

Consider the following scenarios:

Scenario one

  • On a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you enable a screen saver.
  • You enable the On resume, display logon screen option for the screen saver.
  • In Power Options, you set the Turn off the display option and the Put the computer to sleep option to the same length of time. Additionally, the length of time that you set is longer than the time that you set for the screen saver to trigger.
  • The time for the Turn off the display value elapses and the display is turned off automatically.

Scenario two

  • On a portable computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you enable a screen saver.
  • You enable the On resume, display logon screen option for the screen saver.
  • After the screen saver starts, you close the lid of the portable computer.

In both scenarios, the computer is still running. However, you cannot turn on the display by using the keyboard or the mouse. You may be unable to turn on the display until you force the computer to restart.

Note When you set the Turn off the display option to less than 10 minutes, the Turn off the display option automatically changes to the value of the Put the computer to sleep option.

Download Microsoft Hotfix: Article Page 976427

Microsoft Not Buying Adobe

By DustinPosted on

According to sources, Microsoft is definitely NOT buying Adobe, confirming this rumor as just a rumor. Which would be good news, really, as Adobe and their bug ridden, bloated PDF Reader would be a horrible match with Windows. Updates already come too fast with Windows, they shouldn’t add 2 new daily updates with Adobe. And don’t get me started on their CPU hungry, slow, 32-bit Flash.

In any case, it is not a big surprise at this point if longtime rivals like Adobe and Microsoft (MSFT)–which makes a competing video technology called Silverlight to Adobe’s Flash–talk about trying to stop the explosive growth of Apple, especially in the mobile space.

7 Ways Windows Phone 7 Is Better

By DustinPosted on

Business Insider has a look and offers their opinion on why Windows Phone 7 is better than the iPhone. While I don’t really care for the iPhone, I do love Android, and both offer a lot of great features. The WP7 may be better for some, but the iPhone is still a strong competitor and to deny that would be stupid. I am sure that the iPhone is much better for a lot of people (a lot of Teenagers go for the Apple products over others, just because of the name).

Yes, but Microsoft’s making a point about Phone 7’s design, which lets you do more stuff without constantly navigating between apps. The best example is the People hub, shown here. This looks like a normal contact list, like the iPhone and every other smartphone has. But each contact’s image is automatically updated from their most recent Facebook image. Click on each one, and you get a wealth of options: you can make a call, send an e-mail or text, post on their wall, view pictures they’ve recently posted, and so on. Everything you want to do is based around that person, not locked up in different apps.

Windows Phone’s Given To AT&T Staff

By DustinPosted on

About 100 AT&T staff got a shiny new Windows Phone 7 device at an event in Minneapolis. Microsoft has been pushing it’s wares onto people to get people using it, and getting the word of mouth machine running strong. I am looking into trading in my Android powered phone for a good WP7 device. I’m just waiting for Microsoft, or others, to come out with the applications that I want.

Meanwhile, the company has spent about $400 million in an effort to market is new Phone 7 OS. Google and Apple are integrating phone functionality with e-mail and other software packages and are eating into business areas previously dominated by Microsoft. The company now aims to attract more customers to its software with the advertisement.

Aerofoil Battery Life Extender Software Updated

By DustinPosted on

Aerofoil has a new version out. If you run a laptop or netbook and want to extend your battery life, you can use this software to disable things when you are on battery power. Very useful for many people on the go!

Aerofoil extends Vista and Windows 7 notebook battery life by:

  • Allowing you to manually disable Aero Glass.
  • Optionally managing Aero Glass user interface.
  • Optionally managing sound muting.
  • Optionally managing your chosen power plans.
  • Optionally managing Windows Sidebar.
  • Optionally showing a quick hibernate button.
  • Changing icon colour to show whether on battery or AC.

    • Add Defragment to your right click context menu

    By DustinPosted on

    Sometimes, you want quick access to defragment your hard drives. Well, you can save yourself a few clicks by adding the Defragment command to your right click context menu. This can come in handy (although it does nothing to speed up the defrag process itself).

    1. Go to Start, type in regedit and press enter (Or you can go to Start, Accessories, Run and type regedit).

    2. Navigate to the key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshell.

    3. Name it defrag (this name can be anything, really).

    4. On the right pane, double click the Default value and name the Value Data field with “Defragment“. This text is going to be what you see when you right click a drive, so it is also custom.

    5. Right click on the defrag key that you made earlier and choose New and Key.

    6. Name it command.

    7. Double click the Default value of this key, and change the Value Data with defrag %1 -v.

    8. Now, when you right click a drive, you will have the Defragment command available. It does open a Command prompt to do it’s work.

    Can I delete the Windows.old file?

    By DustinPosted on

    If you do an upgrade using Windows Vista, you end up with a directory called “Windows.old”. Sometimes, this folder can be quite huge! So, many people ask if they can just delete the folder. In a word: yes.

    However, there is a quick and easy way to do it.

    1. Go to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Cleanup

    2. When it asks “Which Files to Clean Up”, select “Files from all users on this computer”

    3. Select the drive where your “windows.old” is located.

    4. Windows will scan the drive and calculate how much space you can save by deleting some files.

    5. Select “Previous Windows Installation(s)” in the “files to delete” list. Select OK.

    After it does it’s work, you should no longer have the “windows.old” folder, and you should have reclaimed a bit of hard drive space.

    Change default boot screen in Vista

    By DustinPosted on

    Microsoft’s dull boot screen with just the progess bar can be replaced in just a few easy steps.

    For a quick and easy way to change your boot up screen to something a little better than the default progress bar, follow these few easy steps. This will give you the better looking Aura boot screen.

    1. Go to the Start Orb, type “MSCONFIG”, without quotes, and press enter. Click on the “Boot” tab.

    2. Check the “No GUI Boot” box. Click “Ok”.

    3. Reboot to see the new boot screen.