More Businesses Going for Windows 7

By DustinPosted on

It seems that more and more businesses are looking to finally upgrade their aging Windows XP machines to Windows 7. Most businesses skipped over Vista, for many reasons, but are going to upgrade to Windows 7. Some still seem to worry about their application compatibility and the higher system specs needed to run a newer operating system. Personally, I wonder how some IT people even got to where they are today. They say that XP was so much better at launch, it runs so much faster… Put Windows XP on a machine circa 2001, with the standard 64-128 MB of RAM and a machine from today using Windows 7 and we’ll see who wins. Then they use the arguement that it runs so much better on a Core 2 Duo (or i7). I come back with “So does MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11”, and it does fly. I’ve never seen Windows 3.11 go so fast, it was a treat! Let’s see how fast Windows 7 is in 9 years on that hardware.

Although many businesses are planning a move to Windows 7, that doesn’t mean concerns have evaporated. Some 57 percent of businesses said they have worries, a drop of 10 percentage points from the April 2009 survey. The study was conducted by Hagglund and commissioned by corporate IT systems management firm KACE, which was recently acquired by Dell.

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IE9 Preview

By DustinPosted on

It’s guaranteed to have some bugs in it, but Microsoft has released an Internet Explorer 9 Preview for developers. Grab it if you want to try it out against your website, or just to check it out. Just remember that there will be a lot missing and not working correctly.

Finally, we announced the availability of the first IE Platform Preview for developers, and our commitment to update it approximately every eight weeks. We want the developer community to have an earlier hands-on experience with the progress we

Windows Phone Marketplace

By DustinPosted on

Judging by the success of the Android and the iPhone apps, I’d wager a bet that the major selling point on the newer “phones/mini-computers” is the apps and the marketplace. There are some extremely amazing and very worthwhile applications on both the iPhone/iPod Touch and the Android phones. I find something new daily. Sure, some are really dumb, but you’ll find that anywhere.

Microsoft has unveiled their Marketplace for the new Windows Phone 7 Series. I really like the look of the new UI, but I’m still waiting to see the phone in action with some killer app’s. If it’s a good enough phone, I might just drop my Android and just buy the phone out of contract. Otherwise, I’ll wait the 2 years to check it out.

The biggest chunk of eye candy we’ve seen out of Microsoft’s MIX10 event so far today has been the unveiling of the significantly-retooled Windows Phone Marketplace that’ll debut in Windows Phone 7 Series — and needless to say, it’s a looker. It’s got support for credit card purchases, operator billing, and ad-supported content — a hot topic right now with Google’s and Apple’s mobile advertising acquisitions — and a try-before-you-buy scheme not unlike Android Market’s policy.

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Microsoft Launches .Toolbox

By DustinPosted on

Budding web designers and programmers wanting to learn how to develop Silverlight applications can look to Microsofts new .toolbox site. You earn badges for completing certain tasks along your way to becoming a Silverlight expert. It looks fun, and isn’t a dry, boring course to take.

.toolbox features two core learning paths: Design Scenarios and Design Principles. Both begin with teaching basic techniques and build skills and knowledge incrementally. In Design Scenarios, designers and developers learn to create dynamically-rich Silverlight applications using Expression Studio. You will learn to add code-free functionality to designs by following step-by-step tutorials that illustrate how to create interactive user experiences. In Design Principles, you will learn fundamental design concepts (e.g., choosing the right colors and the right fonts) along with tips and techniques in how to apply them to your creations.

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Single White Pixel “feature” in Windows 7

By DustinPosted on

I’ve noticed this in the past, but chalked it up as an isolated incident. Apparently, it’s well known, and Microsoft is letting people know about it. However, they aren’t really doing anything about it at this time. Windows 7 users running the Aero interface without transparency, as well as certain Windows 7 Home Basic users, will notice a single white pixel in the upper left hand corner of the screen. It’s not a dead pixel, it’s a small issue with Windows. It doesn’t cause any problems or crash your machine, so Microsoft doesn’t have a fix for this, as it isn’t critical. I think they used to call it a “feature”, not a bug!

One white dot (1 pixel in size), may appear on the top-left corner of the screen in the following scenarios:

  1. In Windows 7 Home Basic Edition, the issue may occur after a user

IE6 Funeral Photos

By DustinPosted on

Last week we posted the news about the funeral for Internet Explorer 6. FavBrowser has photos of the sad moment. My only hope is that it brings attention to the fact that there are still MANY businesses and government insitutions running IE6. Nothing wrong with it, other than it is an extremely old, outdated, non-standards complying, slow….. You get the picture. 🙂 Here’s to upgrading to a better version of Internet Explorer or an alternative browser. If the government or businesses went with Firefox (or Opera or any other browser), Internet Explorers share would plummet. I’m sure IE gets the majority of it’s user base from that demographic.

I especially like the mustache.

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Email Support

By DustinPosted on

I have been getting slaughtered lately by quite a few email requests for support. I try to help out as much as I can, but I am getting a bit overwhelmed. For a fast solution to your issues, and to help others with the same issue, you can post in our forums, or on various other forums around the internet. Also, Microsoft has set up an online support forum, Answers, which is a wonderful place to ask any questions. I frequent there when I’m not working on this site or on my book. Sorry if I can’t get to your email questions, I’ll still try and answer what I can.

Thank you for your support!

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Beyond Backup: Imaging Tools

By DustinPosted on

IT Expert Voice has an excellent article that you should read if you have any value in your data. I’ve seen so many businesses neglect backups on their crucial data until it’s too late. Then they wonder why you can’t restore their data. Sure, they may have a tape drive, but they haven’t put a tape in since 2004. For the quickest way to get your data back and the system back to a usable state in a hurry, imaging is the way to go. A full disk image is a duplicate of the whole drive you are running, hopefully imaged on a different drive or server somewhere. It only takes a few minutes to restore that image, and you’re back in business. It takes a lot more space than traditional backups, but it is much more thorough and a lot faster for recovery.

Ever have a hard drive burn out completely? I have. It

OpenGL to go Head to Head With DirectX 11

By DustinPosted on

The war rages on with the open source OpenGL and Microsoft’s DirectX. OpenGL is working on version 4.0 to bring its features up to par with the newest DirectX 11. The battle has been going on since the start of DirectX, with both sides having advantages.

OpenGL 4.0 adds more support for using a graphics processing unit (GPU) for other computing chores and for tesselation, which subdivides a region on a graphics object into many smaller patches for more detailed imagery. The technology got its start as a graphics library at pioneering Silicon Graphics but has grown into a standard that works on many different computer systems and overseen by the Khronos Group.

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