AREO Trick in Windows 7

Aero Snap is a new feature which was added to Windows 7, where in you can drag any window to the top of your screen to maximize it or take it to the left or right to snap it to the side and re-size by 50 per cent and when you drag it back to the last position, the window size will be restored. This feature is now available for XP and Vista. AeroSnap is a simple but powerful application that allows you to resize, arrange or maximize your desktop windows with just drag and drop. Aero Snap supports both Windows XP as well as Vista.

Aero Shake allows user to quickly and instantly minimize all other non-active windows that sit in the background by just shaking the application window, and at the same time experiencing a seizure in your hand. To bring back the desktop to previous state with windows open back, shake the sole window again. To use Aero Shake to minimize all inactive windows to Taskbar (or Superbar), user can click and hold on to a window’s title bar that he or she wants to continue work on, and then move the window to left and to right (shake) a few times (two times or move). The feature is probably one of the feature to support mouse gesture by Microsoft.

Aero Peek improves on Windows 7 Superbar thumbnail previews, and allows user to quickly preview the desktop by making all other opened active and inactive windows transparent by just using mouse to hover over the far right end of Taskbar. Aero Peek also support full screen view preview of any open windows on desktop while temporarily hiding all other open windows by mouse over the taskbar button for an open application or window. A new graphical thumbnail appears, previewing the window in a small glass frame. It also allows users to pin program to Taskbar permanently, with a mini-Start Menus for all pinned items or most common destination and most common tasks, dubbed as Jump Lists

New DHCPHint feature in Windows 7

With the increase in popularity of laptops, it is very common for users to frequently reconnect to a previously visited network. In order to improve user experience in roaming scenarios, where the user connects back to a previously visited network where the user had a valid DHCP lease, DHCP network hint has been implemented in Windows 7 OS. DHCP network hint helps in identifying the correct DHCP configuration for a previously visited network and then using the configuration opportunistically. Network hint used in order to uniquely identify different network is SSID (Service Set Identifier) of a network

I spend a lot of time traveling between my office and hotels and i hat that my computer takes time to find a DHCP address, with Windows 7 connecting to the network is fast and quick, to learn more go to this location

Microsoft Windows DHCP Team Blog

Windows Mobile and SharePoint Trick

 

Do you use SharePoint and need to look at site from your phone. Well you can use the browser and wait and download all the graphics or you can do the following go to you went SharePoint and at end or url add /m

 

example SharePoint/mycompanyxxx.com/default.aspx change to

SharePoint/mycompanyxxx.com/default.aspx/m (the /M is the secret)

(This is not a real site)

Stopping Applications that Auto-start

There are 2 ways to stop applications that auto-start when you login to Windows Vista. You can either use the System Configuration Utility or the new Software Explorer in Windows Defender:

Method 1: System Configuration Utility
1. Click on the Start Button, enter msconfig and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Startup tab.
3. Uncheck items that you do want to auto-start and click OK.

 

Method 2: Windows Defender
1. Click on the Start Button, enter Windows Defender and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Tools from the top menu bar.
3. Click on Software Explorer and select Show for All Users.
4. Select an application to either Remove or Disable.

Win a Cray CX1 Desk-Side Supercomputer

If you are interested in High performance Computing (HPC) and have the need for massive power Microsoft is have a Super Duo Super sweepstakes.

Windows HPC Server 2008 provides a productive, cost-effective, and high-performance computing (HPC) solution that runs on x64-bit
hardware. Windows HPC Server 2008 can be deployed, managed, and extended using familiar tools and technologies.

Windows HPC Server 2008 enables broader adoption of HPC by providing a rich and integrated end-user experience scaling from the desktop application to the clusters. A wide range of software vendors, in various verticals, have designed their applications to work seamlessly with Windows HPC Server 2008 so that users can submit and monitor jobs from within familiar applications without having to learn new or complex user interfaces.

Developing parallel programs requires integrated development environments along with support for distributed computing standards. Visual Studio 2008 provides a comprehensive parallel programming environment for Windows HPC Server 2008. In addition to supporting OpenMP, MPI, and Web Services, Windows HPC Server 2008 also supports third-party numerical library providers, performance optimizers, compilers, and a native parallel debugger for developing and troubleshooting parallel programs.

Enter our Super Duo Super Sweeps by January 31, 2009 and you could win:

• A Cray CX1 desk-side supercomputer
• One of 10 Premium MSDN Visual Studio Professional subscriptions
• One of 10 Xbox 360 consoles

This dynamic duo is bringing high productivity supercomputing into the mainstream. Cray CX1 supercomputers with Microsoft Windows® HPC Server 2008 and Intel Xeon Processors provide "Ease-of-Everything" for new users of HPC for as little as $25,000. 3 easy steps to enter:

• Register now!
• Download the Cray CX1 and Windows HPC Server 2008 datasheet.
• Download the free 180-day Windows HPC Server 2008 evaluation copy.

*NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to authorized representatives of US companies who do not manufacture, sell, or resell server hardware for use at high performance computing workloads. Game ends January 31, 2009. Winners will be announced on February 12, 2009.

For Official Rules, please click here

Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) BETA

 

The beta of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization V 1.0 an enterprise virtualization solution that helps your users run legacy applications on their Windows Vista desktops. The final version of MED-V 1.0 is slated for release in the second quarter of this year as a part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack

There is a good podcast that you can download to learn about this product.

MED-V 1.0 provides deployment, management and user experience capabilities for Virtual PC images in a corporate environment,

To get the beta the beta A short survey will need to be answered before downloading the software to take the survey click here.

Dual Boot Issues

Do you have 2 or more operating systems on your computer ?

Do you want to easy change your boot priorities. Well you can use

BCDEdit Command-Line Options

Boot Configuration Data (BCD) files provide a store that is used to describe boot applications and boot application settings. The objects and elements in the store effectively replace Boot.ini.

BCDEdit is a command-line tool for managing BCD stores. It can be used for a variety of purposes, including creating new stores, modifying existing stores, adding boot menu options, and so on. BCDEdit serves essentially the same purpose as Bootcfg.exe on earlier versions of Windows, but with two major improvements:

• BCDEdit exposes a wider range of boot options than Bootcfg.exe.
• BCDEdit has improved scripting support.

However I am lazy and when I can use a graphical tool I will  do that all the time.

EasyBCD is NeoSmart Technologies' multiple award-winning answer to tweaking the new Windows Vista bootloader. With EasyBCD, almost anything is possible. Setting up and configuring Windows boot entries is simple, and there is no easier way to quickly boot right into Linux, Mac OS X, or BSD straight from the Windows Vista bootloader - on the fly, no expert knowledge needed!

EasyBCD is geared for users of all kinds. Whether you just want to add an entry to your old XP partition or want to create a duplicate for testing purposes.

 

They also have

iReboot  a simple yet effective reboot helper tool. This app sits in your taskbar at startup (only taking up 400KB of memory!) and lets you choose which operating system you want to reboot into. Instead of pressing restart, waiting for Windows to shut down, waiting for your BIOS to post, then selecting the operating system you want to boot into (within the bootloader time-limit!); you just select that entry and you done !

Neat add-ons for Internet explorer

 

There a trick for you to know about there are lots of additional components that you can add to IE

Check out  Add-ons Gallery

this site has all sort of add-ons for ie8 the include;

Language translation

Get stock quotes from Live Search

Get traffic updates

Find and preview eBay items with this

http://www.ieaddons.com/en/

Internet Explorer 8 RC1

You can now download internet explorer version 8 RC1  !

Some new features include i think are great include

Improved Zoom

With enhanced resolution and readability, Zoom allows for automatic scaling of a page's content while maintaining the site's intended layout. You can read very large or very small pages more clearly without having to scroll back and forth.

Web Slices

Web Slices put you in control of the information you care about most. Now you can subscribe to specific content within a page and monitor things like auction items, sports scores, entertainment columns, weather reports, and more. Add a Web Slice to your Favorites bar and the information you care about will automatically be delivered to you.

Meet Jay at a User group Meeting

I will be presenting Windows 7 at

FACUG AND APCUG Spring Conference

March 13, 14 & 15 –2009

 Lions Club
5827 Dean Dairy Rd., Zephyrhills, Fl 33541

WINDOWS 7 will be only one of the key note presentations, lot of great information for you.

for registration info go to http://www.facug.org/ConferenceSpring/conference-s-Reg.asp

Techie need help

 

I been asked where can i find Information about XP, Vista or Windows 7. I look all over the net, or I search Microsoft.com but is there one spot to start from.

The answers is Yes

Microsoft heard this and for the IT pros there is a great spot called Springboard at www.microsoft.com/springboard this one site has information on how to deploy, explore, manage and link on learning about these products. The site has lots of Videos and blogs that are great.

Check it out

Will my computer work with Vista

That a question I get all the time.

So how to tell.

Step 1

You could replace your hard drive in your computer install Vista an test - Do not do this lots of time and end of day you may have bought Vista and you hard ware does not support vista

Step 2

Buy an new computer (that will work but maybe you old printer, scanner or other software will not work)

Step 3 go online and use some free resources

You can download the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor - The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor will help you to determine if your Windows XP-based PC can run Windows Vista. You can also use the Upgrade Advisor to determine if your Windows Vista-based PC is ready for an upgrade to a more powerful edition of Windows Vista

Then you can go to the Windows Compatibility Center

This site will also tell you if your favorite stuff works with Windows Vista? Here's where you can find out if it already does or if you just need a software upgrade or a new driver. You'll get details on thousands of software programs and devices and benefit from users' feedback.

Tricks for Activation of Vista and Server 2008

Top 5 Product Key Activation Challenges IT Pros Encountered and Solved

Windows Vista® and Windows Server® 2008 include some significant changes relating to product activation over Windows® XP and Windows Server 2003. These changes, while simple, often caused concerns and operational challenges for IT Pros in deploying Windows. Microsoft® product support services identified the five most common product activation related issues encountered by various customers who are evaluating and or deploying Windows Vista (or Windows Server 2008). Understanding these issues will help you and your team to manage the activation changes more effectively and optimize your deployment experience.  Share this WP with your customers and colleagues to help them manage the activation changes more effectively and optimize their deployment experience.

Top 10 Things You Should Know About Genuine Windows

 

A One Pager – document on Genuine software

Top 10 Things You Should Know About Genuine Windows

Microsoft is educating customers and partners on Genuine software, in effort to protect them from counterfeit and pirated software.  Are you familiar with the concepts of ‘Genuine Windows’ or ‘Genuine Microsoft Software’?   Learn more about what it means to become ‘Genuine’ and get an overview of product activation, validation, licensing and compliance.  Share this one page guide with your customers or colleagues to learn more about what it means to become ‘Genuine’ and get an overview of product activation, validation, licensing and compliance.

Activation Considerations for Vista

 

Customizing Windows Vista Business Edition

Licensing, Reimaging, and Product Activation Considerations

This white paper discusses the benefits of customizing Windows Vista Business Edition and reviews the activation impacts associated with customization. It also provides the policy implications of customization and details these implications through common customization scenarios.

Link follows

Customizing Windows Vista Business Edition

HomePatrol

I came across this really need application. You have a web cam on your computer do you use it all the time? Well with this application you can set your computer use to record video when your computer sees motion or a predetermined schedule.

Mom, dad worried what the nanny or baby sitter is doing?

With this utility you aver the EYE on the room with this tool. The software supports multiple cameras including IP cameras!

Once the video is taken you have FTP to a location or have the software e-mail you snapshots.

Download Now: HomePatrolSetup.zip

Cool Application - Photosynth

Have you been taking lots of pictures, have you created videos, what next. There is a really cool technology call Photosynth.

This is a site on the net where you upload you pictures and the site bring all you photos together into an interactive picture.

 

Think about this,

How many people took pictures of the moment when Obama takes the oath?

How many different angles where there, would it be great if you could virtually move you view of the event by clicking on pictures and look at the event from different points of view.

To see a demo go here

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/themoment/

 

To create your own Photosynth go here

http://photosynth.net/learn.aspx

To see more Photosynth

http://photosynth.net/

Great article on UAC’s and Windows 7

There is a great article on User Account Control (UAC) on the Microsoft site. I am putting a lick to it here for those who like to see what changed and why.

 

UAC is your friend if you allow it to help protect you.

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/10/08/user-account-control.aspx

Public download of windows 7

1. Download the Windows 7 Beta
   
2. 
    

   Be one of the first to download the Windows 7 Beta.
   

   This pre-release version of Windows 7 is available to the first 2.5 million people who download.
   
   

   http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx
   

Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows Vista

Vista Shortcuts using the Windows key:

Window key+B Sets focus to first icon in the notification area. You can use arrow keys to move among the icons in the notification area or press Tab to move around
on the taskbar.

Window key+D
Show Desktop (without the Sidebar).

Window key+E Windows Explorer (opens to Computer).

Window key+F Find Files or Folders (aka Search).

Window key+M Minimize All windows (Sidebar not included).

Window key+Shift+M Undo Minimize All Windows.

Window key+R Open the Run dialog box.

Window key+Tab 3-D Flip (flips you through your applications but with a cool graphic instead of the standard Alt+Tab). Requires the use of the Aero user interface.

Window key+Pause/Break System Properties.

Window key+F1 Windows Help.

Window key+L Locks workstation. If the user account has a password, it must be reentered to unlock the system again.

Window key+U Ease of Access Settings.

Window key+Spacebar This shows the Sidebar (the Sidebar must be open, but minimized).

Ctrl+Window key+Tab Brings up Flip-3D, but it will stay on the desktop so you can scroll up, down, left and right.

Security resources

A great site for look to see if you have application, operating system or hardware with security holes is http://secunia.com/.

I call this the equal opportunity security bug site. You can find information on Windows, on next page d-link, Cisco and all other products.

 

You can subscribe to get updates regularly. Interesting when you look at site you find more Linux security issues then Windows Issues.

 

Server 2008 r2 Beta

After much anticipation, Microsoft has now made Windows 7 Beta available for evaluation and testing to IT professionals! But most people did not realize that Server 2008 R2 is now able to be download as well.

Interesting I have Lenovo w700 Quad Core laptop with 8 gigs of memory and installing the Server 2008 r2 all but 3 drivers was found for me by the OS! That because Server 2008 r2 uses the same drivers as Vista 64.

Windows 7 and Server 2008 r2 are the same Operating System just features are missing or installed based on the version. for example Hyper-v will only come in server operating system. FYI Server 2008 r2 is 64 bit only !

For TechNet subscribers, you can download Windows 7 Beta today here

 
 

Windows 7 Beta

After much anticipation, Microsoft has now made Windows 7 Beta available for evaluation and testing to IT professionals! For TechNet subscribers, you can download Windows 7 Beta today here. On January 9th, the beta will open to all IT professionals on the Springboard Series for Windows 7.

 

I been using the for some time and I been very stable and found most of the device I had on my computer, what interesting is the when I installed windows Vista 64 I had a small problem finding Drivers, with the beta of Windows 7 it was a much easier solution .

Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows 7

Windows 7 boasts a lot of great new shortcuts

Here are some to use

Win+Home: Clear all but the active window

Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop

Win+Up
arrow: Maximize the active window

Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it's maximized

Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor (If you've got dual monitors, adding Shift to the mix (e.g., Win+Shift+Right arrow) will move the window to the adjacent monitor.)

Win+T: Focus and scroll through items on the taskbar.

Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display

Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out

Shift+Click
a taskbar item: Open a new instance of that application

UAC and WINDOWS 7

Now with Windows 7 you can control how the UAC function work so you can reduce all warning and make the notifications about System UAC prompts less harsh..

 

User Account Control (UAC)

Why User Account Control (UAC)is a technology and security infrastructure introduced with Microsoft 's Windows Vista operating system. It aims to improve the security of Microsoft Windows by limiting application software to standard user privileges until an administrator authorizes an increase in privilege level.

How many of us work on our computer as Administrator?

This is bad if you are using your XP computer and surf the web, stuff could happen. for example

I go to the bad web site that want to load malware on to my computer, because I am login in as administrator the computer believes that I have all the knowledge to protect my computer, so if I click on something to install it does, with no warnings.

In VISTA the UAC function act this way;

1f you are login into vistas as administrator vista has a new method for security called SPLIT token You look like you are login in as Administrator but you are using a standard user profile and when an APPLICATION or process needs Admin privileges you are prompted to give THAT process ONLY Admin permissions so rest of operating system is still running as standard user.

For those of you who use Linux this is different from SU as ROOT when now the WHOLE computer is no running as ROOT.

UAC allow only that process to be elevated. THIS IS GREAT.

Besides disabling many important security features built into Windows, disabling UAC also poses a risk relating to application compatibility.

Important security features:

UAC stops administrative programs from running that you do not start. With UAC on, no program can run with admin control of your computer without your permission. Disabling UAC allows any program to use your administrative power, even if you do not start it.

UAC is also the technology that allows Internet Explorer Protected Mode to work - turning off UAC gets rid of that.

Application Compatibility:

Many non-administrative programs assume that they will be running with administrative power, and so they write settings or files to locations that they are not supposed to write to (such as Program Files).

In Vista under UAC, non-admin programs cannot do this, even if the user is an administrator, so UAC has to deal somehow with these programs, since there are a bunch of them that do this.

In order to get these programs to work in Vista, UAC watches for these common write-to-protected-location scenarios. When it detects a write to a monitored location that is failing because the program does not have administrator power, UAC makes a copy of the modified data and saves it inside of your user profile folder WITHOUT modifying the file/data in the protected location, while making the program THINK that it was saved to the protected location.

Whenever a non-compliant program opens a file in a protected location, UAC first checks to see if there is a "modified" version of that file inside of your user profile folder, and if so, opens the modified file instead of the original, without the program realizing it.

This allows the program to function by making it THINK that it is writing to a protected location, when in reality it is not.

When you disable UAC, this compatibility feature of UAC is turned off.

This means that all those hidden copies of modified data are now invisible to applications, since they will be seeing the original, unmodified data that exists inside of the real protected folder that they now have access to.

The consequences of this transition can be quite drastic if you have many programs on your computer that relied on this compatibility feature to function, since they will no longer have access to any created or modified data that they think they have saved to protected locations - instead, they will only see the original data that was probably put in place when their application was installed.

User groups

 

Why join a User group

  User Groups: Meet and learn with your peers

User groups are typically independently run, volunteer groups that meet on a regular basis to discuss and share information on a variety of technical topics. Participation in a user group is an excellent, inexpensive way to receive technical content, education and to meet with your peers to get more out of the products, technologies, and resources which you are interested in. A users' group (also users group or user group) is a type of club focused on the use of a particular technology

The Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG) is an International, platform-independent, volunteer-run nonprofit organization devoted to helping user groups offer better services to their members group. Sort of a User group of user groups.

With over 300 member groups, there are probably several groups within a 250 mile radius of you. Look them up on the APCUG web site via the User Group Locator
and get to meet other people with the same hobbies as you.

I am currently President of APCUG, past Regional Advisor, Vice president, has been on, the Board Advisor of The PC Users Group of Connecticut and current board member of the CT– Information Systems Audit and Control Association. Go find a user group and learn and share

 

welcome to this blog

On the blog we will be cover technology issues, We will review new products , give methods of protecting your self online and from identify thief.

Other ares that will be covered on this site include, Microsoft Operating system, VISTA, Windows 7, Server 2008. and Windows Mobile.

The blog will be amened at end users, I will not be covering software development, or covering a subject very deeply as their are many sites on the net that fill that need.